Event Review: Cajmere - Basic @ Sullivan Room

Did you receive a technosucks.com sticker?



This Live PA Recording is for you:
The One Stop Mexican Restaurant Tour

- Live @ Lou E Luey's 8-28-10.mp3

Did you receive a warcession.com sticker?

These songs are for you:
United Banks of America (52 Week Low Mix)
Wake Up America

Did we give you both or the armyoftechno.com sticker?

These Studio Live PA mixes are for you:
AOT - Fun Time Mix 16.mp3
AOT - Fun Time Mix 17.mp3

So I am in NYC right now on a business trip, but I had time to check out one of my favorite spots in the city, Sullivan Room. Cajmere, aka Green Velvet, was playing and I was stoked to see him. He did not disappoint. Cajmere is known as one of the best Chicago House DJs in the world, but he threw down some hard techno during this set. He started with some housier beats with slower transitions, but halfway through the set he was spinning the hard shit with flawless mixes. At the very end of the set, he gave the crowd a taste of Green Velvet. Using his headphones as a microphone he performed Flash and La La Land to perfection. It was nice to see how much fun he was having. I can imagine some songs become tiresome to perform, but the crowd was really into it the whole set and we deserved it. I was honored to get to speak with him after the set and he appreciated our technosucks.com sticker very much.

Speaking of the technosucks.com sticker. We elicited some very strong feelings from it. One severely wasted Indian man in a douchey suit decided to tear up the sticker after he read it saying, "Techno Doesn't Suck!" Another couple of folks at the end of the night were the prototypical jaded ravers that wanted nothing to do with the free music that could be had at armyoftechno.com. They were adamantly telling me that Cajmere was a house DJ and that what I had been listening to was house. Techno, House, whatever it was, it was hard as shit. I had a great conversation at the end of the night with a lovely female singer about how the sticker was essentially an IQ test. She proceeded to put the sticker on her fantastic booty. Ask yourself, why would someone hand out a technosucks.com sticker at an electronic music event? You must be this intelligent to listen to AOT. I anoint NYC as Techno City, USA. Sorry Detroit, you know I love you.

Women: 9
Beats: 9
Booze: 7
Visuals: 5
Detroitness: 6
Temperature: 8
Air Quality: 8
Safety of Venue: 8
Rave Muck: 6
Color of Snot: 5 (greenish gray)
(I blew my nose the next morning for this test)

TOTAL SCORE: 71


Congratulations to Basic @ Sullivan Room, it's a new high score!
You guys have a great venue, and understand the balance of class and fun. Please comment below, and check out the rest of our posts.

Event Review: Detroit Legends WMC 2010

Our newest correspondent, Dr. Gonzo filed the following review...

Above-ground Support.

As in the opposite of Underground Resistance. That describes last night’s “Detroit Legends” party at the Shore Club in Miami Beach on Thursday March 25, 2010, which took place during this year’s Winter Music Conference. I don’t know if me and my friend Jesse are the only ones, but we’re in a unique position. We grew up and currently live in Miami, but we also lived for 4 years in Ann Arbor, and partied in Detroit during that stretch of time. That means we experienced Amnesia , Club Deep, Level, the Hungry Sailor, and Murphy’s Law in high school, but then experienced The Works, The Lager House, Porter Street Station, and Motor in college. So I think Jesse and I are uniquely qualified to evaluate Detroit techno music’s presentation in the Miami Beach setting. And I can tell you this: it does not work.

The setup of the poolside area sucked ass. The Shore Club pool is a beautiful area for outdoor, Sunday trance/progressive/bullshit/muscle parties. It is not a venue for Detroit techno. We were standing around the entire time from 10 to 2:30 am waiting for the real party to start, only to notice that the real party wasn’t ever going to come. You need the concrete, the walls, the stacks, the sound, the darkness, the dirt. That is the post-industrial message of Detroit techno. It only makes sense if it is listened to in some post-industrial context. It does not make sense in the colorized, stylized, manicured palm tree beauty of South Beach. It needs to be in Detroit, Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Berlin, whatever. Not the Shore Club. Not Miami Beach.

Ok you say. I’ve sort of painted myself in the corner where if what I’m saying is true, then it means Detroit Techno cannot be featured at the WMC ever because the WMC is always in Miami Beach. Perhaps it shouldn’t. I don’t know. Richie Hawtin and M-nus don’t seem to be throwing a party here this year. At any rate, that’s not what I’m saying. Why not expand the parties beyond South Beach? The Wynwood art district is a burgeoning artistic area of Miami and it is perhaps the closest you’re going to get to a post-industrial, warehouse, dirty, othersideofthetracks area in Miami. And there is badass graffiti there. Why can’t these Detroit cats throw something in one of those places? Feature your music in the context of WMC, but feature in it in an area that gives the music some context. Art Basel has done it. Read about Wynwood here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynwood,_Miami,_Florida.

That’s all. I went to this thing expecting to hear the stuff that I really enjoyed in college, and didn’t think the Shore Club venue would detract too much from it. But shit. It proved that music does not stand alone. You need to think about how it is being delivered, and how it works with the scenery. Detroit techno will never be loved by the masses. So it needs to focus on keeping the few fans it has (in the United States). Throwing shit at the Shore Club pool won't do it.

And as a fucking exclamation point on my analysis check this out. The t-shirts they were selling were cheaper than the drinks at the bar. That is true. The juxtaposition sums up the entire night.

