miguel23

I was not prepared for what happened when I turned the corner of Fillmore onto Haight. A mob of about 150 people were dancing their brains out to old school house music around a mere Muni bustop. As cars and buses went by, bus stop ravers would unite in a hollerin’ fit while keeping their rhythm going strong to the beat. It was irresistible to avoid. My curiosity mounted until I found myself on their side of the street freaking out at other passer byers. The drinking and smoking were definitely in effect keeping the status quo of the Lower Haight.

When the police rolled up curiously at the flash dancing mob the first time, the music automatically shut off and everyone stopped dancing and pretended to anxiously wait for a bus. The creator of this spectacle rigged the bus stop with a mini sound and laser light system that was remote controlled. It was semi concealed in the upper-inner vestibule area of the canopy. The crowd ranged from the typical hipster fixed gear dude, your 60’s hippie still on acid, the random homeless guy, the cute working girl types, the usual emo-hipster chick, and your classic geeky types who got off on discussing chemical reactions at the bus stop.

I was interviewed by this girl who wondered what I thought of this bus stop flash mob action. I told her that I thought this was an evolution of the urban public space remixing culture. This bus stop temporarily had a different purpose from its everyday purpose and use. It was now a mash up bus stop/rave party. There were even underground party fliers on the ground from promoters who targeted this motley street dancing crew.

The urban public space remix concept is well explored by my friends Matt and John B, who on this same day had their annual Park(ing) day. Let me first disclose to you that these guys are pranksters at heart and they treat their work in a scientific manner. Park(ing), in case you have not heard, is paying for parking spot, and turning it into a mini park. It’s yours, you paid for it, you don’t have to necessarily park a car in it. Instead you can put park bench and some grass, read the paper why not? Hence, park(ing). Clever. There has been so much written on them already, but check out their other work. Unfortunately I was not able to make it park(ing) this year.

Eventually the cops curiosity amounted and they hung around the corner for a while trying to figure out the mob. They did not once realize that the structure was rigged with a sound and light system. After the crowd broke up a little bit, this guy displayed some strong feelings about it.

The beats came back and the party started up again with lower numbers but just as much energy.

Nobody does house music quite like Chicago. It’s true. Most of the greatest house dj’s formed there and many other great unknown bless decks in the windy city nightly. However, not many take the cake like Cajmere, aka. Green Velvet, founder of the classic Cajual and Relief Records, and widely known for the timeless jakin’ house anthem, “The Percolator”. For those who know house music though, this is just a sliver of his work. This man has produced countless underground anthems and last Friday September 14th at Zentra Club in Chicago, Cajmere displayed how deep he can take his rhythm. Here is a horrible picture taken with my phone camera early in the night.

The night started with twisted deeper techie cuts that preserved the original Chicago house hat hit that sets the mood. It progressed smoothly into deeper bass grooves with asynchronous clack-like sounds that teetered yet maintained funk. House head bopping was inevitable. I went with my deep homie ‘Mole’ with whom I first discovered Cajual Records back in 1992. He went on to being a deep hippie in the woods of Montana with a ZZ top beard. But on this particular night ‘Mole’ was throwing down some house jakin’ dance moves in his hometown of Chicago to the sounds of Cajmere. It was great to see, we both went back to the basics.

Dajae, the original Diva of Cajual Records came out and did all the greats “U Got Me Up” and “Brighter Days” included. It felt good to hear the Windy City sing along to the lyrics. Groovy! here is another horrible picture (I’ll get a camera soon):

Anyway, it was dark, I used my phone. Please cut me some slack.. I know the picture quality sucks.

As you can expect U Got Me up made the crowd loose their shit, but even more so was when we all heard the undeniable funky beginning beats of the “The Percolator”. Wow! Chicago, thank you for representing for your own sake. It was fucking great to see the love Cajmere get out there and actually perform the percolator live with a microphone in his hand. He actually showed us what the percolator dance looks like. Feast your eyes on yet another crappy phone camera picture. Here is a glimpse of Cajmere dancing the Percolator:

The guy to his right is one of his new artists whose name I can’t recall. After this apex moment, Cajmere took back the decks and continued to dj for another 2 hours. He stayed true to himself and played some of that ultra hard techno which he produces frequently under the alias Green Velvet. Personally speaking, another large highlight for me was when he dropped Plastikman’s ‘Spastik’ and Chicago welcomed it hootin’ n’ hollerin and jakin’ to it. I personally live between Chicago, Detroit, and Berlin as my favorite music epicenters so this was a special moment for me. Here is a picture taken at the moment he was playing it:

I ran into my old friend Tim Baker, founder of Elephanthaus Records, Detroit. He ran an early techno operation that spawned the Ann Arbor to Detroit techno contingency in the early 90’s. An old school head, great to see and catch up with. Another great surprise was seeing and hanging with yet another important Detroiter, Brian Gillespie whom I had the pleasure of knowing and rubbing shoulders with back in my party throwing days in Ann Arbor/Detroit.

I was happy to go home with this great auto graphed souvenir by Cajmere. I plan on framing it.

quick prop delivery and a picture with Cajmere. Good times. Back in San Francisco now.

I am not sure about you and your experience with ‘real techno’, but Galoppierende Zuversicht will definitely teach you the basics and the higher echelons of beat complexity. The swiss techno duo visited San Francisco last week for an underground show at a great little spot deep in Bayview. The party was thrown by the Kontrol crew in San Francisco. We already know they throw the best parties in San Francisco outside of the Sunset Crew, but they really stepped up their game by giving us Galoppierende Zuversicht live in a full surround sound theater in the round format. We must also give props to Brian Gibbs of ReCombinant media labs for making the sound part come together, he actually managed the board all night. At times he would get on and pan frequencies around the room making people look behind them in confusion.

Here is Brian in front of Galoppierende Zuversich, manning the sound board.

Galoppierende Zuversicht translates roughly to ‘Galloping Confidently’ in English. At times I would look around the room and see people loose their shit dancing. I was one of them of course. During the show their name became apparent. These guys can keep this techno train rolling once they press ’start’ with out failiure, very confident indeed. Their system is set up so that it is actually hard to fail. They can drop beats from any of their synths and keep their rhythm rocking the room with no problem at all! Effortlessly.

How can I describe this in words: the music as a whole sounded like the natural cosmic flux falling in love with itself and creating strings and baselines that defined the meaning of love with every beat and measure. On top of some nasty sick ass beats of course. I don’t really know where these guys came from, they say Switzerland, but I think it is more like another planet from far far away.

No laptops, just good ole’ analog sound gear…..1,2,3 blast off into space with Galoppierende Zuversicht.

Here is my with one half of the group, Styro2000. Meeting this man made me believe in extraterrestrial life by the way.

I would also like to mention that eventhough I gathered no pictures of anything else but the group doing their thang, this party by far had the most attractive women I have ever seen at a techno party, but I have no pictures to prove it. I guess good looking women do like real techno. It is like finding a diamond in the rough.

Of course, this was taken after the group was done and walked away from their gear: