The Tail Side of the Coin

After such an amazing show I was hungry to see brilliance again. There was a rumor (That I think I might have had a small part in starting) that Shadow was going to show up at the James Lavelle show later that night.

Quick background on why this would seem likely, pretend you are seeing Wayne’s World flashback effects. Lavelle started a label called Mo’ Wax that put out some of the most innovative and important music of the early to mid 90’s. This music of course included Shadow’s early work. They had a pretty fruitful partnership progressing to U.N.K.L.E., a super group of sorts that was the two of them and everyone they wanted to work with. I am not a big fan of this work but it is good (More in a Radiohead vein than I care for). After U.N.K.L.E. Shadow moved on to the bigger and better and Lavelle kind of started to fall off.

This brings me back to the present; we showed up at Element to see this show and were greeted by the sounds of a completely generic star DJ set. Lavelle is a man who was responsible for sheparding a lot of sublime music and making some great music himself along the way. He has been reduced to a phenomenon that it largely part of the reason I don’t see DJ sets in clubs anymore.

It seems like a lot of DJs who have made good music and have a lot of skill on the decks put on these really vapid shows. It is the equivalent of just checking it in at your 9-5. The set comprises some funky breaks and a lot of bad house mixed in a way that does not offend anyone. The scary thing about these sets is that they are coming from people I consider giants, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Afrika Bambatta, etc… It is hard to put on a good show as a DJ, there is always the tension between the music and the performance but these are people who have shown they can rise above this. Instead they basically play a tape and collect their check. They play such a banal set that they really should just be putting a tape in.

After seeing such a great show with DJ Shadow it was even more apparent and made me spin my head around the dichotomy for a week or so. It was a fun night minus the music. There was a drunken girl making such an ass out of herself that she provided lots of amusement for us. Among the other usually fun club activities, drinking and making fun of the patrons, I managed to enjoy myself. It will be a while before I go to a show like this again though.