theo parrish s/d

breaks have a long and storied history in southern california, wouldn't take it personal. also, is that the one w/ the girl DJs? red sonya and skutech and gang? are you sure it's not just that they're better at using myspace or something?

oh yeah that is fully it, which is why I don't let the bitterness totally overtake me (introspection, admitting your own faults yo) but it did creep in. anyway sonya and sku are probably putting on the best night for house in town right now (other than the west-coast style bar dynamite night) but they book female dj's only so a lot of us are out of luck on that one. anyway this is going pretty far afield now...

the success of club nights relies on a lot of other variables though too ... what neighborhood you're in, the amount and effectiveness of promotion, the competition, the relative success of competing nights, etc

tyler - i am back in town (permanently) - hope to see you soon

I mainly listen to older things like Don Cherry and Steve Reich but I'd love to see people like Kevin Saunderson and Loco Dice! Well I've seen Kevin and he was very good but I've yet to see Loco Dice play out

"all I'm saying is personal insults are used here as an excuse not to engage with some of the points I made."

i guess that depends on the definition of the word "points".

"what's more interesting to me is that I, I think like Vahid, feel uneasy about people really vehemently hating on "dumb trance" or "cheesy house" or whatever.

I mean....shouldn't dance music retain vulgarity or a certain lack of credibility?"

no. i can't imagine why you would think so.

"I don't go out and listen to that music but I'm not a better person because of that, and I like that there is a culture where people do I think."

good for you!

"Otherwise what's left.....message board piety?"

or maybe just good music.

"And to open that up a bit, would you really be happy Tom, if the artists you like 'got their dues'?"

well let's see, i write about it obsessively for my own blog, other sites and blogs, and on message boards. nah, i dont think that would make me happy.

"What would you be posting about here? Or elsewhere?"

i would post about the same things i like posting about now: good music. it would be a relief to not have to constantly be bombarded with people who don't know shit bigging up trendy music with no past and no future. i can think of nothing better!

"If there was no shitty minimal, no morons like myself, what would your music taste be then?"

my music taste would be the same as when banging techno was popular, then "microhouse", then electroclash, then mnml, then whatever comes next.

"Once somebody 'gets their dues' isn't that just when you read about them in the broadsheets or something? And nobody cares anymore...."

no, YOU don't care any more. which is your problem entirely. i do not care less about the music of people like Stevie Wonder, Kraftwerk, John Coltrane, the Beatles, Miles Davis, Marvin Gaye, the Talking Heads, Bob Marley, etc because they get their propers. in fact it makes me very happy that they are all respected outside of their own genres simply because they made great records.

ideally, people like Derrick May, Carl Craig, Mr. Fingers, Theo Parrish, etc. would be in peoples' consciousness just the same way those other artists are. does that turn you off because it is not "techno" enough or something? i would love for those guys to be touchstones for people who make music in all genres just like those artists, it could only lead to more interesting music being out there. instead, they don't even get respect from 90% of dance music fans who are way more interested in Richie Hawtin and Ricardo Villalobos or whomever else is cool this week.

"One final thing on the vulgarity...do you think people who don't like any house or techno hear the subtlety and the differences we do here? Some of them probably think it's all shitty dance music. I still feel Theo Parrish shares more with David Guetta than he does with any non-dance artist.....just for that reason."

again with your "hearing" the subtlety. why don't you try FEELING the difference between theo and that guy, and then feeling the similarity between theo and al green or sun ra.

people who think that all dance music sounds "the same" are worthless to consider anyway. worrying about what they think is a waste of time. just because people don't know how to listen to dance music (another parallel with jazz, really) doesn't mean that their opinion counts.

"and just to bite...for whatever reason, and descend into the record collection game...probably one of the nicest responses I ever got to an article was last time I interviewed a Detroit artist...a guy who was guarded to begin with then emailed me afterwards to say he really enjoyed it.

-- Ronan"

good for you! why don't you ban me from commenting on your blog. oh wait, you've already done that.

