The Hard Sell

Yesterday turned out to be more of an event then I had previously thought.

I had nothing to do yesterday, but I ended up going to a concert with jules:

DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist: The Hard Sell - 7 inches of funk

It was an introduction to turntablism and the creation of modern DJing. That's the best I could describe it, amidst all their chaotic cutting and scratching, they would play samples and demonstrate different techniques and styles. It was pretty impressive to say the least, DJ shadow and Cut Chemist both had 4 tables running at once and the only other equipment besides the sound stuff that they had was a guitar pedal to loop sounds and a soundbox to add effects like Echo. They played tons of great stuff - Digable Planets, The Doors, Miles Davis, Outkast, DooWop groups from the 50's, and many more.

They had some really cool things going on while the concert went on. The lighting was way cool, they had these little boxes that held parts of images, and there was 3-4 on each side stacked randomly each providing a little bit of the image but still not the whole picture. Also they had the roof of the Hollywood bowl sparkling bright white lights, giving off a star like sky. They had a cool little camera attached to the wrist of Shadow, it gave a really neat view of his hands and how fast they move to catch the records, scratch them, and cut them. The only disappointing part was that they didn't really show the crossfader much. And as anybody who knows about DJing can tell you the crossfader takes tons of dexterity and precision and is almost just as impressive to watch as the records themselves.

The hall was mostly filled with "subscription" owners. People who buy season passes to all the concerts. It was pretty cool because you could bring in a meal in a basket and alcohol and just eat and drink away. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of that otherwise I would have planned something a little more special, but we where already late to the concert and such.

Once the lights went off though, it smelled like weed. haha.

The most impressive part of the night wasn't the concert to me. I got a strange feeling while sitting in section J1, Row 6, seat 18. While I sat stoned watching the lights flash and the dj cut my arm hung around my girl I felt good and wanted that moment to go on forever. Yeah, it was that good.

I haven't had a good day in a long time. Something always fucks it up, but if I had not gotten us lost(or the navigator depends who you ask) it would have been pretty damn close to a good day. It was surprising to feel so comfortable in that moment but it was indescribable - the music was loud making my ears feel "full" of sound, the warmth of her body crawled onto mine, the air cool but electrified by the crowd in the hollywood bowl - hey I can try though...

Thank you.

-rod