Press said doors open at 9, 5quid before ten. Arrived at nine, and sat
on the steps for an hour at the front of the queue, while lots and lots
of guest list people walked in. Sadly spent this hour spotting famous
people (actually only spotted Luke and Rich. Grant isn't famous, hoho.)
MMM was mixing upstairs, surrounded by loads of press/industry
people at the bar, so headed downstairs and sat around while some
cheesy mxing went down; some of it far too ChemBros for it's
own good. (Caspar Pound?) Still, the people on the dance floor liked it.
I think it was AFX after that, and although I couldn't be arsed to go
and see exactly what he was doing, he played lots of new stuff I'd
never heard before so I guess he was mixing some DATs. It was really
extreme - crazy d'n'b with intricate short stabbing drums and loads of that
AFX squeaky high pitched squelch noise.
Luke did some DJing too, including some pretty funny easy
listening/cartoon music etc, a-la his Stealth mixing. Wasn't paying
all that much attention. Sorry.
Boymerang took over the decks for some quality/mainstream
d'n'b including one of his own releases on Leaf.
etcetc.
What you really want to know about is "the Man, Tom Jenkinson".
Everyone crowded round the DJ booth where he was standing with his
bass strapped high up around his neck. Flanked by the "main men" of
UK electronic music (except Mike P) he stuck some DAT on (Theme from
Goodbye Renaldo? I really was pretty stoned/tired by this point) and as
promised, played live bass over the top. His fingers disappeared into
a blur as he really did do all those things you just listened to and went
"naaaa. gotta be at least two basslines." (Well I did, anyway) while his
neck took a thorough pounding as it threw his read all over the place
very very quickly.
He played about 4 or 5 tracks I hadn't heard before, and the rest was from
the Rephlex sessions. When he wasn't playing bass, he'd play with the
volumes as if he was mixing. In the live environment, the thing that really
struck me was how 'headbanging' the music is. A lot of the time
the tunes just disappear and everything breaks down into pure
rhythm at which point Tom just loses it and starts playing his invisible
drum kit.
Anyway, after just over an hour, MMM took the dex downstairs, and
I went home, pleasantly satisfied.
keith duncan == unkind cheat
kduncan@enterprise.net