Re: (idm) two LA shows

From Brock Suter
Sent Thu, Feb 19th 1998, 20:24

Paul Moore wrote:
> 
> Brock seems to be too quiet these days so here's a tip for you LA 
> scenesters. Ed Rush is DJing at Atmosphere next Tuesday (24th) and 
> Grooverider the Tuesday following.  Atmosfear is at the Viper Room, 
> probably 21 and up.
> 
> Luckily I got clued in that Jon Carter (Monkey Mafia) was spinning 
> this past Tuesday and caught a great 3 hour set - moreso considering
> his records ended up in a different city than LA and he borrowed 
> everything he spun.  Some overlap with the set from his Heavenly
> Social disc but loads of other surprises tossed in.
> 
> LA Celebrity Rating:
> 1/3 Love and Rocket + 1/4 KISS

Hi again kids.

Sorry I've been silent lately, but I've been a bit busy trying sort out
a million things going crazy in my life...

I was aware of Ed and Groove coming to town, but kind of blocked it from
my mind as I had a pretty fucking awful time at the opening week of this
club, atmosphere.

Here's the review that I posted to the breaks list (on Feb 4th),
slightly chopped down for your reading pleasure:

> After the experience I just had, this message may tend to ramble a bit,
> but hang with me as I'm sure you'll get a chuckle or two out of it!
> 
> Someone's started up a new tuesday night jungle weekly here in LA called
> 'Atmosphere', located at the infamous Viper Room on the sunset strip.
> 
> For the opening night, the only dj's on the flyer were 'dj Carbo' from
> Grand Royal magazine and Mickey Finn.
> 
> Even though we already knew what a depressing shit hole the viper room
> is, I wanted to catch Mickey Finn, since we missed him last time he was
> in town.
> 
> Upon arriving at the club, which, IMHO, is seriously lacking in
> 'Atmosphere', my girlfriend and I were treated to one of the wackest
> displays of lameness ever:  Dj Carbo playing tired jump-up cuts, radio
> style, with the occasional trainwreck when he had the nutts to try to
> mix anywhere except the intro or outro, which was only twice.  To
> complement his amazingly lame set, we had the displeasure of one of our
> local MC's running his mouth nonstop, even over tracks with vocals.
> 
> After more then an hour of this crap, Mickey Finn got on the decks. 
> Trying to keep a positive attitude, I was looking forward to hearing
> some fresh jump-up and some creative mixing.  Unfortunately, it didn't
> seam like mickey was very into it (I don't blame him!) and he played an
> ok set of stuff we've all played out (or heard) a million times over the
> last year, with some pretty loose mixing.
> 
> Fast forward to halfway through his set:
> 
> We were relaxing in a booth by the bar and a girl walks up and whispers
> something in my ear.  I look up and it's non other then Fiona Apple.  I
> replied 'excuse me?' and she slips into the booth next to me, puts her
> arm on my shoulder and inches away from my face asks me if I'm one of
> the 'dj's'.   I responded, 'not tonight', and she then asks if I have
> any pull with the dj who was currently playing.  I told her 'that guy up
> there is the talent and he gets paid to play what HE wants to play'. 
> She then asks if 'I could pass him a request.'.  
> 
> Right about this time, Mickey dropped 'Warhead'.
> 
> I asked her what kind of request she'd make and she went on to tell me
> how 'a very special friend from New York is with me tonight and he'd
> really like to hear some house music.'
> 
> I told her if she would like to go up and ask the finn to play some
> house, but he'd probably throw a record at her head.  She then smiled,
> politely thanked me and walked off into the crowd.
> 
> Less then 5 seconds after this exchange, into warhead, mickey finn mixed
> some silly track with the vocals from 'love don't live here anymore' by
> madonna.  The leather jacket and cowboy boot wearing hollywood types ate
> it up and it promptly got a rewind.
> 
> At this point we made a b-line for the door and made it home before
> midnight.

I'm having a hell of a time figuring out what the fucks going on at the
viper room.  No one, including a few of the biggest promoters in LA,
have any idea who's putting on this club.  Who ever's been getting the
talent has been either calling in some MAJOR favors (which I doubt) or
are paying a SHIT load of cash to get people like Mickey Finn, Justice,
DJ Wally, Jon Carter, Ed Rush and Grooverider over here.  And to play in
a shitty rocker bar on a tuesday night?!?  Not to mention that the
resident dj is NOT a junglist and sucks so bad it's embarrassing!

Go figure,

brock.

np:  Basehead 'Not in Kansas Anymore'