Having been to hundreds of raves, the last thing I expected to change about the scene was the use of vinyl records and turntables. A dissenting “What the fuck?” would have been the response ten years ago if a live DJ had approached the decks with a pile of CD’s instead of a crate of records. The idea was as preposterous and laughable as taking photographs without film.
…Oh. Hm.
Okay, so it’s totally expected for DJ’s to move forward with technology, especially as part of a definitively “futuristic” subculture. I should be more surprised that the CDJ didn’t become the standard earlier. But that was the interesting thing about rave culture; it was, and still is in many ways, at once acutely primitive and fiercely progressive.
The average attendee at the Rusko show couldn’t have cared less whether the music came from an 8-track or an mp3 file, so long as it rattled the walls. And the simplicity of those expectations is admirable. They had been held captive in the front lobby and outside in the rain for over an hour before hearing anything more than the flighty conversations of the people in line next to them and security guards yelling, “Girls to the left, guys to the right!” While everyone’s drugs starting kicking in prematurely, I noticed the last decade’s progressions in raver fashion have gone from Jnco and KikGirl wide-legged pants to short-shorts and stretchy mini-skirts. Native-American style headbands, and lacy brassieres exposed beneath oversized, tattered tank-tops over tight, faded denim were the new homemade frock. White Keds lace-ups circa Jennifer-Grey-in-Dirty-Dancing splattered with day-glow paint still proved to be suitable dance footwear. And, as usual, gladly abandoned were the unfashionable pressures and expectations of the hackneyed world outside.
The music that night was far less interesting than the environment and behaviors it yielded. Sir Kutz (read: circuits) caught the first release of pent-up-crowd energy as he spun an aggressive mix of “big bassline” breakbeats, dub-step, and UK garage. Sir Kutz seemed like a good guy, but this quick assessment had a lot to do with his restrained, non-grandiose presence being further subdued by the immensity of the crowd and venue. He generously tossed out a handful of CD’s and pulled a few excited dance moves, but otherwise hid behind a flat-billed ball cap and made digital DJ-ing look duller than it already is. Fortunately there were plenty of light shows going on (see photos above).
Doorly, on the other hand, literally and figuratively turned the tables. It was no secret that he used CD’s (most likely recorded from vinyl), as flipping through them and using them as a bookmark in his mouth was part of the act. He experimented with the mixer, effecters, and a variety of other digital sound-making gadgets to manipulate nearly every second of music that otherwise played without his accommodation. Granted over an hour of set-time, Doorly seized every opportunity to showcase his tricks and skill with the Pioneer CDJ-2000 (or some variation of this model). He bopped and strutted, rocked and grooved, pushed buttons, switched tracks, flipped through a massive CD book, and moved so damn fast by the end I believed he was an electrician-by-day-DJ-by-night that could formulate a toaster into a television with a screwdriver and duct tape. His style of music was more akin to Rusko’s than to Sir Kutz’ and less instantly gratifying and mind numbing than the whomp-whomp-whomp of Rusko’s American-superstar-DJ counterparts Bassnectar and Skrillex. According to our friend Wikipedia, “Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South East London. Its overall sound has been described as ‘tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals’.” The critical detail though is that dubstep demands some sophisticated footwork and body control when dancing to it and can frequently cause “dance-move-misfires” due to its erratic bass-drop fake-outs. In other words, dancers who have an advantage are the ones with a sharp memory, well attuned to the string of rhythm before the bass drops away; the ability to pull the beat along with the mind when it disappears temporarily from the sound waves is crucial (if you want to get geeky about it). This idea isn’t unique to dubstep, but the level of unpredictability lends a certain maturity to both the genre and its fans.
