Busy Weekend in Detroit

I started the weekend off with a fun night at New Center Park in Detroit. Michael Geiger and Mike Huckaby were playing. It was a free event from 8pm-midnight. I was happy for the early evening since I had big plans for the next day... I'll tell you in a minute. It was cold too, but that didn't bother me much. I danced enough to fog up my glasses a few times. Speaking of dancing, Gehrik Mohr and friends were there dancing some greatness. Gehrik is a fantastic dancer, known all over Detroit as one of the originators of Detroit's freestyle house dancing. A few other dancers who fit this label include Thaddius Reed, Vince Haliburton, Chris Jones, and Tammie Walters. I don't know all Detroit's house dancers. There are some younger dancers that I see around, but I don't know who you are ... so just know that we see you and love you.

The music was fun. Huck played this



So serious.

And if you don't know who Michael Geiger is, just click here and listen, it's great.

http://www.myspace.com/geigermichael

The next day, I itched and anxiously awaited 4pm, the magic hour of babysitter arrival and Ma and Pa's departure to Detroit for the We Like Music festival.

And yes, that means I missed Kevin Reynold's live set with a Yamaha and an 808. That is terrible, I felt pain. But 4pm it was. We arrived in time to hear some hot beats from DJ Dez. Dez/Andres is definitely someone I'm excited about. He's been producing and djing for a while now. His Untitled 12 inches on KDJ are incredible and his most recent II on Mahogani Music melts me.



Yeah, that's Minx. Not sure how to type what I think/feel when I hear this. Just breathe and love it. Dez was playing inside at the Old Miami, and I could have easily spent my next 45 minutes there, but Kyle Hall was playing outside and I wanted to check him out too. I definitely wish they had not been scheduled at the same time. But I get it, scheduling can be challenging for a festival. I'm glad I went outside. It turned out to be the best set I've heard Kyle play yet. Lots of fun, excellent transitions and selection, good dancing tunes. And on a side note, I like to watch DJs move as they play. Not, oh yeah I'm hot shit it's a party kind of moving. But just how they feel the music and dance slightly. Kyle has a really distinct head groove. Theo Parrish gets all bouncy. Rick Wilhite gets all spiritual, head to the heavens. Carlos Souffront moves like a soft librarian who will house you. What the hell am I even talking about anymore. Those last three dudes weren't even at the festival. Focus.

On our way out to Cass Cafe for some food, we checked out Madis One who have a new release on Blank Artists. They sounded good and interesting. Experimental instrument usage is always exciting. After a lovely meal (Artichoke pesto melt and Motor City Brew Works Pale Ale), we got back in time almost at the start of James T. Cotton's set. That's Tadd Mullinix. Tadd is a fantastic producer. Please listen to one of the greatest songs ever:



His set was really great. I stood and listened for most of it, partly because I had just had a meal, but also because sometimes it's nice to just listen. I repeatedly had a smile on my face at varying moments of his set. And, although I can't be sure of how much time exactly, I lose track of things when I'm dancing, a little bit, but the last quarter of his set was exquisite. I'll say it again, exquisite. From the super fantastic Italo song through to the end, I was dancing. I woke up thinking about it the next morning. It's really lovely to listen to someone select music that is not simply to get hips bumping, but is also intellectual, educational, inspired by something bigger than tits and beer. I love parties, you know I do. But I also love to be moved. And you know he's drawing from an incredible archive of house records. I've spent some quality time with the "Tadd Recommends" sections at Encore Recordings in Ann Arbor. There's almost always a copy of Vanity 6.



Usually some Mobb Deep in there too. Good thing having Tadd at Encore. Good thing having Encore in SE Michigan.

And finally, nospectacle ended the good music portion of my evening.





Nospectacle, Old Miami, 9/18/10, Photos by James M. Rotz

Nospectacle consists of Walter Wasacz, Jennifer Paul, and Chris McNamara. They were really interesting and fun to watch. It's always great to hear serious noise while the musicians are bouncing around, dancing, fist pumping, and smiling. They weren't going crazy by any means, but they were pleasantly boisterous. Here's a descriptor from their twitter page: hi-fidelity dream-based written word and live performance electronics. There was some interesting video installation going on around them, although I didn't catch who that particular artist was. The festival featured art by a number of artists. The range of sounds was really exciting. The bench we were sitting on was vibrating us. They started their set out with some nebulous droning tones. Oh, and I'll admit right now that my capacity for describing experimental music is limited at this point. But I'll just keep at it, reading and writing, and it will get better. Gradually, they got more regular with rhythms, verging on some electro style sounds at times. My feet were definitely tapping the whole time.

We left Old Miami at about 10:30 intending to get some dessert somewhere and then head over to the Magic Stick thinking that we would catch Jimmy Edgar and Mux Mool. Unfortunately that did not happen. But I didn't know the set times. As it turned out, we missed both. Elliot Lipp was unremarkable, the sound was really quiet, and we didn't stick around for glitch mob kraddy. So we headed home early and I tried to salvage my night by listening to this on the way home, but you can bet it did nothing for James ... too annoying cheese for him. I tortured him anyway.

Reality and then some fantasy.

