Bird Peterson/Dubbel Dutch/Yeahdef/Blake Ward/Mikey Rodge (Cambridge Room at House Of Blues): Another free event from Dub Frequency and Creme De La Creme, though I can’t tell what exactly is being promoted this time around. You’ll probably find out if you attend this showcase, which features some of the state’s well-regarded producers. You can RSVP here.
And wow, has dance music been a hot topic in the news lately or what? I know firsthand that the dance community just loves it when the usually disinterested media all of a sudden starts paying attention to the genre for reasons having little to do with artistic merit and more to do with either sensationalizing “Rave” culture, or even worse, at times almost trivializing a teen’s death to make points about nightlife economics. I have nothing but endless sympathy for the friends and family of the young man who died at last weekend’s Electric Daisy Carnival, as the sensational coverage must have added unneeded pain to an already horrid situation. Having lived through the Plano Heroin Epidemic of the 90’s, the surreal effect of having the media take special interest in highly personal tragedies can compound the pain needlessly. I understand my current complicity, and this is not to imply that they shouldn’t do their job. I’m merely pointing out that it can be awkward and painful for all involved, especially for victims and survivors.
The whole EDC thing took me back to the early 2000’s when the Federal Government was busy passing legislation to ensure that our new decade wouldn’t look like the Gregg Araki-style nightmare the 90’s were often perceived to be. Originally the government just came out and boldly admitted the exact sort of activity it was wishing to deter by naming the bill The RAVE act aka The Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstacy Act. Then it was stealthily switched to the much more generic-sounding Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation act, because well, it posed little political risk to try to pass a bill with a name like that. You could largely forgo the complaints that it threatened the “right to assembly” or unfairly targeted seemingly innocent third-parties. The bill was Trojan-horsed into other legislation and passed without controversy.
Interestingly enough, this was all sponsored by then Senator, now Vice President Joseph Biden. Which brings me to another point: The Dallas Morning News keeps calling what happened on Saturday a “Rave.” The Dallas Observer stated it is technically not a rave, which corrected an earlier post on Twitter where they used the R-word. All I’m wondering is, with Biden so powerful now and The City of Dallas having signed off on a supposed rave, will the Feds intervene at some point? Though that’s highly improbable, my prediction is that the possible backlash would have the strange and rare effect of uniting both The Right and The Left in this state for once.
For some fascinating and admittedly biased documentation on dance culture and the government, go here.
Dentoneer Presents: “Aughties Night” with DJ Boat Dad/DJ Kluck Chosterman (Hailey’s): This was inevitable and hats off to Dentoneer for jumping ahead and taking up the torch for something people have yet to miss, since they really haven’t even had the chance.
This new event specifically enforces the rather limited criteria of only piping in music that was made and/or released between calendar years 2000-2009. The current conventional wisdom is that everyone is just fine with saying goodbye to this decade, since many in The Western World consider each year little more than a cold numeric signifier of another step toward political, economic and cultural decline.
Now on some level, I would dispute that, as I have championed much in that time period. However, they made this too easy to feel defeated, with the flier alone. You see, they went ahead and just narrowed down what the decade meant to them by slapping both the cover art from Kill The Moonlight and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on the advert. I mean, are you guys even going to try to convince me that we shouldn’t just go ahead and label this “The Overrated Years?” Thanks for nothing. I hope we can get this straightened out by the next installment.
Image via Wikicommons.
