August 21, 2007

harold budd and robin guthrie

file under: music

the new pair of albums by harold budd and robin guthrie are called before the day breaks and after the night falls. they are precisely what you would expect from this duo, given their past work, and that's a good thing, for the most part.

i will admit to being a 4AD and shoegazer fanboy. i have been entranced ever since the first albums by slowdive and lush, ever since i first listened to the dreaminess of the cocteau twins and was spellbound by clan of xymox. i've been an easy mark when it comes to the kind of thing created by budd and guthrie.

two of robin guthrie's solo releases (imperial and continental) have both been on my heavy rotation list for awhile. they both satisfy as ambient guitar soundscapes, although my preference is for continental (which he titled based on his extensive travels in the US and Europe).

this new work with budd is a perfect fusion of guthrie's solo work and albums like Budd's lovely thunder. in my mind, these albums are a great manifestation of brian eno's definition of ambient music: that which can be "actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener." in this case, ignoring or listening both produce the same pleasurable result.

Posted by docrpm on 08.21.07 at 7:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 9, 2007

year zero

file under: music , thoughts about things
tags: alternate reality game , nine inch nails , review

Nine Inch Nails (aka Trent Reznor) have released their latest album: Year Zero.

the nutshell review? there isn't one. it's a distressing, thought-inspiring, sprawling, frustrating, visionary effort put forth by one of the great innovators in electronic music. it's an attempt to merge art and political statement using digital tools and trickery. it's an alternate reality game. it's a brilliant "concept album," but it's not an album in the LP-sense of the word – it's an aggregate of ideas and media and information whose combination reveals an unsettling and dystopian vision for modern society, all wrapped in an aurally compelling package.

...

i've been a die-hard NIN fan ever since the release or Pretty Hate Machine. my life was consumed in fiery confusion at the time of its release, and it became a place for me to retreat during my struggles to make the transition from child to adult, to navigate my self-indulgent passage through loneliness and anger. it was a great listen, one that helped defined the entire industrial electronica genre of which i was a great fan. he followed with the brilliant Broken, the inspired and seminal Downward Spiral, the bloated and somewhat self-indulgent Fragile, and the half-listenable-but-safe With Teeth, which followed a loooong six-year hiatus containing scattered singles and tour materials.

after Downward Spiral, he sort of lost his way...who knows why? stardom, undiscerning idolatry, drug addiction and self-abuse...the usual litany of pop stardom woes followed by subsequent decay into mediocrity (at least in the minds of some). thankfully, reznor pulled out of his own downward spiral and produced something to rival or surpass the album of the same name. the new album looks out more than in, taking on multiple perspectives and voices, while still holding onto many of the core themes that have woven themselves through all of his work (god, religion, oppression, power, control).

the music

the album has been reviewed in a number of places. the year zero wikipedia entry has a list of fifteen or so critical reviews. as with most of NIN's later efforts, this one evokes a mixed reaction, ranging from brilliant to [shrug] to bollocks. this is to be expected, and despite the fact that i love it and can't stop listening to it, your mileage may vary significantly.

reznor recorded the bulk of the album himself while on tour. he plays almost all instruments, wrote every song. musically, this album pulls from the usual bag of NIN tricks, and to good effect. it's sonically varied as it progresses from beginning to end, wandering from kinetic industrial guitars to pulsing, danceable beats to quiet, earnest melodies and messages buried in whispers and static. standout tracks for me include: Capital G, God Given, Meet Your Master, Another Version of the Truth, In This Twilight, and Zero Sum. the album passes through an arc, one that starts with The Beginning of the End and ends with the affecting and thoughtful Zero Sum. songs represent the perspectives of some of the different personas and organizations in this dystopian vision of society.

