The Incredible Blog

HONG KONG (AP) – Johnnie To’s gangster thriller “Exiled” is Hong Kong’s choice for the best foreign movie Oscar submission for next year, an industry official said Tuesday.

9/30/07

I have to give credit where credit is due. I complain that the Bollywood-requesters at Andaz are always behind the times, but last month there was one gentleman actually requesting a new Bollywood song: “Heyy Babyy.” Unfortunately, I haven’t warmed to the cheeziness of that song yet, and was not inclined to play it at August’s Andaz. In the meantime I have been listening to a dozen new soundtracks that have come out in the last month, and not the Heyy Babyy soundtrack. Instead I am appreciating Johnny Gaddar‘s nods towards 70’s Bollywood funk, and the sure-to-be-huge-no-matter-how-cheezy (and Shahrukh, please put your shirt back on) Om Shanti Om. This month at Andaz there were several more requests for “Heyy Babyy,” but not for any other new songs that I have been listening to this month. Unfortunately, I’m still not sold on it. I was in the midst of an uptempo filmi house mini-set, and I was feeling charitable, so I played the ravey remix (featuring Girl Band) of “Heyy Babyy” since (after a quick listen) it seemed like it would fit better with what I was playing than the original mix of the song. (Listening to it now I find that it is not only unbearably awful in its cheeziness, but a shameless rip-off of Amr Diab’s “Ala Wala Baloh.” I sincerely apologize for letting that one slip through.) It was not the version people wanted to hear, because there continued to be requests for the original throughout the night. I didn’t get around to it, so sorry for the disappointment. We’ll see if the song’s cheeziness melts my brain enough to cause me to acquiesce to playing the original next month. Bollywood Horror? Sure, why not. There are many definitions of horror, and “Heyy Babyy” might just fit mine.

I really focused on Bollywood for this month’s Andaz, but other than “Heyy Babyy” all my requests were for Panjabi songs. Specifically songs by Jazzy B. and Lehmber. Over and over and over. Ironically, whenever I complain about the demands of filmi-requesters, I really dedicate myself to the genre in preparation for the next Andaz, and then the next Andaz comes around, and there won’t even be any filmi requests; just Panjabi, Panjabi, Panjabi. As much as I complain about arrogant filmi-requesters, I listen to tons of filmi, love tons of filmi, and really enjoy playing it for an appreciative audience. Its just that the songs I want to play, and the songs that Desi filmi-lovers want to hear, only sometimes overlap. I think that a bunch of filmi-lovers will show up to an Andaz night, complain about all the bhangra that is played, and then not bother to come the next month when I have dedicated a lot of time to prepping the latest filmi dance songs.

At yesterday’s Andaz, I felt guilty for playing a string of bhangra songs after Anjali had just played a mostly-bhangra set, but I wasn’t getting Bollywood requests, and the stage was FILLED with Panjabi dancers lording over the crowd. I felt guilty because I imagined there were Desis throughout the crowd hoping to hear some filmi, but when the whole place is going nuts for bhangra, it is hard as a DJ to risk clearing the stage, in order to hopefully please a quiet minority, by taking a severe musical left turn. Not that that stops me from taking any number of severe musical left turns during my sets, I just often don’t know who, if anybody, I am REALLY pleasing, when I attempt to mollify different factions in the crowd. I have an idea of who I am pleasing when I play the “Dus Bahane” remix or the “Thaare Vaaste” remix, but am I really pleasing anyone?

When I switched off with Anjali around midnight, a friend of my brother’s was in the crowd, who had attended the wedding I wrote about previously, the one where I had to play “Celebrate” and “We Are Family” (shudder), and he was congratulating me, and telling me that it was cool to see me playing what I want to play, instead of taking wedding requests. I had to explain to him that I am only partly doing what I want to do, and often just attempting to please different factions in the crowd. He seemed surprised by that. It is very rare that I am doing what I want to do on stage. Even if I’m clearing everybody in the room, sometimes that is because I’m doing what I want to do, and sometimes I was erroneously thinking that I was doing something that someone was going to enjoy. I remember I read a description of our party in an Asian Reporter article once and they said that my “sound” was more electronic and house-y than Anjali’s. That is only my “sound” at Andaz to the extent that I am reacting to what Anjali does in her sets. I am very reactive in my programming at that party. Since Anjali usually plays very little filmi, I feel responsible for all the Desis that want to hear some Hindi songs, and I try to oblige, sometimes playing popular Hindi songs, and sometimes filmi songs that probably only I want to hear that aren’t pleasing anyone else. After all, I never did play the original “Heyy Babyy,” and instead I played brand new songs like “Dard -E-Disco” and “Bhool Bhulaiyya” that few people seemed to know yet.

I wonder sometimes what it would sound like if I played a set at Andaz that at no point was geared towards pleasing one dance faction or another. Certain individuals in the crowd are so aggressive about getting in the DJ’s face the second they are hearing something they don’t like, that it is hard to imagine ignoring them for an entire set. Often orders are being barked, and attempts are made to intimidate and control the DJ. Lame. Even lamer is when Anjali or I honor an aggressive request, only to find that no one, not even the requester and their friends, is that interested in dancing to it. I am so conscious of whether a song is in Hindi or Panjabi, and whether it is a hit or not, and whether it will be more popular with goras or Desis on the dance floor. I spend so much time trying to keep one faction or another happy, it would be a very difficult exercise to play for no one but myself. And who would be happy then? I wouldn’t be, if the dance floor wasn’t packed and raging. That is the whole point: keep the dance floor packed and raging, right? But what it the DJ doesn’t want to play lame popular songs? What if the DJ is beseiged by aggressive factions in the crowd that only know what they want, and not what is best for the whole floor? What if they don’t take no for an answer? You can’t please everyone all the time, and I sometimes feel like even in trying to please some people some of the time, I please very few, least of all myself.

