Month: October 2006

10/29/06

I’ve noticed a trend in reggaeton criticism lately that I totally disagree with. It seems like the only time a reggaeton artist is praised is if they do anything other than reggaeton, or attempt to stretch the genre as far from its origins as possible. If an artist incorporates other genres and rhythms and styles and flows, then they are deemed talented and worthy of interest. Anyone doing straight reggaeton is boring and repetitive and stultifying according to this line of thought. I call bullshit on that. Do critics say a heavy metal artist is good to the extent that they branch out and perform other styles of music? Is a punk rock band good to the extent that they play some slower numbers and don’t play everything fast and loud? Is a hip-hop artist good to the extent that they don’t rely on hip-hop rhythms and styles on their albums? I think it is a sign that these critics don’t like straight reggaeton.

I do.

That doesn’t mean I don’t draw any distinctions. Like any genre 99% is boring and uninteresting and unexceptional, but the stuff I like the most is most definitely reggaeton and not some fusion with salsa or bachata or hip-hop or whatever fusion some critic deems more interesting or progressive.

An artist can be amazing working strictly within one genre. What is wrong with being dedicated to making the best folk, rock, jazz or whatever album you want? Is a folk album only good to the extent that it is incorporating R&B? Is a jazz record only good to the extent that it is incorporating Norwegian Black Metal? These critics who only praise reggaeton artists who perform as many things as possible that aren’t straight reggaeton are simply people that don’t like reggaeton. That is like someone who hates metal reviewing Metallica and talking about how great their ballads or their southern boogies are and how they should stop doing boring repetitive metal.

The reggaeton that I am enjoying the most is striving for the most awesome platonic reggaeton form and not trying to disappear in fusion. I’m all for the blending of styles and mashups of influences but I don’t denigrate reggaeton by thinking it is only worthwhile when it is being something other than good ol’ reggaeton. Many critics complain about the digital, synthetic rhythms and applaud any sign of organic percussion or regional instrumentation. Reggaeton is an electronic genre!! Are there Drum’n’Bass critics who complain about the electronic nature of the music, insisting there should be more hand drums? It is racism that says that the Brown people of the world must stay true to their organic ethnic roots and not have their music be sullied by too much electronic influence. Bullshit essentialism. I love the synthetic sound of reggaeton and the heavy keyboard textures. Always have. Then there are the critics complaning about the repetitive nature of the reggaeton beat. Most genres use the same rhythm or rhythms over and over. People complain about reggaeton because the producers focused on one rhythm that hits much louder, more obviously, and more prominently than just about anything else. More power to ’em. Looking forward to hearing the new Wisin y Yandel.

Peace.

IK

10/29/06

Wow, what a night. Dancing until 3am AFTER the clocks had been set back an hour. People didn’t want to leave either. Sorry about not being able to get around to the “Kalion Ka Chaman” request. The workers need to rest! I am glad that someone suggested Nazia Hassan (and I even got in a twofer). Thanks to everybody who came out and danced. It was a long night for us. It was our third gig in a row after working a week of day shifts so I think I have only begun to recover. Thank you to everyone who dressed up. Thank you to Anjali for hosting the costume contest, as well as our “judges” and the lovely Miss Jeevan Singh. If you were missing the Bhangra hip-hop mashups, well, what can I say. The world of Indian dance music is huge (even just focusing on Hindi and Panjabi music) and you can’t get around to everything every time. That is how I always feel after Andaz. And there are so many new Bollywood songs I love that I overlook so many each time. Thank you to everyone for making it such a wonderful party. Please come back for our four year anniversary in November.

IK

10/19/06

I saw a preview screening of “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” yesterday. I went as Borat the last two Halloweens (not my idea, the first year was so popular with my close friends that a repeat was demanded) and no more than two or three people (other than my friends) would recognize me all night, even if they claimed to know who Ali G was. After hearing a million suburban teens imitating Borat on my way out of the screening you can be sure that the costume is retired for good this year. I would advise knowing as little as possible going into the movie so you can better appreciate all the surprises. Looking at the IMDB reviews I saw that far too much of the movie was revealed in the many reviews.

