The stars were aligned on Friday at the fifth annual Five Headed Birthday, and the biggest FHBD to date was a smashing success. I took the lead (with G-Unit’s help) on moving it out of the apartment living rooms of prior years and into a real venue since I wanted to really rock that shit. 14 Below worked out perfectly–the party people filled the space well without feeling crowded and the stage/lights/PA/dance area made for arguably the best dance party to date. Mission accomplished. (pics from the evening)
It was all-around awesome party in general for Ted the birthday boy. Saw a lot of old friends and did the social butterfly thing. Major props to my homey and partner, DJ Wonderwood, for handling the beats half the time so that I could hang out as well as getting the party warmed up with his stone-cold funk. A real alley oop for when I hopped on afterward.
As for Out of Controller, I think it’s safe to say that I hunted the lion and became a man in the eyes of the village. Just an incredible night behind the decks. The dancefloor was packed and hopping from the first track to the last. Everyone was loving it, but probably not as much as I was. I was killing the bass and pumping my fists–looking out over the sea of dancing heads is still so crystal clear in my mind.
I forgot to hit record with the pre-set trepidation (doh!), but here is the Track Listing for both rounds. Will re-record soon as podcast. Brendan jokingly commented that playing five Daft songs in a row is kind of cheating. Right you are, Ken…
“Main Event”
Villains - Rock It
Calvin Harris - Disco Heat
Thieves Like Us - Drugs in My Body (Designer Drugs remix)
Chromeo - Needy Girl (Dolby Anol remix)
LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations
Republica - Ready to Go
Buddy Akai - Cut Me Up (Villains remix)
Beastie Boys - Fight for Your Right to Party (Junkie XL remix)
The Black Ghosts - Any Way You Choose to Give It (Boy 8-Bit remix)
Nicky Van She & Dangerous Dan - Around the World
Daft Punk - Robot Rock (DJ B-Stee remix)
Daft Punk - Aerodynamic (Johnatron remix)
LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk is Playing at my House (Soulwax remix)
The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar (Shinichi Osawa remix)
Digitalism - Pogo (Shinichi Osawa remix)
Prince - 1999 (B. Rich NYE remix)
Daft Punk - Harder Better Faster Stronger (JoolsMF remix)
Kid Sister vs. Outrunners - Pro Nails / Cool Feeling
Tegan and Sara - Back in Your Head (Tyler Fedchuck remix)
“Encore”
Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby (Bertie P remix)
The Rapture - Get Myself Into It
Gorillaz - DARE (Junior Sanchez remix)
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (extended mix)
INXS - Need You Tonight (Streetlab remix)
Blur - Girls & Boys
Rockaton - Your Bmore, Singing Study Mix
Chromeo - Tenderoni (MSTRKRFT remix)
Fiasco - Happy Hour (The Scar remix)
Matt & Kim - Yeah Yeah (Flosstradamus remix)
Treasure Fingers - Cross the Dancefloor
Muscles - Sweaty
AC/DC - Thunderstruck (Tittsworth remix)
Bil Bev Devoe - Poison (Tittsworth remix)
Went to the sold-out Chromeo show last night with George, Christian and Bonny. I was unsure of what the crowd would be like, but it turned out to be a total hipster-fest. Tight jeans and neckties everywhere. I hadn’t been to the El Rey since we saw Z-Trip and DJ P there a few years back, and I like the venue. Don’t like that the dance area is effectively roped off with limited access points, but the place is very pimp.
While it was annoying to have to deal with some of the entitled, 19 year-old hipsters, it was reassuring to see how embraced Chromeo’s electro pop is by the hipsterati, since my beats have a similar vibe and I mostly play to my hipster buddies. When I’m drunkenly dancing in the fray at shows, I become 6′5″ 250 lbs and enjoy a little jockeying for position. An incensed hipster girl behind me demanded that I move forward a little, and I naturally found myself inching backwards whilst getting my groove on. Oh pardon me, did you need a little more space? Fuck you.