IK

PS I really apologize for playing that “Heyy Babyy” remix, cuz that shit was lame. But I don’t apologize for playing “Thaare Vaaste” Remix, because I was happily singing it the whole next day, and I don’t apologize for playing “Mind Blowing Mahiya,” cuz that is some cheezy shit I actually really enjoy.

PSS I really wanted to play a lot of the new Indian bhangra I’ve been listening to, but it didn’t happen amidst the sea of Lehmber and Jazzy B requests. We shall see if I can fit some in next month.

One of the posts I haven’t gotten around to writing was going to talk about the New York Asian Film Festival I attended this Summer. I really wish a festival like this would happen in Portland. Ever since Christine stopped booking films at Cinema 21 many years ago, things have looked bleak. She would always try to insert Hong Kong film festivals into the schedule there, and it was thanks to her efforts that I was introduced to Jackie Chan (pre-Hollywood!) and saw Hard Boiled for the first time.

I only managed to see a few films at the New York festival, but Johnny To’s Exiled (Fong Juk) was my favorite. And now it is showing in Portland at the Living Room Theaters through October 4th. Check it out. If you like gangster films, if you like Hong Kong gangster films, if you like character-driven stories about bad men who are good men, and the things they have to do for loyalty, honor, or just to save their neck, check it out! The final photo booth scene is awesome.
IK

Anjali and I have been working on new flyers . . .

Every once and a while I DJ a wedding. I’ve done several recently. They tend to be among the most stressful and challenging gigs out there, so I don’t search them out. I also don’t advertise myself as a wedding DJ, although I am more than qualified. The first wedding I did was the Summer of 2001, and I was very nervous because I had none of the standards: no “YMCA,” no “We Are Family,” no “Celebrate,” etc. It’s not that I liked these songs, or wanted to play them, it was just that I was nervous that I would be expected to have them by members of the bridal party or their guests. I was so nervous that I didn’t have the right wedding music that I had the bride and groom come over to my house and look at my records to make sure they thought I would be alright for the gig. I expressed such hesitancy that they had several friends and relatives bring piles of music for me at the wedding, to bulk out my collection. I had recently acquired a DJ CD player, in addition to my turntables, so I was able to play their CDs. One friend brought some of the most hideous wedding cheese, with extensive notes on every CD, about how I was to play “Unforgettable” and “I Will Always Love You” (Whitney Houston version), and dozens of noxious others. The notes must have taken hours, and they enthusiastically (exclamation points abounded) demanded that all sorts of horrible songs from various television and movie soundtracks must be played. I didn’t touch anything in her pile. (I did discover “Sweets For My Sweet” by the Drifters from the father of the bride’s collection.)

The groom played in a rock band, and they played before me. They totally got the crowd going, and their finale actually cued a lot of people to leave. I went on and began bombing on stage, trying to play songs that people would know, but that weren’t super over-played. I watched a mass exodus to the waiting shuttle buses. Finally the drummer of the band, who was also a DJ, and seemingly none too happy that he didn’t get this gig, reached into his bag, pulled out an Aretha Franklin CD and said, “Play ‘Respect.’” “Oh man, that song is so totally overplayed,” I thought. “Oh well. What I’m doing isn’t working.” I put it on, and the dance floor went crazy. I had an epiphany. Weddings are about playing the most overplayed songs ever. Now, this might seem obvious to people who attend a lot of weddings, but up until this point in my life I had only attended two, and only one where a DJ performed. To this day I have only seen two wedding DJs perform, so I only have other people’s recollections to go on, to get some sense of how other DJs handle these gigs. Not that I am curious to emulate them, I am just curious what the norms are. I remember reading a how-to wedding DJ book, and of the 500 songs they said I must own, I had maybe two. I have since bought hundreds of these “standards” but I still don’t have any country other than Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.

I thought I had lowered my standards enough by what I brought to my first wedding. I learned that the trick to DJing weddings is lowering your standards until you couldn’t possibly lower them any more, and then lowering them even more, until there are no standards, except that of popularity, and familiarity. At this first wedding gig I found myself searching my mind and my collection for the most unbearably overplayed and obnoxious songs. Each one worked like a charm. As I stood there mortified by what I was playing, I realized that I was getting more money for DJing this gig than I had ever received, and it was the least challenging gig imaginable. I didn’t need to have any obscure music, or specialized DJ knowledge; just the opposite. All I needed to know was what the most overplayed songs in America are, and play them. Most of my time DJing house parties (my standard gigs before this wedding) had been spent thinking of the coolest or most obscure song I could get people to dance to. Even though many times I would have to play party standards, I would take pride in a set where I knew that no one knew any of the songs, or if I had to play popular songs, they were obscure covers or remixes. Here I was aiming for the lowest common denominator, to delirious success. It wasn’t about songs I liked, it was mostly about songs I didn’t like, but knew were popular.

“But wait a minute, earlier you said that weddings were the most challenging gigs, and now you are saying that playing music for weddings is the least challenging thing imaginable. Why the contradiction?” you might ask. Well, playing no-brainer songs is not the difficult part, it is dealing with all the personalities involved: the bride and groom, their family, friends, drunk family, drunk friends, the venue staff, the wedding coordinator, the caterer. There are so many unpredictable personalities the DJ has to navigate. I try to be really careful about whose weddings I DJ. I will avoid any couple if I get an unpleasant vibe from them. I am not desperate for gigs (the advantage of maintaining a day job) so I will turn down any couple that don’t seem friendly and likeable. Weddings have such built-in expectations, and I want to work with people who have reasonable expectations that I think I can fulfill. Even though I screen my couples carefully, I don’t know until I show up for the reception what the rest of the constellation of personalities that I will have to deal with for the evening are going to be. Some people are controlling, or rude, or completely misinformed as to what my job is, or what has and has not been run by me before. I have talked myself out of many wedding gigs. I have talked potential clients out of hiring me. When I play to hundreds of people at a club, I might upset some of them with my performance, but they are only invested a few bucks, and they are some among many. When I am hired for a wedding, I am being handed an ass-load of money for someone’s “very special” night, and I don’t want to blow it. Ultimately, there are only two people I have to please (even if their enjoyment is tied to whether everyone else has a good time), and only one person is writing the check.

