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 Mind Map
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Prefuse 73 (crazy stuff) [B Complex, Portland - October 2002] - After Bonobo's crazy set came Prefuse 73's crazy live set (of the button pushing variety, like the Chemical Brothers). Once again, it was a style of music that I can't even classify. It was trippy and had sort of a hip hop beat, but it was different; it's hard to explain. I would have bought his cd at the show, but they didn't have any.
Bonobo (crazy stuff) [B Complex, Portland - October 2002] - His set started out with some really dark trip hop that made me want to be either stoned, tripping, or covered with blankets in bed. Then he switched to some style I can't even classify, but I know I wanted to dance to it. He played a lot of good tracks, including a bhangra song that I totally dig. (Noah knew the song too and told me he never thought he'd hear that song at a party.) I'd never heard of Bonobo before, but after that night I'll be on the look out to see if he's ever going to be in Phoenix, and searching for his tracks. (I almost bought his cd at the show, but I decided to just wait since you never know which of the tracks he played were his and which were other peoples'.)
Andy C w/MC GQ (jungle) [Freedom - August 2002] - I think that was probably the best jungle set I've ever listened to. The music was hard and fast roller style jungle. The MC was pretty good, but he'd interrupt the set with too many "Rewinds!" so the set was really choppy instead of having a really nice flow. That's ok since he really got the crowd into it. Anyway, it was money well spent.
Steve Lawler (house) [Ra, Las Vegas - May 2002] - Hypnotic tribal house that had me enthralled. I
was just dancing, having a great time, and didn't care about anything. About halfway through his
set Steve Lawler switched to progressive. It was good stuff, but I wanted to listen to it more than
I wanted to dance to it.
Official Site
The Chemical Brothers (breakbeat) [Coachella - April 2002] - It's a little unusual for a
group to be on both my "Disappointing Shows" and "Great Shows" list, but The Chemical Brothers managed
it. The difference between this show and their Coachella show last year is this was a live set versus
a dj set last year. When they play their own music they're really tight, and the music is good.
Official Site
Technical Itch w/MC Jakes (jungle) [Simon Says Dance 2 - March 2002] - Bad ass. I really
don't feel like elaborating, but I will say that MC Jakes did a kick ass job. Usually jungle
MCs just annoy the crap out of me, but MC Jakes definitely added to the show.
Official Site
Goku (jungle) [Simon Says Dance 2 - March 2002] - He played before Technical Itch and did a damn good job.
Dieselboy (jungle) [Club Freedom - March 2002] - Damn! Dieselboy tore the place up! It
was one of the best jungle sets I've ever heard. Hard, fast, and interesting. (FYI, the MC you
heard tearing it up was MC Jakes. He wasn't scheduled to MC for Dieselboy, but decided to
do it for the hell of it. Nice.)
Official Site
Z-trip (everything!) [Freedom - November 2001] - This show was a little
different from the first time I saw Z-trip. In the beginning it was a lot of
really good hip-hop that just made me want to nod my head a lot. That was the
part I enjoyed the most since it was a lot of music I've never heard before, but
really liked. Later in the show he played old school hip-hop, dance, and then
did his cross genre quick mixing. While I
enjoyed that and was impressed as hell by some of the things I heard (the
vocals to Rage Against the Machine's "Testify" over Michael Jackson's "Billy
Jean" sounded much better than you would ever expect), I really wasn't really
moved to dance. That being said, I would still highly recommend a Z-trip show.
Official Site
Judge Jules (house) [The Park Plaza, LA - October 2001] - The house was
very hard, very progressive, sometimes techy, and even deep. Judge Jules track
selection was pretty good. (He even played DJ Elite's "That Fucked Camera" song
which I don't like, but it worked really well in his set.) He worked the crowd
like an old pro. (The physical resemblance between him and Milktoast is pretty
uncanny though.) The only bad thing I have to say is that every once in a
while he'd throw a weak scratch in there, but overall it was a very fun time.
He didn't displace any of my current top three djs though.
Official Site
El-E (house) [Freedom - October 2001] - Smooth groovin' funky house. She kept you dancing until you couldn't dance anymore. Oh wait, that's what she did to me.
