Bad teeth, rad beats

by JACK OATMON

There’s a strange little something you may or may not have noticed about dance parties around town. Every accessible promoter—the ones who aren’t enormous, faceless financial entities—has its own nebulous group of devotees. The crowd.

Neon has its pseudo-sophisto crew of ex-ravers, cool cliques and colourful connoisseurs. DiskHo appeals to the production-obsessed 30-something with a dirty habit or a laptop fetish. Pop Montreal lays claim to the sonically studious scenester and the Chuck Taylor-sporting Web 2.0 jockey. Mutek’s encompasses the tweaker geeks, minimal freaks and library scientists. Peer Pressure has the underaged blog pilots, aspiring photographers and tragically misled would-be models on lockdown. Piknic Électronik is all about the house-head in camouflage and khaki shorts. You get the picture.

Well, I love those crazy folks and all the wacky business they conduct, but there’s something magical that happens when things fall outside their respective jurisdictions. I’m referring to the hedonistic volcano that erupted at la Sala Rossa last Sunday when Simian Mobile Disco hit town. In an unlikely promotional head-scratcher that harkens back to a couple of Hot Chip shows I could name, the slack on SMD’s tour got picked up by the laudable Blue Skies Turn Black, resulting in an absurdly intimate set by the British duo, with maybe 250 attendees. Because the typical BSTB client isn’t your average glitch-craving bass junkie bent on gargling Boréal to anything with a 4/4 beat, la Sala Rossa was occupied by only the hardcore SMD fan and the open-minded buddy. What that meant was that virtually everyone in the joint was foaming at the mouth to get brained by the relentless analog havoc that SMD released upon the crowd. And oh, how they were.

Amidst a ring of eight LED towers that flickered with synched RGB patterns, the two production powerhouses hopped around a cylindrical table full of prime retro gear. They fiddled knobs and punched dials like mad scientists, frizzy hair waving in the psychedelic light flashes. They fully reconstructed and exaggerated a tripped-out approximation of their best tracks for a wailing posse of fans. No scenesters, no hipsters, no condescending wallflowers, just crazed and amazed music lovers. The Moody Blues and Michael Jackson met with Afrika Bambaataa and the Chemical Brothers, and they all smoked a joint and jammed on 909s for an hour. I can say without hyperbole that it was hands-down the most impressive 60 minutes of electronic performance I have witnessed this year. And I was at Daft Punk, by the way. So basically, if you weren’t there, you fucked up. Sorry.

What better a follow-up could I expect than Switch (a few months late, mind you) and Diplo at the newly, unofficially minted Coda Club? Switch was on the screwy house and smash ’n’ grab electro, while Diplo doled out his signature cocktail of Brazilian funk and retro-cheese bangers. Needless to say, everybody got stoopid, dropped their knickers and busted a gasket or two. Other than a totally one-sided sound system (along the right side of the room, that is), Coda seems like a future hot spot, with friendly, scene-savvy staff and a simple, effective layout. Check it ASAP.

Futurist technobabble machine-punk explosion… jack.oatmon@gmail.com