I did a wedding recently where minutes after I arrived to set up I had multiple people demanding a microphone from me that could be used by the singers who would be performing during the ceremony. 1) I was only told to bring a mic for the toasts and announcements. 2) I was told that my performance would not be starting until hours after the ceremony. 3) I was not told that I would be doing live sound for multiple singers. I had just arrived and was suddenly told that not only was I going to be doing live sound, but that my equipment needed to be set up immediately, hours before my performance was scheduled to begin, since the singers wanted to begin practicing on my system before the ceremony. Oh, boy. This sort of confusion is typical. I never know what I will be walking into when I agree to perform at a wedding.

I take my wedding gigs very seriously. I spend far too much time and money trying to track down bride and groom requests, most of which never get played, due to lack of time. I try to cater my music to the couple and their guests as much as possible. I ask a lot of questions, and I try to bring as much music as possible, from as wide a collection of time periods and genres as possible, to please as great a number of attendees as I can. I have done several weddings with a lot of people in their 50’s and 60’s, so I am used to bringing all sorts of music from the last 55 years to my wedding gigs. When I showed up at this wedding the first person in my face, before the ceremony even begun, was an elderly gentleman who inquired about what music I had for 80-year-olds. Wow. I have a lot of swing music from the ’20s to ’40s, but that was never a part of my conversation with the bride and groom, so I had brought very little from before the rock’n’roll era. He referred to some “jamboree” that he goes to every year in his home town, and I tried to imagine what music an 80-year-old that attends some jamboree every year would want to hear. I had a very aggressive woman (seemingly an older family member) in my face telling me to make sure to play “Celebrate.” Right. The groom’s mother then comes over to tell me to play Earth Wind and Fire. Sure, got you covered. All of this is well before my performance is even scheduled to begin.

Once I do start playing, I am bombarded with insistent requests for the most diverse and contradictory set of songs/genres, while trying to navigate a list of forty-some songs that the bride and groom wanted me to play. Most couples leave me on my own to play what I think is best, with maybe a request or two at most. This particular couple gave me the longest song list I have ever received, which was about three times longer than what I would actually be able to fit into my performance time. On top of that, most of the songs didn’t seem likely to inspire anyone to dance. They weren’t good uptempo dance songs, and they weren’t good slow-dancing songs either. I start with some ballads. An old lady approaches me, asks me if I have “World War II music.” Hmmm. I play “September” for the mom. The “Celebrate” woman comes back, angrier, more insistent. I play “Celebrate,” and “We Are Family” a bride and groom request. Wow. I have never played those three songs together at a gig before. Never played “September.” Maybe played “Celebrate” once. Maybe. Never played “We Are Family” ever. That trifecta created a new DJ low for me. Afterwards the bride was very complimentary, and said that one of her friends was a big fan of mine, and very impressed that they had hired a DJ that always plays such great stuff. How embarrassing. They probably weren’t expecting me to play that collection of songs, based on seeing me at my club appearances. At a wedding I try to play the best music that I can, but I am pretty ego-less about trying to do what the bride and groom and their friends and family want from me, which means that as long as I think people will dance to a request, I will play it, to hell with my own taste and quality control standards.

While I am getting disco requests, and “Word War II music” requests, a tiny boy who doesn’t even come up to my waist requests “rap music.” Hooo, boy. I only have “dirty” versions of hip-hop songs, and not the “clean” ones, so the bride and groom had requested that I leave hip-hop for the end of the night, when the older and more sensitive family members had left. – I had noticed that the ceremony was highly religious, containing multiple Bible verse readings. – I tell the kid I’ll try to play some later. His mother comes back with the kid. “Can’t you play some rap music for my son?” Wow. This is not some young mother. This is the last person in the world you would expect to be requesting “rap music” whether for her son or anyone else. “I’m sorry, but due to language concerns, the bride and groom requested that I save rap for the end of the night,” I explain. “Well, can’t you play some old-school rap music?” she asks. Wow. I am shocked that the woman standing before me even has the phrase “old-school rap” in her vocabulary. I am floored. “OK, I’ll see what I can do.”

Every time I DJ a wedding I spend hundreds of dollars on music that I am convinced I must have in order to do the best job at the wedding. Anjali always questions my decision to spend so much in preparation, and I always tell her that I won’t have to do it next time, only to find myself convinced of all the music I didn’t have at the last wedding, that I really need, in order to do a good job at the next one. After every gig I always tell her, “You know, now that it’s over, I realize I didn’t need to buy any of that music to DJ that gig.” She reminds me of this every time, and I reply, “I know, but I really need to buy this stuff for this gig.” Yeah, right. Ah well, the same thing happens every time. But I know, that no matter how much I try to anticipate requests, and bring everything I could possibly need to play to a wedding, I will always get requests that no matter how many months I have spent preparing for a gig, I never could have anticipated. This time I got a doozy.

After I played her Earth Wind and Fire request, the mother of the groom comes back and requests Ween. Yes, WEEN. I’m speechless. “Ween? I didn’t bring any Ween.” I never, never, saw that one coming. I have since asked many Ween fans what song she might have thought I could play to a wedding dance floor. They always sit there stumped for a while and then half-heartedly suggest a couple remote possibilities. Yeah, that request takes the cake. You just never can know.

Oh, if you do hire a wedding DJ, please consider tipping them, no matter how much money they charge. If they did a good job, they deserve it.

IK

Sometimes Wedding DJ for Hire

PS Thanks to the Nick, for being such a stellar roadie.