Joe Bear (house) [Freedom - October 2001] - Hard tech house. He brought it like Mauro Picatto, only better. The mix was dynamic, hardly ever getting boring, and even then only for very brief periods.
Emile and Radar (drum and bass/hip hop/break beat/house) [Freedom - October 2001] - A very eclectic show that was hella fun. It started out with more of a break beat/house feel with Radar mixing and Emile scratching. After a while Radar left Emile to spin on his own and Emile dropped a lot of drum and bass. It was all good.
Bad Boy Bill (house) [Freedom - September 2001] - This was a better show than the
last time I saw him. Much more scratching and what not. I can never seem to find the
words to describe how fun his shows are, so I'll just let his ranking (in my top 3) speak
for itself.
Official Site
Soloman (house) [Freedom - September 2001] - When I got to Freedom Soloman was on and tearing the place up. He was playing some really good house music that rolled. My vibe was a little slow to start, but Soloman was moving it right along. I was just about into it when they switched djs though. (The other dj was successful at killing my vibe until BBB came on.)
Adam Freeland (breakbeat) [Nita's Hideaway - September 2001] - Good tribal break vibe, but
it wasn't music that made me want to dance my ass off. It was a little mellow, but it was still
worth going to.
Official Site
Donald Gluade (house) [Freedom - September 2001] - Mad dj skills! He could scratch, plus he had a couple of mixing tricks up his sleeve to keep the crowd up. I didn't care for his music selection though. It was a strange, minimal house that bore more resemblance to trance than even tribal house does. I got bored with it after a while, but it was still a fun show to be at.
Raul Reina (house) [Freedom - September 2001] - This djs music selection was impressive. The house that he played had disco vocals, but a hard baseline, with some funkiness and progressive stuff thrown in too. Extra points for showing me a style of music I never knew existed. The only bad thing (and it's not so bad) I have to say is his mixing was decent, but the mixes seemed to be pretty abrupt.
Aphrodite (jungle/jump up) [Freedom - September 2001] - I heard an hour and a half of his set. Good stuff. It was actually better than I thought it would be. I expected that he would play mostly jump up which can get old after a while, but he played mostly fast jungle tunes that kept the crowd moving. Occassionally he would throw in a slower song (I don't know what he was thinking) and lose the crowd, but he'd usually switch back to something good after that. Overall a very good show.
Noah (breakbeat) [Teknoslut house party - September 2001] - I only caught
the last half hour of Noah's first breakbeat set, but it was tight. The flow was
consistent, the music was good and danceable, and the mixing was right on the money.
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Rabbit in the Moon (?????) [Nocturnal Wonderland - September 2001] -
It was an amazing display. Bunny was performing on stage live, and
the live action was combined with video footage on giant displays. Dark,
moody, and eerie music accompanied it all making it a very surreal
experience. Sometimes the stage shows told a story, like when Bunny was a
samurai and fighting a dragon, and sometimes they were just
sheer spectacle, like when Bunny was a robot with a really big gun. Check
out the official site for pictures, or hopefully I should have some up soon.
Official Site
Noah (trance) [Teknoslut house party - August 2001] - The mixing started out
a little rough, but after the first couple songs it really smoothed out. The
track selection was good, but it ended up getting slow. Overall, a very good set.
I'm sure with a little more experience it won't be too long before Noah starts
kicking ass.
Captain Tinrib (hard house) [The Buddha Lounge - August 2001] - He was supposed to be on
last night from 9:30 to 10:30. Not a very long time to begin with, but he ended up coming off at
about 10:15. While I only got to hear him for about 30 minutes, it was long enough to hear the
type of music he normally plays. Really quality hard house music. (Which is saying a lot since
most of the hard house I've heard is clubby crap.) If it wasn't so early, or if there weren't
only 20 people there, I'm sure he would have had the crowd jumping. (I am beginning to think the
crowd at Buddha Lounge only likes synth trance. To quote Seinfeld, "Not that there's anything
wrong with that.")
Official Site
Timo Maas (house/trance/break beat) [Freedom - August 2001] - One of the best!
