Flufftronix

Last Friday I went to the free DJ tent on 6th St. at Lotus Festival, not really knowing what to expect. As I’m sure many of you know, world music and world beat—deservedly—don’t really have the best reputation. It’s always seemed like a Disneyland diversity to me; sampling traditional music from all over the globe, united in that it’s all quirky and loveable when brought to your stereo, ipod, small town, etc.
I don’t mean to knock on it too much; there are certainly parallels in the electronic music scene, what with the baile funk and such. I play that stuff out whenever it seems appropriate, and practically salivated over Beat Diaspora’s account of a Brazilian baile with dueling soundsystems the length of gymnasiums. Granted I’d love to go see it first hand, it’s not something I’ve ever done or am likely to do in the next year or so (give me two). I’d like to think that the party music crowd is made up equally of people all over the place, and not really a primarily white middle-american audience consuming more vibrant cultures like the impression I get from world music. Then again, for the sake of music in America we certainly need more MIAs and Konono No. 1’s.. I dunno.

Anyway, so I’m at this DJ tent and dudes from Balkan Beatbox come on stage, set to DJ off their ipods and cd booklets. I wasn’t that impressed at this point, having been waiting an hour and a half at this point and sticking around mostly to flyer for that weekend’s Electrocute party. And the first set was exactly what I feared: tame, conservative, unblended. At some point a song got cued up that was sampled on the new Basement Jaxx song “Hey You,” and I climbed up onto the pretty large stage where a small group of folks were dancing and joined in. Somewhere in the next fifteen minutes, the mood shifted a lot; it felt a lot like the earlier stuff dudes were playing was just covering bases. A series of klezmer tunes somehow catalyzed the young crowd and pretty soon the whole stage was full of people, just in time for a Gogol Bordello song. And shit, the stage literally almost collapsed (the DJ table did actually collapse at one point, though it was caught before hitting the floor!).

[gv data="yn0oSsYaItQ"][/gv]

From there on out there was a baile funk block, and some dancehall, and plenty other stuff I don’t quite remember. There was a Mt. Eerie show at Hospital going on at the same time, but I just couldn’t pull myself away. Loud party music with a raucous crowd in the middle of the street on a Friday night: does it get any better? Sorry Mr. Elverum, I was not willing to find out.

In putting together Electrocute stuff and trying to book events in town here, I think a lot about all the untapped potential in small to medium-sized towns like this. And how people here will be much more open and excited about music they’ve never heard before, given the little culture that goes on here compared to places like NYC, LA, Chicago, or even Louisville or Cincinnati. I really think DJ Shot’nez got away with playing all kinds of great, locally unpopular kinds of music not because he’s Dude From Balkan Beatbox, but because he had a loud soundsystem in a high foot traffic area on a Friday night. Alter the setting and the goals a little bit, and these kinds of situations can get even more amazing..