Month: April 2006

4/30/06 4:20am

Tired. Ringing ears. Another Andaz is past. Very different night. Anjali and I always say that. It always feels like a largely new crowd. Lots of people wandering around confused not sure what to make of any of it. Where was my filmi crowd? Or did they just want different songs? We certainly had a large if not the largest gathering of Panjabis this night. Its good to have excitable crowd members but treading lightly is always a better idea than trying to dictate to the DJ. Some people get very enthusiastic and aggressive with their requests. Don’t get in the DJ’s face and don’t piss the DJ off. Of course the people who need to hear this aren’t the ones reading this.

So many crowds to balance. The Panjabi crowd. The filmi lovers. And in the middle the goras who generally don’t appreciate filmi cheez and don’t necessarily appreciate the slower Bhangra numbers that are often most coveted by the Panjabis. How many people recognize that in order not to lose any given faction the DJ has to try to balance all of them. Then there are people who are making requests that aren’t even for Indian music such as American Hip-hop and reggaeton. I love hip-hop and reggaeton dearly, but the majority of the crowd at Andaz (whether white or brown) comes so focused on Indian music that Hip-hop gets met with blank stares and still feet. So much Panjabi and filmi music is so clearly influenced by or directly derivative of American Hip-hop that it is ridiculous to play the imitations (whether pale or inspired) without featuring some of the genuine article. Easier said than done at Andaz. Regretfully the most succesful numbers would probably be the most predictable and overplayed. My one Hip-hop request all night was E-4o “Tell Me When To Go.” I appreciate that E-40 and the Bay are getting some much deserved national attention but that song has yet to make me want to jump up and dance. Maybe it’s just a case of 95.5 oversaturation.

Thank you to everyone who came out. I feel like I had a hard time hitting a homerun tonight. Maybe I had too much of my own agenda without doing a good enough job of determining what the crowd really wanted to hear. I certainly have my own perverse filmi interests and steppy Bhangra fusion favorites that few others (if any) appreciate to the extent that I do. Balance, balance, balance. Too bad dancefloor factions are often intolerant of anything other than the sound (if not the very specific songs) that they want to hear. Boys (and boys at heart) like boy songs, girls (and girls at heart) like girl songs. And some guys are smart enough to tolerate girl songs because they like watching or dancing with girls who like to dance to girl songs. Off balance. Out of gear. Sore throat and signing off.

IK

PS Thank you to Deai for the visuals and Shira!!! for coming through as always and making sure the sound was dialed in just right. Thank you!!

4/18/06

It’s late. I’m tired. I should be sleeping. Listening to a fabulous old vinyl compilation of even older Tito Puente hits. I love the dearly departed, Tito very much. I only discovered him towards the very end of his career but fortunately I was able to see him perform several times in his last years. Such an amazing composer, arranger and performer. The changes in his songs are simply spellbinding. This is one of many records and CDs I picked up on our SF adventure. I hadn’t been in most of a decade and I can’t say things really seemed any different to me. We had a few beautifully sunny days and some crappy, crappy days that made Portland seem tolerable by comparison. The night before we left we had our Atlas show at Holocene. Since we were getting on the plane for SF right after the gig I was simultaneously having to pack for Atlas, pack for the SF gig, and pack for the trip. I have trouble with just one packing experience, much less three overlapping. The Atlas gig went great. Huge crowd, one of our biggest in a while, which is saying something because all our gigs have been great lately.

We slept all day after arriving in SF. Our friend and Bhangra instructor extraordinaire, Joti Singh, took great care of us and made our gig such a success. We went to a mutual friend’s wedding and then had to jet straight to the gig. A reggae band had also been scheduled for an early show and they were still playing when we arrived. At first there were only a few people there to see them but by the end of their set the room was full. They seemed miffed at having to leave the stage but their final song was met with faint clapping and that heartened me to realize that the room was actually full of people that were there to see us. We were lucky to have many friends there. The band took a long time to move their gear and since they were set up on the dance floor it set things back a bit. Joti eventually gave a spirited lesson and quickly it was dancin’ time. We had a good time and already have several interested parties trying to bring us back to SF so hopefully that will happen before too long.

We saw Cheb I Sabbah at Underground SF. He is no longer DJing at his long-time haunt, Nicky’s. His set was almost entirely Bhangra which is quite a difference from when we first saw him several years ago. He was kind enough to give Anjali a pre-release of a new remix album of his which is coming out. In the five years Anjali and I have been DJing Bhangra we’ve seen its profile change quite a bit as it becomes more and more standard as a part of any international DJ’s set list. Even some DJs who years ago claimed they “couldn’t stand” Bhangra. (Not a reference to Cheb I Sabbah.)

Alright, I need to be sleeping. As good as the Tito Puente record is I’ll call it a night. Here’s to you Tito (and Santos too!) wherever you are.

IK

4/18/06

So, I love talking smack. Mad smack. However, I hate to impugn anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Mr. David Starfire wrote me back in reference to the soundman at the City Repair benefit. He had this to say:

Yea well he didn’t have much to work with and someone told him he needed only stack a side.

So, maybe the low, low sound had nothing to do with the soundman. Maybe his hands were tied. Maybe it was all out of his control. All I know is that it was far too quiet for any kind of serious dance action. Ah well.

