personal beef here:
i always hate it when "downtempo" (i detest that term)/non-house is
automatically classified as "chill". there's a lot of us djs that get
crowds
jumping w/o playing any house all night--there's some pretty fast breakbeat
stuff even before you start talking about jungle (listen to "smile" by
incognito or "break 4 jazz" and tell me that's downtempo)!
eh> On Fri, 23 May 1997, William M Duer wrote:
> Yes, it must depend on what he's spinning. When I heard him, it was a
> house set that, to me, was just--thump, thump, thump, thump,
> thump--boring. Wish I could have heard him do the chill stuff but he was
> probably playing to the expectations of the crowd here.
eh> Ummmmm.... sorry, what was that?? "Thump, thump, thump, thump,
eh> thump--boring" ???? Speaking to you with a solid background in both
eh> house and downtempo, let me assure you that Mark Farina is one of the
eh> few DJs that consistently plays sets of solid, soulful, quality house
eh> music. Like Bambi said, check him out at a Stompy party in SF
eh> (or a Melodic
eh> party in LA) ...the man KNOWS how to make ppl get down and groove to
eh> house music. In
eh> addition to that, his taste in house music is seriously laced with
eh> jazz influences ...something I would expect his acid jazz and
eh> downtempo followers to appreciate.
eh> Mark has been around for a long time. And his background consists of
eh> a wide range of music such as house, hip hop, jazz, and R&B. He has
eh> an amazingly wide knowledge of these genres of music, and they all
eh> influence his unique style and taste. Basically, when it comes to
eh> house, downtempo/acid jazz and DJ skills, he knows what's up.
eh> Guess I can't say enough good stuff about Mark. He is one of my
eh> favorite DJs.
i keep hearing that he's the shit (and judging by the mushroom jazz comp i
don't have a hard time believing it--wall to wall phatness, trackwise!!!).
the problem is (along w/the fact that i can never seem to make it to his
l.a.
gigs--always a conflicting gig, or some b.s.!!!) the reports i always get
back--from my acid-jazz spy network };>--is that he seems to be mostly house
oriented when he plays el lay. there's so much house going on in l.a. (and
so little a/j) that the last thing i want to hear an acid-jazz dj play is
house. i also hate the way that a/j gets ghetto-ized as "warm-up" music in
so many clubs here (even in hiphop circles). i've gone on record as saying
that it's b.s. to tell a visiting dj what to play, but i really hate it when
it seems that people play to expectations about l.a.--there's a lot of us
that want to hear something different.
i hope i haven't offended anyone, i'm just kinda frustrated w/a few things
out here (l.a.). seems like ck & the om crew are doing some very
interesting
things in the s.f. bay area w/djs and i hope that they creep down this
way...
... ARRRRRGGGHHH!!!! ... Tension breaker, had to be done.