Yes, I did manage to drag my ass out of the house last night to catch tha
Ninjas. I'm glad I did.
Can't remember the name of the first DJ - I wasn't too impressed w/ what he
was playing when I listened in, so I went upstairs to the bar & got sucked
into a coupla local DJs playing hip hop.
The next guy was better, caught the last 30 minutes of his set, mostly
electro.
MixMaster Morris was on next. What he was playing was nice, but it took me
awhile to start feeling it. Finally, he played an old Black Dog track
(from an old 12", can't remember which), and that got me goin'! He's a
master of working the delay while DJing. I was hoping to here some of that
Triangle (TRIphop, Ambient, junGLE), but I guess he's tired of that. Too
bad. The 3 flow together so well and it's far from played out.
Jonah Sharp was next. His beatmatching was slack a couple of times, but he
has good taste in music and put together a varied set. It's always great
to hear Kraftwerk on a big sound system, and it's great to see people
dancing to it like it's this week's big hit. He played Numbers/Computer
World 2, while manipulating samples of numbers. The high point, though,
was a deconstruction of Black Dog's Virtual. His version gave me a new
appreciation for the track. I went up to Jonah after the show & slipped
him a note on how great his mix of Virtual was, and he lit up, saying it
was a big influence on him, one of his favorite tracks. He said there were
2 12"s, a black label and a white label, but he only two copies of one.
He's looking for the other, I think the white. It's always cool to here
where someone's coming from musically.
Amon was on next (about 2am at this point). After Jonah's set, I was
danced out, but the energy of Amon's music kept me going for a bit. He
played mostly his own stuff, from Cujo on, but he did mix in some other
stuff. He played Squarepusher's Fat Controller, one of those tracks that
are so fucked up that they have to be heard on a big system to truly
appreciate their depravity. The other thing I recognized was from the
Funki Porcini vs. Jerry Van Rooyen 12". If there's a bright center of the
IDM universe, I'm in the town it's fartherest from. I imagine Nepal has a
better IDM scene. I never, EVER thought I'd hear FPvsJVR in club, much
less 2 Black Dog tracks in one night. I was in heaven. And hell. I damn
near broke my little toe last week, and I was dancing in considerable pain
(that & my abs are out of shape). I finally had to sit down to take in the
rest of the set. I think I enjoyed this as much or more than if he'd been
playing his music behind a computer & a rack of samplers.
The last DJ I can't remember, I caught the first track & he had some mad
turntable/mixing skills, and MMM and the others were standing behind him
checking it out. I'm sure I missed out, but I had to wake up this morning.
Got home, 3:30am, othes soaked (I mean sopping wet) and stinking of
cigarettes (it's too bad cigarettes don't kill more people in their 20's).
In bed at 4am.
Caught the Claude Monet show this morning, 10am. Later works, when his
eyesight was failing. Wildly abstract, great use of color, like an acid
trip or a fever dream. Catch it if you can.
And if you don't catch the Ninjas when they come to your town, then you're
whack.
Che
rock - rok (v.) - having a conventional and/or boring nature. ex: "Khakis
rock". "That Rolling Stones show rocked". syn: suck.