Sunday, July 08, 2007

Simian Mobile Disco at Fixed and Chic - Everybody Dance



Chic, "Everybody Dance (original 12" mix)" (YSI link) 320 DJs

Sometimes you're just dragging, you know? You just can't find the motivation to do what you need to do, you feel like a step off. As I'm sure you can tell, that has been the case for Pound for Pound for the past few weeks. Posts have just not been coming easy, it's felt like motivation and inspiration have been in short supply. It's like something amazing needs to happen to focus you.

Well, last night did just that. I headed to the Fixed party last night at Studio B to catch the second U.S. show for Simian Mobile Disco (Philly importantly got first dibs). Holy fucking shit! I mean, James Ford and James Shaw put on the best show I've seen so far in 2007, an amazing set of their music. This was electronic music at its finest, intense, epic peaks, rhythmic, bass bass, synth, drums, love, acid, life. They played their already classics like "Hustler" and "I Believe," all in a continuous set. It was literally like they blended a DJ set with a live band. The two dudes had all of the turntables and machines and computers, but they did seem to be reacting to each other and using the equipment in the moment (not preprogrammed). The set-up is hilarious, total Weird Science shit, like I expected Kelly LeBrock to come off from stage left naked and ready to shower. A quick shout-out to NYC. Do you see how you were last night? Dancing, freaking out, cheering for the band, excited, unconcered with looking cool or bored? Do you remember that? Let's try to do this every time, mmkay? You were so great last night, so energetic and amazing and fun and real, it was like Philly in there and it made the night that much more special.

Anyway, Dave P and JDH killed it after that with their DJ set, including Daft Punk's "One More Time," sending me home in that sweaty, exhausted state of bliss that everyone reading this has probably experienced. On that walk home from Greenpoint, I threw on the Justice Essential mix we had up here in a few weeks ago. When Chic's "Everybody Dance" came on, it was the perfect end to the night. So g-ddamn perfect. Hearing Norma Jean Wright sing "Music never lets you down, puts a smile on your face anytime anyplace/Dancing helps relieve the pain, soothes your mind, makes you happy again" I wanted to cry (in a manly way). It was as if all of this shit about exes and writer's block and whatnot washed away and the grind came back. Big stuff this week, as I've got a ton of new music to get to and of course some classics and maybe some surprises. Oh mang, let's do this people. Thanks to SMD, Dave P, JDH, the Fixed people for bringing it all back into focus and reminding me how amazing music can be. Yeah!

2 comments:

matt said...

hey, great review of the show. i was at studio b friday & saturday this weekend, seeing chromeo & smd. if you thought the crowd was wild, you should've seen how rowdy it was the night before! people were jumping and pushing and crowd surfing...all in good fun though. chromeo put on a good show, with dave 1 on guitar & vocals and pee thugg on the talkbox and laying down some synth lines, though most of it was coming out of a sampler or computer (couldn't see that side of the stage). i really liked smd's setup (that entire case of shit, that strip controller on top, a microkontrol, a minimoog, laptop, and other shit in the back i couldn't make out)...it was good, like you said, to see them actually doing more playing and not just playback. how about their lights? that added such a great element to their show! ah what a night. what a weekend. what a week. i've got a bunch of video clips to upload on youtube...i'll try and remember to post a link when they're up.

matt said...

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=mattfelsen&p=r