Dark crowded room, sirens going off
Mark and I went last night to Recombinant Labs to check out Monolake and Deadbeat. (Mark loves it when I drop his name in here.) Monolake (aka Robert Henke) is the German inventor of Ableton Live, and he does this terrifically dense rhythmic techno that still has very much a live feel to it. If you think Autechre’s Tri Repetae is the bee’s knees, you should check this one out.
The crowd loved Deadbeat’s dubby Orb thing, but thinned considerably during Monolake’s set. True, it’s not exactly good-timey stuff, but c’mon people we were at Recombinant Labs! We’re there for the challenge!
The challenge got steeper later when the police shut down the show. I heard a panicky promoter telling another panicky promoter “I can’t take the hit for this one.” Seems that somebody complained about noise, which is astonishing for a space that was a good three blocks from any residences. Hopefully this doesn’t mean the end for SF’s best experimental electronic scene.
[Soundtrack]
Monolake – Linear.mp3
I’m suspicious about the noise thing. I think that was a good excuse for the officers once they were at the door. For the first time that I’ve seen, no one used the space along Griffith (the dirt street) to park, and that usually keeps a lot of cars well out of sight. I’m wondering if a patrol saw the rather large crowd of vehicles filling Thomas Ave. and got nosy. I can’t believe anyone else actually heard that show. I’ve been looking for pics from the event. Anyone know where some have been posted?
I haven’t seen any pictures. I saw some people filming with their cameras, but no picture-takers.
Yeah, the car thing was weird. I was surprised because I take comfort in not having to leave my car out there. Also they need to set up a little crowd control. When I got there, everybody was massed to go in and it seemed like there were enough folks there to sell the place out — in which case there should have been a line for the early arrivers to get precedent.
My friend left early and he said he could hear bass all the way back to his car, which was about a block from the gate.
Hi. My name is Gabriel. I’m a friend of yours. I would very much like you to drop my name if possible. Maybe you could be telling a story and then say something like ‘…or at least that’s what my friend Gabriel told me.’
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.