zero sum is particularly moving. it's a look back at the (future) wasteland that we've created through our shortsightedness, our selfishness, and we're living in a twilight, one where the coming night may or may not end. a sample:

they're starting to open up the sky
they're starting to reach down through
and it feels like we're living in that split-second
of a car crash
and time is slowing down
and if we only had a little more time
and this time is all there is
do you remember the time we
and all the times we
and should have
and were going to
i know
and i know you remember
how we could justify it all
and we knew better
in our hearts we knew better
and we told ourselves it didn't matter
and we chose to continue
and none of that matters anymore
in the hour of our twilight
and soon it will all be said and done
and we will all be back together as one
if we will continue at all

at the end of it all, reznor doesn't seem to take hope in much, or if he does, he doesn't vocalize it. the future could be very grim indeed if his vision came to pass...but that's probably the point: shake our collective shoulders hard enough so that we invidually do what we can to foment positive political, social and environmental change.

politics and Year Zero

Year Zero was a political concept before it was the title of a NIN album. from the Wikipedia entry above:

The idea behind Year Zero is that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch. All history of a nation or people before Year Zero is largely irrelevant, as it will (as an ideal) be purged and replaced from the ground up.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge originated this term, and followed it with well-documented atrocities and suppression of civil liberties for the good of the state. Year Zero (as appropriated by NIN) imagines a time 15 years in the future where the international calendar has been reset by the US and a Coalition for Peace, where Church and State have merged to fight the onslaught of global terrorism, where drugs are used to control the population, where freedom is a privilege, not a right.

Year Zero – alternate reality game

the music album Year Zero is only one small piece of a much larger puzzle. Reznor and his compatriots have constructed a large-scale alternate reality game (ARG) that houses the story behind Year Zero (YZ). the game has been unfolding through an elaborate series of hints and clues scattered across both the real world and the internet (USB flash drives left at concerts, MP3 files with hidden clues (see below), web sites, hidden urls, unlinked images on the web, album artwork, and telephone recordings). it started with bold letters on a concert t-shirt, which when strung together, led people to the web site iamtryingtobelieve.com. this hinted at the upcoming album, led to more web sites in the fictional universe being created, and started the game.

as an example of the kind of hints that have been scattered around the world and Net, the first album track was "leaked" on a USB flash drive left at a concert. it contained a high-quality version of My Violent Heart. it also contained 8 or 9 seconds of static at the end of the song, which when run through a spectrographic analysis, reveals an unsettling image of a godhead that's a central component of the game: The Presence (compare the image below to the album cover above). A number of other spectral analyses of MP3s have revealed additional clues, some in morse code, some in images as references to the online NIN community, some as phone numbers. (Note that NIN are by no means the first to embed images inside songs. another notable example is Aphex Twin.)

an example of one of the web sites used in the game is anotherversionofthetruth.com. at first glance, the site is a patriotic reflection of NIN's fictional Bureau of Morality, but drag your mouse across the site and it reveals a subversive message and links to an imagined future discussion forum in the game universe, which in turn reveals additional clues.

all told, at present, there are 30 separate web sites that have been linked to the YZ ARG. the storyline is fleshing itself out, complete with characters and a timeline, and it is pushing the buttons of a lot of OCD NIN fans who obsessively write about it and analyze every element of the universe. the best source for all of this information is the unofficial NIN Wiki, which at this point seems to be mostly focused on the YZ ARG. as a side note, several sites exist to help unravel the puzzles within ARGs (see unfiction and lonelygirl15)

open-sourcing art, resistance and music

an organization called Open Source Resistance (OSR) and its sister Art is Resistance (AIR) feature prominently in the YZ ARG, partially because they exist in the present day. by subscribing to the OSR mailing list, people were encouraged to come for a meeting in LA on Melrose place. they were met by people toting OSR rebellion kits, complete with stencils and other paraphernalia, all brandished with the OSR logo:

From the Wikipedia entry on the groups:

Although the group is technically in-game and fictitious, by allowing participants within the game to contribute via their art, "secret meetings," and similarly underground (though staged) activities, AIR could also be considered a real group, comprised of participants of the game and as a manifestation of the political awareness that the Year Zero game promotes.