Our fast-handed, British dubstep friend Doorly eventually announced Rusko’s impending arrival and removed himself from the stage, allowing a sleuth of ninjas to clear unnecessary equipment and uncloak a lavish display of five ten-foot tall light-up letters that together spelled the headliner’s name. This was one of over a dozen shows comprising the Soul’d Out Music Festival, two of which were headlined respectively by super-duper-stars Ms. Lauren Hill and Ice Cube. I had to wonder, “Did they have a personal set of ten-foot-tall Light-Brights?” I had never even heard of Rusko before the festival, but I will not soon forget him; not because of his impressive resume, including collaborations with both Britney Spears and M.I.A. on their recent albums, but because the man is a grown child with a custom portable playground. Not only did Rusko leap on stage, he leaped onto his own stage on top of the original stage. Yes, that’s right: A stage upon a stage. In giant letters, his tee-shirt read: “WIDE THE FUCK AWAKE.” I can’t imagine a more fitting slogan. Despite the slow-tempo start, DJ Step-Aerobics had the balcony bouncing and vibrating so severely that drinks were shimmying off ledges, shirts were shimmying off bodies, and teenagers were convulsing like Happy Meal wind-up toys.
In other news, The Roseland security guards have been awarded an A+ rating on SitterCity.com. They gently escorted freshly ejected crowd-surfers from the stage-front back around to the dance floor, politely asked girlfriends to descend from the shoulders of boyfriends, fed thirsty dancers squirts of water, and like Herculean athletes, prevented the barrier (alternately pushed by 1,200 sweaty bodies) from sliding into the stage. They also get bonus points for hiding their amusement when one gentleman descended from a brief crowd-surf, defiantly leapt onto the stage, ran its length, attempted to slap a hi-five with Rusko (caught him off-guard and missed), and dove back into the crowd which parted red-sea style, and belly-flopped on the hard-wood beneath. No word yet on which was more painful—the concussion or his girlfriend’s sudden loss of interest.
In the uncluttered lexis of one smiley-faced fan wearing a dazzling sequin cap, Rusko’s music is like “Robots fighting … but so much more.”
DOWNLOAD: Rusko - Jahova (MP3) or Follow us for more Rusko MP3s (Twitter)
Two songs go in, one comes out. Pick a side.
thanks so much nadine! probably the best compliment a photog can get!
and thanks for reminding me to embed the video in the post too!
by Steve Benoit on Sun May 20, 2012 at 09.33 am from the entry: Father John Misty + Har Mar Superstar - Brighton Music Hall (Boston, MA; May 16, 2012)
I can’t get over how these photos captured my up close memory of the night.
by nadine on Sat May 19, 2012 at 11.08 pm from the entry: Father John Misty + Har Mar Superstar - Brighton Music Hall (Boston, MA; May 16, 2012)
Or should it be whoever? F my grammar.
by nadine on Sat May 19, 2012 at 10.30 pm from the entry: Father John Misty + Har Mar Superstar - Brighton Music Hall (Boston, MA; May 16, 2012)
Whomever took these photos certainly captured the night!
by nadine on Sat May 19, 2012 at 10.26 pm from the entry: Father John Misty + Har Mar Superstar - Brighton Music Hall (Boston, MA; May 16, 2012)
“Mindkilla” is awesome. I’ve got this music video last week and really impressed through watching every performance particularly “Glass Jar”. Thanks dude. :)
dance contest
by Mark Waugh on Thu May 17, 2012 at 05.54 am from the entry: Gang Gang Dance's Illuminating "Mindkilla"
Also, I have yet to pay this venue a visit, is it good spot? good people, good vibe, good atmosphere?
... man, i hope i win some tickets…
by Jaz Bonnin-Aldatz on Thu May 17, 2012 at 12.27 am from the entry: It's all good, see Fishbone for free at Fête
Looking forward to the show. Would love to win some tix for my pals.
by MC Breath on Wed May 16, 2012 at 07.40 pm from the entry: It's all good, see Fishbone for free at Fête
Hey Carrie,
Nice concert review. I can’t wait for the show to hit Toronto so I can savor in the delicious dubstep goodness.
Just a few quick points after reading the article. You should definitely check out Rusko’s OMG! album if you haven’t already. It’s a great mix of his different styles and quite a few memorable tracks (Woo Boost, Hold On, You’re on My Mind)
Secondly, he didn’t collaborate with Britney or MIA on their albums. He was supposed to and he did some studio sessions but none of his tracks made it to the actual album. He himself cleared that up which was good coz none of the dubstep on both those albums sound like Rusko’s work.