"As somebody who is nominally on the pro-detroit side of the argument I think that most of 'us' would be happy just to have a weekly place we could go and listen to the music we like with large-ish, enthusiastic, knowledgable crowds, and to be booked to DJ music we like once in a while and to see the DJs we like booked in our towns as well. Instead, the last few times I've gone to see a DJ I was excited for, it's been in an empty club, meanwhile clubs playing the latest minimal jams are packed to the rafters (ok this is overexaggerating). I think you can see where at least a little bitterness creeps in."

the problem is that people only have a good time when their feelings are reciprocated by bloggers, music journalists, etc who are all pushing the "new best thing ever". when things break outside of what they are told to be good, they react with complete and total indifference if not disdain. this is about the conditioning of people to expect nothing but nonsense. these things you speak of are just symptoms of the larger problem.

"I still don't think that being all militant and confrontational about it is the way to go, but I definately understand where they are coming from and where you could get pretty angry about the situation pretty fast."

if being confrontational isn't the way to go, what is? people are not committed to this music enough to go out of their way to learn about it on their own. the only way is for people to break through the deafening roar of the newest hype, and that doesn't happen by playing nice.

"This is probably a pretty U.S. perspective that maybe the Europeans (where I assume there is a lot more outlet for 'true detroit or whatever' music, but maybe I'm wrong about that) don't see as clearly.

-- sous les paves"

even in Europe where the US guys may or may not get a lot of love, compare it to the hype of Berlin or Frankfurt (a few years ago) or wherever else and you still see wild inequality in terms of who gets coverage, props, etc. it may be better than it is in the US, but it is still very unbalanced.

UGLY EDITS 10
Almost as good as Achilles Last Stand on Presence

I mean....shouldn't dance music retain vulgarity or a certain lack of credibility?"

no. i can't imagine why you would think so.

YES. If the world were comprised entirely of purist pipcock clones it would be a very dull place.

"YES. If the world were comprised entirely of purist pipcock clones it would be a very dull place.

-- sam500"

i love that i am the purist yet my musical interests and deejay sets span such a huge variety of genres that it is ridiculous. i just dont understand that point of view, it doesnt make any fucking sense whatsoever. how can i be a purist if i play nothing in a pure manner?????????????

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

exactly!

because insisting on rejecting vulgarity and obsession with 'credibility' is borrrrrrring

what happened to this thread

not entirely sure

anyway I'm on record here saying essentially what TP said. all this is a reason and motive to make things better and pay dues to who's owed them. but if y'all just wanted to have a bitchfest, have at it

also can someone pls book this DJ in the bay area kthxbai

TP that is. although I'm available too

TP doesn't come out that much. i want to see him too blunt!

ive seen tp once and he blew out the sound system at sonotheque, which has one of the best rigs (almost always poorly utilized) in the city

he plays so often in london, think he must have family here or something

blew out the sound system

this was a bad thing, btw

I need to go downstairs...SS 030 come hither.

from where i sit, calling house music utopian comes from feeling/experiencing the music, not some need to insert a philosophy or to explain that feeling away. it is amazing to me how much language fails sometimes. but really this thread was so much better when everyone was enthusing about theo parrish.

it's a search and destroy, we're allowed to say bad things about theo as well. for example, "saga of resistance" was as hamfisted a sun ra tribute as any other.

I am going to be uncharacteristically blunt, even by my usual standards, because I feel confident saying that theo doesn't get sun range. sure, theo may "feel" sun range, but that's no big feat. after all, I'm sure kenny g "feels" john Coltrane, just as ronan might "feel" underground resistance and vanilla ice might "feel" public enemy. but i'm certain that just as a white man from Ireland cannot truly understand the soul of a black man from Detroit, so too cannot a black man from Detroit truly understand the egypto-Saturnian soul of a man like sun ra.

and this is theft. I hate it when people release a track that sounds like it was produced, mixed and pressed by a deaf sloth, on single-sided vinyl- then re-release it years later. talk about turning shit into gold/laughing all the way to the bank.

xpost LOL

in fact, seeing as my wife is Egyptian (unlike sun ra), and her father is from alexandria, and thus (unlike sun ra) a true pharoanic African, and I myself am (unlike sun ra) a real-life Ra, that is, a father of pharoahs, I call bullshit on sun ra.

