From jeff Sent Thu, Oct 16th 1997, 17:37
From jeff Sent Thu, Oct 16th 1997, 17:37
Item Subject: cc:Mail Text
I had the displeasure of seeing DJ Spooky last night.
Simply put, his DJ work sounds like a rookie trying
to emulate those with skill. As a former college radio
DJ and production manager, I have heard plenty of
people with piss-poor skills attempting to scratch,
mix and otherwise attempt to DJ club/dance-style, but
I have never heard anything so worthless as this.
I _never_ heard a transition where he matched beats,
and he rarely let a record play long enough to enjoy
(unless he was filing through his records looking
for the next disk to abuse.) Anyway, Brien Sears
<xxxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx> summed it all up quite nicely
yesterday, so I encourage you to reread his posting
[Re: (idm) Another Spooky defecation] if you are
tempted to disagree, misunderstand or otherwise
believe you could potentially think well of "DJ"
Spooky's live performances.
Scanner, on the other hand, was simply amazing. I
had not heard any of his work before and had only a
basic understanding of his "gimmick", but I was
thoroughly impressed. The scanner and ambient work
he did was well choreographed, and the beat-driven work
he did was entrancing. From what I could tell, his
equipment was simple but effective. He seemed to have
a preprogrammed beat which he augmented with both the
scanner, antenna noise and a drum machine. The
portions of his performance which were hard and beat
were happily complex and original, and it was made
all the more interesting by also watching (and
listening) for what he was adding in live. For
anyone who has been frustrated by AFX's habit of
hiding behind speakers, never allowing much of
anything of what he was doing to be seen, this was
a dream come true. [Damn, almost made it though a
posting without an AFX reference.]
I will now happily trade either of my DJ Spooky disks for
anything by Scanner. [bad joke - I actually do enjoy them]
However, I would like suggestions on either what album is
a good place to start for someone who enjoys the beaty side
of Scanner. (...or a good web review location from which I
might extract this information.)
-jtf
np: "DJ" Spooky - Songs of a Dead Dreamer