Amen... But what about the squirrel on his head?
On 11/8/03 12:05 PM, "Forrest L Norvell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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