I couldn’t have had higher expectations going into it. When Borat would end up in the news while filming it I assumed it was for a third season of Ali G. When everyone was asking “Where is the third season of Dave Chapelle?” I was asking “Where is the third season of Ali G?” Once I learned a movie was coming out I finally understood why Borat kept popping up in the news but no new season was forthcoming. According to some of the reviews of early previews of the movie it was originally two hours long. Since the version I saw was only one and a half hours long I am now hungry for all the deleted scenes. I felt like I wanted the movie to be denser with many more set-up situations. I wonder how much of that material got cut.

The movie will no doubt foment many discussions in the U S and A. When audiences are laughing at Borat’s anti-semitism, racism, sexism, homophobia, how much are they laughing at him, and how much are they laughing with him? When there were some homophobic statements made in the film I certainly felt as if part of the audience was unironically cheering them on. I will say, without revealing anything, that Sacha Baron Cohen is smart enough to give any homophobes in the audience far more than they bargained for. It will be interesting to see how many people feel that the movie exposes anti-semitism and how many people just think it is anti-semitic.

On the back of the screening pass there was strict language about how no camera phones of any kind would be allowed in the screening since they are “recording devices.” Apparently anyone with a camera phone would be denied entrance. When I told that to a car-full of camera phone owners on the way to the screening everyone pooh-poohed my concerns and said there was no way they were going to search people or deny entrance to camera phone holders, or otherwise no one would be able to see the screening. Acquiescing to peer pressure I kept my phone on me even though I wanted to leave it in the car. The joke is that up until quite recently I’ve had an antique cell phone that wasn’t even capable of sending text messages, much less taking pictures. Sure enough as we come upon the line to enter the screening there is someone with a metal detector wanding everyone before they enter the theater and forcing people to hand over their cell phones or take them to their car. We had to round up all our phones and have a volunteer take them all to the car. Inside the screening a representative of Twentieth Century Fox told us that the movie was already available on the internet in an attempt to explain all the security. If it’s already on the internet what point does security serve at this point? He said three security personnel would be wandering the screening and would eject anyone who was using a cellphone for any purpose, texting, whatever.

The movie is certainly funny. The rhythm is much different than the punchily edited eight minutes he normally gets on an Ali G episode. There is a narrative, and an attempt, however ridiculous, to humanize Borat and have him win our sympathies. Having wished there was more to the movie when I saw it I am now quite interested in the deleted half hour. The same thing happened to me when I found out how chopped-up the released version of Jet Li’s “Fearless” was. I am going to see it again, so that should put my disappointment in context for you. Sacha is certainly responsible for a very unique (and challenging) form of ethnomethodological comedy. I have a feeling it will be more copied than Jackass-styled stunts before too long.

IK

10/15/06

There have been several gigs lately where I have just not felt like or gotten around to writing a lengthy report back. Sometimes I think I’m going to and then it just never happens. We had 500 people at the last Andaz but I didn’t make a mention of it. (Until now.) That was weeks ago. I’ve been going through a very thoughtful DJ phase. The longer I play music for people the more I second guess what I am doing. For the last seven years I thought it would be the ultimate to get flown around to DJ parties. Now when it happens it is often stressful and involves a lot of unpleasant lugging around of far-too-heavy record bins. (Did you know that a full record bin is automatically overweight for checking on an airline and requires an additional $50 charge?) No, I have not moved on to laptop/mp3 DJing and I’m not particularly interested in pursuing it even if the money was available for the hardware/software.

I have always had a very different sensibility from other DJs, whether, club or radio, or whatever. I have always appreciated the dramatic juxtaposition versus the smooth transition. There is a school of DJing (whose adherents think is the only school) that originated in the gay Black and Latin discos in NYC in the ’70s which is all about the long, flowing, overlapped endless beat. Followers of this school think that all DJ sets should adhere to a set tempo that is endlessly replicated from one track to the next and as much as possible the endings and beginnings of songs should be concealed in an uninterrupted flow. Except for the occasional transition I’ve always been more interested in a sharp contrast between songs and dramatic intros. Most of the music that I play stops and starts and shifts tempos, often drastically. It makes little sense to me that the transitions between songs need to adhere to the New York model since the songs themselves do not adhere to this model of metronomic repetition.

