MixMaster Mike @ Sonar 4/6/06
I’d like to start this post of by thanking all the smokers out there. As a non-smoker and club goer, it is a very rare thing for me to thank smokers as a group. I long ago made my peace with the smoky room, but seldom does a show go by without my eyes welling up from the irritation. Last Thursday night when i teared up the MixMaster Mike show at Sonar, i laughed as i cried, because all those smoker’s had finally done something for me. They paid for the MixMaster to come to town.
That’s because the show was, unmistakably, brought to us by Camel cigarettes. If you see a free show that is 18 and over to enter, odds are good that RJR is picking up the tab. So be it…
The last time MMM was around that i know of, he played to a packed house at Ottobar, so with this show being free, i expected to need to get there early to get in. Wrong. I could have neared the stage at any point during the evening without needing an “excuse me,” and since i got there at 8:15, it made for a long evening. DJ’s Easy and Impulse kept the hip hop flowing, there was an MC battle (with Midas besting Verbal Tech in the final, good performances by both), but the two Camel-provided dancers really kept the wait from seeming a lot longer. Thanks ladies!
MMM was on for an hour or so, warming up with some electro/house/D&B type beats, and drifting into rock and Hip Hop as he pleased. Last time i saw him it was pretty old school, with Mike swapping records as he went, and beat matching anything to anything. MMM had gone hi tech this time, and was rocking the powerbook, along with built to spec vinyl. The result was a pretty different vibe, that highlighted the scratching ability over the mixing. The scratching was pretty incredible, no doubt, but knowing how well he puts things togeher, i would have rather it had leaned the other way. The scratching has to be seen live to be fully appreciated, but the overall sound of the show was too fragmented for my taste. It didn’t have the cohesive sci-fi worldview that Anti-Theft Device or Bangzilla have to offer.
As it was we still got Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,”, the J.B.’s “The Grunt,” Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll,” The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” some Rage Against the Machine, and Nu Shooz’ “I Can’t Wait” Mixed in with all the Hip Hop (I took notes, hehe).
MixMaster is one of the best arguments against copyright around, and while it was an excellent show, at the right price, it didn’t measure up with my memory of his last show, or, say, when DJ Dexter of the Avalanches came through. It was excellent, but it wasn’t transcendant as i expected it would be. Perhaps, like The Sword, another victim of having to step up after Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. Who will meet the challenge?