Speaking of Theo Parrish-- a little 313 in the 312 he DJ'd from about 1am to 4am at Superlounge in downtown Chicago last Friday night. I had never been there before but it was free if you RSVP'd. (Though from the drink prices I can see how they made their money back!) It's a decent place to see a DJ, small enough to stay full and intimate without feeling overly 'clubby'.
Theo had the floor full every single minute and in the palm of his hand, absolutely brilliant night, small-ish dark space, really diverse crowd of ages and races (finally!) to match the equally wide cut of tracks he was wringing out over the crowd. People instantly came in and started dancing, there were only few wall-leaners in the main room at any moment. The set-up in there is weird where the DJ plays in a steel birdcage over a corner of the crowd (how 90's ?) but other than that no real complaints. The sound system was pretty tight if you were out on the floor, and they way he rams the EQ's around it was plenty loud and had good bottom end. The dance floor was crowded and hot boogie action in effect till the last... and even after. I remember a handful of tracks, but he played everything from reggae (his first selection a rastafied war protest track), a version/re-edit of Is It All Over My Face, You Are In My System, some Tony Allen tracks, and Lil' Louis kind of early trax stuff, and right near the end a long version West End Girls at about +3, but there was loads of stuff I didn't know. A good looking (if sweat-soaked) crowd that was really into it, lots of clapping and hands in the air.. positive vibes. He would go from full orchestrated 70s-80s R&B/boogie bassline tracks into a healthy portion of stripped down raw chicago jack trax and everywhere in-between without ever losing momentum or energy, it was more uptempo than I guess I expected, esp. compared to the BPMs of his own tracks. And mixing was great... those are hard kind of tracks to keep together in transition! The set was as wide as it was deep. Around 4 AM they turned the back bar lights on, but music still on full... we all kept dancing, etc. Theo rocking the EQ in the booth, very physical presence in the mix. Then they turned the main house lights on, bright as hell, but everyone still dancing and cheering harder than ever. More time passes, a few final minutes of music... Finally he slowly fades the sound out and about 3 minutes of clapping and cheers, everyone smiling and talking and finally moving out. It's been years since I've experienced anything this intimate of a deep music experience on a dance floor, and long overdue. Needless to say if you have the opportunity to hear Theo DJ in your area I recommend you don't miss it. :) I brought my digital camera and will get some pics and send the URL out to 313 when we get the Clinically Inclined show website up.. peace, Matt MacQueen -----Original Message----- From: Tom Churchill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 11:24 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 313 Subject: Re: (313) theo parrish Here's a few links to get you going... http://www.deepcity.org/staple/guests/theointerview.jpg http://www.renegaderhythms.com/dj/guests/theo-parrish/biography.html http://www.jahsonic.com/TheoParrish.html http://twoplayer.net/theo/ Cheers, Tom > a friend is doing an interview with Theo early next week. He asked me if I > could help him with some background info or previous interviews. I said, > "yep, sure no probs" (thinking I'd send him a link to the sound signature > site), which is of course dead now. > > So, does anyone know of any other good online interviews with Theo? and > where they might be? I seem to remember that some of the interviews were > from japanese magazines if that jogs anyones memory....? > > Thanks in advance, > > Alex
