Institubes night at Hiro!

Reason #1 to have not gone to SXSW:

Institubes Records night at Hiro

Got there a little after 11, just in time for Curses! aka Drop the Lime. After many missed opportunities to hear him play (he's from NY and DJ's quite a bit around here, all the Trouble & Bass parties, etc.), I was kicking myself. He was not fucking around. I have never seen anyone so busy behind the decks, and what came out was thick, chunky, thumpy, bassy sounds. The definition of banging. But he did not stop there...he sang over some of the tracks, and he was getting down during the entire set. I can't stress enough how much better sets seem to me if the DJ is enjoying himself and gettin down. Ended with another song w/ live vocals, and a guy playing saxophone. Can't wait to catch this guy again. His EP is coming out on Institubes in April and there's a good interview w/ him over at Trash Menagerie.

Someone played a short set after Curses!, but I'm not sure who it was. It was pretty good. There were a few moments during the set where it would get kind of quiet and shoe gazey, and then he would bring the bass back in and just bang it out.

Next was Boys Noize...he started his set w/ the Gossip's Standing in the Way of Control...which honestly I am sick of at this point, but you can't help but dance to it, so it was a good way to start the set. His entire set was dope. Didn't stop dancing the whole time...highlights for me included a bunch of stuff I've heard from his other live sets...Frau, Every Day I Love You Less and Less, TV Off, Thriller, Prime Time Of Your Life (which SMD also dropped the other night at Studio B which I forgot to mention), and yes, he dropped Pump Up the Jam and the crowd ate it up. He also dropped Prodigy's Breathe which was crazy. It was an excellent, blink of an eye dj set...it was so good the time flew by. Oh! He had this shirt that had an equalizer on it that was synched up w/ what he was playing...it is the reason someone invented the camera phone:

  

He really played a solid, highly danceable, fun set. I love when DJ's shamelessly drop pop songs & old school jams like that mixed in with new stuff.

Here is where the trouble started for me. When Boys Noize finished his set, Para One was up next, but I couldn't shift gears and get into it. I saw both Boys Noize and Para One when I went to Montreal in September, and enjoyed both of them, but on different nights. I couldn't make the jump from Boys Noize's more fun, diverse banging to Para One's more techy, knob-twisting stuff...and I had to be in to work at 9 this morning (the man, always keepin' you down!) so I reluctantly left early. He was playing his usual good Para One stuff, I just couldn't get myself into it.

Despite the weather shift back to slushy coldness, I am going to try to make it to People Don't Dance No More at Element tonight...I really want to check out My Cousin Roy. I've been diggin his tune Bobbi's Back which you can hear over at his myspace, or download from Occam's Razor along with some other disco-ey gems