Personally, I was looking forward to last Thursday night at Chop Suey as an epic night, since I’d never seen Ellen Allien perform live. Also, my friend Casey is a huge fan of Seattle's Jacob London, and had driven up from Portland to see them. So yeah, expectations were high. Despite this, we somehow managed to arrive late to the show and entered to Jacob London already in mid-swing. And to . . . well, basically an empty venue. Bob Hansen and Dave Pezzner, the dynamic duo behind the funky and surprising Jacob London, were taking the lack of an audience with good grace, however. When a girl started dancing and hooting in front of the empty stage, they responded with cocked fingers and amused winks. As more people started to trickle in, they tried to up the ante by busting out live drum pads and increasing layers of catchy beats from their laptops, but the crowd refused to do much more than vigorously head nod and search for more booze. To be fair, this was supposed to be more of a DJ set, and I think the Jacob London guys are more comfortable when they're free to play more of their own music or, you know, when people actually dance.
After Jacob London waved and left the stage, Sascha Funke started to set up his gear and fiddle with his equipment. He synched his opening track so perfectly to the house techno that played during his setup that it took me a full five minutes to realize that he'd even started. Sascha Funke focused on deep, rather clean beats that looped into infinty. It's always great to see a DJ set done with actual vinyl, so I give him props, however, if I didn't know better, I'd just have thought it was a beat looped via computer, with the vinyl used for effects. It was very melodic and catchy, if repetative. "This house is too deep for me to dance to," my friend [and melophobe all-star] Tighe quipped, summing up my thoughts exactly. We seemed to be the minority, though. The crowd had started to fill out and move forward. People were dancing, or at least maintained a steady nod. It was good, but after an hour of it, I felt like I was getting dance-induced carpal-tunnel syndrome.
While my friends and I stepped outside and took a break from Sascha Funke''s set, we ran into Bob from Jacob London, who ended up being a seriously nice guy. Among other things, he told us that the name Jacob London was actually taken from an ad for a Seattle based lawyer, who they thought "had a way cooler name than we had at the time!" Hilariously, they've since had him represent them on legal matters. Even more hilariously, besides being a lawyer, the original Jacob London is also a folk musician, and, as Bob tells it, "We've always joked about doing something with him. A sort of 'Jacob London featuring Jacob London' thing or something like that." He said that they have a new album coming out soon (funk, breaks, weird shit, and everything but the kitchen sink, oh my!) where they're going to try to make that guest appearance happen. I'm stoked!
When we went back inside, Ellen Allien had started teasing the crowd by coming out on stage during Funke's set and walking around, only to leave again. Eventually she joined Funke on his decks, matching his steady beat with some of her own (maybe that was more of a hint instead of a tease). As Funke surrendered the turn tables, he moved back to respectfully nod behind her on stage. Ok, let me take a moment to expound on my love for Ellen Allien: Out of the many entities to emerge from the Berlin electronic scene, Ellen Allien has always been one of my favorites. I was first introduced to her about five years ago via a 12" copy of her Alles Sehen remix single, which I bought for the amazing cover art (outlines of children feeding their blood to a giant heart, which, in turn, uses it to grow raspberries), but I totally fell in love with the music. Her melodic treatment of fragmented vocals, her joyful contrast between beautiful samples and rough beats are all in step with a sort of overall innocence that I think is rarely seen in electronica. With that in mind, I was a little disappointed to remember that this would be a DJ set, so her music wouldn't be as much on display as her mixing ability.
She subtly began to transition from Funke's deep house and ambient interludes, to a variety of syncopated beats, some great breaks, and rolling basslines, all still pretty repetitive and subdued, however. It was good! I was so busy dancing that I confess I didn't take good notes . . . . High points for me included an awesome remix of Bjork's "Dull Flame of Desire" (featuring Anthony of Anthony & The Johnsons, which reminded me of how desperately I want to see Hercules and Love Affair), and Modeselektor's "The White Flash," which featured Thom York. I'd like to say the crowd was going crazy the whole time she played and the energy in that room was simply amazing, but that's not really true. There were a couple of times where she absolutely killed it (Gaiser's "Withdrawal," for example). The crowd would freak out and everything was amazing, but then the energy would die down and I'd look up to see her digging through her record crate or chatting with Sascha on stage. Maybe she felt like the crowd wasn't really responding to her or she was tired from so much touring.
You see, the thing about Europe is that they've got us beat when it comes to metal or electronic shows. But here in the North West, we hold the market on bearded guys who stand around and make snide comments. I don't think Ellen Allen realized what she acomplished by getting the bearded guys to actually dance. That's huge! Just wait 'til N.Y.C. and L.A! You've got crowds that actually dance.