Is this why someone screamed. “You suck!” at me at Atlas last night?

Our Atlas night was preceded by a party at Holocene put on by Unscene. There were already hundreds of people filling the venue when we arrived around 10pm. These people had been drinking for free since 7:30pm. There was much stumbling to be witnessed and the night was punctuated by the frequent sounds of dropped glasses shattering on the concrete floor. Since there were so many people at the party so early it felt like the night gradually wound down after a long early plateau. I had the last shift of the night. While I had been really looking forward to playing all sorts of new music I picked up in San Francisco and online when it actually came down to the night itself I didn’t feel particularly inspired or prepared to entertain the crowd. I was worried that people would have little interest in what I’m excited about and want to share. Recently I have felt that so much of the music I am into is around 95 bpm (whether Bhanga, Reggaeton, or Hip-hop) and the crowds always seem to want it faster than that. I might bring up the tempo briefly, but I feel like my natural impulse is to drop the pace when I get the opportunity. I am not talking about low-energy tracks. There are tracks with fast bpms and low energy. I am talking about slower bpm tracks with a lot of energy.

I started out with a drum’n’bass remix of Elvis Crespo’s “Suavemente.” The original was one of the BIGGEST songs in the discos of Guatemala when I was down there in ’99 and I was excited to find a tough remix of this track. I didn’t want to clear the club with my set but I also wasn’t interested in playing it safe. I wasn’t even sure what “safe” meant in the context of this particular group of dancers. Sometimes mainstream might seem safe and that will be what clears people. Sometimes prominent electronic beats seem safe and that will be what clears people. I had no idea who in the crowd was an Atlas regular and who happened to be along for the ride as part of the Unscene party. I was wonderfully surprised to see Jacques in the crowd. He is one of the most informed world music commentators I have found online. He posts frequently in the world music forums on tribe.net and seems to have broader and deeper contemporary world music knowledge than anyone else I have encountered. How he does it I don’t know. Since I knew he was in the audience it gave me a focus. I knew there would be at least one person in the crowd who would appreciate a range of sounds and a real commitment to international variety.

I could have easily played reggaeton my whole set. I’m feeling so much reggaeton these days. The songs I did play didn’t seem to get the crowd going as much as I wanted so I only played a few tracks. I dropped some new Rishi Rich, some Tigarah, some Funk Carioca, some French Hip-hop, some Balkan beats, some Bhangra and even a new bilingual Pitbull track. His lyrical pronouncements are atrocious in their misogyny and catchy as hell in their execution. I brought a whole bunch of Lebanese music that I wanted to represent but a Nawal Al-Zoghbi track was all that ended up in my mix. It may not be anyone else’s favorite Himesh track but I did manage to fit in “Dil Naiyo Maane Re”(Remix) because I love it so.

At some point towards the end of my set someone leans over the railing to my right and yells, “You suck!” As if afraid that I missed it (I didn’t have much of a reaction) he then comes around to the other side of the stage and screams again, “You suck!” before exiting. Now I can think of a million reasons why someone would say I suck and so not having had an opportunity to discuss the matter with this individual I can only guess as to what must have so inspired his multiple public declarations. The few people left in the building this late at night (this was after 2am) were all dancing so maybe it was to try to enlighten them as to the error of their ways. I have no way of knowing whether he was an extremely ignorant individual, or one of the most educated and discerning of music listeners who happen to reside in Portland. Perhaps he hated international music aka music not in English. Maybe he was an adherent of the New York school of disco mixing. Maybe he didn’t realize that most music in the world is not pressed up on vinyl so that an eclectic international DJ set by necessity calls for a number of CDs to be played in addition to records. Who knows? Maybe he is an active blogger or internet poster and I will someday learn the nature of his beef. Fortunately the dancers paid this individual’s opinion little mind and we had a wonderfully spirited dance floor to my final song: “Pag Ghunghroo Bandh” from Namak Halaal. I didn’t even know there were any Hindi-speakers left in the house until I heard someone merrily singing along.

Thank you to everyone who came out, danced, stayed late, and didn’t scream “You suck!” at me.

