decoded_ Something for your mind… Something for your mind…

Photo by Benn Glazier http://www.flickr.com/photos/royaltech/

Fantastic! I had a really fun night, lots of old faces and friends about. The Cross would have to be one of the best venues I’ve been to in Sydney in ages; fantastic sound, great dance spaces, nice lounge/chill spaces, large, modern, clean toilets. I think they’re covering all the renovation costs with the $$ drink prices, ouch! Great music loving friendly crowd of about 300 people.

Just quickly, how’s this for a mixed up assortment of music? Some train-spotting at Laurent Garnier, with a little help from friends and ITMers.

Marcel Dettman – Quicksand
Mike Shannon – What’s Your Pleasure?
Johnny Future – Perfect World 02 (B)
Slam – Azure (Part 1)
Ralphi Rosario – You Used To Hold Me
Housemeister – Bubblegun
Inner City – Good Life (Carl Craig Remix)
Son Of Raw/Dennis Ferrer – A Drumstick & A Light Fixture
Shlomi Aber – Crop Duster
Liquid People Present Danism – Koopers Troopers
Rhythim Is Rhythim – Beyond the Dance
Sleeparchive – ? from Hospital Tracks
Stephan Bodzin & Marc Romboy – Puck
New Order – Temptation
The Presets – I Go Hard, I Go Home
Blur – Song 2
Nirvana – Lithium
Giorgio Moroder – The Chase
The Cure – A Forest (Electronic cover version by ?)
Julian Jabre – War
Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Were Made For Walking
Sebastian Leger – Bad Clock
Underground Resistance – Amazon (Live Version)
The Doors – Break On Thru To The Other Side (Remix ?)
Laurent Garnier – Man With The Red Face
Sylvester – You Make Me Feel Mighty Real

He played for 5 hours! Such a variety of sounds, there was also a lot of (perhaps too much for me) breaks, old-school jungle, and drum ‘n’ bass sounds as well, all beyond my scope of train-spotting. There wasn’t much techno or minimal, but I wasn’t expecting much anyway, the tracks he did play of that were quality though. There were some fantastic sections of music with clever style transitions. The energy level stayed high, at times he was a bit cheesy with some pumping house stuff. He’s still got a lot of energy as a DJ too, did some great tricks/loops with CDJ-1000s, playing mostly CDs. I enjoyed it.

I’m often dissapointed when friends don’t come out clubbing. On this occassion I’m really glad they didn’t join me. This was a really funny (read tragic) night, I’m glad I didn’t subject them to it.

Some random thoughts and observations in regard to this night out…

• So, Bread And Butter – Is a ‘minimal tech’ night huh? Sounds like house/electro-house to me. No idea who played for the 40 minutes heard before Oliver Huntemann came on, but it wasn’t minimal and it wasn’t tech.
• The all too predictable ‘who are you/why should I let you in’ vibe from the bouncer at the roped off entrance to the club with no name outside, said it all, as to what kind of club/night this is/was going to be. *Tip* Say you’re on the (ITM) guest list regardless if you are or not.
• You’re giving us _that_ attitude outside and _this_ is the crowd inside? Err, who are you not letting in?
• So this is where all the young, trendy, fashion obsessed, vain, self absorbed, MySpace generation hang out. The place was absolutely packed full of them!
• This club has completely changed from the days of Crunch @ Frontier, it’s really been opened up, with ‘pretty’ (read horrible) decor everywhere. The DJ booth is right down in the back corner of the venue. I doubt most of the crowd there even know/care where it is. Sound is loud and harsh on the ears.
• Checking out the crowd, I’m surprised there’s still any stock left in Industrie stores. I hate those buttoned white striped t-shirts! Sheep! Why is everyone wearing white to night-clubs these days?
• Do girls learn how to (lack of) dress and dance from Usher and 50 Cent videos these days? They hate being ignored too, it really confuses them.
• So many vain people, taking photos of themselves, checking themselves in the mirrors at every opportunity, dancing to be noticed; pay attention to me, I’m beautiful. Eugh!!
• The ‘real’ minimal sounds Oliver Huntemann played actually sent a large portion of people off the dance floor. Heard/saw quite a few people around us saying “What’s this shit?” walking off in a huff.
• The over excited DJ fan-boys crowded around the DJ booth screaming and arm throwing at every slight variation of music intensity was hilarious. Woo, a hi-hat came in!
• I think Oliver Huntemann would sound more interesting if he actually ventured outside of that Giant Wheel, Spiel-Zeug Schallplatten, Int. Deejay Gigolos, Confused, Rekorder labels sound. Mixing everything outro to intro is pretty lame. We stayed for an hour of his set, it really didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Sure, I like some of those tracks, but played all together in a row like that isn’t very interesting.
• I noticed quite a few dodgy looking old guys (40+) in this place too, shirts and suits, with their eyes popping out of their heads at the sight of any young girl in the place. Mates of the owners? promoters?
• The obvious ‘powder room’ employees only door with packs of guys entering/exiting constantly near the DJ booth is very… err… obvious!
• I found it really hard to stop myself from laughing at all the totally clichéd people/sights and happenings in this place.

