Originally published in The Reader on 12/30/08, here is the pre-edited version that was published. This is merely my own perspective on Omaha's DJ culture for 2008. Hope you enjoy . . .
From GOO to GUNK to midnight house party funk & the rise of minimal and mash-ups, I’m going to haphazardly sum up Omaha’s DJ culture in 2008 akin to Fox New’s “Around the World in 80 Seconds” segment.
Thanks to local indie rock stars setting down the guitar and picking up a turntable, we’ve seen a changing landscape within dance music via parties like GOO, circa 2007. While post-rave generation promoters have to scour the streets with 5,000 hand flyers and book a $1,500+ headlining DJ to get 300 people to show up, all the GOO DJs had to do was post a hastily cropped, animated web flyer on Myspace and have the same amount show up at a drop of a dime. But the last GOO was in February, leaving a large gap to be filled.
What took its place? A whole slew of house parties at locales like Hotel Frank and The Bread House signaling that dancing is the new party favor. Kobrakyle, a breakout year for him, was the only DJ from that sound camp that decided to go to a legit venue, but with a controversial imitative concept, titling his party GUNK.
These new parties encompassed a fresh sound selection emerging from Omaha’s DJs that echoed of New Wave, copy and paste indie/electro disco, do-it-yourself remixes and mash-ups downloaded from blogs, “old school” ranging from classic 80’s to early 90’s and what’s being termed a resurgence of “gay house.”
From the new wave of dance parties, alongside the indie rockers giving DJing a shot, we’ve seen the next generation of DJs come about as well. Many of the recent musicians-turned-DJ and next gen’s can’t connect a musical note from one song to another without train wrecking and the whole mix going awry, but the moral of the story from this past year? No one really cares as long as they're having a good time.
While many danced to fun, frivolous and sometimes fruity dance music, the electronic dance music (EDM) scene went more monotonous, sedative and serious with the second coming of minimal. Instead of alpha-wave producing drum beats within indigenous ceremonies, you had digital 1's and 0's pumping out repetitive electronic drum patterns and quirky, off-key chord progressions for an entire night, as if some ode to futuristic tribal.
Much of this was merely a mirror of what's been happening within certain forms of EDM internationally. But certainly some of it's due to the work of two local labels that have helped give international exposure to Omaha artists; Aaron Lee & Dan Pieper’s Giant Squid label and Aaron Godbout aka DJ Lunatik's Wreckless label. Both of which not only put out very house & techno influenced minimal, but brought a number of traveling DJs to the area of the same genre, including Richie Hawtin's underdog, Paco Osuna who must have seen an Omaha billing for what seemed like half a dozen times this past year.
As for a local label that often gets overlooked on the Omaha front, Shawn Patrick and Omaha legend Tommie Emmie’s drum and bass label, Cymbalism Recordings is still kicking out tunes to international applause within the sparse sub-culture of DnB. Adding to their plates this year was boxes and boxes of wax, having gone rogue, launching Decibel Distribution, a vinyl-only distribution company amongst the digital revolution. Now various forms of EDM are stream lined to records stores all over the country from a humble office in O town.
Within EDM venues in Omaha, for years the music has been largely confined to Bar 415. While much credit is due to the establishment for being the only place to dedicate itself to the music (I got my start there in many ways), long time patrons have slowly been drifting away from what they feel is a declining venue. Coupled with frustration from promoters via a lack of profitable options when bringing guest DJs, this year saw westward expansion into venues like Elite Lounge and Citrus.
Lastly, I can’t go without mentioning the turning tides within mainstream DJing. Now a days, it doesn’t pay well just play the top 40 hits. Now you gotta be considered a “mash-up” DJ. Only thing is, true mash-up is taking two records you’d never assume would be played together and matching tempo’s (and hopefully keys) to create a whole new song – in person. Instead, the new age of mash-up DJs play pre-remixed tracks, and usually for no longer than a minute. Contrast this to the days of the 12-inch where an eight-minute song was preferred by DJs to let people fall into the groove. So today, the mash-up craze has produced what I call the “ADD DJ,” as in Attention Deficit Disorder DJ, because just as soon as you have enough time to go “Oh wow, it’s that one song!” the DJ is already getting ready to drop the next track.
yeaaah, it drives me crazy when the DJ doesn't give you time to dance to once song... or mashes it to pieces...
Posted by: tim m | January 08, 2009 at 01:24 PM