On Culture, Electronic Music and Dance Clubs

Daft Punk live in Brooklyn:



No Beastie Boys but it's good that at least some electronic dance artists are still playing in this country. The great thing about Daft Punk is that they are sticking to the roots of electronic music. They hide their faces during their shows. They don't want to be personalities, they want their music to do the talking. A lot of producers and DJs sold out at the first opportunity (Moby and Paul Oakenfold are two shining examples).

I absolutely hate the celebrity-obsessed culture we live in. I have many thoughts on this phenomenon, which I refer to as the celebrity vortex, which I will get around to rewriting one of these days. One of the main draws of electronic music for me was always the anonymity of it. That and the fact that the music you could create was only limited by your imagination. You are not limited by instruments, or your ability to play instruments. Any sound you can imagine can be created. And the only limit is your mind. It's music straight from the mind. Bypassing the fingers, reeds, strings, etc. that constrain live music.

My old college roommate was in France for the last year and he constantly sent me emails listing all of the great producers and DJs he had seen. In NYC, I don't even really know that there are many dance clubs left. I guess all the money is in the bottle service these days.

I miss Sound Factory, Twilo and all of the other great NYC dance clubs. I am totally too old to go out clubbing these days but I miss the fact that they exist. I still listen to and spin house and techno and I love the music, but the rest of the country for the most part seems to have forgotten about it.