Pick apart this The Rub in Austin review
HarveyCanal
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Go ahead and break it down to microfragments...http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/almosturban/index.htmlWho needs N.Y.C.? (and other random notes from the weekend)By Deborah Sengupta | Monday, August 14, 2006, 02:26 PM Yes, New York City has given us some of the greatest things in the world like hip-hop, and ???Sex And The City???, but when it comes to party-rockin???, sometimes it pays to stick with the home team. I was amped up and ready for DJ Ayers, host of Brooklyn dance party The Rub to throw down a dazzling set last Friday at the Whisky Bar. As it turned out, he was just all right. Ayers handled the technical aspects of his set such as beat-matching and smooth mixing like a pro. The crowd remained thick throughout the evening and, to his credit, he did inspire the girls to go wild.
But I wasn???t all that impressed with his track selection. A lot of predictable, radio saturation hip-hop coupled with a heavy dose of electro club groove that I wasn???t really feelin???. Plus, he never fully captured the crowd. Bodies breezed in and out even at the height of the party. A couple months back I caught a solo set by Mel in the front room at the Whisky where he literally wrecked shop. By the time the lights came up at the end of the night folks in the plush leather booths that line the wall were standing on their seats. It seemed like the entire house had their arms in the air as they sang along to Al Green at the top of their lungs. Maybe that was a freak occurrence, but halfway through Ayers set on Friday I found myself hoping Mel would take over the wheels. Here???s mixmaster Mel with DJ Nicknack:
But I wasn???t all that impressed with his track selection. A lot of predictable, radio saturation hip-hop coupled with a heavy dose of electro club groove that I wasn???t really feelin???. Plus, he never fully captured the crowd. Bodies breezed in and out even at the height of the party. A couple months back I caught a solo set by Mel in the front room at the Whisky where he literally wrecked shop. By the time the lights came up at the end of the night folks in the plush leather booths that line the wall were standing on their seats. It seemed like the entire house had their arms in the air as they sang along to Al Green at the top of their lungs. Maybe that was a freak occurrence, but halfway through Ayers set on Friday I found myself hoping Mel would take over the wheels. Here???s mixmaster Mel with DJ Nicknack:
Comments
Who the fuck is that?
'tis the lizards way of lashing out
Somebody make me a sandwich stat!
This isn't really a review at all.
The great Rashied would never turn a disagreement about a record review into a personal attack.
It's a beautiful day here in New York, reminding me that it is probably over 100 degrees in Austin right now, and also that I probably have been out of Austin long enough to talk shit on it from a proper perspective.
Now, Austinites will say, "It's not fair to compare Austin to NYC." And they are right. It's not fair. But perhaps the most irritating thing about Austin is that it admits this, and then instantly takes it back, because it has such a love affair with itself. Unbelievably obsessed with South by Southwest, Slacker, the University of Texas, the local music scene, Lance Armstrong, residue hippie-ism, and with keeping itself weird, Austin is more of a piece than any place I've ever lived. Leaving aside "the punks" (about whom more later) and probably the members of the Texas legislature, almost every single person I met in Austin was INTO all the above things. Every weekend the city would almost shut down to participate in a UT game, or some Lance Armstrong parade, or some hippie craft-fair bullshit, or the ubiquitous "live music" outdoors.
Seriously, it was like living in a cult, because to me the defining aspect of a cult is a lack of irony. Like, even Catholics can make jokes about themselves. Ditto, Jews. But like any cult, Austin's self-love was so pervasive that talking about "the outside world" always occasioned this weird blend of ignorance and animosity. To hear Austin talk about Dallas or Houston or San Antonio was so completely defensive; as if people living in these other cities were being scammed. To me, any place in the south or midwest trying to call out some other city on being culturally impoverished, backward, etc, is just the pot calling the kettle black. It's like Austin took the very slight "oh hey this place is better than Alabama" kudos it received, ran with it, and then started blocking its ears from then on.
Here's a rundown:
-real art museum? no.
-real airport? no.
-hippies? yes.
-two-years-behind hipsters? yes.
-fairly small and scenester-oriented punk scene? yes.
-a bunch of emos hopelessly involved with keyboards? yes.
-art-house cinema? no.
-literary or academic culture? no.
-bike lanes? no.
-horrible highway and mall traffic? yes.
-unspoken and uncomfortable racial tensions? yes.
-cool bars? no.
-dozens of lame, vaguely themed bars? yes.
The worst part is that there are all of ten cool things to do in town, and these things are all anyone talks about, as if forgetting that after you've lived there for two weeks, you are completely sick of what there is to do.
I dunno, maybe it's hard to get around nyc, everything is expensive, and the people are ridiculous, but people care about their own lives, whereas much of Austin lives vicariously through the city's life as a whole, which being extremely dull, makes it on a whole feel like a fischer price "My First City" instead of an interesting place to live. Also, fuck being laid-back.
Seriously, tell everyone in your newly adopted city that Austin sucks. Tell them every chance that you get.
Any place on the east coast accusing other folks of being snobby is just the pot calling the kettle black.
How long have you lived in Austin?
11 years total.
But the time that I did have the chance to catch DJ Ayres live, his set pretty much missed both me and my date.
I just chalked it up as a bad night, but with normally-very-easy-to-please Deborah now citing the same sort of problems that we experienced...I'm beginning to wonder.
There was no Project Blowed back in '84 -'86.
Plus, I'd take a nice beach break over any rap venue forever times 2.
whoah so you lived in LA from '84-'86 and because of that you claim the non-carpetbaggeur right to claim Project Blowed?
please teach me the rules of your game
I couldn't really give 2 shits about Austin, I just thought the timing of the blog post and this thread was a funny coincidence.
Now Dallas... there's a happening town.
Austin was, in her words:
my bad. where was rashied living at this time?
If you must ask, I have an affiliation with Project Blowed that dates back to around '95. They (J-Smoov, Acey, Ab, Ridd, Fish, Khule, etc.) appointed me and I accepted.
appointed you what?
There was no Rashied in '84 -'86.
But Robert lived in Huntington Beach.