PSS The Nick reminded me that in addition to being a stellar roadie he managed to get smashed, dance all night, AND win the garter toss. Way to go, roadie!

9/21/07

Raj from bollywoodvinyl.com wrote me recently. He was reading my blog and wanted to make me aware of his site. I haven’t ordered from it yet, so I can’t comment on that, but it certainly is cool to look through all the record sleeve images. Anjali and I are so backlogged with hundreds of un-listened-to Bollywood records from previous record shopping expeditions that I can only see myself buying more right now if it is a specific record I want, or a really good deal. I highly recommend the practice, however. Buying lots of Bollywood vinyl, that is. One interesting thing about the site is that they carry dozens of records from the ’90s, despite the fact that I had been previously informed by an Indian music distributor that no Bollywood vinyl was pressed after 1989. The ’90s vinyl soundtracks on offer seem obscure, and I certainly don’t recognize any big hits. It is interesting to note that these records exist. The site even has a section for records pressed after 2000, but all that is in that section is a fabulously expensive triple vinyl Veer Zara set. Thanks for writing, Raj.

IK

9/20/07

I have not been writing about a lot of things that have been happening lately. I’ve started many posts, but have lost interest in completing them. I have not even written about our parties in a while, including one-of-a-kind shows with special guests like Joro-Boro and Sujinho. What gets me to write? Reviewing the Diplo show at Holocene that happened September 19th, 2007 along with commenting on the Daniel Pinchbeck appearance at Powell’s that I attended the same evening. I did such a thorough job of dissecting Diplo’s set at the Doug Fir that occurred on August 7th, 2006 that I felt I had to practice a similar exercise this time around, testing if I lost some of my ability to be able to hold that much of a DJ set in my head without notes for a second time. I force Daniel Pinchbeck and Diplo to share a blog post since they both shared my nervous system on the evening of September 19th. I am often entertained moving from one very different event to another in an evening, and sensing that I am the only person in Portland engaging in a particular succession of events on a particular evening. Did you go to Pinchbeck and Diplo on the same night? My cursory visual scan registered totally different crowds at the two events. On the night in quesion I wondered if Diplo’s performance would gain any added significance or meaning to me as a result of hearing Pinchbeck’s encouragement to search for meaning in the synchronicities and juxtapositions of life. I now wonder if I will achieve any additional insight from further forcing the juxtaposition of the two events by writing about them both in the same post.

The Diplo show at the Doug Fir in August of 2006 was the first time I had seen him; every previous time he played Portland I either had a gig or was out of town. Ever since reading about his Hollertronix parties and buying the Favela on Blast mixtape (as much as I loved MIA from her first 12″s, I never got that into Piracy Funds Terrorism) I had wanted to see him DJ. What I find so notable about Diplo as media creation is that he is the US DJ most associated with playing international urban music, although I question how much that reputation is justified by the actual musical content of his DJ sets. Since he seemed to know a fair amount about both Funk Carioca and grime from what I read in various media, I hoped for all sorts of international excitement whenever I might get the chance to see him. When I asked people about the Portland Diplo shows that I missed, curious about his international selections, I was told, much to my disappointment, that he only played hip-hop and ’80s. When I finally saw him at Doug Fir he waited until the end of his set to play the Funk Carioca rhythm sampled in “Bucky Done Gun,” and then “Bucky Done Gone,” and that was it for Funk Carioca in his entire set. He did drop the “Rompe” accappella, (but no real reggaeton beats) and a few dancehall songs near the beginning, but overwhelmingly his set was electronic, hip-hop, and whitey 80’s and indie; not international music. Which is fine, he does his thing, people love it, dance, go crazy, but it bugs me that he has the reputation of being THE white dude American DJ who has the international urban scene on lock – if he is playing primarily anything but.

I think he totally deserves credit as a DJ and producer who puts forth highly danceable and eclectic sounds, and for bringing attenton to the Funk scene in Rio, I just take offense to people claiming that any DJ doing an international urban mix is some copycat of his – which is an idea I encounter online occasionally. There are a lot of DJs in the US actually playing entire sets of international dance music, not getting any sort of national notice or interest. They might not be raising the media profile in America of international dance music the way Diplo is, but they are actually playing the international music that Diplo just gets credited for playing. As much as Diplo’s media coverage has often focused on his pursuit of hot-shit international urban dance music, I have not found much evidence of this pursuit in the sets of his that I have witnessed. He might collect the music and listen to it, and know a lot more about it than I do, I just wish I could hear more of it in his sets when he plays Portland.

Last night, before I went to the Diplo show, I attended Daniel Pinchbeck’s “reading” at Powell’s, and although billed as a reading, he didn’t read anything, but instead talked about how his life led him to Powell’s to talk to us. Fine by me, when it comes to authors of non-fiction, there are only certain bookstore appearances that really benefit from an actual reading of the text. Unless the person is a powerful reader, and their material is really geared to being heard, and not just read, then I often find the expectation that all authors read at their appearance an ossified practice that clings on to non-fiction book tours; an awkward and unfortunate ritual hearkening back to when words were spoken and not read. A great thing to witness if someone is an orator, but not many writers are necessarily good orators, so I would rather them just talk about their book and their ideas, rather than reading from the text. I can do that just fine on my own, on my own time.

