so i went to see dj z-trip at root down last night. it was the first time i'd seen him since he blew the fuck up (i.e., cochella, linkin park, etc.). it was also the first time i'd been to root down in months. i used to go all the time. good music, good crowd, and i knew one of the djs (egon) from doing hip hop college radio back in the day. then, after it was rated the best dance club in the city by citysearch, the crowd started to get a bit less fun(ky) (fewer breakers, etc.), and i had heard everything the 3-4 regular djs play too many times. the one really great night near the end of when i was going to root down all the time was when z-trip showed up unanounced and rocked the fuck out of the place. that was probably the most fun I've had at a club in la. everyone was dancing and going crazy with every mix. z-trip had just moved to la from phoenix. this was a few weeks before he got his residency at vermont on wednesdays. so...i was pretty excited to go see him rock the same spot.
it kinda sucked.
we (max, matt, and i) got there a bit before 10 so we could get in for less, and there was a line down to the end of the block. and a vibe right out of heavy metal parking lot. weird. overheard people talking about how they were uncomfortable at gabah because it was too ghetto. weird. some guy kept talking to me about this mix z-trip was going to do with some tool song that would blow my mind. weird. jump to when z-trip gets on the wheels. the place is packed, more like a rock club than a dance club. i've been dancing for a while and am smushed up against the stage . he starts playing and i turn around away from the tables to dance with people and not just stare at the dj. i'm staring at like 100+ people, no one dancing, everyone staring at the stage. ok, fine, z-trip's a rock star now. i get it. that's cool. i turn around, look at the tables like everyone else, and prepare to be rocked. it never really came. there were a couple cool mixes that got everyone excited ("jane says" + "h to the izzo", for example) but there were too many dips in the energy level. z-trip also gets the bozak for using pre-mixed cd's and those fun, but cheating, cd-tables to make up for the fact that he didn't have such and such on wax, or couldn't mix this or that live.
you need different sets to rock a stadium and a club. z-trip tried to rock the e-z stadium mix at root down, and it didn't work.