I'm seeing him tuesday.... We'll see what happens in NYC. We'll storm
his shit if he quits after 25 minutes. I seriously thought he would at
least go on for 45 minutes to an hour.. at least. That's not a lot to
expect from a DJ.
He's doing the instore stump-the-DJ preformance at Other Music on monday
night, then the show at Tramps the next night.
I have no worries about Jeru. But has anyone ever heard of Camp Lo,
their opening act?
-CF
quoted 187 lines -----Original Message-----
> -----Original Message-----
> From: idm-owner@hyperreal.com [SMTP:idm-owner@hyperreal.com] On Behalf
> Of William D. VanLoo
> Sent: Friday, April 18, 1997 11:05 AM
> To: beaumont.6@osu.edu
> Cc: idm@hyperreal.com
> Subject: Re: (idm) Dj Shadow Live - Horrible
>
> In light of the "dj shadow is horrible live" thread, I thought I'd
> toss my
> opinion in (since it's pretty far to the contrary...)
>
> > Well tonight I drove for about 5 hours round trip just to see DJ
> Shadow
> > play live in Cincinatti, Ohio. And before you start ragging on me
> for
> > liking him, or say something along the lines of "I could have told
> you =
> > he would suck", hear me out.
>
> I too drove long distances last weekend to see DJ Shadow (well, I spun
> at
> a small party, too, but seeing Shadow was the main focus). I came
> around
> 16 hours round trip, from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to
> Minneapolis.
>
> Friday while in Minneapolis, my small crew and I saw that Shadow would
> be performing in-store at Let It Be record store the next day. Chalked
> it
> up as a must-do, considering that he invited those attending to each
> bring
> one piece of vinyl, which he'd mix into his set.
>
> The next day, we went back to Let It Be, and saw the masses forming.
> Each
> of us gave our record to the person collecting them. I brought "Bug in
> the
> Bassbin" by Innerzone Orchestra, my friend brought a dub record, and
> his
> girlfriend brought my copy of Photek's "Natural Born Killers" ep on
> Metalheadz. Shadow began his set by saying something to the effect of
> "Hi,
> I'm Josh. This is my fourth-ever in-store performance", and then went
> on
> to explain how he thought it'd be great to, instead of just playing
> records out of his own box, he'd have people bring their own.
>
> Lemme just say that this was a pretty damn cool idea. He had
> everything
> from Muzak records to Tangerine Dream (not too far off the first...)
> to
> old Run-DMC to Photek. He actually played "Consciousness" of the
> Photek
> record (at 45rpm!). One of the highlights for me was seeing him drop
> in a
> sample of some kid's record saying "Let's wait here for the storm to
> blow
> over", and then cutting it back to the beat in perfect time (from a
> record
> he'd just been handed).
>
> So the in-store was really cool. Next, on to the show:
>
> > I drove down for 5 hours, suffered through some horrid hip hop act,
> and
> > then listened to Jeru the Damaja do his thing. Jeru was excellent
> minus
> > his whole anti-asian comments and a few stupid gangsta like moments
> of
> > juvenile crap - other than that, he put on a fun live show.
>
> This was almost exactly opposite from my experience. In Minneapolis,
> Shadow was slated to play solo first, then appear with the two MCs he
> works with, Lyrics Born and Lateef, collectively known as Latyrx. Then
> Jeru, then Shadow solo again.
>
> When we got there, Shadow was spinning behind Latyrx, laying down the
> beats and putting some scratches in. I personally thought Latyrx was
> pretty good - they were _into_ performing for this crowd, even though
> they
> were some thousand-odd miles from California. Lyrics Born even
> mentioned
> he'd stay in Minneapolis if he could, they were that excited to play
> for
> the crowd. It really showed in their performance; they were
> enthusiastic,
> they played off each other's energy, and they didn't bog down with
> bullshit crowd participation/baiting, the way Jeru did...
>
> Jeru, in my opinion, was on some bullshit. He came out and did his
> show,
> but *every single verse*, it seemed, he'd stop everything and
> threaten
> the crowd by saying he'd leave if everybody didn't get hyped. By the
> end
> of the night, I was ready for him to leave looong before he did. Don't
> get
> me wrong, because I love hip-hop. I understand crowd participation,
> and
> crowd involvement. But berating an audience isn't the way to do it.
> This
> was especially clear when contrasted with Latyrx, a young, hungry
> group
> eager to do their thing, have a good time, and put on a good
> performance.
>
> > The DJ Shadow came on, first they never turned the lights down for
> him, so
> > it was like watching him in a gym. Secondly, and this is the part I
> am =
> > very angry about, he played for 15 minutes. THAT'S IT. I drove for
> hours, =
> > paid my money to see THAT. I absolutely couldn't believe it. We
> were given =
> > no explanation, and shadow just walked off the stage. Never played
> =
> > "What does your soul look like", etc. Nothing. Total 15 minutes
> =3D =
> > $15 ticket, $20 gas, and $15 or so money I could have made working =
> > tonight. $50 to see him play one or two songs and leave.
>
> I admit to being disappointed about the short closing set myself. But
> you
> have to realize that, if it was anything like the Minn. date, he'd
> done an
> instore, done a solo performance and backed his two MCs BEFORE you
> even
> saw him at the end. I was kicking myself for not getting to the venue
> sooner so I could have seen his solo performance at the beginning, but
> I
> was pretty well consoled by the absolutely beautiful music Shadow was
> playing during his 20-25 minute closing set.
>
> Shadow had both his turntables and some studio gear with him, and
> seemed
> to be using both. I think he started his set off record, and then
> mixed in
> some sample-based stuff off his gear. He played basically all album
> tracks
> from "Endtroducing..." and did a lot of mixing stuff over/with/around
> the
> tracks coming from whatever source. His beats sounded soooo good on a
> loud
> PA, and he also was obviously very into his performance. He actually
> broke
> it down in his set to 3 or 4 minutes of just strings and pads, no
> beats,
> in a _club_, mind you, before finally bring a beat in. I watched his
> set
> and was inspired.
>
> This man creates mood like nobody's business. During "Midnight in a
> perfect world", you could see that it was midnight in that club. His
> stuff
> was just really, really good.
>
> > Needless to say I don't ever plan on buying DJ Shadow or Mo Wax
> again
> > if this is the respect they have for their fans. And to think, 15 =
> > minutes from my house Dego from Reinforced was playing live.
> Cheaper, =
> > closer, and probably much much better.
>
> Well, sorry you didn't like it. If I had the opportunity to see Dego
> live
> 15 minutes from me I would have probably stayed home too, but I would
> missed a really inspirational show, in my opinion. You really
> shouldn't
> blame Mo'Wax or Shadow, though. As far as I know, the tour is
> organized by
> London/FFRR, the US distributors of both Mo'Wax (shadow) and Payday
> (Jeru). It was their decision to organize things that way, I think,
> and
> Mo'Wax or Shadow probably had no decision in how it was set up. Don't
> short yourself on good music because of one bad experience.
>
> Peace,
>
> Bill / dj marathon
>
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