…to me at least.
10 years ago I used to think that all great things in the music department came from the U.K. It was a magical place where they listened to the kind of music I liked on the mainstream radio. It was a place of almost mythical significance where musical geniuses running the stylistic gamut from the Beatles to Pink Floyd to Underworld and Shpongle conceived and propagated their master works. Fast forward to today, having arrived on my fifth trip to visit our neighbors across the pond and I pretty much still believe every word of it, but with some important caveats and qualifications.
On Friday night we went to a Manchester club called Sankey’s to see one of my last remaining unvisited icons, the Plump DJs. My history with them goes back to the beginning of my fascination with breakbeat just before I made the transition from DJing trance and deep house. First, I starting hearing this mind blowing track and set about to track down it’s author. Then Sean uncovered a BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix by a breakbeat pair named Cut and Paste with a new sort of dynamism that differed from what we were hearing elsewhere at the time. Research revealed the track to be the Plump DJs remix of a tune called ‘Bumper‘ by the Electronaughts and one of the members of Cut and Paste to be from that very same group.
Then one night on the playa in 2001 a poorly aimed psychedelic trajectory missed it’s intended target (DJ Goldilocks) and sent Brian Mahoney and I on a sad and fortunately unsuccessful attempt to find Perry Ferrell. We got lost in a complete white out only to emerge onto a dome in which Freq Nasty was performing. The love affair with breaks was cemented and though the night is heavily idealized for me I clearly remember hearing the Plump DJs remix of Funny Breaks by Orbital for the first time. Archeologists could carbon date the dust collecting on my trance records to this fateful night.
I don’t mean to focus too heavily on their remixes, their original stuff was just as good. When a new Plumps track came out, it was a sure thing. I could buy the 12″ and wait until I got home to hear it because I always knew it was dance floor gold and I was never really disappointed. They were such the undisputed kings of the genre to me that I still refer to them as ‘Their Royal Plumpness’.
Sadly, they NEVER visit the States. I’ve heard immigration problems, drug charges, and other rumors behind their obvious avoidance, but for whatever reason they never come.
So there I was seven or eight years later in line to see them at Sankey’s in Manchester and I tried not to focus on expectations and just enjoy the experience, but there were many obstacles and impediments.
First the venue is laid out like 10:15 Folsom in SF - many little rooms with one slightly larger main room. This is awful when a big headliner plays and everyone wants to be in that one primary area. It’s even worse when - like Giant or 10:15 - they oversell it; we started to be packed like sardines from the word go and I knew it was going to only get worse.
Second, not only were the drinks absurdly priced if you factor in the exchange, but they were ridiculously weak. I shudder to think how much money we spent attempting to get properly intoxicated.
Third, the opening DJs in every room were not playing breaks - as one might expect with a breakbeat headliner - but rather they were playing very bad and monotonous trance. The only break in the transition from mindless, empty motif to mindless, empty motif was completely unabashed and uninspired cheese.
Fourth, the patrons seemed like they were in a completely different dimension from me. They didn’t even try to do much more than bob they’re heads in the dance department (ok, so maybe that made sense in light of the music) and they cheered at completely inexplicable times. When the behavior remained unchanged after the DJ transition I could only conclude that they’d go right along head-bobbing and randomly cheering in the same fashion if the DJs were replaced by amplified washing machines.
So when Plumps finally took over at 2AM they really didn’t need to do much more than not suck to sound incredible by contrast. And they delivered in the not sucking department, the music went from intolerable to above average in the span of 30 seconds and stayed that way for the next hour and a half. Still though, I found myself clock watching. I’m not sure if it was the lingering sobriety, or the unworthy crowd, or the inability to move my arms in an oversold venue, or official end of my fascination with breaks, but the magic was gone. We left before they did.
The whole thing really got me missing the new American music scene building up around the burner community. The music is unrestrained by tempo, and nothing if not the bane of all repetition. The venues are interesting and crowds are the best in the world: creative, compassionate, and for the most part unpretentious.
So yeah, I guess the U.K. still has the genius - I wouldn’t have flown all this way to see Shpongle if they didn’t - but it comes at a price. Good music is too commonplace here for it to be properly appreciated. Instead it’s somewhat commoditized and as a result the music culture that’s built around it is just plain sub par at the moment. It’s enough to make a vagabond like me home sick. Will someone back home please go out to the Edison and shake it all night just so I know the lights are still on?
Let’s break them in.
