(Sa-Ra are back with their first EP on Kanye's Good imprint)
What up party people. Is it still legal to "party"? In California house parties get busted or become melees, loft-parties are full of pretentious Cosmo sipping wags and clubs started becoming irrelevant years ago. Concerts? Lets not even discus the mockery that has become live performance. What’s that leave us with? Poetry slams? Yetch.
So back to parties. The solution are no-rules affairs. Not forced dress-up theme parties, those are for Greek-society graduates clutching on to their fading youth and/or former punk/skaters now web designers sinking into their 40s with dread. Time to rewrite, rethink, and maybe vomit up a new party aesthetic. Sure, there can be DJs, and they should be shit hot. But you should be constantly surprised by whatever genre/s they play–club music shouldn’t be like choosing ice pops from a cart in the park.
Which reminds me, the best party I ever went to was called Eggsalad, held in an abandoned high rise department store building in downtown LA. The entertainment consisted of old-school NYC emcee Busy B, DJ Jazzy Jay, noise-rock bands and a plethora of political performance artists set up in various corners. The whole event felt like a swaggering middle finger gesture to the materialistic late-80s and George Herbert Walker Bush. Then rave came in a wave of warehouses and exstacy and things were nutty for a while in the resulting freewheeling Clinton/Blair bombast. Of course, all that too was a but a convenient illusion posing as substance.
We can get back to the rule breaking if we try. Pay attention. New Authoritarianism has been creeping into art and society like an ebola outbreak since 2000. Go out and confront, make art, then really fukin PARTY.
(this rant written entirely to a soundtrack of The Rakes album “Captured/Released”
For what its worth–this month's spins...
DJ Tomas June 2006
Future Jazz Charts
Sa-Ra–Hollywood (Good)
Talib Kweli–Listen (Warner Brothers)
Sumo–The Danceband (Heya)
Nu Tropic–Suave (Soultronik)
Jimpster–Amour (Freerange)
Orto Feat Vanessa Freeman–Waiting Is Over (Papa)
Colossus–You A Grown Man Now (Om)
Quantic–An Announcement To Answer (Tru Thoughts/Ubiquity)
K-Kruz–Time EP (Organik)
Positive Flow–Positivity (Native Source)
Reggae Charts
Rod Taylor/Capleton–His Imperial Majesty (Reggae Fever) His Imperial Majesty
Mr. Easy–Strangest Thing (E-2 Muzik) Butterfly
Beenie Man/Admiral Bailey etc.–Rocky Road (Free Willy)
Prince Malachi–Rise Up (Dill-Ox) Lolo Bell
Spanner Banner–One Love (Don Corleon) Heavenly
Elephantman–Salute (Q45)
Beenie Man–Wanted (Shocking Vibes) Out A Door
Chezidek–Inna Di Road (Massive B) Jah Love
TOK–Everybody Bounce (Stainless) Inspector
Lukie D–More Them Want (Maximum Sound) Train To Zion
DJ Tomas at Medjool,SF June 23 11pm–1am.