Women: 9
Beats: 7
Booze: 5
Visuals: 3
Detroitness: 2
Temperature: 10
Air Quality: 10
Safety of Venue: N/A
Rave Muck: 0
Color of Snot: 0

TOTAL SCORE: 46

Thanks to Jesse and Dr. Gonzo for attending this event.

Event Review: Rebel Bass Collective

Did you receive a technosucks.com sticker?



These songs are for you:
NRTW909
Mind Control @ 8 AM

Did you receive a warcession.com sticker?



These songs are for you:
United Banks of America (52 Week Low Mix)
Wake Up America

Did we give you both or the armyoftechno.com sticker?



Download these songs.
United Banks of America (Andrew in Space Mix)
Bomb Insurgence (live @ pi)

So, I went to San Francisco for Memorial Day Weekend and got to check out the underground scene. The location was a basement in Downtown SF. Very cool place, had a couple of chill spots. I was told "womp" is the new genre that is the hotness. The first Live PA disappointed me, he was using Ableton Live but didn't always do a transition. How lazy can you get? No DJ could get away with that. The people at the party liked his beats, so I guess I can't hate on him too much, but as a Live PA myself, I was unimpressed.

Next up with a kickass blonde DJ, who through down some ethnically diverse beats. She killed it. I don't know why, but a few people thought I had coke. Why would a dealer attract attention to himself by handing out stickers? Come on kids, use your brains. And no, I don't want any molly.

Adnan closed out the night with a nice mix of tech-house and techno.

Now some arbitrary rankings of the party.
(1 being the worst, 10 the best)

Women: 7
Beats: 6
Booze: 8
Visuals: 4
Detroitness: 5
Temperature: 8
Air Quality: 4
Safety of Venue: 7
Rave Muck: 8
Color of Snot: 5
(I blew my nose the next morning for this test)

TOTAL SCORE: 62

Congratulations to the Rebel Bass Collective for throwing a very enjoyable party with a nice vibe. Hopefully your next party will get even higher marks. Feel free to comment below, and check out the rest of our posts.

PC

AOTV 4 - United Banks of America

Greetings,

As you all know, we are in the worst recession since 1937.
In March we said that we would unveil a plan as it developed.
The following is a critique all those that are trying
to get us out of this warcession.
We do have a plan, but now is not the time for it.
The politicians and the CEOs are too corrupt and our ideas too pure.
In the meantime, enjoy AOTV 4 - United Banks of America!



Also available in iTunes format, FOR FREE!!!!
United Banks of America (52 Week Low Mix) available in MP3

Thank you and may Gears bless these United Banks of America,

PC

Event Review: Interface 26

Greetings,

Did you receive a technosucks.com sticker?



These songs are for you:
NRTW909
Mind Control @ 8 AM

Did you receive a warcession.com sticker?



These songs are for you:
United Banks of America (52 Week Low Mix)
Alternative Energy (MCCK Remix)

Did we give you both or the armyoftechno.com sticker?



Download these songs.
United Banks of America (Andrew in Space Mix)
Terrible Died in the Bahamas


Now for our impressions of the show...

Nice open high ceiling warehouse with three screens for visuals, and these crates that looked like something that you hide behind in Metal Gear. I kept wondering what was inside them. Bijan and Co. did a great job with the visuals all night. I guess he uses a camera to film the screen and gets some kinda feedback loop that he then adds effects to, very cool. They also did some very minimal things with the spotlight that were awesome. Also was amusing to see DrumCell tell some guy with glowsticks on strings to stop, he was truly a distraction. Maybe if he was dancing with fire, they would have let him keep going...

So we got there for part of Viktor's set, then got to see a hell of a Live PA by Derek Michael. He did a great job increasing the BPM throughout his set, getting it up to 150 or so and then dropping some killer breakbeats. Up next was Silent Servant, throwing down another solid set. The headliner was Sandwell, a very cool Live PA. Subversive, Developer, and Fabian closed the evening out.

So you probably saw us last night, handing out free stickers that say technosucks.com, warcession.com, and armyoftechno.com. When we were getting ready to go to the party last night, MCCK and I were planning for contingencies if people hated the technosucks.com stickers. There were a few people that didn't like them, but for the most part people understood just how awesome they were (including the droids.) One lovely lady, Roni, allowed us to affix one of our stickers to her booty. She was a fabulous billboard for our website throughout the night. But not everyone was feeling the love... A young woman, Mimsy, took offense to the technosucks.com sticker on the back of my shirt and reacted with anger and violence towards the end of Silent Servant's set. She ripped it off my shirt, held it up to me, showed it to DrumCell and then tore it up. I told her she was the person who I feared I would run into and proceeded to give her an AOT sticker. DrumCell found the stickers hilarious. Truly good stuff.

Now some arbitrary rankings of the party.
(1 being the worst, 10 the best)

Women: 8
Beats: 9
Booze: 7
Visuals: 9
Detroitness: 8
Temperature: 7
Air Quality: 4
Safety of Venue: 8
Rave Muck on the Floor: 6
Color of Rave Snot: 3
(We blew our noses the next morning for this test)
MCCK: Black PC: Greenish Grey

TOTAL SCORE: 69

Congratulations to Droid Behavior, it's a new high score!
Hopefully Interface 27 will get even higher marks.
Please comment below, and check out the rest of our posts.
PC