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Dracula's Ball So-So / Philly Cops Bust A+ Party
Great time in Philly as usual this weekend, although things went a little different than I expected. One of the most fun and exciting things was just going to the Digital Ferret store. The whole record shop is dedicated to dark electronic stuff with a bit of old-school industrial, neo-Celtic, ambient, power noise, and so on. Also great selection of t-shirts, magazines and DVDs. New York City, for some reason (and I do have my theories as to what that reason might be), just can't support subcultural institutions like Digital Ferret, Relapse Records, and the rest of the Philly scene. There's plenty of jazz shops and weird old record shops, but they don't cater so much to weird, marginalized cultural forms.
grumpyI picked up a big wishlist of older stuff I should have owned but didn't, including the Psychic TV "Towards the Infinite Beat" double album that covers a lot of great acid house from 1987 to 1992. Also CDs by Switchblade Symphony, Cenobita (another band from that Mexico City EBM scene I'm obsessed with), And One, and the first half of the "LoLife" remixes by Headscan. Mars made the amazing find of the day, however, with the new release by The Threshold Houseboys Choir, a current project of Sleazy from the groundbreaking early industrial band Throbbing Gristle. The new album and DVD, "Form Grows Rampant," consists of wailing, ceremonial voices over five tracks of eerie music. The trick is that none of the voices in the choir belong to humans at all—the vocals are generated digitally using different types of software. When it comes to art projects I've seen that address the relationships between technology and beauty, technology and emotion, technology and intimacy, Sleazy's effort to create an army of "houseboys" using strictly digital means is one of the most arrestingly conceived.
Later we showed up at Dracula's Ball and saw And One play. Sort of like Depeche Mode but way German and with a slight '20s chanteuse feel even though the singer is male. I preferred the faster, more aggressive tracks to the pretty and romantic ones but the whole show was good. The dance floor later on was like a 7.5 out of 10. The DJ kept fucking around and playing rockabilly tracks when I wanted pure dark electro like at the Castle. Oh well... it can't always be Tom Gold behind the turntables.
We took Mars's girl home (she had to shoot a public service announcement about the dangers of leaving your baby unattended in a car the next day) and rolled into the PEX party around four in the morning. Just as I predicted. This party had more flow. Vast spacious warehouse and you wander down wide steps into a room as big as a cathedral, where a big boned girl shrieks laughter as she soars on a swing fastened to the ceiling. Firedancers move in the distance, their faces melting into the darkness leaving only whirling flames to trail across the eye.
We must have spent two or three hours drinking and dancing before the mood suddenly shifted, the sexy glitter on everything melting off as people shouted "The police are here," "Look out everybody, the police are busting up the party." And sure enough they were. I doubt Mars or I will ever forget this big fat Philly cop with a starsky moustache marching across the warehouse yelling "Get off the fucking couch asshole! Get off the couch right now or I'll kick your piece of shit ass off it." The sudden transition from bliss to macho cop repression was a real downer. Outside the warehouse I was amazed to see at least twenty police cars and a number of arrests being made. It was like the World Economic Forum protests outside the Waldorf-Astoria or something. Fucked up.
Later we showed up at Dracula's Ball and saw And One play. Sort of like Depeche Mode but way German and with a slight '20s chanteuse feel even though the singer is male. I preferred the faster, more aggressive tracks to the pretty and romantic ones but the whole show was good. The dance floor later on was like a 7.5 out of 10. The DJ kept fucking around and playing rockabilly tracks when I wanted pure dark electro like at the Castle. Oh well... it can't always be Tom Gold behind the turntables.
We took Mars's girl home (she had to shoot a public service announcement about the dangers of leaving your baby unattended in a car the next day) and rolled into the PEX party around four in the morning. Just as I predicted. This party had more flow. Vast spacious warehouse and you wander down wide steps into a room as big as a cathedral, where a big boned girl shrieks laughter as she soars on a swing fastened to the ceiling. Firedancers move in the distance, their faces melting into the darkness leaving only whirling flames to trail across the eye.
We must have spent two or three hours drinking and dancing before the mood suddenly shifted, the sexy glitter on everything melting off as people shouted "The police are here," "Look out everybody, the police are busting up the party." And sure enough they were. I doubt Mars or I will ever forget this big fat Philly cop with a starsky moustache marching across the warehouse yelling "Get off the fucking couch asshole! Get off the couch right now or I'll kick your piece of shit ass off it." The sudden transition from bliss to macho cop repression was a real downer. Outside the warehouse I was amazed to see at least twenty police cars and a number of arrests being made. It was like the World Economic Forum protests outside the Waldorf-Astoria or something. Fucked up.
See you soon btw.