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After attending the DJ Spooky lecture just a day before, I was unsure of what to expect at his performance. Snippets of audio tracks and avant-garde video clippings during the presentation hinted of a promising upcoming show riddled with cool lights, as well as unexpected mashups and masterful turntable scratchings. When all was said and done the next night, DJ Spooky rocked the house; that is, if experimental techno can really “rock.”
Born Paul D. Miller in Washington D.C., DJ Spooky is of particuliar interest here in Maine since he graduated from Bowdoin College. He received degrees in both French literature and philosophy, and he later on went to write for The Village Voice and Vibe. Of course, what DJ Spooky is best-known for is his musical efforts. His style is somewhat hard to pin, but www.allmusic.com labels him as “illbient,” a term that describes the amalgamation as, “eclectic, atmospheric pastiches … rooted foremost in ambient music, but may incorporate [in particular] dub, hip-hop, and drum’n'bass, plus occasional ethnic music’s that blend well with whatever is already in the musical stew pot.”
So was the show that DJ Spooky presented a definitive example of illbient? Yes and no. It was apparent that he was spinning for a college audience, as his set incorporated some classic pop, such as “Walk This Way” and “Tainted Love,” albeit the latter was the original version of Soft Cell’s cover. However, the free mixes he passed out to the students at the lecture were variations on the same theme. DJ Spooky’s origins lie in cleverly collaging samples of pre-recorded music regardless of genre as well as throwing in original compositions.
The short film that introduced DJ Spooky’s session set the tone for a good transition from the thick, politically conscious lecture to the all-around good time dancing that ensued during the show. Spewing cryptic images of explosions and robots, the imagery may have influenced a few impatient members of the audience to leave, but they missed the long-awaited reward for the actual DJ set.
It was such a welcoming relief to see students from all walks of life lose themselves in the music, not to mention that the campus doesn’t seem to get acts of DJ Spooky’s ilk very often. Some students crowded around the turntable set-up to drool over the equipment and the intricacies of how a DJ spins his set. Other students congregated towards the projector and danced furiously underneath the projector’s seizure-inducing images of flags from around the world. Sweat managed to creep into almost every crevice, but everyone was enjoying themselves too much to care about the immense heat that all of the squirming bodies generated.
That night was probably the closest the campus will come to hosting a hippie-rave. It was great in the sense that the DJ Spooky show exposed a significant amount of people to experimental electronica. However, it was not the best idea to hold the event on a weekday, as students tend to have homework to do. I wish that the record I had brought to the show would have snuck its way onto the set, but there were enough interesting samples already woven into the show that I didn’t really mind. Thumbs up to the Honors College for hosting what will probably be one of the illest shows of the whole year.
Bangor Daily News