Our regular Spin Cycle columnist, Chris Milbourn, attended a promotional event last Thursday in Lawrence featuring Dan the Automator. Here's his report:
Dan the Automator, best known as a producer and arranger for projects with the Gorillaz, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Dr. Octagon and the classic Deltron 3030 was to play a DJ set sponsored by Bacardi on the night of January 28th at Club Liquid in Lawrence.
When people showed their IDs at the door of Club Liquid to gain entry, they were asked to take a picture for a cameraman. "Why not, it'll probably end up on the internet sooner or later," I heard one girl say outside in the freezing cold. Bacardi was out in full force. It seemed as though half the people inside the club had Bacardi shirts on, handing out black top hats and shots of liquor.
Sure enough, the pictures taken at the door were rotated on TV screens around the bar in a slideshow so everyone could see themselves. Bacardi girls, dressed in scanty black outfits danced on all the illuminated, elevated platforms they could get their heels on. At times, it seemed the Aqua-drummer and Bacardi dancers were in a coordinated rhythm with the beats delivered from the DJs. Not just during the middle of a song, but even while one beat was mixed into another.
Not cheesy enough? The warm-up DJ, PHDJ, he calls himself, played a toss up of Pussycat Dolls, Akon, Snoop Dogg and Nelly, among other things. It wasn't exactly the type of hip-hop that I would expect from someone opening up for Dan The Automator, so I held my breath until PHDJ's set was over. Exhaling that air may as well have come by way of a fart. Automator took the stage at midnight, and played top 40 the entire time, save tracks by M.O.P. and Cypress Hill. The previous songs I mentioned by Akon, Snoop and Nelly all found their way into Automator's selection, basically making for doubles. If I wanted to hear three different songs played twice within an hour, I'd listen to the radio.
I could see from a vantage point that Automator was using a laptop computer with his turntables, most likely draped up with Serato or Final Scratch mixing programs. But numerous times, his tracks skipped just as if you or I were to try to play a dusty, scratched CD in our home stereo. He played no exclusive remixes, did little mixing, and did no scratching or juggling.
To a critical hip hop fan, one could've made the assumption that Automator was dumbing down his performance to fit the Bacardi mold, whatever that is. But later that night on the Internet, I discovered that Dan The Automator isn't even known as a DJ, but is reputed for his production work. But I don't think any of his fans, including myself, were expecting such a disappointment.
Even still, there was an element of irony to this "guest list or invite only" show. Very few people even knew about this event to begin with. It was not advertised anywhere in the days or weeks leading up. But most of Automator's fans would've been sorely disappointed with this performance. To the fans of 3030, Handsome Boy Modeling School and other Automator projects, rest assured that you didn't miss much.
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