If anyone cares,
I went to see Death In Vegas & the Dubpistols last night at LA's finest
rocker hangout, the Troubador.
Walked in the door and there was a couple of guys on stage with guitars,
so if figured it must be the 'warm up' band. After first few songs I
noticed the 'death in vegas' videos running behind the band.
Guess what?
They rocked out!
I really wasn't prepared for the show these guys put on.
The 'band' consisted of a lead guitarist (or what every you call those
guys), and guy playing bass, another guy making acid noises and shit (on
a synth I couldn't make out) and yet one more guy dropping in the beats
with a mc303 and mixing it all down.
Oh yeah, there was also another bloke djing, adding spoken word and
scratches on top.
Their whole set was very freestyle and quite tight.
Lot's of Chemical Brothers/Omar Santana style 'big' breaks. Cool, weird
guitar noises and fun for the whole family.
Only a few problems:
The beat guy was also running drum loops on a sampler slaved to the
mc303. It sounded REALLY cool most of the time, but occasional the two
would get VERY out of sync, and that sucks.
During the last song they played, rocco, the dj type guy appeared to
have lost ALL of his skills. He tried adding some extra beats to the
mix and had no luck. For about 8 minutes he pushed the record, braked
the record, changed the pitch up and down and generally fucked everyone
up good. Then about 2 minutes before the end, he just gave up,
unplugged the headphones and lit a smoke. That kind of sucks too.
So that was them...as they were walking off, three more guys walked on
the stage (in complete silence). I'm not sure, but I'd imagine that
this was the dubpistols.
2x3+1 is what they do.
One guy on 2 turntables, one guy on one turntable (what every happened
to 2x4?) and yet one more standing in front of some weird box that just
made a tone. Yep, 'a' tone.
These heads just about brought the roof down!
Non-stop funky, hard ass breaks, scratching (from the guy with one deck)
and a tone.
I've never really seen someone play a tone for a hour or more, so it was
kind of interesting watching him. He would run it real low, make some
weird bass then do quick filter sweeps, adding in bweeps in time to the
records. Cool, but got kinda old after a while.
At one point, the scratcher light up three cigarittes and gave'em to his
buddies. That was cool. One big cloud of smoke, two one armed djs and
MR. one arm/one tone man.
After they finished up, someone started playing bad house music, so we
ran in the bar and got drunk.
I must admit that it was a brilliant move to put on a house dj after
both of those acts. It made them seem even THAT much better.
Overall, I had a blast!
Two drastically different versions of a live performance, both unique in
their own way, both cool as hell. If they come to your town, check them
out.
word to the mothership,
brock
np: Gert Wilden & Orchestra - 'Schulmadchen'