I meant to write about Chrissy Murderbot after meeting him this summer and getting into his weekly mixtape project, My Year of Mixtapes (I'm so in love with this week's hardstep mix, which I'm forwarding to all my mid-90s raver cohorts). In the month or so since I completely slept on doing that post, he's pretty much blown up.
Which is as it should be, because Chrissy's mixes and music reveal a love of/depth of knowledge about dance music's past that I really don't hear in most of the mixes that land in my inbox, and I definitely don't read in many dance music blogs I look at. That could be largely due to the Hype Machine culture's obsession with newness —which I don't see as inherently negative, by the way — and there's also the obvious fact that most of these kids were in elementary school the first time it happened. I never ever want to be one of those over-30 year olds who thinks my scene was more authentic and legitimate because we did it earlier than the people who were born later than us. Hell, if anything I WISH I thought what's coming out today is garbage so I wouldn't find myself at the Crookers show scolding yuppie assholes for shoving teenagers on ecstasy out of their walking path like I'm some twisted mama bear. Maybe I wouldn't still get so irate when people say "it's music for people on drugs" or laugh like I should be embarrassed about the fact that I spent 1995-1999 in cartoonishly large Liquid Sky jeans, doing some very stupid things like all teenagers do. But no, instead I just explain that I'm still good friends with many of the people I met sitting outside the club or holding court in the bathroom for hours. I tell them that I had more fun in just that time period than some people have in their entire life. It more amuses than unsettles me to walk by NYU's Palladium Dorm on 14th St and remember the time I lost Rich and Doug for two hours in the club that used to stand there, just wandering and letting it all blow my tiny mind all those years ago.
I'm not a neuroscientist; I have no idea if my experiences did in fact rewire how I hear music resulting in this lifelong addiction — one that I honestly wish I could kick as I head towards advanced-stage "I'm too old for this shit" Danny Glover Disease. It could be that hearing the Hype remix of "Blue Flowers" just excites me because it's ringing some Pavlovian nostalgia bell. What I do know for sure is that beyond the shallowness, hedonism, and aural A.D.D. that does admittedly present itself in club culture, there's also a rich history of incredible, endlessly self-referential music and there's always something new and old to be excited about. I can hear in Murderbot's work that he really gets that aspect of it. I like that.
1 comment:
Nicely put.
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