I think it was the pre-2am slump, or rather he was warming up the clubbers
to the rawer stuff over the 4 hours he djed. When I got there at 12:30 I
had the same impression. Boring uninspired drumrolls and breakdowns with
some obnoxious eighties basslines. But by the time he finished I thought it
was a great set of big macho club music. For one thing, he's playing at
1015, the most meat markety prog club in San Francisco so if he went in
there playing emo-techno classics and minimal acid bleepiness the floor
would have been dead. But you could find all that stuff in the front room
courtesy of the brothers Chris and Paul Leath who are great guys and did a
awesome mixup of hiphop, lo fi acid tweaks, and techno bangers. Check out
their production when you get a chance http://www.elotromundo.com/. I
definetely got the sense of an intentional progression to what he was
playing. The mixing was impeccable and I really enjoyed the cuts and
backspins as long seamless mixing is the name of the game in this town
usually. At one point he broke it down to this minister vocal about having
the soul in the music that i've heard a few times. It was not for the
heads, it was a big club sound appropriate for a big club like 1015 with
enough of that heady techno oomph to keep me rocking. Its the kind of
techno that sexy club girls can get down to too because it's accessible
with a touch of rawness. Not too tweaked out or lo-fi or "intelligent". But
regardless of whether I liked the music or not, the whole set really felt
like someone who knows what they are doing in terms of being a dj. that is,
he wasn't simply showcasing the latest hot tracks or being a superstar
performer he was creating a 4 hour journey for the crowd which I can
totally appreciate. The highs were really harsh for the first hour but he
was working with the sound guy and by the end of the night the sound had a
great lowend thump and crisp highs and the light guy really added to the
atmosphere. I guess for me I'm getting a little bored of the intimate
lounge/warehouse type parties where i know everyone there and so it was
refreshing to hear technoish stuff in a big club without the latest ego
djing. It totally brought me back to seeing KMS, Eddie Fowkes, or some of
the other old school techno guys where they play this big chugging hard
sound that is somewhere between techno, house (and gulp... even trance) but
which you can't exactly pin down to one genre. but that's just my opinion.
Here's an mp3 of the Stacey Pullen set from when he came out in 97 for the
Transmat tour courtesy of Monty Luke's Juicy Bitz blog
http://www.justiceleague.com/tsm/Live%20in%20SF%20-%20Transmat%20Tour%203.10.97.mp3
At 02:00 PM 8/20/2005, you wrote:
I'm not sure how new this really is, but the Transmat artist mr. trommer
has put out a nice 80+ minute compilation of the tracks he's played live
on a free mp3 compilation available for download from the phoniq
netlabel. Ace 313 dream techno, nice pads, good lively rhythms, etc, with
some slightly squelchy sounds (at least one broken beat trackon it,
too). Highly recommended.
On a different note, went to see Stacey Pullen in SF last night and to my
surprise and disappointment, he played nothing but low grade echoey trance
with a buildup every four or so minutes, with a reverbed spinback in
between those. Is this what he usually plays nowadays? or was he just
having an off night? It's hard to believe that someone of his caliber
would play crappy euro trance, with just about every single song
containing the same predictable buildup and then breakdown.
To be fair though, he did do ok mixer tricks here and there, but the song
selection had zero variety and was extremely, extremely bland.
Did he get any better towards the end of his set? I certainly hope that
he did. was it just the pre-2am slump for him? Or is this what happens
when djs from Detroit sign to big management companies?
