Gaslamp kills Minna

The last time I crashed a Minna party I nearly fell asleep on the couch out of boredom, so it's been a minute since I've checked out the spot. Last night the musical lineup including Los Angeles' The Motherfucking Gaslamp Killer (Willow) as well as Daedelus made me recheck my distaste for the venue and give it another chance.

Typically Minna exhibits sub par contemporary art that bites other styles. Some of the colors and neo-surrealism compositions are pretty, but they lack the raw inspiration of an artist who is captivated by the need to express something higher. Are my expectations too high? Luckily, it's pretty easy to let the art fade into the background when you got some amazing DJ's cutting it up on the ones and twos who are gripped by just that sort of inspiration.

I'm really talking about the Gaslamp Killer who rapidly clicked, and dervish like spun, and vigorously scratched his vinyl donuts while rocking his Jewish fro up and down, crazily flipping his fingers with the percussion as if the poltergeist of the music possessed his body. That's some spiritual release right there.

Gaslamp commenced the set with some hard hitting boom bap Hiphop riding soul samples like Ghostface and Dilla (can I get a copy of Jaylib 2 yet damn it?) mixed seamlessly with percussion driven beats (including some new shit by Flying Lotus.) The straightedge genres of music soon became more blurred as Gaslamp slided into the mix some dirty cosmic psychedelic and alt rock while turning up the highs so hard that the crackling bass shook the silly metal installations hanging on the wall.

The drums continued to tie the dusty grooves together as the hype grew quickly into some more obscure funk tracks from India and Africa as well as some yelping psych funk straight outta' Turkey. The obscurity led into classic American funk that slammed the dance floor with the gospel anthem "Save" featuring Arethra Franklin's distinctive soul crooning carried by a swift drum break. The progression demonstrated an aggressive understanding of music as emotional release and spiritual restoration. The dance floor seemed to agree.

Gaslamp wanted everyone to remember his own roots as a rave head before he started spinning all that Hiphop, funk, and soul, and beyond shit. The story goes that Gaslamp's endtroduction to DJ Shadow served as the bridge into this this parallel universe of sonic listening. So the sound crept up in bpm even more as Gaslamp filtered in clashing electro swaying with horns and booming with synths. Fitting as an end to this set, Pilooski's Franki Valli re-edit, "Beggin'" dropped to finish shit off.

Don't know about that Gaslamp Killer blow your mind and grab your soul shit? Two months ago he released the sun blazing heat, "i spit on your grave" mix off Obey Records. Support the artist too, the box set comes with some goodie snacks.



Or maybe you're in LA sometimes? Be sure to check out the Low End Theory Wednesday nights at the Airliner in Lincoln Heights. Can someone bring this weekly event to San Francisco, apparently they got a monthly in NY already? Last night shows that the Bay needs and wants some of that genre bending Hiphop inspired psych, funk, soul, electro, reggae, world madness.