Archive for the 2008 tag

Atomic’s 2 year anniversary / Cut Copy: Sands of Time

Join us tonight to celebrate two years of the best new wave party in Chicago with special guests Dark Wave Disco.
facebook event page

How time flies...
People ask me sometimes how we get so many people to come out to Neo on Thursday nights. There's a lot of factors involved (remnants of a built in crowd, people really like Depeche Mode, Neo's new wave-steeped history), but the short answer is that Kamar and I knew what we wanted to do; we had a good idea, we executed it, and it worked. We've never gotten a whiff of press coverage. We're more likely to pluck our guest djs off of our own dance floor than book a big name. At the end of the night, what brings people back every week is the energy of the music and the crowd, the feeling that everyone is welcome, and that anyone can be and dance how they want.

The first thing we decided, and the one thing we've very much stuck to our guns about, is that it's not an "'80s night". We've all been to '80s nights. There's nothing special about most of them and we've all heard more than enough cheesy pop for our lifetimes. It's not what Atomic is about. There is an astonishing number of current acts in the new wave/synthpop/new romantic genres, and the best way to keep the music -and the crowd- fresh week after week is to include that.

The one band that matches our style perfectly, hands down, is Cut Copy. Their New Order-reincarnate sound has been a staple every week for the last two years, right in there with all the Soft Cell and Human League where it belongs. Now if they would just get a little more prolific...

official site
"Sands of Time" is unreleased; buy Cut Copy on Amazon

Lykke Li: Little Bit [CSS remix]

It's 6am and the sun is coming up. Kamar just dropped me off and these potato things from Dunkin Donuts are soooo good, you have no idea...
Such a great evening at Panic! I got there way too late to hear Arturo, but caught a rare Britpop-ish set from Chicago-legend-via-Berlin Scary Lady Sarah, who had the place so packed with friends that my head was spinning even before the Maker's Mark got to me. We moved on to Late Bar, Dave Roberts' new place, with Peroxide and Stormy, and made some new friends there, too.

I should probably go to bed, but I can't stop listening to this Lykke Li remix lately, which may have something to do with me starting off my set with it Thursday night.

Here's to hoping your weekend is going as well as mine.

Youth Novels on Amazon
Official Website

DiscoTech

In this post, I will give away some of my favorite remixes. I know approximately nothing about DiscoTech, aside from that I think they're from Brooklyn, and I get really excited when I see their name on something. Attempts to search for more information have come up dry.

I love remixes, it's no secret. I like hearing a familiar song in a new way, different people's takes on the same material, and in general I just have an affinity for things that have been modified. But as a dj, though a remix often makes for a better mix and a bit of the unexpected can infuse some energy into the crowd, it can be problematic as well. A lot of people have carefully planned their dance moves and sing-alongs according to the original, and when you mess with that, well, you get nasty notes written on soggy napkins thrown at you calling you a "bad dj" by passive-aggressive dancers who clearly don't understand the concept. Some people just won't ever like it, but I've noticed it's a lot easier for them to swallow if the lyrics are intact. DiscoTech does this well; they create an updated and energetic backdrop to a familiar classic in a way that doesn't leave people bewildered trying to sing along.

DiscoTech on MySpace

P.S. They also did this bit of brilliance that I have been known to throw into a few industrial sets.

30 Years of The Cure

Robert Smith's tips to sustaining a long career:

• Write good songs: "I could write songs as bad as Wham's if I really felt the urge to, but what's the point?"

• Don't worry about status: "I'm not going to worry about the Cure slipping down into the second division; it doesn't bother me because I never expected to be in the first division anyway."

• Don't do it for the money: "I've never wanted a group to ever fall out about money. It's not important. We earn far more than we should anyway."

• Be inspired and love what you do: "I do a job I really, really love and I kind of have fun with. People think you can't be grown up unless you're moaning about your job."

• Do things in moderation: “I think the rock'n'roll myth of living on the edge is a pile of crap.”

• Don't worry about what people say or think about you: " Most of the time I'm a professional idiot. I really don't care about what other people think, which can be a bad thing."

• Know when to quit: "If any of our songs ever did make it on the top ten, I'd disband the group immediately."

The Cure on Amazon.com
band website: www.thecure.com