this is, of course, reminiscent of past viral marketing campaigns. the one it conjures in my mind is Shepard Fairey's Obey Giant campaign, which eventually spread worldwide. no doubt, NIN would love to have their OSR stickers all over the world. free marketing for them, whereas for Fairey it was a social experiment.

but i digress.

the Open Source movement has been thriving for the past decade, with the rise of Linux, PHP, Mozilla, and other technologies based on freely contributing communities and networks, all striving towards a greater good without explicit rewards. reznor clearly believes in these ideas as they apply to intellectual property and digital rights management (DRM) of media. he clearly dislikes record labels and their approach to music sales as well. with the release of Year Zero, he has embraced these principles more firmly than ever. the entire album can be streamed from the NIN MySpace page, and all tracks will eventually be released in GarageBand/logic format for people to remix the songs themselves.

how all of this applies to the notion of rebellion and resistance is a little unclear to me. by its very nature, rebellion and resistance require networks of people, communities of the like-minded, in order to be successful. whether or not they are open or secret depends on the context in which they live. today, with our relatively free society, resistance can be more vocal and visible, provided it lives within the confines of the law. under the rule of a Pol Pot, resistance would have to be secret, since it would be punishable (usually by death). so, a secret resistance network seems a bit antithetical to the true ideals of open source (where everything is open and visible), although that's probably too literal an intepretation of the OSR term in the YZ context. the power of open source comes through the scale of networks it enables, and rebellion can only be successful if enough people join to fight, so maybe this is what NIN is getting at.

marketing, political statement and art

so what's the point of all of this? is it just a new NIN album with Marketing 2.0, or is there something deeper?

a cynic could argue (and many have), that the entire YZ ARG and concept are merely part of a brilliant viral marketing campaign, constructed to tap into NIN's core demographic (if there even is one). based on what i've read online, there wasn't much of a traditional marketing campaign for the album, so the viral marketing argument makes a lot of sense. however, many seem to stop there, as if that suffices to explain the entire effort. an implicit argument here is that the YZ ARG and everything around it has no meaning or value beyond the strict means to an end: sell more albums. i think there's more to it.

Year Zero is a fragmented, non-linear story about a possible future. it contains many voices and ideas that can't easily be contained in the confines of a 16-song album. by creating content outside the context of the album, these voices and ideas can be fleshed out more fully. additionally, they give more power to the narrative, partially because elements of the story don't seem dissimilar from current events. it's not that hard to extrapolate to the grim future Reznor imagines (although i think it would take an extraordinary set of circumstances to get there). YZ has created an unsetling simulacrum; with at least two of the YZ web sites (Free Rebel Art and Open Source Resistance), the line between fiction and reality was blurred pretty heavily, to the point that i wasn't quite sure whether it was a real or fictional call to action. all of this allows reznor (and whoever else is involved) to express a broader set of ideas (while simultaneously creating viral interest).

as a game, it's interesting to see the dynamics of groups coming together to solve the in-game puzzles, to discuss the music, to create an ephemeral network. the game's content is entirely political, so a natural outgrowth is heightened political awareness on the part of some participants, discussing it in the context of the game or otherwise. by writing this blog, i participate in that process, maybe inciting a reader to think differently, act differently (either positively or negatively).

finally, at a higher level, if you buy the argument (mine and trent reznor's as well) that everything surrounding and including the album is part of a coherent whole, then what is that whole? do we have the words to describe it? MetaArt? AggArt? InformationArt? InfoPorn? what do you call something that combines:

• 16 songs, neatly packaged
• 30 web sites with related audio and video content
• telephone recordings (and callbacks)
• the story told by all of the above
• an emergent social network of gamers, fans, and OCD ARG freaks
• the heightened political awareness generated by this collective phenomenon

i don't know what to call it, but i think it's a fascinating reflection of the times in which we live, even if it's all "just marketing."

final thoughts

the digital world that supplants our day-to-day existence is weaving itself into the tapestry of our lives; among other things, we've created freely available tools to support widespread information sharing, political action and resistance where necessary. conversely, governments and others may use these tools for the purposes of surveillance, monitoring and occasionally repression, all with the stated goal of maintaining our safety and security. control of this precious digital resource (in the sense of maintaining neutrality, transparency, standards, and openness) is critical for human rights and a free society, and for maintaining the balance between the right to share information and the ability to monitor it. the internet is not a toy any more; the information flowing through its veins is part of the lifeblood of our society, and it will only grow in importance. there will come a day when many literally cannot live without it; we should be thoughtful as we prepare for that day. Year Zero is only one possible outcome.