IK

4/16/06

We’ll see how much energy I have to get into this at 3:30am after having gotten home from the gig. Anjali and I just got back from DJing the City Repair Benefit at Loveland called “Love.” The color red was suggested and I’m certainly seeing some red now. We got there at 11:40 something with an expected start time of 12:00am. Well the band Jujuba who were playing the hour before us were still sound checking. They didn’t really get started until after 12:00am. Anjali and I figured our two hour set was about to become a one hour set. We have some experience with bands taking a lot of time and pushing the schedule back, shrinking the after-hours DJ set with every minute they are on stage. Some bands seem to do this with quite a bit of malice directed toward the DJs and probably the very concept of DJs as entertainmers and performers. After all we can’t play instruments, right, just records.

Well Jujuba didn’t seem like jerks, and I totally understand a band wanting to play a full set after spending all that time toting and setting up gear. However, the organizers tried to tell them several times that their set was over, even going so far as to turn the lights off on them at the end of songs twice. The first time the band seemed to be done they actually then started an interactive percussion jam with the audience focusing on clapping, etc. This seemed very appropriate for the theme and the desired energy of the night and I thought it was fine, not being very emotionally commited to playing a long time anyway. When they were finally finished it was after 1am and we were told to be off at 2am anyway since guest David Starfire was still scheduled to go on at 2am. Fine. Anjali and I are used to being smushed together and forced to share a single performer’s slot at festivals, etc. It’s frustrating because we don’t perfom side by side, we take turns and an hour is not a long time for one DJ to present a performance, much less two.

When the band finally was done there was no sound coming from the DJ mixer even though there should have been. Sound person and organizer running around trying to figure out why no sound was coming out. Eventually someone got it figured out and the signal being sent from my mixer was finally being heard over the sound system. But why was it so quiet? Anjali told me to turn it up several times until the mixer was all but maxed out. Still very quiet. Much quieter than the band that had just performed. I’m supposed to get a room full of people dancing to this background vibe? When you are playing dance music that no one in the room has heard before you really need volume and BASS. Nostalgic songs can get by with an audible melody and vocals and one can just sing along. There is an inverse relationship between familiarity of the song and the necessity for loudness and bass. Getting stiff Americans to dance to something they’ve never heard before requires a sound with such force that if compels the body to move. We did not have this going for us at this gig. People were dancing but it was like background music. I just gave up and played an organic, hard dhol sound that rarely crept above 100bpm until the last song, which was my perverse statement alternating between accapella Panjabi proclamations and rapid-fire dhol beats.

When Anjali started her half hour I went out for the first time to hear the sound from the perspective of the dancers and I couldn’t believe just how quiet it was. Now I know you’re thinking “Djs have blown-out ears and they always play way too loud.” Yeah, I know but Anjali and I have both recently had an audiologist exam us and neither of us have any sign of hearing loss. Can you believe it? But, you’re thinking “I’ve been to the Fez and or Holocene and it was way too loud, I had to leave.” I agree, that can happen. DJs try their best but sometimes things do get just too loud at club nights. This was not the case at this gig. I’m talking quiet. Like stand around and have conversations on the dance floor quiet. The organizers had actually been working with the soundman the whole time trying to get him to turn it up to no avail. Ethan, one of the members of Jujuba was saying that they had had a lot of trouble with him as well. That probably explains the long sound check for their band and the delayed schedule. Our friend Nick said that even though Jujuba were still louder than us he was standing right in front of the speaker listening to them without it being that loud.

Anjali played a much more electronic drum’n’bassy set than I had with a lot of songs carried by subsonic bass that was unfortunately hardly audible in that environment. When David Starfire went on he immediately pushed the mixer all the way into the red. Earlier when David wasn’t present Anjali and I had received a stern warning from the sound guy never to do that. I didn’t have the heart to tell David because that was the closest to still-far-from-acceptable sound that we had approached all evening. The sound man clearly wasn’t going to help him so he was left to his own devices. Poor guy. At least we didn’t have to fly to Portland to play in such compromised conditions. We can always play in town over a much better system the next week. There was a second DJ room upstairs. Ironically enough the sound was far louder up in the smaller, less-attended second room. What a joke. Unbelievable. What totally could have been a crazy rockin’ party was a subdued evening of wandering around in a world of background sonics. What a loss. Hopefully City Repair made some funds.

IK

4/15/06

Just back home after our second ever all ages party after having just got back from SF this morning. Would love to tell you all about SF, the Little Baobab gig, and the Nocturnal gig. Tired. Sleep-deprived. As far as “Rang de Basanti” goes, thank you to Russ for working the door, Blaine for souping up the soundboard, and Daljit and Avtar of Indian Chaat House for all the snacks. Thank you to Joti for everything in SF! Thank you to everyone who showed up to both gigs.

IK

PS Support Halo Thai on Alberta. We just discovered them and they are a significant cut above your standard Portland Thai restaurant.

So, I feel like I still have a great deal of work to do to get ready for our San Francisco gig. I hate packing. And packing for a gig on top of that? Uggh. Enough procrastinating. Hope some of you are up for coming out to Atlas and having some fun tonight. I need to get in the mood and the packing is proving a serious buzzkill.

Peace to all.

IK