His shirt should probably read “WAKE THE FUCK UP” unless he has a new one haha.
Hey Azhar,
re: the britney and m.i.a. section of the piece. we were referencing these articles:
http://www.prefixmag.com/news/britney-spears-working-with-dubstep-producer-rusko/40458/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/may/26/rusko-dubstep
Do you have new info you can steer us to? We’d be happy to correct if we got something wrong.
Also, re: the shirt - he did get a new one. check out pic 6. they were selling that old “wake the fuck up” shirt there though.
yoo thanks for addin up my pic..great show..great pics..stay up
@Trevor: No problem! Glad you had fun, too.
Do you know where other pictures from this rave are posted?
Nope! Try Googley search. Mr. unnamed photographer running around taking candid shots of the audience all night forgot to hand out business cards.
(above comment referring to non-Melophobe affiliated gentleman with giant bounce-flash)
Carrie,
I just saw Rusko and Doorly in Boston. I think the Rusko T-shirt campaign of “WAKE THE FUCK UP.”, although harsh to some, necessitates its extreme wording as not to undermine the severity of the issue. Dubstep is here. It has been. For years and years. Where have YOU been? On a similar token, I was confused when I first started reading this article. When I saw that DJ’s are moving forward with compact discs, I thought this article were written in maybe 2003 or 2004.
Now, it is the case that many scratch and mix DJ’s have been true to vinyl over the years, but when looking overall at those of whom were into electronic styles of music, the CDJ-1000 had been the industry standard since the beginning of the last decade for both clubs and live venues alike.
There was a lot of controversy when die-hard vinyl guys crossed over to the dark side back in the day. However, DJ’s like Carl Cox who used to keep 3 turntables going in perfect tempo didn’t lose respect when moving to digital because, hey, he was Carl Cox. Everyone knew he was good for it.
Over the evolution of electronic music from the days of trance, from old funky house music to dirty dutch, swedish, and french electro house, and from jungle drum and bass and garage to eventually what has become known as dubstep, the equipment of CDJ’s and mixers have come a long way. The ultimate irony is that compact discs are portrayed here as recent technology, whereas most new digital equipment relies on flash drives, external hard drives, or computers for audio sources. Doorly’s 3 CDJ-1000’s and DJM-800 mixer were discontinued almost two years ago and are no longer available on the market as new.
This is not to say it’s obsolete by any means. People use what they’re comfortable with. Doorly was practically “one” with his equipment, between hot cue-ing tracks on the CDJ or building up layers with the sampler and fx on the DJM-800 mixer. He didn’t need the latest and greatest to get the job done, but not any of the “remixing on the fly” could have been achieved by more traditional equipment. In the case of Rusko, He definitely uses flagship equipment and a laptop for a streamlined show. He’s more now about riling up big crowds and amping people up by running in place and MC’ing almost in the jamaican style of toasting. It’s a streamlined process; his live shows used to recreate all of his songs from scratch with an ableton software setup using a bass guitar, korg synth keyboard, and an akai mpc to trigger loops and effects. That organic experience has been replaced by star power to create the big dance party.
In a similar and not so different fashion many scratch DJ’s still use vinyl to get the control desired. But, for the last 5 or 6 years it’s been serato with a laptop. They’re still using vinyl in the sense that they have a tactile experience, yet all tracks are digital.
In the end, DJ’s are using whatever tools are going to facilitate their own take on music. Fortunately in our case for the Rusko / Doorly tour, the end justifies the means.
Sam,
I’m still convinced that the CDJ is newfangled technology. I did some time-pressed research, and I’ve been to see hundreds of DJs play live sets (with vinyl), but I won’t pretend to know more than I do. Thanks for schoolin’ us :)
just to clarify, the “Wide the fuck awake” shirt was a shirt he received from a fan last time he came to Portland. I remember it being thrown onstage.
Saw him both times! AMAZING!