Pinchbeck’s appearance didn’t seem ossified, as he riffed on his ongoing life journey, 2012, shamanic cultures, traditional psychedelic ceremonies, secular materialism, the wisdom age, crop circles, “communing with plant teachers” (How much did he use that phrase in jest? There was much audience laughter that appeared to be knowingly caused.), the power of intention, freeing the power of the psyche, the coming together of science and indigenous/intuitive knowing, the plumed serpent, the death of the biosphere, the emergence of the technosphere, possible futures for humanity/the earth, Hopi and Mayan concepts of time, Rudolph Steiner, Nietzsche, John Major Jenkins, Jose Arguelles, Carl Johan Calleman, Terrance McKenna, the interrelatedness of the planet, the relation between thought/the psyche and material reality, etc., etc., and etc. I liked that he was not “certain” of things, but pursued things with a questioning –what are the most creative possibilites of looking at this situation – form of thinking and learning. He feels we have a window of time currently, where we can either radically transfrom our lives and our relationship to the planet, or continue down a path of self-destruction, and we need to consider which path our own thoughts and lives are directed towards. Ever since reading about Breaking Open the Head in Arthur I’ve been curious about the man, although I have only glanced at his books, considering the idea of eventually reading them.

A lot of authors/speakers alienate me at their appearances because of how they handle the question and answer period. KRS-One appeared like an absolute certain-of-his-own-infallable-genius full-of-un-thought-out-contradictions/convictions idiot as he attempted to deal with audience questions when I saw him in 1990. Chomsky blew it for me, yelling at someone that had a different opinion than him. Chomsky testily claimed that the data that he had seen about an event trumped the audience member’s personal lived experience of that event. Of all people, Oliver Stone impressed me the most with his approach to his audience, which I witnessed when I worked at his Portland book tour appearance in the late ’90s. He listened intently to every audience member question and really tried to answer all of them as if it mattered, with thought, honesty, humor, and thoroughness; not ignoring, redirecting, misunderstanding, or evading the varied questions. Pinchbeck announced before his “reading” even really began that he would only allow “questions” and not rants, psychedelic blow-by-blows (those were his territory), or anything that wasn’t specifically aimed at asking him for something; he was the one that was going to be doing the talking. While I can imagine the type of ravings that he was trying to avoid, he twice cut off audience members who had somewhat long, but related riffs that they wanted to add to the the thought stew; a very egoistic effort on his part that bothered me, given that we were all there to learn, and he wasn’t otherwise trying to be some I-know-it-all-guru-prophet in his presentation. Internet carpings I had read criticized Pinchbeck for his perceived egoism and narcissism, and his lack of desire to listen to anything his audience had to say related to his own explorations, certainly gave me that impression. I really appreciate the way Grant Morrison paid attention to his readers’ experiences when he was on his Invisibles journey, and did a lot of learning and growing through the interchange, and I would respond better to Pinchbeck if he shared more of this approach.

After attending the Pinchbeck appearance I biked to meet Anjali. We then met with Jason at the Goodfoot to get posters and flyers for our upcoming night there on October 3rd. Then we went to the Montage to use our complimentary Musicfest NW gift certificates (schwag of actual utility), and then on to Holocene for the Diplo/Switch/Beyonda show. We arrived before 11pm, and Beyonda was DJing to a bunch of skinny young white kids. 21 looks really young at my age. The kids were dancing and happy, Beyonda working hard to keep them dancing, playing mostly Baltimore club with double-time hip-hop vocals, mixing in guitar-y songs I don’t know, and some slower Southern hip-hop. At one point she played a Baltimore club remix of a Fleetwood Mac song off Rumours and a double-time remix of Crime Mob’s “Stilettos (Pumps).”. When she ended around 11:15pm the crowd in front of her cheered and applauded, which is quite an achievement for the opening DJ at any night. There was at least 15 minutes of nothing but relatively quiet background music between Beyonda and Switch. Anjali said that backstage Switch and Diplo were very impressed with Beyonda, saying that she was banging so hard they needed to bring it down if they were to have a chance of following her. Everyone was jammed into the front room for Beyonda’s set, and the Holocene staff didn’t open the doors to the back room until just before Switch went on stage in the back room. I was impatient for that to happen, as it was hot and crowded, two things I love when it is my night at Holocene, but that I was selfishly ungrateful for when attending another DJ’s night.

Apparently Switch had spent the last few nights at our friend Alter Echo’s studio, so Anjali took the opportunity to join Alter Echo, Switch and Diplo backstage while I chose to sit in the corner of the club marinating in an antisocial brew of depressive feelings relating to the redundancy of my existence as another white boy DJ, and the one-sided pointlessness of meeting more successful and technically-proficient white boy DJs than myself. We found out last year that Anjali’s cousin is friends with Diplo, so Anjali at least wanted to say, “Hi.” When the visiting DJs were talking to Anjali about what she plays, her attempts to describe her sound resulted in Switch (he is from Britain) proferring, “Desi Beats?” Apparently he went to college with with either Bobby Friction or Nihal, I forget which.