Ah man, do I really have to do this...okay so James and I went out to The Works on Friday to see DWynn and Nigel Richards. DWynn sounded good, as expected. As for Nigel Richards, I am content to remain an 18 year old fan in 1995. And I got to see Jit Wiggins play vinyl for about 5 minutes. Maybe he played some records before we got there, but while we were there, he played literally a few records and then the front room shut down. They went past midnight in the front room, but not much past. So here, this is my night: I smelled terrible from the smoke machines and cigarettes. I have never liked those smoke machines, it smells terrible and makes it hard to breathe right when you want to breathe the most after dancing so much to great music (that is the ideal situation!). Visuals never got me too excited either, whether there are a bunch of lasers bouncing around, or an actual projection of video. Just give me a dark room with maybe one light and some slamming sound. And I got a headache from listening to "Girls On Film" by Duran Duran emanating from the single wall of speakers, clanking around the brick and concrete room, with the highs so high, and the mids and lows pretty much gone; I cringed and immediately required earplugs. And this is not good Theo Parrish or Rick Wilhite knob twisting. I really did get a serious headache from moments like that. I'm so sensitive...

Alright now, I need to step out of the *standing in a corner with a scowl on my face* role because I don't like it very much. I like to like things. I did have fun this weekend listening on my nice headphones to Carlos Souffront's Movement 2008 set, Soundmurderer's Movement 2008 set, (here's the general link for those sets: http://www.paxahau.com/sounds/mp3/2008_movement.html They are both at the Red Bull Stage, Carlos' is on 5/25/08 and Soundmurderer is on 5/26/08), some Flying Lotus, and Theo Parrish's Yellow Double Lines, Part 2 mix. I'll probably be staying home more for the next while because we have a big move coming up to a new house!! I'm so excited. And I really need to finish transcribing so that I can work through all the "data" I have collected over the past year and a half and get that outline outlined and then get writing. I am still doing interviews here and there, like Brendan M. Gillen of Ectomorph and Kyle Hall this week!!

I never wrote anything about the Dennis Coffey and Recloose event, how terrible!! Well, I did go and it was pretty good. I got there late because we were coming home from a trip and got stuck in traffic on what should have been the last 15 minutes of the trip. They just shut down a highway! That's Detroit for you, no wait, that's Metro Detroit/Oakland County for you, they do major construction on the weekends and just shut down a portion of a highway from Friday night to Monday morning. Not cut it down to one or two lanes, they close it completely!! So once we finally got home, unloaded, got the kids into bed, showered my funkiness off, kissed my honey (babysitter bailed), and then headed out to pick up Whodat, we had already missed a good portion of the Dennis Coffey Quartet. The music sounded so beautiful when we arrived. We caught the end of the Quartet's set. Dennis Coffey, former Funk Brother for Motown and prominent jazz guitarist in Detroit, is such an incredible musician. The way his fingers flowed across those strings was just really stunning and beautiful. Whodat introduced me to Edwin Fabre, local DJ and producer. So we all talked for a while. He actually knew who I was when WhoDat introduced us (super weird). He said, 'was she the one who brought you all down to Indiana?', referring to the Roots of Techno conference. He shared lots of support and positivity for what I am doing here. This past Wednesday, he was a guest on WhoDat's weekly radio show. And he apparently plays at The Bosco in Ferndale on Wednesday nights now. I'll have to go check it out.

Recloose played a nice set. He was throwing it down playing some good rare jams - all kinds of stuff, funk, techno, house. The sound was a little weird for his set, but I think that's mainly because it's a jazz club, kind of like The Green Mill in Chicago. So the bar is an island in the middle and there are two spaces with lots of tables separated by the bar. The sound was low and the lights were bright. The crowd was proper though. There was actually a line for the men's room all night, and that was funny. I guess that points to my earlier post about women in Detroit. I sailed past right into the ladies room and noticed the line, 'there's a line for the men's room, huh. ...There's a line for the men's room!?' And then some quiet laughing to myself.

Bohemian National Home, Detroit, MI

And now my non-promoter, non-DJ, non-producer self would like to suggest a fabulous Detroit party that I would definitely attend from start to finish. It needs to be at the Bohemian National Home, because right now, that's really my favorite spot in Detroit. It's a really interesting building located in southwestern Detroit near Corktown/Michigan Avenue/old Tiger stadium. It was built in 1914 as a community center for people from Bohemia. There are lots of rooms to explore. It's dark. There's a wooden dance floor, which is always fun. And it's in quiet neighborhood with lots of trees and empty lots. But then sorry to the neighborhood residents for all the noise. And now here's the lineup, and this party needs to go late, like 7AM or something: Todd Osborn and Theo Parrish. THAT'S IT! I know this goes against regular promoter rules of having lesser known DJs play early while the crowds are small, but that ends up forcing all the other DJs who are playing into shorter time slots so that Detroiters never get to experience the journey of a long, intense set by a single person. And if you want one more person added, then I would suggest Minx. But right now, let's just go with Todd and Theo. Todd can play from like 9pm-1am or 10pm-2am or something like that. And Theo can play from 1am or 2am until 7am. I don't care what kind of equipment they have, or whether Todd plays as Soundmurderer, Osborne, or just Todd, but maybe he could bring his vocoder? Shrug? Alright, so there's the idea, someone with money and knowledge can put it together and I can offer to help in anyway I can! Am I dreaming...?