For me he is now Fatboy Slim's only equal for live shows. His set had such a
hard ass bassline that I've danced the hardest I've ever danced. Things flowed
from tribal house to trance to funky breaks and back again, demonstrating the
style that's made him famous. It was so hypnotic that it was almost religious.
Official Site
Maji (house) [Freedom - August 2001] - It was good, cool house music that was good to dance to when it wasn't piano laden.
Nu Theory (break beat/house) [Freedom - August 2001] - He played a nice combination set of break beat and house. Just the thing to get you into Timo's varied set.
Z-trip (everything!) [Freedom - August 2001] - One word. Wow. He can mix, scratch, and play 50 different styles of music and still get you to dance. He played a lot of hip hop (which is a little too much for me), but he would also mix in all sorts of other types of music. It was an amazing and unique experience for me and tons of fun to dance to.
Rubin (house) [Freedom - August 2001] - House that just compelled me to dance. It had a healthy bassline and it was fun. 'Nuff said.
Kevin Brown (all sorts of stuff) [The Buddha Lounge - August 2001] - Mad mixing skills! One of my favorite djs, and he didn't disappoint. The only problem was that his set was all over the place. I blame that on the crowd though. They were into Euro-trance, and Kevin Brown doesn't carry cheesy records with him. (Hey, if you play "Meet Her at the Love Parade" and no one dances, it's a bad crowd.)
AK1200 (jungle) [The Nile - July 2001] - Bad ass!
Milktoast (breakbeat) [The Nile - July 2001] - He had an excellent set and he looked like he was having a lot of fun too.
Senbad (house) [Club Freedom - July 2001] - I went to the foam party @ Freedom not expecting much for music, but when I walked in Senbad was playing and changed my mind. He had a bouncy house set that was perfect for fun with foam.
Dj Dan (house) [Club Freedom - 2001] - Fun bouncy house. Need I say more?
Bad Boy Bill (house) [Club Freedom - 2001] - I've heard a couple of his mix albums and I didn't like them
at all. They move too fast between songs; 3 1/2 minutes and you're out. I went to see him because
some friends said he was really good in person. I decided to trust them and check him out. The man
has skills. Great music selection and his scratching fits in perfectly with the music. (Some scratch
djs tend to want to scratch all the time, sometimes at the expense of the danceability or flow of the set.)
Official Site
Kevin Brown (break beat) [Club Freedom - 2001] - Bad ass. His mixing and set were outstanding. Found him far better than the person I came to see.
Radar (turntablist) [Gammage Auditorium - March 2001] - I saw Radar do something I never thought I would
see a dj do. He preformed with the ASU Symphony Orchestra. It was a piece of music called "Concerto for a turntable."
Amazing stuff.
Official Site
Fatboy Slim (break beat/house/whatever) [Coachella, Indio, CA - 2001] - It was like the first time, only better.
Now there were lasers, killer lighting, more people into it, and the high of listening to so much
good music that day.
Official Site
Doc Martin (house) [Coachella - 2001] - I've heard a couple of his mix albums, and I didn't really like them, but his set @ Coachella was great.
Adam Freeland/Ian Pooley (house) [Coachella - 2001] - I can't really say anything about their individual shows (because I was all spaced out, just having a good time dancing and not really paying attention), but I can say that they were great.
AK1200, Dj Dara, Dieselboy (jungle) [Coachella - 2001] - I'm not sure how these guys got me jumping around in a large tent that was humid from all the people in it at 2 in the afternoon, but they did.
Fatboy Slim (break beat/house/whatever) [Club SOHO, LA - 2000] - I didn't know what to expect of Fatboy Slim
since I'd never seen him in person before. I did see a video of him "Live at the Red Rocks". I
wasn't impressed. I decided to take the chance and drive to LA and check him out since as far as
I know he's never been to Phoenix. It was worth the trip. Fatboy Slim plays a style of music that,
to me, isn't matched by anyone else. It's so full of joy and enthusiasm that it's infectious. Think
of the FBS remix of Cornershop's "Brimful of Asha" and you know what I mean. Amazing and it just
makes you love life.
Official Site
Scanty Sandwich (house) [Club SOHO, LA - 2000] - He may have opened for Fatboy Slim, but he's no second stringer. The man knew how to get the party started and how to keep things fun.