I love being jaded. Yeah sorry, it’s just not my scene. I like being amongst people who care more about the music than how much time/$ they spent on their image to be seen in the scene.

🙂

More info if you’re interested…

http://www.huntemann.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/breadandbuttermusic
http://www.myspace.com/ladyluxnightclub

Photo by sarahsarahsarahsarah

It was a very hot and sweaty Mad Racket! Claude VonStroke played a fun set, he’s a great party DJ. I heard all my favourite CVS productions and remixes, including three different versions of ‘Who’s Afraid Of Detroit’ and his remix of Andy Caldwell’s – ‘Warrior’. He mostly played a lot of very funked up, house/electro-house stompers, and a little broken-beat/breaks almost R’N’B style stuff. I wasn’t familiar with a lot of what he played, Tad was able to train-spot a lot more than me. At times what he played was all a bit too much (too cheesy/too George St. custom car stereo sounding) for me, I much prefer a more stripped back and deeper/darker sound… I got a great taste of that when he played Romboy & Bodzin’s – ‘Puck’, which sounded awesome. I had a fun night, but I miss the days when packs of friends went to MRs.

A couple of parties in Sydney coming up in March that I’m really looking forward to…

Detroit/San Fran DJ/producer and dirtybird Records label boss Claude VonStroke is playing at the next Mad Racket party ‘Spit’N’Polish’ on Saturday 3rd March @ Marrickville Bowlo.

I’m a big fan of his sounds, his ‘Who’s Afraid Of Detroit‘ is an awesome production, one of my favourite tracks of 2006. Not forgetting the very cool throat popping fun of ‘Deep Throat‘ the year before. Check out his promo mp3 mix on the dirtybird Records site, it’s great!

http://www.dirtybirdrecords.com/claude_vonstroke.html
http://www.myspace.com/claudevonstroke
http://www.madracket.com.au

And, coming up the w/end after…

French techno DJ/producer legend and F-Communications label boss Laurent Garnier who is coming to play for the Playground Weekender Festival is also doing an intimate side gig in Sydney Saturday 10th March @ The Cross (Plan-B).