Switch finally went on, starting with the unmistakable a cappella opening of Run DMC’s “Peter Piper” which was certainly not what I was expecting. I have never heard any of the man’s work beyond his contributions to MIA’s Kala, but I had an idea about what he was going to do in his set, and old school hip-hop was not it. The song quickly became a club version of “Peter Piper” and I thought, “Oh, OK, more club versions of hip-hop songs,” but then the song slowly evolved into abstract noise. “Hmmmmm. Not a bad opening.” Silence. Diplo announces Switch on the mic. Next song starts. I wouldn’t even begin to claim to know enough about electronic music to be able to categorize most new beats as belonging to a specific genre. Who knows what genre or genres the songs Switch plays are called? Not me. Sounded like house. In fact all the tracks he played had such a similar sound that it seemed likely to me that they were all his own productions or remixes, but since I am totally unfamiliar with his solo productions, I can only guess. I never bothered to watch him during his entire set, so I have no idea what the nature of his performance was, or what technology he used to play his songs. Anjali said he was looking through a CD binder during his set. His second song was his and MIA’s Bamboo Banga track. All his songs had very clear, crisp mid-range synth textures, that weren’t competing with Bass Nectar for squelchiness, but had their own approach to midrange sonic emphasis. They frequently featured vocal cut-ups and stutters. He seemed to play full songs, with no blends, just some drop mixes, and some drop-outs. He heavily and repetitively relied on that effect where a loop of the song is chopped and chopped until the song seems to build and build in intensity, and then he would drop in the next track. People danced enthusiastically, and responded to the fat synth textures, and clapped and cheered between songs. His set was very sonically consistent, and while I appreciated the sounds, I never felt motivated to stand up, much less dance. As much as many people were enjoying his performance, the crowd in the back room seemed to thin towards the end of his set. Having not checked on the front room throughout this time, I had no idea how many people were left at the club, and I wondered how many people were going to be left by the time Diplo went on. Near the end of Switch’s set he played a song that centered on samples of Jimi Hendrix’s a cappella asides from “Foxy Lady” (I have since learned that this is Speaker Junk “Foxxy (Switch Remix).”)
Diplo took the stage, setting up during Switch’s last song. I can’t remember Diplo’s first song, but he started and maintained a very uptempo club pace, playing a drastically different instrumental with MIA’s vocals to “Bird Flu” early on. I can’t claim to remember every song, or the order he played them in, but I will attempt to give some accounting of what he played during a very dense hour and a half. Switch’s set was so crisp and the textures so distinctive, while Diplo’s sound was relatively more muddled and indistinct. I don’t know if it was the difference between the sound of Switch’s CDs versus Diplo’s Serrato system, but it was very noticeable to me. Switch’s set was slamming beats from one end to the other, but no matter how hard his beats, or crystalline the deliniation of his sonics, Diplo’s beats just swung more, had more forward momentum, and were just that much more propulsively danceable. Anjali was really up for dancing, but I could manage little more than to barely sway from side to side. I love to dance, but I have to really be motivated by the music, which rarely happens at a club. Diplo really stuck to the Baltimore club/related contemporary US urban house-offshoots sound and tempo. It was an hour before he dropped any hip-hop. He did feature a few clubby (remixes?) of underground guitar girl pop songs that I recognized not at all, except for Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon” (the original mix) towards the end of his set. He rarely played a song for more than a few minutes, and while he had no visuals cued to the vocals this time around, the density of his set was such that it would seem like he had been playing for a long time, when really very little time had passed at all. He played so many (to me) anonymously clubby beats, that I don’t know that I held on to as much as when I saw him last when he was playing more pop and hip-hop beats and vocals that I recognized. Among the few songs I did recognize were “Percolator” and what I assume was his remix of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” Well into his set he actually played 5 or 6 Funk Carioca songs, which was 5 or 6 more than the last time I saw him. These included “Bucky Done Gun,” one with a “Sweet Dreams” sample that I believe Sujinho played at Atlas last month, and a metallic one with a girl vocalist. (I don’t claim to be an expert on Funk Carioca, although I do feature tracks in my sets.) Some people seemed to go crazy for the Funk, and the the bass drops, which needed no translation, appealed to everyone. Diplo got real cheeze at one point, playing a Baltimore club remix of Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.” Anjali and I weren’t feeling it, but Diplo’s young fans certainly were, so he knew his crowd. He then played some older electro pop song that people in the crowd also seemed to vibe with nostalgically, but that I had never heard.

Early on Diplo had invited people up on stage to dance. For a while only one person took him up on the offer, but eventually the stage was clogged with dancers on all sides of him. They were crowding around him to such an extent, front, back, and both sides, that I wondered if he was bothered by the lack of space, but Anjali, who was wearing her glasses, says he never appeared irritated in the slightest. The throng on stage never let up, lending quite a Bacchanalian feel to the event. When Sujinho played last month he had a lot of dancers on the stage, but this was another order of magnitude greater than that.

Diplo played some version of MIA’s XR2 at some point. After a long time (an hour or so?) he played his first slower Southern hip-hop songs. He played UNK’s “2 Step” which went over so well that when he fx-ed it into noise the crowd seemed unhappy with him pulling the track until he then went into Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” and all was seemingly forgiven by a crowd that apparently loves top 40 Southern hip-hop. He played Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon” into Outkast’s “BOB.” Even though this mix got shaky, he didn’t abandon it, but corrected it in the mix, which he managed to do pretty quickly the few times during the night a mix got off. He played Daft Punk’s “Da Funk,” and a pitched-up House of Pain “Jump Around.” When he played MIA’s “Paper Planes” the crowd all sang along with the chorus when he pulled the volume down. Even given that this was a Diplo show I was surprised at everyone spontaneously singing along with a non-single track from an album that only just came out. He played Lil Mama’s “Lip Gloss” into Eve’s “Tambourine.” At this point Anjali and I began making our exit while he played Timbaland’s “Way I Are” into Timbo’s “Ayo Technology” production for 50 Cent. Diplo then played Rihanna’s “Umbrella” and Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind.” Even though we were leaving, we heard silence and then cheers, so now that it was 2am, we assumed that his performance was over. We drove off though, so maybe he started up again.

A lot of the crowd at Holocene seemed pretty generic, and not as obviously hipster-centric as the crowd at Diplo’s last Doug Fir appearance. It’s not that there weren’t plenty of hipsters there, it is just that Diplo seems to have penetrated more into the mainstream based on the generic dressed-up-to-go-dancing crowd that was in attendance. He certainly knows how to get people going, and he really maintained the energy level of the crowd throughout his set. His job is to get people to dance, and he does that well, I just know that he is capable of far more unusual sets than what I have seen him play. Selfishly I just want to hear all sorts of cool and obscure stuff (especially international selections), and not the obvious crowd pleasers. Ah well, he plays a far more eclectic set than most big-name DJs, and I will no doubt be out to see him next time he comes around, assuming I don’t have a gig of my own that night.

IK

9/12/07

I’ve been thinking about Bollywood music a lot lately, specifically the people who request it. I got into it with a Bollywood fan at the last Atlas, and that particular “conversation” has brought the whole filmi issue to the relative forefront of my daily ruminations. To regular readers of this blog, this may all be previously-covered ground, but since this stuff is on my mind, it gets spewed out once again. Proceed with caution.