Peanut Butter Wolf opened up with a lot of old school jams like Kriss Kross and Grandmaster Flash, and also had his gear synced up to a VJ setup that was controlling music videos on a huge screen. Unlike Relm though, the VJ element seemed better suited to the venue. Much larger, and the DJ was set up off to the side rather than in front of the jumbotron. Some timely wind-downs and scratching over funny parts of the videos was cool. He got the party started for sure. So did the Patron shots. In between acts, the sound system was on a 100% Daft Punk shuffle. Holler.
Chromeo came out to a huge ovation and proceeded to rock the house. I had seen pictures of their live shows before, but was curious to see how their very produced tracks would translate into a live performance. Dave 1 was on the bass guitar and P-Thugg on the synth; and I noticed a Macbook open off to the side, so I imagine they have all the rest of the musical elements all synced up in Ableton.
Their stuff is so, for lack of a better word, shallow. Which I love because it’s just pure fun rather than something to dwell on or think about. Singing along to Tenderoni was gloriously goofy, and it was also very refreshing to hear original Chromeo tracks after wading through all the remixes thereof throughout the blogosphere for so long. Proliferation of remixes as a gauge of success is very apropos for the Chromeo boys, ala D.A.N.C.E….
A lot, lot, lot of fun. Took some shaky concert pics which I may post–gotta develop a steadier iphone hand. Big ups to G-Unit for jumping on the tix months ago right before they sold out!
Track Listing:
01 Kaiser Chiefs - Love is Not a Competition But I’m Winning (NG remix)
02 Gorillaz - DARE (Junior Sanchez remix)
03 The Gossip - Listen Up! (MSTRKRFT remix)
04 Fiasco - Happy Hour (The Scar remix)
05 Thieves Like Us - Drugs in My Body (Designer Drugs remix)
06 Revolte - Ironical Sexism (We Are Terrorists remix)
07 Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (MSTRKRFT remix)
08 The Cars - Just What I Needed (Tittsworth edit)
09 Matt & Kim - Yea Yeah (Flosstradamus remix)
10 Treasure Fingers - Cross the Dancefloor
11 Coconut Records - Nighttiming
12 Calvin Harris - The Girls
13 Bangers & Cash - B.O.O.T.A.Y. (Krames edit)
14 Adam Tensta - They Wanna Know (Jeansie fix)
15 Dolby Anol - Heather, I’m Dry (Anol edit)
16 Sally Shapiro - Hold Me So Tight (Kimono Kops remix)
Once it was decided to go the house party route for NYE instead of going downtown for the Giant Village (aka giant clusterfuck), I volunteered the services of DJ Cryptic and Out of Controller to rock the house. (pics from the night)
Mike and I had tried to practice a tag-team, 2 Many DJs approach for the evening at the first Bombshelter Session, but ultimately decided that the back and forth style didn’t allow either of us to really get in the zone. So we split up the night with DJ Cryptic getting the party started, me taking second shift and handling the midnight mayhem and DJ iPod closing out the evening once Mike and I both felt like mingling.
The plan was for Mike to get things going and he most certainly did. Up to that point people were sitting around and playing Rock Band, but his funky beats turned the gathering into a party and welcomed the newcomers as they arrived. He busted a Tegan & Sara remix that had everyone talking, too.
I felt good about my set as well, though I was battling the limits of Brian’s stereo system a bit and I had peeps all up in my shit since the apartment was stuffed. I wanted the set to be a testing ground for which tracks worked well in mixtapes, and which actually got people moving. For better or worse, I decided to drop One More Time by Daft Punk when the ball dropped. The majority of the people felt it, but I did hear a few groans. To be expected since the track is a bit tired.
It did kind of suck to look out at all the people kissing at midnight while I was behind the decks, but I had a job to do; and for the next hour or so I had people moving their feet. Then I threw on a mix and hit the coors light cans with a vengeance. Wrestled with Mike a bit before crashing out and then enjoyed some delectable breakfast sandwiches with Brian and Jessica in the morning. Happy 2008!