I can safely say without hesitation that Alter Ego’s “Satanic Circus” is my dance track of the year. It’s raw, dirty, chock full of acid lines and shuffle beats that just drip with sex and sweat. The perfect soundtrack to a 1:45am night in a sweatbox.
So
I’ve now had time to digest and reflect on Movement’s happenings and I would like to first off thank each and every one of you who donated time/merchandise/effort to the cause. We got a lot of people registered and that makes me happy. Pending there’s a festival next year, we hopefully plan on doing something similar again. Hopefully.
Because I’m saving all of the juicy, sexy behind the scenes material for my memoirs (coming in 2009), I will resort to evaluating the artists that I heard that made me grin when things seemed unbearable this weekend:
1. Mike Servito - Yeah it was a Necto tent instead of a stage. But in a festival when all else could possibly go wrong, Servo got it right. Of course, he’d never admit to it in a million years being the perfectionist he is…but his set was a throwback to classic Servo style. The stuff he used to spin when I thought he hated my guts.
2. Derek Plaslaiko- Simply for playing The Pixies “Hey!” and Alter Ego’s “Satanic Circus” in his set; which sent me and Mark Lazar into our own mini mosh pit and running halfway across Hart Plaza screaming “whatthefuckwhatthefuck!”
3. Louis Haiman- He opened the stage one morning with a gorgeous set that reminded me of Clark Warner’s gentle set which opened the final morning of the first festival. Beautifully produced and hand crafted ambient washes that reminded me of classic Transmat and Global Communications’ classic 76:14. He’s my sleeper pick of the festival.
4. Francois K- Okay so the tubby bitch didn’t exactly bring the dance classics, but he did throw some hard minimal techno down that had us all speaker freaking at one point. It wasn’t the best set I’ve ever seen him play, but he did make up for that wretched set he threw down last year. B-
5. DJ Language- I promised and he delivered. An amazing set and hopefully a sign of bigger gigs and greater recognition in the Detroit area for this chap.
And that’s about it. Really.
I spent the rest of the time running around the festival like a chicken with my head cut off.
Big ups to Phred, Stephanie and Sad Mike Hanks for rescuing me on the first night from the brink of inevitable madness.
My closing thoughts: Things aren’t going to get better any time soon if this organization continues to employ the same methods it has for the last two years. It seemed as if there were internal flaws that refused to iron themselves out. Repeated obvious mistakes kept being made and things were missed left and right. In order to ensure these things don’t happen again (or ever)…planning for next year’s event has to start today. Like right now. Whomever is steering the helm needs to make a conscious decision to work this year round and not hesitate to spring into action.
Otherwise this festival is as doomed as the jazz festival, which says good bye this year.
After running around like crazy for three days, I then hopped aboard to the other country across the pond.
I don’t really mock Canadians. I don’t care to do it and when I do throw a verbal jab it’s in good jest with a Canadian citizen and it’s usually followed by a barrage of insults together at my own country the Disenfranchised States of America. I like Canada, and for the most part I think they get it right. And they really got it right with Mutek.
Every single person involved with the Movement festival should have immediately high tailed it to Montreal to see how it really gets done. From the moment we stepped off the train to our final night there; everything was done in what should be the standard for festival professionalism.
But more on that tomorrow….