Re: [313] educating the kiddies - DC - GoGo (now OT)
The kids on streetcorners beating on upside down plastic buckets are all about the go go, just like kids doing moves on the corner are about hip hop. Unfortunately, in all fairness, the glory years of go go were 1982-88, and it just never caught on elsewhere though it had some subtle influence on the early development of US house. I will happily play my go go set at any time :) - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [313] article in Salon.com mentions Strings of Life
warm, funky, exultant records that were just right for nightclubs and high-tech launch parties packed with gamines in $300 shoes sloshing day-glo cocktails Really, if that isn't taking the piss (as the UK contingent says) I don't know what is. Well, it's pretty clear that Michelle Goldberg has the tenuous grasp on techno that you would expect from the average clever music journo. So it's not a bad article overall but clanks with the clotted phrases that pass for insight in the high reaches of music journalism these days. (I'm an *owner* of Salon, dammit, and with my $0.14 a share stock I can say whatever I want!) Let me say, though, that there really were office parties at the crest of the dotcom wave in San Francisco. If you've seen the movie Groove -- that's us. (Aside from the speaking-part actors, although that's my man Dmitri-from-the-Lower-Haight who snagged some on-screen time and that classic promo shot with the disco ball on the Muni Metro.) A lot of the extras and small parts, and much of the equipment seen in the movie were also in the Expansion parties that we threw from time to time when various dotcom firms in South of Market San Francisco were moving in and out of their spaces. That was the only way to get 1000 people to a good party in SF in the late 1990s without getting busted (and one of the Expansion parties did get busted, ostensibly for a faulty fire exit sign in a building used 365 days a year as office and workshop space :). And you wouldn't see any woo-woo cocktails or $300 shoes at those parties, and if there were any Chems tracks played at all they would have been from the Dust Brothers days anyway. And then at 7 am we'd clean up, leave nothing but footprints, and the next week the place would be an Ethernet forest demarcated by a terrain of Aeron chairs and big 19-inch monitors with inscrutable code scrolling by :) phred - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [313] vapour space
Mark Gage is one of the truly overlooked producers of the last decade. Everyone knows Gravitational Arch of 10 but my favorite one is Gettin Into the Swing with vocals by Claudja Barry. http://www.swimhq.com/artists/gage_discography.html http://www.vapourspace.com/disco/collaborations.html - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re[2]: [313] educating the kiddies
I'll disagree with Mike Brown -- but just a little. There are some techno records that are supremely funky, but just a few. That amazing UR remix of Expo 2000 is one great example. A lot of Octave One certainly is, especially from their two magnificent double-packs, Images from Above and Living Key. Various releases by Jeff Mills (there, i said it), John Tejada, Gary Martin, AO, Steve Stoll, occasionally Ian Pooley, and quite a bit of the Black Nation releases certainly qualify. I am old-fashioned and gravitate in this direction and snarf up whatever sounds good in this regard because I grew up on a steady and preferred diet of James Brown, Stax, the Meters and the other great pioneers of funk. And being from DC, of course, a city that was always on the one, we had go go, which is finally getting some recognition as Chuck Brown turns into our leading senior citizen of funk. I live in Portland, which is not really a very funky place. And San Francisco, where I hang out a lot, had the funk for a brief period in 1992-94 before it drifted away. When it's out there, you go for it. The fact that there is still a pretty strong leaning toward funk in Detroit techno and house is one of the things that has kept me a close follower all these years. But I will admit, having looked through a *lot* of record bins in my time, as you all have, that it's pretty thin picking in the techno section overall. So like I said, - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [313] article in Salon.com mentions Strings of Life
As ozymandias G knows, I was exaggerating about the Aeron chairs for effect :) There were actually other non-Expansion parties at other than Organic office spaces, but I didn't want to confuse the stories too much. Yes, that was DJ Vitamin B (Brian Behlendorf, actually) you see briefly in the background in one scene of Groove playing the chill room -- just as he does at a lot of our parties -- using part of the Cloud Factory sound system that many of us have played on over the years. The Expansion parties were pretty all-encompassing. So much so that we wore everyone out. I played one of them at 6 am in the chill area, with the morning light streaming in through the skylights, spinning LTJ Bukem and other atmospheric jungle to three people asleep on a couch :) As for the Chems, we saw them at the Henry Kaiser auditorium in Oakland a few years ago, with the Orb opening. The Orb were great, and the Chems were boring. When they played Setting Sun, their big hit of the moment, the crowd *rushed the stage* and we gave up and left. But mileage will vary on the Chems, as almost anything... Fred - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [313] jeff mills stars again
It's not just a question of restricting his playing to house clubs, is it? It looks like he's decided to focus on just a couple clubs, likely because the money is good and the hassles are limited. Anyone who has played out as a DJ knows the latter is maybe even more of a factor, what with crapped out club sound systems, filthy DJ booths, lying/cheating promoters and the never-ending parade of people trying to take a piece of whatever it is they want from the DJ as a public figure. someone writes: go check out ben sims, carola, hawtin, bone etc, people with a real hunger for what they do and a genuine love for the people who pay to hear them play. like mills used to have. Don't make me laugh. Jeff Mills long ago settled any question about his dedication and love for what he does. It's simply not an issue. I like many but not all of his records, am in awe of some of them, and in any event his place in techno history is assured. I've never seen him DJ but reports of the special quality of his approach when he's on his game go way, way back. It's not for nothing he was known as the Wizard. I just can't understand this attitude that he somehow owes it to us to keep doing whatever it is *we* think he should do. He'll find plenty of better things to do with his time than hang out in the sad dead-end circus that the club and rave scenes have become, where sloppiness, greed and self-absorption long ago drove away musical quality. phred - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [313] every dog vol 3
That Mills stuff sounds like classic jive-nonsense talk. I think it's actually supposed to be funny; if you read it aloud it has that kind of swing rhythm... I don't think he is going for the Serious Jazz mode, or else he *should* hire you to do the liner notes! Just think, you could be the Ralph Gleason of the new decade ... phred - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [313] Detroit club drug culture in UK press
I'm actually hoping to see the entire book, since it covers the two places I know the best as a technotourist -- SF and Detroit. The description of the Motor was pretty funny. I guess the Brits haven't ever heard of circle dancing! As for shopping for Es at Haight and Masonic, well, that only shows they weren't smart enough to ask twice. That area (the upper Haight) has been putrified for years. I hardly ever go there now that Ameba (the old clothing/record store, not the giant Amoeba record store in the converted Haight St. Bowl) is gone. Anyway, the good small record shops are in the lower Haight -- Tweekin, Zebra, Open Mind -- and the cool bars like the Top, Niki's and Mad Dog in the Fog, where the expatriates from the UK and Ireland watch soccer (er, football) via satellite on the telly. It ought to go without saying, of course, that anyone who buys drugs on the street -- esPECially in the Upper Haight -- is asking for disappointment, or worse. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
