What do Athens, Greece, Honolulu, Hawaii, Red Rocks Ampitheater in Colorado, and Kansas City have in common? If you guessed each location will host one of the four stops on the Global Dance Festival Tour 2010, then chances are you are wearing a shiny shirt and have, in the past 24 hours, administered spray-on tan.
While Kansas City’s stop is bringing Paul Van Dyk and BT, it could be worse. Athens has Armin Van Buuren, and Honolulu’s event is headlined by something called Shwayze featuring Cisco Adler . . . which somehow managed to push Bad Boy Bill to the #2 slot. From there, Rabbit in the Moon and Uberzone vs Bassbin Twins round out this homage to the very worst of American electronic music circa 1998.
Or, worst case scenario - you could stretch these travesties over two whole days, which is something the residents in the immediate vicinity of Red Rocks Ampitheater will have to deal with come mid-July.
Thankfully the Kansas City date is the same weekend as the Colorado one, which means hopefully a decent chunk of those who would go to something like this will choose the western weekend option and our fair city can be left off the list of venues next year.
Ten years ago I was tired of seeing acts like this tromped through town under the pretense of a quality event. When you step back and look at all of the talent this world has seen come through the dance music genre in the past fifteen years, ask yourself, “How many have made it to Kansas City?” Do promoters view the area’s glut of bored white kids with expendable income and easily-led tastes as little more than JNCO-wearing ATM’s?
I’ll elaborate: Paul Van Dyk is a marketing tool. He has not had a relevant release since the mid-90’s. His last album release was 2007, and since then he’s had one physical release comprised of new material amid a slough of re-releases, one-off compilations, and digital-only eps.
Despite his early influential releases, he has exceedingly punched his ticket on the dreck brought to popularity by hacks like Tiesto, Van Buuren, and ATB.
Look, I have “Words” and “For an Angel” on vinyl - the Curve remix on the former and the Way out West remix on the latter made the $3 i spent on each worth it. But the world has moved on. This sound is being held over because of its marketability, not because of any musical or cultural importance.
BT - Brian Transeau - is also scheduled to play this thing, and further enhances Kansas City’s reputation as one of very few places in the world where former Moonshine artists and their ilk can still get a gig.
That’s not to say BT’s always been a joke. Take a listen to Deep Dish’s Penetrate Deeper label showcase/mix from the mid 90’s. Fully HALF of the mix’s 14 songs credit Brian Transeau in one way or another. Ima was an early highlight in the attempt to expose more Americans to electronic music, and introduced Sasha via the second disc’s 45-minute album mix. I’ll even give credit to “Mercury and Solace”, which, thanks largely to Jan Johnston’s haunting vocals, remains one of the more usable tracks from the entire “progressive house” fiasco which it seemed we’d never escape from.
The years since then have not been kind to Transeau. This event is largely to promote his first album in four years, with just a handful of singles in the interim. What he has released since his heyday in the middle of the 90’s have largely been trend-hopping concoctions devoid of soul or innovation as he’s become more comfortable within the category of “club” music. In the end, he succeeded in becoming Moby’s understudy as the posterboy for American electronica: a talented individual who chose the compromises of commercial success at the expense of creativity, ultimately ending up as a parody of not only himself, but of a movement.
Taking the disappointment a step further, Rusko - who has sadly devolved into what I consider the lowest common denominator of dubstep with all the bro-step mid-range wobblers he’s churned out in the last year - is playing the “pre-party” at Mosaic and will supposedly be playing an “afterparty” at the Jones Pool on top of Cosentino’s downtown. Nevermind he’s scheduled to play the Colorado date I mentioned earlier - I’m sure he’ll jump on a private charter and make it back to KC in time.
My point here is this: this city could have better. We’ve set through the annual Donald Glaude-Charles Feelgood-Dave Aude-etc nonsense for over a decade now. DJ Dan at Lucky Strike a couple of weeks ago is another great example. I get the fact that most people in this city don’t know or care enough to find out what’s going in their ears. All they know is they paid $20-$40 a ticket and $8 for a beer, so they must be doing something right.
Kansas City - please understand - there is a whole wide world out there who has disowned these artists. There are agents, promoters, marketeers out there whose sole jobs are to find these guys gigs in the most culturally backwards, backwater, uninformed places in the world.
Do we really want to continually be on that list? There are those who will make the argument that without events like this, we will never show the world that we can support the truly cutting edge artists - the ones that will give the shiny shirts a party the likes of which they can’t even conceive of. But it’s been ten-plus years of this already, and still nothing.
Granted, this thing is being billed as a festival. There are other stages and acts, although Shadowrunner and FSTZ are the only two names I recognize on the listing. I’m sure those who end up attending this will be convinced they had a great time, if for no other reason than the damage done to their credit cards. Undoubtedly, there’ll be those who finally got to see Van Dyk and/or BT and will be fully comfortable ignoring the fact that it is only due to each artist’s diminishing rate of return that this is possible.
As the rest of the world moves into festival season, as lineups are announced, as long-lost acts are re-united and hot young djs, producers, and genres are breaking out to audiences open and intelligent enough to welcome them, we here are again branded as a podunk hick town and, instead of resisting, we choose to stay ignorant, pay an extra $20 for bottle service, and continue doing whatever the glossy pages in the lifestyle mags tell us to.
Kansas City - we deserve better than this.
Wow! What a Hater! Someone’s mad they didn’t make the lineup. If not that, just mad they aren’t gettin in on one of the BEST events to come to Kansas City EVER!!! How stupid can you be??? All this is gonna do for Kansas City is raise awareness for the electronic community. Which is much needed. If your gonna write some Hater Shit like this at least have the balls to say who you are!
