Yeah, Misters Ellis and Arnold certainly were a hoot. I would have liked a little more of the Ayro keyboard action, but that was some crazy science on the MPC (their fingers looked kinda sore at the end of all that). Once again, respect to Fresco for bringing in some great talent for a fun night.
So I obviously didn't catch Recloose, but did see Konoko No. 1 at the Jazz Fest last night, and they were totally incredible and quite techno-relevant, actually. There was a drummer on a kit, a guy on big hand-drums playing the bass pulse, 3 guys on the crazy home-made electric thumb pianos (into Fender amps, with distortion), a cow-bell/clave and a couple vocalist/dancers. The beats were in a very minimal polyrhythmic afro style-- stripped-down and repetitive (in a good way), with a lot of nuance in the timing and phasing. A couple of the songs were over 30 minutes. The thumb-piano sounds reminded me a lot of the the afro side of Heiroglypic Being and the whole thing was totally rockin. Check them if you can-- underground sounds from the Congo. -d --- James Hurlbut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Fun show by Jeremy Ellis and John Arnold last night > in san francisco > despite an insecure bouncer pulling the plug in the > middle of a jam > to announce last call and then physically > threatening Ayro! Some of > the covers were a bit cheeky for my tastes like > Ayro's take on > "Erotic City" but others were blended beatifully > like Wham and a nice > little nod to 313 with bits of Night Drive through > Babylon. Funny to > hear Ayro croon John Beltran's big club hit "Kissed > by the Sun". > Overall, I would say to me it was a digestable > detroit sound, > whatever that means. Some great mpc jams rearranging > salsa tunes and > james brown cuts to maximum effect. > Wholelottatalentonthestage. > Thanks John! Any bodies in the bay make it out to > Recloose? bad > timing with those two shows being the same night. > >
