All aboard!
Well, WARP bombed in to NYC and I was lucky
enough to have purchased my ticket presale
and shuffled right by the block long line of your
stock NYC "hey let me in" crowd.
Oh gosh, here we go.
We arrived at 1am shortly after taking a from nyc
to jersey drive through (and then back through)
the holland tunnel. :-) (why is the toll only on
the NJ side?)
Anyway, security takes away my JOLT (wahhh!) and
might as well have told me the cost of water ($3)
but of course didn't. They took a deep whif of a
bottle of ibuprofin (I've got 3flt o'stairs on
new years with a pa knee) and passed me through.
Inside revealed NYC blinding lights and pesky
sound. A small stage area showed Freeform
struggling to hold the attention of a to capacity
motley crew. Losing power certainly didn't help his
lack of continuity, but in the end he flexed through
some jamming freqencies, mostly sequencing with a
head bobbing confidence which speaks "talent".
His almost dancehall style experimentia was real good, but this
was not quite ready for the front room business.
Shortly after Simon (who needs a good lesson in hand-
shaking) gave it up to carlos tera (?) for a small inbetween
bands set of nothing in particular and barely WARPISH,
I learn from an exasperated promoter type (?) british
blond gal that the back room is worthy of my immediate
attention.
Time to investigate. Hrmmm. A dj playing esquivelesqe
style phony lounge while a go go mama w/the taped nipple
thing going on dances behind bars with some chump punter
hepped up on goofballs.
For real!
People had so much drugs there they were dropping them
on the ground and then pushing around your legs as they
light up the ground with a desperate "bic" light(er)
searchin for their shit.
Anyways, the lounge thing sounded weak just because
I live with the most schoolingist dj POOH who's already
been there and done that and is now pushing into the
new dope levels retro dance playing the likes of MONGO
SANTAMARIA recorded live at Montreux '71. Color me
as biased as I wanna be. Back to the mainroom.
Autechre set up in record time and quickly (but gradually
;) brought out the experimental mad dancer in me, in fact,
I soaked my T shirt having it playing king of the bass bin
with a small contingent from the Boston area.
They played nothing I could recognize as familiar, and that
may have been because they seemed to sound, well, live. Or
at least jamming it along as opposed to playing LOW RIDE
for example. They did however pull out the deep freeze hip
hop tempo slammer, complete w/correct rap sampledelica.
At last, a solid set of hoot and hollar pure polyrhymic
experi-annahilating bass. Thank you Sean and Rob you made
it well worth the trip.
BUT WAIT! Trouble in Gotham city?
For the record (and to again remind the reader of the
continuing atmosphere of the night) during the tail end of
Autechre, two b boys planted their macho asses down where
my bag and flashing stobe (and some fellow spotters chewns
were residing. It was a strange set of circumstances which
turned extra odd as they preceeded to snort whatever it is
they're snorting these days. And pull the mimic game out
from High School obscurity.
IDM in NYC? Uh huh huh, yeah...kewl.
Seamlessly the next dj (who was this btw) slipped into
the mix and delivered our first dose of SQP. This no-name
dj got me to thinking about how this night could have
used a little verbal hype from the likes of the Mixmaster,
announcing acts...
"ladies and gentlemen, the might-ee squarepushaah!"
DJ Unknown spent a good hour hitting the bass ball around
that dubbed out ballpark with nary a bad (or risk taken)
mix. It was good and plenty but I was having a hard time holding
my dancing together enough to not feel self conscious in the
line of fire of those aforementioned Mondo Krak's.
Seriously, I think part of my 'disappointment' w/the night
was that I in some way wanted to be in the company of the
IDM family and not steering clear of wanna be playaz all
up in my area.
I wanted to meet up with more netheads too but an hour into
Mark Brooms straight ahead hard techno set, my travelling
partners patients had been tested and a taxing visit to
the back room only gave more reason to second the present
nomination to leave. We left the two hella mediocre dj's
swapping slow breaks with the occasional ragga (?!) jungle tune.
Sigh.
I wanted/expected at least something up the Third Sequence
avenue, I wanted to be seduced by Andrea Parker's big bottom.
Uh oh, trouble, time to leave. I take one last look over my
shoulder as we pass through the main room on our way to the
exit. Weirdness takes over the PA over and I hope that I'm
not leaving behind some highlights, or worse, Tamara Palmer,
and the Spelunk 2.
The ride back to Boston was puntuated by our driving behind an 18
wheeler which prematurely ejaculated a blow out, spewing rubber
at our little $22dollar a day rental subcompact GEO Metro.
RUBBER BUZZKILL!
Teep
on now: reload - short stories
PS servers @hnt down due to power outage at Faneuil Hall
Marketplace. Thanks to MIT for the flashback telnet.