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From the Front Lines: OOah, Kraddy, An-ten-nae & more in Hollywood
Note to readers: this is not a proper Show Review, but 'From the Front Lines' which are more personal, informal, and in first-person; chock full of slang, curse words, and random observances about electronic music culture and the freaks who love it.
Friday night I headed down to Hollywood to catch another Glitch Mob show and being the super club-nerd I am, arrive around 10PM, park and start walking around trying to find the venue called The Green Door.
Bassing out of this one place is the same fatty dubstep track that I was just listening to in my car, and I walk up to the big bouncer and ask him, "Where is the entrance?"
"Anywhere you want it to be," is his reply
"OK, how about right here?" And just like that the velvet rope lifts and Shilo is in.
I walk up to the pay-window next to a girl with a two-foot long white feather in her hair (*jealous!*) and the booth babe asks me, "Have you paid yet?"
"No," is my immediate response. D'oh! Should have said yes! I always kick myself but ultimately am glad that my initial reaction is one of honesty.
So I pay and go in to a huge room packed not yet with people but with towering palm trees, a long meandering rectangular pool passed over by foot bridges, lots of tables, booths, and plenty of cubby spaces to get your nookie on. Half of the club opened into a whole other giant room with a spiraling central core where hot chicks were spinning glow-brite hoola hoops while shaking plenty of ass. Impressive. I make a loop to case the place out and throughout the evening I would check back into this second room three or four times, but never once even made it through the doorway again because the music pulsing out of it was total fucking crap.
Back in the main room I ask a bouncer what's the average on people falling into the pool- one a night? Try three or four, he says. Oh shit. One day, it WILL be me, fair warning. I am 100% positive I will fall into that pool some day, I am too clumsy buck-sober around pools much less with a drink or two pulsing through my alcohol-system.
At the bar I buy a $7 Amstel Light. Delicious. Let me tell you a Shilo secret: when you meet a new bartender, tip them $2. They will not only immediately remember you, but they will instantly like you as well. If it is a gigantic club, like the Green Door, always go back to that same bartender. You get better service and stronger drinks- that $1 pays for itself over and over, believe me. If you start to frequent this bar, lay another $2 tip on the bartender now and again. Bartenders will love you, remember you, and keep an eye on you which is a good thing, especially for a single female.
Back at the dance floor where I had originally heard the dubstep song, these two beautiful girls are laying down sick breaks, some hefty slamming beats. And then it hit me: Am I in the right club? I had just heard the music and walked in, not asking or even looking for a sign. This is Hollywood and there is a dance club about every five feet and I have NO idea if I am actually in the right place or not.
Oh well, I don't have enough money to get into another club. Guess I'll stay and dance, fuck it. The two DJs getting the party started with the chunky breaks turn out to be Eva and Syrena, both of whom I met later. AWESOME people.
During their set, a big bouncer dude (is there any other kind?) walks up in front of the decks and throws about fifty one-dollar bills into the air, which flutter down to the dance floor amid a couple screams. Mad rush? Hardly. In fact, no one even picks them up! Piles of money are scattered on the ground and people just stand there like they are too good to lean down and pick up one dollar bills off the floor of a club.
Well I am not too good, I am a broke ass freelance writer and moments later, I am almost twenty dollars richer. Kind of takes the sting out of that $7 Amstel Light. I promptly go to buy another with my floor money and what do you know? The bartender gives it to me for free. Two dollar tip: anytime a bartender gives you a drink for free, tip two dollars, another patented Shilo secret.
So the next DJ goes on by his beats I immediately I know I am in the right club and breathe a sigh of relief. Braden was his name and I was loving his tracks, though how could I not? For about thirty minutes of his set he just played straight Modeselektor: Dancinbox, 2000007, the Dark Side of the Sun, Happy Birthday, seriously. The crowd ate it up of course. Nice track selection dude but I didn't come to the club to hear DJ Press Play.
an-ten-nae comes on next and WOW! I had never seen him live and he is a new favorite of mine, winning my heart and my dancing feet with Super Curl (OH MY GOD, IT'S SO SHINY). His fat tracks had the crowd totally amped for the Glitch Mob to take over.
Which they did, of course. I will restrain myself from writing five more paragraphs about how OOah and Kraddy brought sound from the future and slammed it on all of our heads, how I danced in front of the speaker until I had blisters on my big toes, how they mixed Lil Wayne's "Motherfucker I'm ill, not sick" with Kraddy's own remix of Lupe Fiasco's I Gotcha, how the people went bananas and how there was a practical orgy of near-naked ladies in front of the stage. Personally I would rather see chicks who can really get down with super sweet moves and actually dance (like the go-gos earlier in the night) rather than extra-gorgeous supermodel types who just wave their asses in front of the crowd like homing beacons, but whatever. I met quite a few of the ladies throughout the night and they were all very nice, friendly and welcoming, so wave on with your hot self!
SUMMARY: Glitch Mob kills yet again. An-ten-nae is AMAZING. Eva and Syrena are fatty breaks DJs in LA who deserve a look, female or not, and Braden plays music that I love so I really can't complain. Open up the Green Door and you get LA: palm trees, a clear blue pool, $7 beers, the most beautiful ladies you have ever seen and a whole lot of guys with Edit hats on.
And then you pay for parking, jump on the interstate and fly home. I LOVE LA!
Peace and love from the front lines,


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Wandering through Gloucester Docks this afternoon, we walked past a new piece of public art that wasn't there last summer. Rising high into the sky, the 22m tall "Candle" is known locally as "the Rusty Needle".
The sculptor? None other than Wolfgang Buttress who is behind Rise ("the Balls on the Falls") which is in the process of being installed on top of Belfast's Broadway roundabout.
The Candle with its embedded spire complements the existing city skyline which includes Gloucester Cathedral and the tall warehouses (now offices and apartments) in the Docks. The candle or flame is also meant to be a reminder of the many fires that have occurred over the years in the docks.
Around the base of the sculpture are the first few lines of Requiem by Ivor Gurney - a poet and composer who grew up in Gloucester.
The panorama function of my camera - or perhaps my use of it! - had problems keeping the image straight!

subset: commoncrawl