It's not often that we have a night dedicated to techno in DC, but tonight was really, really special.
I will preface this by saying that I'm a friend of the promoter, but in a techno scene this small that's bound to happen. At any rate, we arrived at the party around 12:30 when Bryan Zentz took to the tables. 2nd song was Kit Clayton's W-Shape (I think), and went in an extrememly varied direction for the next 90 minutes. I had seen him once before, and didn't care much for some of Carl Coxish track selection (very appropriate for the venue though it was), and this totally reset my expectations. Exceedingly tight and varied. Great stuff! Nothing could have prepared me for Shawn Rudiman's live PA. WOW!!! I have never seen anything remotely close to this calliber. He had an Alesis MMT-8 sequencing an Access Virus and his friend Luke was throwing in loops from a laptop running Ableton periodically (very periodically - I was playing very close atention and I could never tell when the laptop was being used). I mention this, b/c it was the only part of his set that involved pre-sequencing. Everything else was performed 100% live. He had 5 (five) drum machines he was programming 100% on the fly (606, 909, Korg Electribe, Retro-Future 777 and something else, perhaps Yamaha I couldn't recognize) while controlling the entire arrangement as well. Given all of this gear, things could have gotten very muddy, but never did. He didn't even use a mixer!!! One thing that really impressed me was that the Korg's MIDI fizzled a few times and he would stop the 909 (which controlled the MIDI clock) on the 8th beat, and start it back in on time on the 1st with the Korg sync'ed back up. This was completely unnoticable to anyone on the dancefloor unless you noticed him briefly shaking his head when he noticed it wasn't playing. That kind of flexibility and presence is trully uncommon. Enough of the technical mubo-jumbo though (which really enhanced the experience if you could appreciate the cratsmanship). His set was *so* dynamic. It moved everywhere and every way, down to programming basslines on the fly on the Korg. The pre-sequenced melodies were anything but stock too, often seeming to loop for at least 16 bars, if not more (I couldn't even keep track most of the time). This went on for 90 minutes. The bar has been raised from the high jump to the pole vault. He's also a very entertaining guy. Do not miss an opportunity to witness this. Stewart Walker followed. He had to contend with a drape between him and the crowd that Shawn did not have in the way, and the crowd was a bit exasperated by this point. I have always ranked Stewart at the top of my list of live PAs, and he really didn't dissapoint, athough it took a bit to acclimate to such a different approach. The gear mimiced the music in this respect. Stewart is a master of subtlety, and his sets are becoming more and more improvised with rhythmic drumming of sequences on the Akai. It was really great. I wish I wasn't so tired, which was the only thing that tainted the experience at all. So much has been said about Stewart's PAs here that I don't need to rant like I did above, but let me just say that this, my 3rd time was equal to the 1st when I saw him in '99 around the time of Nothing Produces Stark Imagery. His sense of movement demands the full attention of his audience, and his occasional live rhythmic sequencing really cranks up the audience involvement from his earlier PAs. Even Stewart was astounded with Shawn's performance though. I haven't had this much fun here since I don't know when. These are the nights that make clubbing dissapointments sufferable. These are the nights that squash anti-live PA rhetoric. Tristan ---------- http://www.mp313.com <- Music http://www.metrotechno.net <- DC techno + more http://www.metatrackstudios.com <- DC DJ/Production studios http://phonopsia.tripod.com <- Hub [EMAIL PROTECTED] <- email <FrogboyMCI> <- AOL Instant Messenger --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
