erol again...

last Wednesday i went to see erol alkan for the second time, in the ucd student bar. i arrived minutes before his set started, the queue was monstrously big. thankfully, as a writer for my university's newspaper, i didn't have to pay in, but it would have been worth it either way.

erol opened with his dub of the klaxons' golden scans, a track which has grown on me despite initial indifference. i thought it sounded a little bit too much like i don't feel like dancing, but having heard the original now i see what he's done. nice work. next up was justice's new track phantom, another one that's penetrated my cynical skull (not as immediately as d.a.n.c.e., which i heard yesterday). i had been hanging back for a while, but around this time i went up for some proper boogie-boogie. while at the front i got some rubbish photographs, and a decent video of the man spinning herv's remix of hi jackin, a tune so good i was still humming it on my way home from the after-party the following morning...

these tracks aside, i thought the night was a bit tame - he played for barely 90 minutes, if that, unlike the two and a half/three hours he played in october. there was a certain sense of oomph missing from the night. he finished with the same mix of vitalic followed by daft punk's one more time/aerodynamic live track, but this time there was no encore. admittedly, it was in a student bar, but for all the furore surrounding the gig - people were claiming erol was charging five figures for the night, ucd students were not permitted without a student to sign them in, despite advertising going up city-wide - one thought that the night might have ended up being a bit more, well, special.

that said, i'd jump at the chance to see him again. and will of course continue to listen to his mixes endlessly...

first of the year...

i've been trying to think about my heroes of 2006. certainly up there are jonathan moore and matt black of coldcut. a great new album and a fantastic live show - result. the sound mirrors dvd/remixes package may not be perfect but if nothing else it shows the efforts of two artists who refuse to accept the limitations of the music industry like everyone else. also worthy of praise is switch - after a bit patchy i went looking for his other stuff, and then i ended up finding more and more of it. one to watch no doubt. his highlight must be his remix of his remix of spank rock's bump. beautiful. obvious ones are (obviously) diplo and erol, both of whom have put out some absolutely incredible stuff in the last 12 months in all areas, from remixes, mixes and production for other artists. also pusha and malice. they've been through a lot of "label drama", as they'd put it themselves, but it obviously hasn't shaken them one bit.

two men stand, nay, tower above the rest. or are they really men? Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter aka Daft Punk. over the course of the year they ut on what is without doubt one of the greatest live shows anyone will ever experience. i was lucky enough to see them in Marlay Park in Dublin, only a short walk from my house. while many people will talk about the beck/radiohead gig the night before, it was Daft Punk who will stick in my memory. as the bells tolled signalling a shift in Discovery territory, the heavens opened with a downpour of rain that, rather than taking away from the experience, embellished it, as thousands danced together in solidarity with each other - defying the weather and revelling in the marvellous sounds and sights on display.