YZ taken as a whole is disturbing and scary for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its shadow similarity to our world. with a few negative twists and a well-placed dirty bomb or two, our world could be transformed by fear. the tragic events of 9/11 have shown how fear-mongering can be used as a tool for political ends; it's not hard to imagine more events like this leading us to a place where we give up more and more control to governments, religions, and corporate entities that supposedly represent our best interests. in many cases they do, but we should always remember that these organizations are run by human beings, inherently flawed, hungry for power and control over others, and endlessly thirsty for things that satisfy our far-flung prurient interests.

Posted by docrpm on 06.09.07 at 4:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 12, 2006

stranger on the sofa

file under: music

barry adamson is a cool, very dark, cat.

ok, i know that sounds dorky, and yet for the style of music he produces, it seems appropriate. what he creates is an anachronism; it seems to belong in the 50s and 60s, with gangsters and frank sinatra and femmes fatales sporting 38s and lipstick-laden smiles that kill. at the same time, his noir sensibilities are balanced with a wink and a nod by his playful, tongue-in-cheek lyrics, which are in turn countered by a darkness and cynicism that run deep. there is a modern awareness in everything he does, a black-gold thread woven throughout his enigmatic tapestry.

...

if all of this sounds a bit contradictory, a bit like the tension that can exist between people with great similarities, yet great chasms between them, then i'm hitting the mark. barry adamson's world is murky, with no clear winners and losers, no answers, only big, fat, little, ugly, beautiful questions. his music somehow seems to encompass and expose our beauty and strength and humor, and at the same time, our weakness, our frailty, our depravity.

how could music possibly do this? i'm not sure, but somehow, i believe barry adamson manages it.

his music fuses a broad array of instruments (synthetic and otherwise), lyrics that alternately amuse and horrify, and musical styles that span generations. he surprises from one track to the next, making us go from dancing in the kitchen to sulking in the toilet. convention is an unknown; he does what he wants, what he thinks will help him describe the human condition.

people are hard to describe. their capabilities are broad, their feelings are deep and unknown, their possibilities are endless: happiness, sadness, rage, ambivalence, idiosyncrasy, self-absorption, empathy, philanthropy. i would venture that many musicians try to tap into one or two of these wells; some try to touch a few more; others try to wrap it all up in a picture that is both beautiful and ugly and incomprehensible, yet understandable. i think this is what barry adamson is trying to do. i may be totally wrong, but it's still fun to listen to.

oh wait...i just realized i was supposed to be doing an album review.

his new album, stranger on the sofa, is an effort that i would say is pretty much in line with previous outings (e.g., oedipus schmoedipus, as above, so below). a few tracks are standouts for me (here in the hole, who killed big bird, dissemble), although i may stand alone in this regard (see, for example, the review on Pitchfork for a somewhat different opinion than i've voiced above).

barry adamson is a singular voice, in the sense that no one else sounds like him at all (at least, not anything i've heard). skewer him for his experimentalism, his occasional misses, his oddities; despite his failings, i still believe he creates captivating and engaging melodies like no one else. i may not listen to his music every day, but i would listen to him before 95% of what else is on the market.