I was introduced to Bollywood films and soundtracks in the late ’90s by Kathy Molloy (of the late, great Portland music zine Snipehunt). I managed to track down a few vinyl soundtracks in San Francisco around that time, since I was only listening to records in those days. A few years later Anjali introduced me to the cassette and CD racks of Indian music at Srider’s in Tigard, but I was still only buying records, so I ignored them. It wasn’t until Anjali started blowing me away with her DJ sets in late 2000 that I became serious about researching contemporary filmi (Which means (shudder) CDs, vinyl-hounds. They haven’t pressed Bollywood vinyl since 1989.) Since then I have become insatiable, buying the vast majority of Bollywood soundtracks as they are released. Truthfully, most of the contemporary stuff is awful: lame rip-offs, insipid melodies and abominable Hinglish lyrics. This means that filmi is pretty much like any other music on earth: 99% of it is crap. But make no mistake about it, the filmi I love, I love. It’s just that the stuff I love only sometimes overlaps with what the typical Desi filmi fan loves.

The particular disagreement I got into at Atlas had to do with Anjali and I not playing enough Bollywood at that night. Funnily enough, in four years, we have never advertised that we play Bollywood at Atlas. Ever. I play some sometimes, Anjali does even fewer times, but we have never advertised that we play filmi at that night. That doesn’t stop people who want to hear Bollywood from coming to Atlas expecting to hear some (or a lot). Some Desis see Anjali’s name on a lineup and just assume that she will be playing Bollywood, no matter what the gig. Unlike me, Anjali was raised with Bollywood soundtracks, and she has very specific ideas about when and where she is going to play filmi, and nine times out of ten, Atlas is not it, especially if there are pushy Desis getting in her face and demanding to hear some. What she will often do in these situations is drop an old vintage Bollywood song into the middle of her set, hardly what the pushy requesters had in mind, but perversely satisfying to her.

I was trying to explain to this particular Bollywood fan at Atlas that Andaz is the night where we regularly feature Bollywood music, and she did admit that we play some filmi songs there, but was very disatisfied with how much Bhangra gets played at that night. The reality is that she is like many (non-Panjabi) Desis who attend our parties: only satisfied if the night was 100% Bollywood, since they have no affinity for, or understanding of Panjabi music. In my experience, Desi Bollywood fans view filmi as the ultimate music on earth, and only the ignorant and barbaric would ever DJ anything else. Try explaining to a Desi Bollywood fan how cheezy many of the popular songs sound to non-Desis and they would have no idea what you were talking about. To them it is an inconceivable horror that bhangra music appeals to more goras than Bollywood music.

Atlas is an around-the-world music party. We will play African, Latin, Brazilian, Balkan, Arabic, Jamaican, Indian, etc., music throughout the night. Even if you came to the party hoping to hear some Bollywood, I would hope you would be aware of the inclusive nature of the party. It’s one thing to come to a Desi party expecting all Bollywood, it is another thing to come to a party that explicity advertises a wide range of music with those same expectations. Bollywood music is popular the world over, but it is not the only music in the world. I will often get compliments from different international attendees at Atlas who were thrilled to hear even one song from their country. Not some Desi Bollywood fans, they wouldn’t be happy unless all they heard all night was Bollywood. It is not an attitude that is very compatible with a party whose stated mission is to play music from every corner of the world. (I’m still waiting for the dope beats from China!)

What about Andaz, a party that actually does advertise Bollywood? Truthfully, Andaz was always a successful party, no matter how little filmi we played. When we do play more filmi two things happen: more Desi Bollywood lovers come to the party, and more goras complain that we are not playing Indian music anymore. Some goras who come to our night have a concept of Indian music that fits with the tribal drumming of bhangra, but not a popular filmi song like “It’s the Time to Disco.” This always amuses me, because I have learned over the years that many Indians who are not Panjabi do not consider bhangra to be Indian music. For them, only filmi is Indian music. –They should try telling that to the South Indians.– So the more filmi we play, the more some Desis are happy we are playing more “Indian” music, and the more some goras are convinced we are not playing Indian music anymore. Sheesh.

Having listened intently to Bollywood soundtracks for years now, and having DJed to thousands of Desis over those years, I now have two minds. One knows what I like, and what I think is awful; the other knows that something is going to be a huge hit, whether I like it or not. So as a DJ who generally likes to please people and make them happy (as much as I also like to perversely toy with them) I am really torn when it come so a popular song that I think is abominable, like “Dhoom Again.” I’m still getting requests for that song, and I will play the original (and marginally-less-awful) “Dhoom,” as an attempt to placate the requesters, but I have begun to get the impression that the requesters assume that I am probably behind the times, and don’t know about the new song. Yeah, right. I can pretend.

Try telling a Desi filmi requester that their song will bomb on a mixed dance floor. Try. Especially if you are a gora DJ like myself. I get requests for lame filmi trance songs (not to be confused with the lame filmi techno songs I love and try to cram down the audience’s throats), and if I play them, a few Desis are thrilled, and everyone else stands around like, “What the fuck?” Meanwhile I can drop some hard-ass UK bhangra song, and the dance floor goes crazy, except for the Desi Bollywood lovers who go, “What is this crap?” Some goras think all Indian music sounds the same. They wouldn’t understand that playing filmi and bhangra together is often like trying to play polka and gabba, or country and death metal, or rockabilly and drum’n’bass. Two very different aesthetics, that get mashed together at our party. As much as some goras can’t tell the difference, they are not even sung in the same language. No matter how much contemporary filmi cribs from bhangra, its not going to fool any Panjabis.