IK

10/12/06

As you may have gathered from previous posts I am definitely feeling the new Beyonce. I may hate half the songs, but if there are two or more songs I love on a disc then it is a pretty good disc as far as I’m concerned and I love at least half of “B’day.” I even like some of the ballads and I have never liked a Beyonce ballad before. I wish Jay-Z had stayed retired, however. I don’t think he did her any favors by appearing on “B’day.” It really makes me think his un-retirement record is going to be a very sad affair. I wish Def Jam was putting out the new infinitely-delayed Foxy Brown CD instead. What did I read? That she now has hearing problems? Last I heard Jay-Z was so excited about the tracks for her new album that he was rhyming on several of them but hearing his latest work makes me think that is for the worse.

I find Beyonce’s lyrical obsessions bizarre and troubling. “I’m gonna do for you what Martin did for the people.” Martin Luther King was a hero because he bought the people all sorts of baubles and luxury items? I am introduced to brands and labels of status items I would never know about otherwise. Current favorite songs : “Get Me Bodied” “Upgrade U” “Green Light” “Irreplaceable”

IK

PS Beyonce and Jay-Z are my favorite celebrity couple, even if Jay-Z needs to stop rhyming and focus on his day job of putting out awesome records like the new Roots “Game Theory.”

10/8/06

I performed at a wedding recently. In fact, that performance has been an extreme focus of mine for the last several weeks. When I agree to perform at a wedding I become monomaniacal in my attempts to make sure I own and am familiar with every piece of music that I view as necessary for the event (based on my discussions with the bride and groom and my own instincts). I go to extreme lengths and tend to feel that if it is possible that someone might (appropriately) request a particular song or artist, then I better make sure I bring it. With the amount of money I invariably end up spending on music for the weddings that I DJ I essentially end up making no money, no matter how much I charge.

This particular wedding called for a mix of Persian music and old rockabilly, early rock’n’roll, surf, soul, garage rock, etc. I like to take on this sort of gig to get me listening to totally different music than my regular gigs call for, and to inspire me to research music. I always love researching music. This wedding got me reading not only every published guide to rock and soul, but also “Souled American: How Black Music Transformed White Culture” by Kevin Phinney and “Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Rick Coleman. For a while I saw myself becoming an old rock, soul, and rockabilly DJ. Oldies stations hardly exist any more and most of them have strict playlists that leave out 90% of the popular songs from the ’50s and ’60s era, much less the obscurities. I’m hoping to get around to making a mix of a lot of these older styles. My research kept taking me back further into the origins of “rock’n’roll.” I discovered wonderful artits like Big Joe Turner, Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown, and Rose Maddox. And I finally got around to buying stuff by the Collins Kids who I’ve always loved.

Even though the wedding ended up being a six hour gig I still didn’t get a chance to play hundreds of songs that I discovered, so hopefully I will get them out to the world some other way. The wedding was a beautiful event with a great couple, a great setting, and a great group of friends and family. It was my pleasure to be able to DJ the event.

10/4/06

Yeah, I know, it’s been a while. Haven’t really been in the mood the few times that I’ve actually had available to write. My string of technical mishaps fortunately ended before the San Francisco gigs. I was afraid I might be able to work my magic on the plane. We arrived just fine and Vicki Virk, the head of the Dholrhythms troop (and DJ Jimmy Love’s Nonstop Bhangra partner) was kind enough to pick us up at the airport. The wonderful Joti Singh was our host (Thank you Jotu!). We were looking forward to playing DJ Zanne’s “Junk” night on Thursday (Portlanders may remember her “Skervy” parties.) but unfortunately the night was cancelled before we even hit town. We played Nickel Bag of Funk with DJ Jimmy Love at the Makeout Room on Friday. Jimmy was very welcoming and enthusiastic. I more or less did my thing. I don’t think I blew anyone away or seriously embarassed myself so I guess it went fine. I’m trying to remember what I played. Definitely some Bhangra/Hip-hop mashups along the lines of “Ishq Brandy.” Some Reggaeton, some Hip-hop. “Get Me Bodied” by Beyonce went over like a bag of bricks compared to the squealing reception it got at Booty. I think the crowd definitely wanted to hear things they knew but I wasn’t interested in playing the singles. Got a request for “My Humps” and Pussycat Dolls so I guess that tells you where at least some of the crowd was coming from. I can’t remember my set too well so I guess it wasn’t that memorable. I did just realize what my last song was: Gantman remix of “Check Up On It.” Always hated the original despite how much I like a lot of Swizz Beats productions. I liked the White Lion Reggaeton remix and after the last issue of Fader hipped me to Chicago’s Juke scene I checked out the Gantman remix of “Check Up On It” and lo and behold I’m playing two Beyonce songs in my set.

