Timeless 1 of 4

I know the year is only one month young so far, so this statement might be a bit outlandish... BUT... tonight my fiance and I went to the best concert of the year!!! Therefore, right off the bat, once again, and as usual, I have to start out by giving major props to Art Don't Sleep and Mochilla for putting this thing together. It was phenomenal! The show was held out at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA, which I had never been to before, and the lineup was as follows... Egon, Quantic, and Cut Chemist were opening up with individual DJ sets, and Mulatu Astatke, the Ethiopian jazz master, with a 15 piece orchestra was the grand finale. My fiance and I were a bit worried that we might hit some traffic getting there if we waited for the Superbowl to end so we took off at about 6:00pm from Westchester and braved the 10 East en route to the venue. Our plan worked and we didn't hit any traffic. However once we arrived there were some super long lines just to get parking passes...LAME! So after we got the parking situation under control we went over to the box office and saw another huge line! Lucky for me I saw a very small sign that said "Will Call Tickets" were located at another place. Damn I would have felt like a chump if I wasted a half hour in the box office line for nothing! So then we go to the "Will Call" line and guess what?... the lady at the desk can't find my tickets!!! I was about freak out, when she randomly found them mixed in with another stack of paperwork. I guess they butchered my last name, thus complicating the process. Whew! That was a close call for getting screwed out of $200, but more importantly getting screwed out of a show I had been eagerly anticipating for several weeks now! At long last were able to make our way inside. If you've never been there, the Luckman Fine Arts Complex is a really nice venue to see a show. It was clean, new looking, had friendly staff, and most importantly comfy spacious seating and a great sound system. Also the restrooms were sparkling clean so that was nice too. At around 7:15 they opened the doors for seating and the audience began to trickle in. We found our seats and scored bigtime, as they were some great seats down in the orchestra pit. However there was one minor set back... When the people sitting in front of us finally showed up they happened to have their 3 daughters along with them. DOH! Not only do kids annoy me in general, they especially annoy me when people bring them along to events in public places like the movies or concerts, where being quiet is expected. So anyway, not only did they have 3 kids with them, but all 3 kids were bouncing off the walls on presumably some insane sugar rush, running around, screaming, dancing, and crawling around in the aisles, etc... All I could think of now was how these kids were going to be a major distraction throughout the entire event. I was also thinking who the F brings their kids to a show like this!?!?!? Well now you know who does... Garth Trinidad, host of KCRW's Chocolate City... that's who. Amazingly I couldn't have been more wrong about the kids. Once the music started they chilled out big time and I didn't even notice them for the rest of the event (or maybe I just forgave them because of who their father is...), but either way I was wrong, and it made my fiance and I laugh pretty hard just thinking about the whole situation. So up first was Egon. He came out and spun a really cool and tripped out mix of world music, chocked full of heavy breaks, wailing vocals, and funky grooves. You could tell that he probably scoured the globe for the records he played tonight, because the songs sounded extremely obscure and almost ancient due to the constant crackling of the static on every record. Behind him on a big screen were projected images of Ethiopia fading in and out as the musical journey through Africa's mostly forgotten musical past continued for the next 20 minutes. Next, Quantic took over, actually just stepping in on the turntables as Egon stepped aside and walked back behind the curtains. Quantic's set was pretty much just like Egons. He spun a carefully selected and eclectic mix of African music, with tons of potential samples on every tune, all of which I'm assuming were hand selected from his personal collection. Although the 2 sets weren't heavy on the turntable trickery (which is what we were hoping for), both were extremely hypnotic and pleasing to our ears. Still, we were a tiny bit disappointed to finally see Quantic live and have him just serve as a record changer, albeit a damn near perfect one at that. Assigned with the task of closing out the DJ Sets was none other than Cut Chemist, who I have had the pleasure of seeing perform quite a few times. Let me just say one thing... HE NEVER DISSAPOINTS and this was definitely no exception. In fact, I'd say that his performance tonight was the greatest DJ set I have ever personally seen or heard live (and I have seen my fair share of shit, from DJ Qbert, J-Rocc, DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, Madlib, to Peanut Butter Wolf, etc..). What Cut did tonight was simply amazing. Armed with only one turn table, a mixer and a pedal board at his feet controlling the samples he was recording, he basically constructed every song he played live on the spot using his records, mixed these songs together with one another, deconstructed the songs, and flipped it every which way imaginable! I don't know where the heck he comes up with these ideas, but the end result was a total mind bender. This set NEEDS to come out on CD, or at least be shown live in its entirety on DVD. Yes it was that good. Simply put, Cut Chemist went absolutely insane and in the process blessed us all with a legendary performance. He walked off to a standing ovation, and the curtain behind him raised revealing Mulatu Astatke and his Orchestra. Now as for Mulatu, I had heard he was the shit, but had never actually heard his music other than a track he did with the Heliocentrics called Yekermo Sew. I loved this song, and it just so happened that it was what he decided to open up with tonight. Heavy on the horns and vibraphone, this song has a really chill and dreamy vibe to it (see video below). Once the song ended I knew that we would be in store for some more musical treats, and were we ever. Unfortunately I don't remember the song names, as it was my first time seeing him or even really hearing his music for that matter, but I everything he played was awesome. Each song had a very dreamy and cinematic quality to it, but all were very different. Overall, it was a magnificent performance, and I'm thrilled to have seen Mulatu play live at least once. Now if only I could figure out a way to go back in time and see Fela play... In conclusion (if you actually bothered to make it this far) we had an unforgettable time watching music history in the making at "Timeless 1", and can't wait to see what happens next. Until then...
So You Know You Know I Don't Lie