Anjali has talked more and more about the two of us throwing a separate, all-Bollywood party. We have tried it once before, but it was at Saucebox, a lounge, and not a dance club, and the bathroom flooded that night, so it was a far from ideal experiment. I don’t like the idea of splitting our audience, especially in a city the size of Portland, with such a small Desi community to begin with. And, as much as I complain about the difficulties in trying to mix bhangra and Bollywood, and please two divergent audiences, that challenge has no doubt played a part in maintaining my interest in playing the Andaz parties over the last five years. I love both musics, but I would probably grow restless if I was only allowed to play one or the other.

Recap: I love filmi, often the songs filmi-lovers think are crap. I also loathe a lot of popular filmi songs. Bollywood supremacists want filmi and nothing else, regardless of the stated format of a party. They also think bhangra is not Indian music. Some goras think Bollywood is not Indian music, especially if it is a big techno number. Don’t make pushy requests of Anjali, you will not be pleased with the results.

Love,

IK

9/7/07

Anjali and I had to quit our Knitting Factory gig in New York this week. It was not something we wanted to do, but we felt like we had little choice. When we first agreed to do the night, one of my main concerns was how to successfully promote the night from three thousand miles away. We were told that the club would take care of all the posters and flyers. Great. Anjali and I are frustrated with how crazy busy we are all the time, and we were very happy to have someone else take on the work of designing and printing flyers and posters. We were already going to be in NYC a few weeks before our first show, so that would actually give us the opportunity to distribute some posters and flyers ourselves while we were there.

The only holdup was that the club wanted a name for the night and a tagline, which we had some difficulty in deciding on. Really we just wanted to be Anjali and The Kid, to help get our names out there in NYC. We didn’t finalize our tagline and promotional verbiage until the beginning of our week-long stay in NYC. As much as we would have loved to have flyered all the record stores and Indian stores that week, I understand that the flyer designer couldn’t necessarily get something designed, and the club get it printed, in time for us to flyer that week. Unfortunately, when we returned a week later for our gig, there was no sign that anyone else had flyered either. In fact, there was no evidence that any flyers had even been designed or printed.

The night of our first gig there were no flyers or posters for our night in the club itself, even though there were posters covering the walls for every other show at the venue. Nor were there any flyers waiting for us to hand out to promote our next night. We had asked that there be flyers to hand out to people that came to our show, and for us to distribute while we were in town. No dice. We gave out our Portland flyers to the enthusiastic people that attended instead. Every attendee told us that they learned of the show through our own electronic promotional efforts. The general manager of the club met with us that night and told us that he was committed to making our night a success, and that the club would “flyer the shit” out of NYC, the Indian community, and various club nights. As much as there had seemingly been no promotion for our first night, we were cautiously optimistic that things were going to get a lot better.

The week before our next appearance at the club, we were emailed a digital image of the flyer for our August show. This was more promising than our first month, since we had evidence that a flyer had actually been designed. We hoped that in the few days left until our show, that the image would be printed and distributed to advertise our appearance. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the club, we once again found not a single copy of the poster anywhere in the club. Neither did we see any flyers, except for ones our friend Pooja (bless her heart) printed out from the digital flyer image to help us promote. Neither were there any flyers for our next scheduled appearance at the club, that we could have handed out to the attendees, and used to flyer NYC ourselves while we were shopping at Indian businesses and record shops that weekend. Once again, everyone in attendance at our night was there because of our own electronic promotional efforts.

I already had a wedding gig booked a year in advance, so our September appearance at the club was going to be Anjali by herself. She made several email inquiries about whether there would be flyers or posters. At one point she was assured that posters had been sent out, however Anjali was never sent an image, and had no idea what these alleged posters might look like. When she arrived for her gig, she once again saw no sign of a poster or flyer anywhere in the club. Neither were there any flyers available to promote our next appearance.

Every time we played the Knitting Factory, the people in attendance were so enthusiastic that they wanted to help us flyer and promote the night. Unfortunately we never received a single flyer to promote the night, despite promises to the contrary. Not only could Anjali and I have been promoting while we were in the city four separate times, but we actually had multiple individuals who wanted to help, if only they had the materials to do so. So why didn’t we print our own flyers? Because every time we were assured that there would be flyers, and we were apparently far too trusting that this would actually happen.

Anjali and I have often learned the hard way that the only way to assure that something will be done right is to do it yourself. We have handled the vast majority of our promotions ourselves over the last seven years. When the club told us that they would do all the flyering, Anjali and I wondered if we should make our own flyers anyway. If it wasn’t for how crunched we are for time in our lives, we would have. As it was, we believed the promises that flyers would be designed and distributed for our parties. Maybe they were. Maybe the streets and stores of NYC were filled with flyers and posters, and there just never happened to be a single one at the club, or at any of the record stores or Indian stores that we frequented on our trips. Maybe. We never saw any physical evidence, and only ever saw a digital design (that was allegedly to be printed) for one of the nights. If the club was doing their best to promote the night, then their efforts were entirely ineffectual, since the only people who attended our shows came because of our own online promotions. Since all the signs pointed to a complete lack of promotional support from the club, we had little choice but to cancel our monthly, since our electronic promotional efforts from three thousand miles away were not enough to make the night an immediate success.

Thank you to everyone who came out and danced and was so enthusiastic about our New York appearances. We have not given up on New York, but are looking for a more appropriate and supportive venue in the future.

IK

8/31/07

I’ve been eating the lunch buffet at Tandoor a lot lately. At first I thought the restaurant was called Portland Tandoor, but it seems like they are going for Tandoor Indian Kitchen. Other than the India Chaat House, Indian food options downtown have been largely uninspiring since the brief life of Ashoka Palace. My first experience at Tandoor was underwhelming, but I’ve returned a lot lately. Despite my vegetarianism limiting me to three entrees and appetizers at the buffet, I have been really pleased with quite a few of the dishes. I especially like it when they throw in some South Indian specialties. And they’ve been playing non-stop Himesh Reshammiya videos lately, so how can you go wrong?

IK