Just thought I'd de-lurk for a few moments to say that the Ellen
Allien / Richie Hawtin night at Mezzanine in San Francisco last night
was one of the finest nights out I've had in years.
I got there probably about halfway through Ellen's set, and she was
playing a tight mixture of the usual suspects - lots of stuff on
Bpitch, some Kompakt & Perlon stuff, and a couple totally awesome
mashup tracks that unfortunately weren't cool enough for most of the
crowd to dance to. She also represented SF with a fine, fine Gold
Chains remix that I didn't recognize. She put a big emphasis on fun
over hipness (or even tight mixing -- I heard the odd boo-boo, but
really didn't care). All in all, she did a perfect job setting up the
crowd for Richie, and was cute as a button to boot.
Richie wasn't looking so bad himself, although his current haircut
took some getting used to. He had the full setup with him: two
Powerbooks, two turntables, and his custom Allen & Heath CTRL mixer.
He had minor technical problems throughout the night -- one of the
turntables kept acting up (to the point that he kept flipping it off
later in the night, which was cute -- I've been there!), and I think
one of the monitors was blown -- but he didn't let that slow him down
much. Within about 15 minutes he had the entire place going with his
near-patented mixture of minimal, propulsive techno. I think I
recognized two records throughout the 4 hours I watched him (I'm not
much of a trainspotter these days, though), and one of them was a
near-unrecognizable remix of "Technarchy". He played maybe four
records with vocals or melodies. It was awesome.
I have to say, he's got his schtick figured out. One Powerbook was
running effects and Live (no more DP-4!), the other was running
Traktor / Final Scratch, and he appeared to be triggering samples and
loops from the mixer. In fact, I have absolutely no idea what he was
doing up there, because he was always monkeying with about four knobs
and switches simultaneously and all I could tell is that it was making
awesome stuff come out of the speakers. I haven't danced that hard in
ages.
There were a couple slow points when Richie and his tech had to argue
with the gear, and all things being equal, I would have preferred he
keep it as banging and uptempo as it was at the beginning of his set,
but those are minor complaints. Nobody sounds like Richie Hawtin at
this point, and I would imagine very few understand dance music as
well as he does. If you get a chance to see him on this current tour
(hello, LA people), you should do it for sure. Even if you think
you're over him. It was hot.
Forrest
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