- It's not easy to throw a party in Los Angeles. Should you go the legal route, a 2 AM alcohol curfew puts a dampener on things. Should you find a warehouse, rent sound and bring in talent, you're on the hook for a considerable amount of money with no guarantee that your event will even go ahead. It's a tough balance to get right, which is why the record heads behind Kinda Party are attempting to avoid it altogether. The project of Parker Harris (and formerly Diego Herrera, AKA Suzanne Kraft), Kinda books artists for low-key loft parties, adding on a relaxed bar gig or two for kicks. Their usual method of promotion is screening their flyers on T-shirts surreptitiously worn by DJs or scene figures in the weeks leading up to the event. The latest print advertised a party with DJ Fett Burger on August 20th at Tenants Of The Trees, a new Silver Lake watering hole that isn't even open yet.
In the past ten years, Silver Lake has transformed from a mecca for gays and artists to a place where a modest home costs a cool million. Tenants Of The Trees, operated by Vancouver native and DJ/record collector Jason Lev, has taken over from the former MJ's, a dark gay bar nestled between a Trader Joe's and a gourmet cheese shop. A Rhodes electric piano sits on a small stage near the DJ booth, a closed-in, vinyl-focussed affair which shields DJs from Beyoncé requests. Per Los Angeles standards, a sizeable open-air smoking area comprises the foyer, with a large outdoor area in the back. The spot will doubtless be overrun in a matter of months, but last Thursday, the crowd was mostly made up of promoters, DJs, label owners and the surrounding milieu.
Though the heads were out, it was still a chilled Thursday in a new location, so house music for socializing was the order of the night. Fett Burger handled these duties with aplomb, mostly selecting historical antecedents for the wonky breakbeat house he makes solo and with collaborators like Luca Lozano and Telephones. Basement Jaxx's deep house tool "Get Down Get Horny," popular with esoterica-prone DJs as of late, went down well, as did '90s house jam "Feelin' Blue" by Happy Heads. Fett Burger also managed to work in revived South African house hit "Penny Penny" by Shaka Bundu, while Brian Shimkovitz (AKA Awesome Tapes From Africa), the man responsible for that track's reissue, took things in.
For a crowd used to late-night DIY parties, these were fancy digs, a considerable step up from the typical rave diet of Tecates and ad hoc sound systems. Tenants Of The Trees has set up their speaker configuration in the style of The Loft, aiming for a full-frequency, 80-90 dB sound fit for dancing or conversation. In general, the bar's choice to open things up with the cult DJ, coupled with an obvious attention to detail and reasonable drink prices, meant that Tenants Of The Trees got off to a promising start. Let's hope Silver Lake's young, moneyed set is ready to get weird.