Posted by docrpm on 08.12.06 at 8:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 23, 2005

campfire headphase

file under: music

i tend to collect things: books, CDs, movies. with a few notable exceptions, i am not overly obsessive in my acquisitions (although i'm sure certain other people might disagree). boards of canada is an exception.

i've done my best to acquire everything they've ever released (see the wikipedia reference for BoC for the complete listing). while it's not an exhaustive catalogue, there are a few pieces that are harder to come by than others. a total of 3 albums, 4 EPs, and one unreleased collection is what i've got; looks like i'm missing a few LPs and odd cassettes. the campfire headphase is their latest release, following the stunning geogaddi by three years.

the reviews are generally good (see metacritic for a quick synopsis). i can certainly see how this record would underwhelm some BoC fans. when a band generates so much fervor, such rabid adoration, it becomes harder and harder for them to impress over time. in fact, almost impossible. they can't penetrate the fog of mystique and reverence that has built up around them.

this is partly their own doing. the two brothers who make up BoC have been noticeably reticent when it comes to either touring or doing interviews. they make their music, and that's it. that is their statement, and they've done it in such a way as to wrap a riddle inside an enigma, hidden in a puzzle. as a result, people have analyzed their music beyond reason, flogged it until it's dead and bleeding beside the road, stripped of any mystery. while some of this analysis is interesting, maybe even insightful, it's still just mental masturbation, and it sets a standard that no band could meet with their next release. with geogaddi, they set a standard that would be difficult to follow, and then there was silence. three long years of silence, punctuated by two EP releases.

and then, after this long silence, they return with the campfire headphase, doomed to both fail and succeed, regardless of what it contains. in this writer's humble opinion, it's a brilliant and rewarding soundscape, an exploration of territory that seems simultaneously new and familiar.

it's a different album for BoC. i would say drastically different from their work released to date. and yet, their signature sound is still there...it's still possible, through a few simple sonic structures, a few unique sounds, to identify this record as theirs. and those sounds, in combination with new textures and seemingly infinite layers, make this album worth seeking out.

first and foremost, the samples are gone (or at least faded so far into the background that you don't notice them consciously). geogaddi and music has the right to children were rife with odd samples, references that fed the imagination of the hungry listening masses. those samples added interesting punctuation marks to the composition, gave it another dimension, something to be puzzled over and interpreted. maybe that's why they chose to drop them: too much analysis.

the second thing of note is the guitars—they take a prominent place in the sonic landscape of this new album, carving vast valleys and echoing canyons where other sounds can play within and beneath. they add a texture, a substrate that other sounds can attach themselves to. they also heighten the fuzzy warmth that has permeated most BoC releases.

the last thing i would note is the absence of less prominent beats. Hi Scores, MHTRTC, and maybe even Geogaddi had some beats woven through the narrative. this is not the case on the campfire headphase—no beats. (see Correction below)

when i talk about BoC, my tone becomes filled with rapture, and i speak nonsense. words fail me while i foam at the mouth. i can't describe what their music makes me feel, how it envelopes my thoughts and washes away everything else. when i listen to their music, it takes me to a place that is joyous and melancholy at the same time, a place of warm, fuzzy, beautiful sadness.

maybe, in a way, Boards of Canada is a sonic subsitute for the frailties of language. they express things through meticulously textured sounds that could not be expressed otherwise. theirs is an electronic poetry that defies analysis. you just have to listen. and i do—over and over and over. when i listen, i'm taken back to my childhood, to a time of innocence. i feel that happiness again, all the while carrying in my heart the bittersweet knowledge that it lives only in my memories. for me, this is the tension that BoC somehow express with their shimmering strands of sound.