Comment by Johnny Bradford — May 24, 2010 @ 1:54 am
Are you kidding… BT-devoid of soul or innovation? The guy went to study at the Berklee College of Music when he was 15, he’s composed orchestral scores for film and is one hell of a sound designer. He’s written music in C Sound. What the hell have you done?
He’s incredibly fucking musical and his pieces are very expressive, if you can’t pick up that man it sounds like you’re the one not willing to actually Listen
Comment by Lazlo — May 31, 2010 @ 5:58 pm
PVD has all ready sold out most of his dates in Ibiza! So obviously he is still well wanted! Whoever wrote the first piece is an idiot!
Comment by Natasha Ludwig — June 11, 2010 @ 10:48 pm
while i appreciate all of your comments, i think you all sound so desparate for any event that you’re willing to take whatever is handed you. and i find that really sad. i mean that in all sincerity, and i think it’s a reflection of what this city has been pigeonholed into.
i’ve seen this city do better.
i’ve lived in the kc area my whole life except for about 9 months in pittsburgh pa. i spent the better part of the 90’s in the kc rave/underground dance scene as a dancer and later as a promoter (and dj if called upon).
this is a sham event in the eyes of the rest of the world. this is what is sold to the little kiddies who have yet to live life enough to know they’re being duped - yet sadly, it’s these same kids that would benefit so much from an artist or dj who is willing to challenge them beyond their comfort levels - and neither paul van dyk or bt will be doing that at this show.
if you guys want a truly great party, i highly recommend you start holding everyone as accountable in the kansas city dance music scene as you are me. promoters, djs, your friends, yourselves . . . it’s going to be on the whole of you to make this event enjoyable.
Comment by ben — June 24, 2010 @ 11:08 pm
Please explain what type of music you would want to hear. I see a bit of everything on that bill plus a pre party with rusko is just sick. If you want to listen slow boring dumb step then put on your skull candy cans and jam to it because when people go out to dance they want to have their minds blown and rusko is the man to do that.
Comment by Goskar — June 27, 2010 @ 2:57 pm
instead of regurgitating the several dozen reviews and articles i read on a generally daily basis for a list of artists, i’ll just refer you to the lineups of DEMF, decibal, mutek, or sonar; i’ll refer you to the touring talent that is coming through cities in this country that *aren’t* pigeonholed as backwoods, uninformed, and ultimately incidental to the actual experience of this music and culture. furthermore, i’ll point you in the direction of artists like underground resistance, larry heard, fred p (black jazz consortium), lee curtiss, soul clap, theo parrish (a kcai grad) or kenny dixon jr who, among dozens of others, still live here in the states and are actively playing events in both this country and abroad.
obviously the promoters have no issue with bringing someone in from germany in van dyk’s case - i would highly recommend they look at the city of berlin, see what’s actually going on there, and move their collective calendars forward about a decade.
the rusko of today is not even remotely the rusko of a couple of years ago. i would highly recommend looking at a youtube tutorial on how to make bro-step wobble bass - in fact, rusko’s future music is an entertaining and informative way to learn how extremely simple his music is and sadly has continued to be over the past couple of years.
rusko is on this tour partially to promote the upcoming MIA album which he produced a good chunk of, his upcoming work with britney spears, and ultimately his decision to move to the united states and focus more on pop-oriented production.
would i prefer to hear slow “dumb step”? do you consider martyn, scuba, joy orbison, dusk & blackdown, pinch, kode9, appleblim, shackleton, shortstuff & brackles, the entirety of the numbers, argon, L2S, 7even, applepips - or even domestic labels like formant or lo dubs - as slow “dumb step”? i don’t.
i’m going to venture a guess that none of you who have commented yet were around in the kc rave scene 5, 10, much less 15 years ago. i remember the ridiculous destruction caused partially by tranced out kiddies, generally unable to even count to four, flinging glowsticks around for a few minutes here and there whilst taking a break from drug scavenging for the night, and caused partially by promoters more than willing to capitalize on this idiocy in the name of money.
you all have a right to your own music tastes, and i hope you have a great time at this party. i sincerely do. but this whole thing means a lot more to me than just “having it off” for a night. the roots and the history of electronic music is a massive social movement of which “artists” like paul van dyk, bt, and rusko no longer have anything significant to contribute. the promoters here are doing a disservice to the people of kansas city by choosing irrelevant acts instead of giving you the opportunity to actually progress forward.
Comment by ben — June 29, 2010 @ 7:42 pm
here’s a good one for you all - a friend of mine has bought me a ticket for this show - full review following.
Comment by ben — June 30, 2010 @ 9:45 am
I can see where you are coming from. It would be great if people went a little bit deeper and searched. I really do not like the spray on tan etc etc that tends to come along with the scene.
Though I think it does have it’s place. For instance my bro never would listen to anything electronic for years. Tell me to turn it off it sounds the same. I took him to Tiesto and now electronic is all he listens to. He also is digging deeper and finding more when he can. Mind you he is 30 something with two kids and does not have time to develop according what is new and up to date. So PVD might not be as fresh as someone else but he will convert some more to electronic. So I do not see it as bad as you do. I can see your frustration but hope you can see my point of view as well. You take care. I enjoyed reading your blog.
Thanks,
Eli
Comment by Eli — July 15, 2010 @ 5:08 pm
thanks for the comments eli. as i mentioned, i’m looking forward to going to this show and will write a review of it hopefully sometime over the weekend.
while i can definitely appreciate those who are into what the headliners of this festival bring to offer, at the same time, i do wish we could stop experiencing that “starting over” feeling constantly.
Comment by admin — July 15, 2010 @ 5:13 pm