He’s rumoured to be playing a long extended set, which is sure to cover a wide range of quality electronic music sounds/styles. It’s an intimate venue, should be a fantastic night. Buy your tickets quick or miss out!

http://www.inthemix.com.au/whatson/event/36004/Laurent_Garnier
http://www.fcom.fr

But wait, that’s not all, also coming up…

Jesse Rose @ Chinese Laundry : 03.03.2007 (Same night as CVS)
Oliver Huntemann @ Lady-Lux (Frontier) : 09.03.2007
Josh Wink @ Chinese Laundry : 17.03.2007
Funk D’Void (w/ Andrew Wowk!) @ Chinese Laundry : 31.03.2007
Booka Shade @ The Metro : 05.04.2007 (Easter)
DJ T. @ Kink / Tom Clark (TBC) @ Mad Racket : 07.04.2007 (Easter)
Nathan Fake @ Chinese Laundry : 28.04.2007
Jona @ (TBC) : ??:05:2007

And that’s just mentioning the internationals that I’m interested in seeing! There’s a whole heap more at the Playground Weekender and Future Music festivals. It’s all happening!

I went and saw fabulous Sydney string quartet FourPlay perform live last week on Thursday 8th February, at The Studio – Sydney Opera House.

Thursday’s show focused on rock/pop music and was the first of three shows at The Studio – Sydney Opera House, as part of their FourPlay – Three Ways performances. The following shows both on Friday focused on jazz/blues music, and a late show focused on electronica/hip-hop music. I was unable to get to the Friday performances.

Their performance was a bit more raw, and not as polished as the previous/first time I saw them, for their ‘Now To The Future’ album launch at The Metro last year, but was still very enjoyable and full of wonderful music. They were probably under quite a bit of pressure at this gig, knowing it was being recorded live for a special digital release (being made available to those in attendance only), and they were also featuring many new compositions, possibly the debut performance of some. This was a seated audience gig too, which would probably have felt very different for them compared to their more often pub/club gigs I think.

I always get a very strong emotional reaction to their sounds/music, it’s warmth for my soul. I’ve always loved the sound of strings they’re such beautifully expressive instruments. I really should go to a symphony performance one day.

During their performance I remember hearing their own compositions: ‘Evolve Or Decay’, ‘You’ve Changed Your Tune’, ‘Trust’, and ‘Bollyrock’ which are all featured on their excellent ‘Now To The Future’ album.

We were also treated to a number of new compositions, a couple of titles I remember: ‘Requiem For a Democracy’, and ‘Poker Face (Butter Girl or But A Girl)’. I also really enjoyed a quite experimental new composition which I didn’t catch the name of, that featured them playing over a effects pedal sampled live loop of what could only be described as viola ‘slap bass’ and hit violin/cello body percussions. It had a great contrast of abstract sounding parts and really lush melodic parts.

Covers they performed that I remember: Radiohead – ‘2+2=5’, Cocteau Twins – ‘Seekers Who Are Lovers’, The Strokes – ‘Reptilia’, and Rage Against The Machine – ‘Killing In The Name Of’ which Shenzo had some awesome talk-box type effect on his viola for the “F**k you, I won’t do what you tell me” vocal part, and Lara’s Tom Morello EBow guitar solo part sounded spot on.

They also performed a new cover, Midnight Oil – ‘Read About It’ which was a little rough around the edges, but had some really awesome sounding sections. I still think INXS – ‘Johnson’s Aeroplane’ would sound fantastic covered by them. They ended the performance with their fantastic version of Beastie Boys – ‘Sabotage’ voted to be played by audience cheer.

Considering this was a rock/pop focused performance, I’m surprised they didn’t play their well known Metallica – ‘Enter Sandman’ cover. I would have liked to have heard their Depeche Mode – ‘The Sweetest Perfection’ and Jeff Buckley -‘Grace’ covers too, but it was great they played a lot of their own new material instead, otherwise they’d probably start to feel too much like a cover band.

They’re all very talented, passionate musicians, and Lara sings like an angel. I love the way Peter plays his cello like an upright bass, and Shenzo is amazing with his banjo and blues guitar style playing of his viola turned on it’s side. Not forgetting Tim with his excellent effected sounds and expressive playing style.

I wish I could have seen them play again on the Friday as well. I look forward to their new releases, and hope to see them live again soon.

http://www.fourplay.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/fourplaystringquartet