CORRECTION (10.25.05): i have been taken to the mat for saying that there are no beats on this album. at least two tracks have percussion (dayvan cowboy and oscar see through red eye) and some electronic beats. saying the album has fewer beats was not meant as a criticism. sincere apologies for ruffled feathers and potential confusion. ;-)

Posted by docrpm on 10.23.05 at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 4, 2005

nouvelle vague

file under: music

as someone who spent a lot of time listening to 80s music, i can occasionally appreciate a good cover band. in most cases, though, the cover pales in comparison to the original. it's rare that a cover can thrive in its own right, without reference to the work that inspired it.

nouvelle vague has created a cover album that reaches this lofty goal—their music is wonderful, enchanting, fun, and only just slightly kitschy. their covers pay tribute to new wave hits from the 80s, and they do it bossa nova style. imagine the cure and the sisters of mercy rendered with delicate female vocals, sultry guitar, and waves washing across a warm shore, and that's what you've got with nouvelle vague.

i was skeptical at first, but their version of "a forest" (my favorite song from seventeen seconds) had me sold in a heartbeat. there are a few misses (not so sure jello biafra ever meant too drunk to f*** to be done to a bossa nova beat). in general, though, this CD was one enjoyable hit parade for me. part flashback, part flash-further back, part modern-day lounge album, nouvelle vague is de rigeur if you're an 80s kid with bossa nova leanings.

Posted by docrpm on 10.04.05 at 7:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 18, 2005

ulrich schnauss

file under: music

i've been listening to ulrich schnauss a lot lately. both of his albums are excellent; the first (faraway trains passing by) is a bit hard to find, unfortunately. the second (a strangely isolated place) is available at your local amazon outlet.

reviews elsewhere will probably give you a better description than i could. for me, i just find his music eminently enjoyable. it creates a warm fuzzy atmosphere, one that envelopes you without suffocating or being overbearing. i find it the perfect cross between Boards of Canada (one of my top three desert island bands) and a lot of the old shoegazer stuff i used to listen to (Slowdive, Ride, MBV, Lush, etc.). it's more ambient than the latter, and less sampled than the former...an ideal blend, in my opinion.

highly, highly recommended. if you can't find the first album, at least do what you can to find the track Molfsee. if you can't find that, then i suggest just putting ASIP on repeat and blissing out until FATPB is rereleased in the US.

Posted by docrpm on 07.18.05 at 9:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 20, 2005

thomas koner - nuuk

file under: music

i first heard thomas köner on a 1994 darkwave ambient compilation called ambient isolationism. he contributed 'kanon (brohuk),' and while i enjoyed it, it didn't captivate my attention as much as the tracks by :zoviet*france and Lull. a few years later, i was at a local favorite indie record shop (Aquarius Records on Valencia), and i spotted a special köner post–vinyl–only CD-release of an album called 'unerforschtes gebiet' (which translates roughly as 'uncharted territory'). based on their recommendation, i picked it up.

i couldn't stop listening to it. in fact, i still can't stop listening to it. although now, i probably listen to Nuuk a lot more.

...

[to get to the bottom line without having to read all this drivel, click here.]

köner is held up as one of the pre-eminent soundscape minimalists. his particular brand of dronology would probably put most people to sleep. for others, it might inspire nightmares. for me, it's near perfection in sound, the minimalist ambient analog to bohren & der club of gore (possibly the lamest band name ever for a group that does dreamy, lush jazz–inspired soundscapes à la angelo badalamenti).

my fascination with this kind of music is intense, but i'd be hard–pressed to explain it. i fall into these expansive soundscapes that are more atmosphere than rhythm, context that generates imagined experience. for me, they fit eno's definition of ambient music perfectly: music that can either be actively listened to, or ignored.

Nuuk is my latest köner acquisition. his CDs are hard to come by; it's a niche market. this latest cost a pretty penny (actually, 2700 of them); it's a re-release of something he did back in 1997. his inspiration was a series of webcam recordings from Nuuk, Greenland. of course, at the time i bought this CD+DVD release, i didn't know Nuuk was the capital of Greenland. i only found out when i got curious – why did he call this CD 'Nuuk'?

this is the kind of thing the Web is perfect for – look up an obscure, specific term and find out instantly what it is: the capital of Greenland – its largest city, in fact, with a population of roughly 14,000.

why was he so interested in Greenland? isn't it just a big frozen rock out there in the Atlantic ocean somewhere? i suppose under some limited world views, that might be true. under others, Greenland might be seen as an other–worldy landscape of fierce, cold beauty. check out the pictures below for a few slices of this other world (taken from carl obling's photo site). you might also read some analysis on köner's web site (apologies if this feels like mental masturbation).