Sandra Collins (trance) [some rave - ????] - I went to a rave before I really knew who anyone was and she was the only dj who stood out. She was bad ass.
Bad Company (jungle) [Club Freedom - February 2003] - Most of their tracks were good, but the flow sucked. There were a lot of major shifts in the feeling of the music, and a lot of times they would only play about three minutes of a track. Right around the time I'm getting into it they switch to another track. It was aggravating. The mixing was bad to nonexistant. Sometimes there would be two seconds of overlap between tracks, but more often they just switched over from one track to the next without any overlap. Of course there were the few times they would play two tracks over each other, like Andy C does, but when Andy C does it it sounds natural. When they did it I could hear the two tracks fighting each other the entire time.
I know being a great producer has nothing to do with being a great dj, but I think it's weird that producers like Bad Company and Amon Tobin put on bad shows (although I will say Amon Tobin's was much better on a technical level, I just hated his track selection) when producers like Fatboy Slim and Timo Maas put on great shows.
Dara (jungle) [Club Freedom - January 2003] - Dara's transitions were almost nonexistent, his flow sucked, and his track selection wasn't that good either. It was like listening to a jungle version of Keoki.
Amon Tobin (crazy stuff) [B Complex, Portland - October 2002] - The flow wasn't very good, and his track selection was ok. Even when he played his own tracks (and he is one of my favorite producers) he chose ones I didn't like, and played them really sped up. The entire first half of the show was just really horribly fast.
Emile (?????) [Simon Says Dance 2 - March 2002] - What was he playing?? I've heard Emile spin before, but I don't know what he was doing. I do know it wasn't good.
Pete Tong (house) [Club Freedom - November 2001] - I expected more from the guy who makes his living caning good music to the English club masses. I heard about an hour of his set and I was disappointed. The music he played was just ok. Most of it didn't really make me want to dance. Basically he would play some indistinctive song that wouldn't do it for me, then a tribal song that wouldn't do it for me, then a cool song that would sort of get me into it, and then before I was fully into it, back to another ok, indistinctive song.
The Crystal Method (breakbeat) [Nita's Hideaway - September 2001] - Not that I was really disappointed (since I had heard what to expect), I just thought it was worth mentioning that it's just like listening to a Crystal Method cd with a light show. It becomes a question of wether the light show is worth the price of admission to you.
Keoki (house) [Club Freedom - 2001] - It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good. I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it.
Chemical Brothers (break beat) [Coachella - 2001] - Cars, motorcycles, and other noises that didn't sound right, and music that was too breaky for me to enjoy dancing to.
Kenny Ken - The man makes some tight jungle and a friend of mine saw him and declared him a bad ass.
Mickey Finn - Old time junglist, "Jungle Warfare" is my favorite jungle mix album.
Carl Cox - The man's a classic and I'd like to see him at least once.
Morgan - Dark, dark, dark. You've got to love it.
Seb Fontaine - I've heard his Prototype cd and it's got me interested in seeing him live.
Osymyso - His Breezeblock set was pretty wild, playing all sorts of different genres of music. I think seeing him live may not be danceable, but should be entertaining as hell.
Denki Groove - I heard an insane electro/breakbeat set from them at Mayday. They're too good not to see.
Mauro Picatto - Heard CD 2 from The Lizard Man Cometh and it's hard house with a trance feel. Great big room stuff.
Dj Marky - I saw Dj Marky's set that was video taped on the Drum & Bass Arena tour and it looks like it would be a fun show.
Leon Alexander
Dj Hype and Dj Zinc
Coachella [Indio, CA - April 2002] - The vibe of the year before seemed missing. I didn't have nearly as good a time as last time. I wrote about the experience on 4/28 if you want specifics.
Nocturnal Wonderland [Lake Havasu, CA - September 2001] - Nocturnal Disorganization was more like it. You can read the specifics on 9/2.
Coachella [Indio, CA - April 2001] - Coachella was the most fun I've ever had at a large event. The acts were top rate, the venue a huge grassy field, and it seemed very organized. The only complaint I had were the hours; from noon to 12:30am. (Electronic music sounds better at night.)