I remember at a certain point reading so much about Destiny’s Child that despite never having heard a single song I went and picked up a bunch of promo singles at 2nd Avenue Records. I went to the counter with a stack. The clerk gave me a wary eye. I told him I was catching up on contemporary R&B. He said, “Looks like you’re catching up on Destiny’s Child.” Uh . . . yeah.

So back to the Nickel Bag of Funk gig. I do remember losing a chunk of the dance floor at some point. I decided to completely change gears and played a twelve minute long James Brown track: “People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul.” It gave me a chance to breathe and think about what I was doing, and it is an awesome groove.

I was totally unprepared when the lights went on. Turns out a lot of bars in SF turn on the lights at 1:40am. I know that last call and having drinks off the floor also occur earlier than in Portland. We are very fortunate in Portland to play at two clubs that will let us play until 3am as long as there are dancers. In SF you are just out of there early. Seems like there’s hardly any time to get things going. Almost every night ended at 5:30am anyway thanks to a late night feast of one sort or another. My favorite were the pupusas at El Zocalo. Thanks to DJ Amar for the tip.

The Nonstop Bhangra gig was on Saturday. The party has been going on for two years now. It features the Dholrhythms dance troupe in several performances at each show and that troupe has been around for three years. In fact, they are shortly celebrating these anniversaries. Each night starts with a dance lesson conducted by Vicki Virk. The one I saw was accompanied by JT on live dhol. That was great. The live dhol really keeps you centered for the lesson and makes it very easy to stay with the rhythm. Vicki reaches out to the goras and the newbies giving some cultural background and introducing the dance in a very encouraging, welcoming way.

In general Anjali and I are not in favor of live instruments accompanying a DJ unless the musician and the DJ are used to working with each other. The South Asian music scenes in Seattle and San Francisco utilize this concept a lot. I’ve seen many musicians with giant egos completely clashing with the music and thinking they were awesome. As in rhythmically clashing, as in train wreck, as in all fucking night. This seems to be the rule rather than the exception. One thing that bothers Anjali and I is that there will often be tabla players accompanying Bhangra DJs. Well, other than a few embellishments in Sukshinder Shinda songs tabla doesn’t have any place in Bhangra. It’s South Asian conflationism that only confuses goras even more who already think that Bhangra is the sound of sitars and tablas rather than tumbis and dhols. The best tabla player we’ve seen in this sort of situation is Ferhan Qureshi of the Dhamaal Sound System. He was supposed to play at Nonstop Bhangra the night we were playing but he never showed. As much as we are generally down on the concept we were looking forward to playing with Ferhan because he is the only tabla player we’ve seen who was actually quite good and didn’t sound like shit playing along with Bhangra beats.

As I mentioned before the Nonstop Bhangra night features two dance performances by the Dholrhytms troupe. What this means is that the party is raging, the stage is filled with dancers, and then the call goes out for everyone to clear the stage so that the dance performance can begin. It is definitely a different rhythm for the evening than Anjali and I are used to. We like to bring the party to a raging boil and then just let it sit on the stovetop with the lid off all night. It was somewhat shocking for us to see a packed mass of wild dancers cleared from the stage twice in the night and the energy brought down to that of quiet attention. Jimmy ended up playing before, and between these performances so Anjali and I didn’t go on until quite late. I went on last and was once again startled when the lights went on when I felt like I was midway hrough my set.

This update doesn’t feel complete but I’m preparing for a wedding right now and don’t feel like adding anything. Everybody take care of themselves and each other.

IK