Joakim and his Ectoplasmic Band, Robot Blair, Andy Butler, and the Juan Maclean at Studio B 2/9/08

Arrived at the B around midnight, kicking it old school, sans-triangle...but wound up running into this guy Joel I met at one of the Degenerates parties at Hiro. Robot Blair was dj-ing when I arrived. A good, mellow set. He played a few songs that I was pleasantly surprised to hear, i.e. the Ernest St. Laurent Moonfish remix of Remind Me by Royksopp. Overall a little more mellow than I personally like...I didn't feel like I could dance to it, but there were plenty of people on the floor who were.

Right around 1 Joakim and his Ectoplasmic band went on. They opened with one of their more weird instrumental tracks, and then went into "I Wish You Were Gone" (one of my favorite tracks off of his album "Monsters and Silly Songs"). They played until about 1. I would say they probably played the majority of that album.

It was a good show, but not great. I would've liked them to be a little more energetic. At the beginning of "I Wish You Were Gone" the song starts off kind of quiet w/ some drumming and stuff in the background but then there's this point about a minute into the song where the drums and guitar both fully come in - and I felt like they didn't really hit it live. They just kind of played through it. They definitely could've been louder. I actually had to look twice to make sure they had an actual drummer because it didn't sound live to me. Things got a bit better the more they played "Lonely Hearts" and "Rocket Pearl" stood out. But still, overall, kind of a take it or leave it show.

I really like their album though. Been listening to it since the beginning of last week. There are some tracks that are more lyric focused and have more of an electro-rock pop appeal, but a lot of the album is more weird (good weird) atmospheric electronic stuff. The album overall has a very beautiful emotional quality to it. You get a sense of a story/theme coming across...not just a bunch of songs.

Anyway...after that Andy Butler and the Juan Maclean were each on the decks for a bit. Both of them were playing some *dun dun dun* good disco which has increasingly been coming up in conversation lately, as has been the song Hold On by Holy Ghost which someone thankfully dropped last night. Honestly, both of their sets were really really good, dance-able, non-cheesy, disco sets. I really was pleasantly surprised as the main reason I went out was to see Joakim, and the Juan Maclean & Andy Butler were more of an afterthought, which I have to say is mainly due to being kind of underwhelmed the last few times I've seen Juan dj. His set last night really was awesome though. Also...I feel I should note that I have been hating on the new Hercules and Love Affair track "Blind" that all the blogs have been foaming at the mouth over...but last night on the big system it really came alive and sounded great. And now I can't for the life of me get it out of my head.

So, to recap:

1. Joakim - live, not so exciting, but a good album.
2. Juan Maclean & Andy Butler tore it up til the lights came up.
3. Disco is good. Even Grover knows what's up:



4. So is "Blind".

The end.