My (overdue) comments on this Ghostly gig at Empty Bottle in Chicago last thursday w/ Ectomorph live and Danny Wang as DJ.
Ectomorph played a set with a LOT of new material I haven't heard before, with less gear on stage and twin white laptops with the ectomorph logo glowing where the apple logo should be. Those kids! The crew is tight and funky, some effects and mixers, some gear but anyone who saw them live years ago, they used to have trunks and trunks of gear to travel with... Anyway the music was no less thick, interesting and some deeper stuff, trademark dark electronic funk style. Some improvisation from Danny Wang on the live Theramin (set up on the other side of the stage) on a couple tracks that was impromptu and interesting. It's clear unlike most people who goof around with Theramins, Danny actually knows what he's doing and can do just about whatever melodies and notes he wants, which was certainly impressive to me anyway. Danny leaves the stage and Ectomorph hits a few more cuts solo, trademark rife-shot tight snares and wobbly deep 808 kicks. They end with remake/remix/cover/tribute of Shari Vari with robotic vocals out of the glowing red megaphone vocoder and overall a nice tight funky set. Cheers all round. Danny Wang took to the decks, said a few words about Ghostly, fiddled with a uncooperative mixer for a pregnant pause and finally and dropped for an opener "I Believe In Music" (who was this, The Carpenters? Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell sisters!? ha ha). This gets my vote for most creative way to start a DJ set, though not necessarily most effective? Ha! He was mixing crazy stuff including Depeche mode's loving refrain 'this ain't no disco' (oh how true for the Empty Bottle) and having a good time, if a little rough here and there. Dropped Metro Area 3 and an assortment of what sounded like plenty of quality old electronic disco gems. A little rough on technique overall, but as someone who tries to beatmatch old disco and italo records myself (before tight sequencing and studio quantizing became the norm on late disco productions) it's definitely challenging to pull off seamlessly every time. I applaud the effort to play older cuts with newer!! Be on the lookout for his epic remix of Block 16's big cut "Elektrocution", I believe coming out on Nuphonic. Turnout could have been better for this caliber of talent at Empty Bottle, which is historically a bar for live indie and irony rockers, recently starting to book more "electro" (god forbid they call it techno or house) and a crowd somewhat notorious for bowling shoes and no capacity (or skill?) to actually DANCE... but it was a Thursday and there was in fact a decent gathering of legit groovers getting down near the stage. Overall a nice night of electronics and bourbon worthy of a Friday work hangover, hats off to the artists and thanks to Ghostly for a Chicago presence. Cheers, Matt MacQueen --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