"if someone tells me they love trance, i actually tend to think of them as an idiot and stop paying any attention to them."

-- the table is the table

but what about tiesto?!?!? and PvD?!?!? they are so groundbreaking!!!!!

You know, i realised, there is only James Pennington and Toni Iordache. Other music fills in the gaps. But i like the gaps too

house music is ... transmolecularized ...

house music is.....good!

Still not as bad as the Dissensus thread. Must try harder.

"and this is theft. I hate it when people release a track that sounds like it was produced, mixed and pressed by a deaf sloth, on single-sided vinyl- then re-release it years later. talk about turning shit into gold/laughing all the way to the bank.

xpost LOL

-- blunt"

you must be nuts, that track is the jam.

it must be - theo parrish released it!

"it must be - theo parrish released it!

-- deej"

he has released a few stinkers: "Dreamer's Blue (Acid Guitar Version)", "Walking Thru The Sky (Liberation Mix)" (both with the same guy on guitar, maybe it is his fault??), and a few of the tracks on the Rotating Assembly album. really, i wish more people were as consistent as him, and as willing to try different ideas.

Do u guys like the Heath Brothers?

no really and it's the same with "When The Morning Comes", except that's a jam and I'll take the time to try and get the sound system to spout something that makes sense to dancers on this one.

i have found that the more fucked up the Theo record sounds, the better the dancefloor reaction. 1987 EP crushes it, as does WTMC and TMATWB.

or Let My Children Hear Music?

^ serious music:D

"if being confrontational isn't the way to go, what is? people are not committed to this music enough to go out of their way to learn about it on their own. the only way is for people to break through the deafening roar of the newest hype, and that doesn't happen by playing nice."

Clearly the only solution to this 'problem' is forceful, obnoxiously holier-than-thou indoctrination.

house is a feeling

of superiority

Clearly the only solution to this 'problem' is forceful, obnoxiously holier-than-thou indoctrination.

-- glynsync,

exactly. i can't stand that kind of attitude.

arguing on messageboards is saving the universe from shame

nothing in the world is better than a great night and a great floor, and imo, the music is only responsible for switching it from great to 'uhhh' when something just stinks up the fucking room. these things are usually mash-ups.

i don't know a lot about dance music or techno or house. trance is kind of too fast for me. i could probably 'get' it and enjoy it though. i love disco, pretty much all of it i hear: "underground," "cheesy/gay," "mainstream." i honestly haven't heard any theo parrish, sorry. :( the few revival disco nights i've been to in l.a. have been fun but a little hit-or-miss: too reserved/cool, too many clumsy beardos, (too much like pipecock ha!) that is until everyone gets drunk enough and/or the floor becomes crowded enough that it's all off the hook.

house nights are the most fun though, even though i don't actively seek it out for 'listening time.' that's my loss. i don't know what kind of house they usually play, but it's fun as hell to dance to, and the floor is racially mixed, which is a breath of fresh air (i probably go to all the wrong clubs).

all of this is totally off-topic, sorry.

house is a feeling

-- haitch, Friday, July 18, 2008 1:09 AM

of superiority

-- haitch, Friday, July 18, 2008 1:09 AM

i LOL'd for real

i have found that the more fucked up the Theo record sounds, the better the dancefloor reaction. 1987 EP crushes it

Agreed, I love that record. I also love the fact that he made it on his uncle's casio keyboard and a kawai drum machine when he was 14. The best part is that the distortion comes from a short in the wire that he jiggled when he wanted the sound to change. That is fucking brilliant.

I am loving the ilx hand wringing the last few days. I check in once or twice a day with a bucket of popcorn and some jujubes to see what happened. It's better than the movies.

blunt, can i borrow "deaf sloth" as the name for a record label? it's too good to let evaporate. :)

listening to the new theo mix on rbma that he did for sonar and its weird. he mixes james brown into savage project and then gets into post-punk disco and then latin music ??? i have not been to witness to theo's sets but is he usually that eclectic ? i hate that term but you know what i mean.