Funeral Party with Keith P/Anthony Social (Beauty Bar): When Local DJ Keith P moved his mostly 80’s-themed dance night to Beauty Bar from Fallout Lounge, he had one concern, but one that he approached with optimism. The artist was hoping that a newly varied crowd would keep up with the increasingly varied structuring of the music. With the night still in its infancy, all seems to be going according to plan. Says Keith by email, “We were going into this expecting a diverse crowd from the onset. This was the case with Black Fridays and is proving the same with our move to Beauty Bar. Our older Goth/80’s crowd is out, a contingency of hipsters, as well as regulars to the neighborhood. We play a diverse range of music so I’ve always hoped to see that reflected in our crowd.”
Indeed, Keith P and his partner in the dark disco arts, Anthony Stanford, have been trying to incorporate bits and pieces from their collection that don’t necessarily represent the textbook sonic history of music from the era. The duo toys with tougher cuts and non-format records, but they know they have to do so somewhat cautiously. “Anthony and I have a penchant for priming the dance floor with synth-pop, new wave, industrial, and more accessible records in the earlier hours,” he said.
After the crowd has been sucked in by the likes of the “greats,” as he calls them, such as “Bauhaus, Siouxsie, Depeche Mode, Sisters of Mercy, and The Cure,” the right has been earned to take special liberties with the playlist.
“This almost always leads into rock n’ roll and obscure cuts that share a likeness to what we’ve been playing throughout the evening,” Keith said. “Occasionally we may end the night with something that may seem unrelated, as was the case with playing a bit of metal and psych-rock last week.”
But according to Keith, it isn’t all nostalgia. The subtle approach to prepping the crowd can help soften the proverbial “shock of the new.”
“We try to use popular artists to give people a lead in to obscure relics of the eighties underground as well as newer acts that are channeling such sounds,” he said.
Since most of the tracks most likely won’t be new, the Funeral Party shuns chronological purism by maintaining that they needn’t be stuck specifically in one decade. He explained: “We’re also branching out into music of the seventies and nineties. We’re beginning to seek out similar themes and atmosphere in what may seem unrelated genres or even time periods.”
With all of this talk of diversity, I decided to ask Keith what he won’t be including.
“We’ve been trying to avoid turning this into an 80’s themed prom or Pretty in Pink nostalgia festival since we began playing,” He said. “Michael Jackson marathons just won’t ever happen at our night. The Funeral Party is a celebration of punk, post-punk, new wave, gothic, industrial, and rock n’ roll music spanning decades, language, and country of origin.”
Whatever Wednesdays with Gavin G (Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio): Tonight’s guest is George Quartz, who, according to the invite, needs “no introduction.” Well, if that is not enough of an introduction to Quartz, luckily he runs an endlessly fascinating blog, La Maladie Tropicale, which details all of his various activities: his music, his mixes, and the thoroughly bizarre, 20th Century culture mining “talk show” he hosts.
Image: Header from George Quartz’s La Maladie Tropicale blog.