after reading a bit about its history, and seeing these breathtaking photos, i can't wait to go. it looks like it might be a very, very cold version of New Zealand (without the tourists and the Hollywood jerks). i mean, think about it – a country whose capital has a population of 14,000? doesn't that seem a little odd?

the bottom line
local record shop leads to obscure music purchase leads to interest in Greenland leads to [unknown futures]. who can say where my interest in Greenland will go? imagine, though, a pre–Internet release of this record (actually, its original release might qualify as just that). how many people know what (or where) Nuuk is? how many people would even bother to look, if they didn't have the Internet a few clicks away?

ok. maybe not that many.

my point is that things are connected. everything is connected. we don't see the connections, but they are there. and sometimes, now, we can follow them, and they will lead us to uncharted territories...

Posted by docrpm on 02.20.05 at 9:14 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

February 5, 2003

neotropic

file under: music

dj shows are a mixed bag, at best, but when i saw that one of my favorite ninja tune acts, neotropic, was playing at club six, i decided to brave uncertainty and go hear the mix...

the good news? i got to meet riz maslen, enigmatic front woman of the "band". the bad news?

...

the electronic flyers for the show indicated that the club opened its doors at 10pm. there was to be one opening act, a band whose name escapes me (most opening acts seem to suffer from this problem, whether or not they deserve it). as fate would have it, elaine had to work early the next day, so i braved the show alone - club six is usually a great time, what's the worst that could happen?

when a club doesn't specify the starting time for a dj show, one is guaranteed two things:

• if you go early, the show will start late
  
• if you go late, the show will be over by the time you get there
  

(bzzzt...wrong answer!)

there were no beats. club six closed off the bottom floor of the club to let the dj's prepare. the top floor, meanwhile, was occupied by a private birthday party, sans dance floor and the music that goes with it.

i sat in the corner, people-watching as best i could, until about 12:30am, when they opened the bottom floor. once they did, again, the beats were absent, and the anxious "crowd" had to wait until the opening act, who came on at about 12:45am and played a slightly unremarkable set that lasted about an hour...

after the show, people milled about, waiting for the headliner. the club was about a third full, if that...not a good turnout to say the least. when neotropic finally came on at about 1:45am, the people who were there were clearly ready for a show.

the first song came up to scattered cheers, and then dissipated into a mix of 'massive attack' after about one minute...technical problems. riz had come without her band, and was hence using an apple powerbook as a stand-in...

after about 10 minutes, she started playing again, but the technology gods were aligned against her. the entire set was a wash...nothing sounded as it should have, she kept fighting her equipment, and the crowd dwindled and dwindled, finally losing interest and leaving before she was done. by the last song, there were four or five staunch fans swaying unconvincingly on the dance floor, trying to provide encouragement...the show ended with a whimper, as she fought and lost to her powerbook. when she was done, all she could do was hang her head and bang it against the keyboard.

it's not the worst show i've ever seen, but given that neotropic is one of my favorite acts, it might as well have been.

the bright spot? while waiting for the show upstairs, a woman with spiky dyed hair came up next to me at the bar. sure enough...riz maslen.

(sheepishly) excuse me...are you playing tonight? are you riz maslen?

why yes, i am...

oh...i LOVE your music! i've been a fan ever since you were born! i followed you through the english public school system, seeing your potential all the time, waiting for that day when you would break free of the oppressive tyranny of blah blah blah blah blah...you're a genius!

(genuine smile) thank you!

yes, i played the sickeningly adoring fan, just for a moment. it was ugly, but at least it made up for everything else...she was very nice, and clearly appreciated the support.

so, my advice to those of you who go to see dj shows - leave your expectations in the cellar, go early, stay late, and remember - it's all about being a fan.

Posted by docrpm on 02.05.03 at 9:45 PM | Comments (1)