Pepe Deluxe/Rainer Truby, El Rey Theater, L.A.(March 19)
Let me ask a question: Why is it that every time I get within spitting distance of a DJ show there's some future-hippie-raver chick with her hair in too many pigtails, tanktop meant for a six-month-old and jeans meant for an elephant (a cute look, mind you) hoggin' the dancefloor with a sort of flailing-arm interpretative movement that requires her to leap and prance among the more subdued like a gussied-up and skittish gazelle? I mean, don't get me wrong, I am not a wallflower when it comes to gettin' my groove on. I'll take Travolta anytime, any place and fuck self-consciousness (in fact, I never fully trust people who won't get up and shake the booty), but I'm polite about it. I give those around me personal space. I don't showboat (unless sloshed or encouraged or both) and I sure as hell don't force the tribal two-step on unwilling bystanders.
The good things about the Rainer Truby/Pepe Deluxe show at the El Rey Theater in the Miracle Mile wasteland are the fact that the theater is beautifully spacious, the men are hot (alas, gay) and the VIP room (if you walk in like you're someone very important) is not just for VIPs. The bad thing is that the spaciousness equals not so great sound, the parking is crappy and there's a real doozy of an (as aforementioned) tribal two-step girly gal dogging me like she's feeding off my irritation.
The other bad thing is that the opening act sucks. Buck 65's smugly clever whiteboy/art-kid/suburban angst rap is charming no one, and the dancefloor, aside from Tribal Two-Step, is primed for tumbleweed. While Buck's beats are solid enough and his skills as a turntablist impressive, his rapping is, frankly, lame?all self-absorbed witticisms and a goofiness that is only mildly endearing. To be fair, I haven't heard the album and it could very well be that when Bucky's in the studio the rhymes kick in nice and clean. But busting across the deserted El Rey dancefloor (which, to his credit, Buck plays as if to a sold-out crowd), they leave something to be desired. As the guy next to me puts it, "This would be okay if he'd just shut the fuck up."
Thankfully, the night takes a decided turn for the better when Finnish sensations Pepe Deluxe arrive onstage. Pepe nurtured their distinctive brand of electronica-erotica composing soundtrack music for a phone sex company. As a result of this unique training, you don't need eternal night, potato vodka or bearskin rugs to keep you warm when Pepe's around, their lava lounge slow jams providing more than enough foreplay to put the flush back in your cheeks. Playing nearly the entire run of their recent Super Sound release, they seemed to be enjoying the show, the music and themselves, immensely. Flawlessly executing complicated vinyl trickery, DJs Ja-Jazz and Slow beamed at each other like giddy schoolkids over the tops of their respective turntables. In the center of the stage, perched atop a riser (covered seductively in faux white fur), Pepe's sampler whiz James Spectrum banged lustily away at the drum machine. Looking for all the world like a Nordic god just arrived from an ecstasy-fueled outer-space utopia, where love is cool again and the rhythm is fine, Spectrum manufactured his synthesized beats with the primal frenzy of a Rainbow Gathering drum circle.
By the time Rainer Truby, the night's headliner and infamous future jazz/Brazil/house/drum 'n' bass maestro (he's worked with everyone from Kruder and Dorfmeister to Jazzanova and Pepe too) slipped onto the stage, I was ready to move and shake, Tribal Two-Step be damned. The crowd had thinned, but Rainer didn't mind; he let the grooves rise like feathers into the El Rey air, he let them drift, let them fall to touch the tops of our heads, to brush our shoulders and slowly ease their way to our feet. It was dreamy, subdued, at times even dull, but I didn't mind. I felt generous, I felt kind, I felt like consoling old Buck, befriending raver gal and making slow hot love to James Spectrum, who would forgo the seductions of his native land and end up wishing they all could be California girls.
It was a hell of a Monday.