- Bloke: "Man, it's so nice to see someone spinning actual records for a change."
Other bloke: "Yeah man, I saw Amon Tobin the other night do a laptop set ... it's just not relevant anymore."
Lindstrøm on the ones-and-twos? Nope, that was during the vinyl set of one "Beat Broker," a best-kept Bay Area secret who spins heavy vocal house, italo, and funky-as-a-sweaty-jockstrap-disco cuts.
Indeed, it was Technics versus Macbooks all night, and wax won out by a TKO. By the time Hans-Peter Lindstrøm stepped up to the booth, the hometown crowd was so soggy with good vibes from Beat Broker that they were ready to lap up anything. The Norwegian took his time setting up his Apple and plugging in, and when he eased into the first beaming bars of the first title track of "Where You Go I Go Too," he had the tiny-clothes crowd at San Francisco's intimate Paradise Lounge practically jumping out of their painted-on jeans. Hands were raised, lasers bounced off the disco ball and all was right in the universe. (You know those swooning synth pads come in at 7:24? Well, he built the bookends of his set around them and it was orgiastic.)
Until he went unplugged, that is.
Skinny, cheerful Lindstrøm was deep into an arpeggiated cascade of "Where You Go" noise when, egads! the Firewire cable popped out of his Macbook, causing his midi-controlled Ableton to freeze and the music to abruptly, shockingly, mortifyingly stop. For a second, dead silence. Then boos, jeers and the instant betrayal of a crowd that just seconds before was all the way up on his nuts. "That's why you don't DJ with a laptop," screamed one hoodie-wearing heckler.
And for four or five painstaking minutes, the whole crowd waited for the party to unpause. Having to stop dancing for a spinning Apple reboot icon is a miserable, postmodern experience that bumped us right out of the illusion.
Of course Lindstrøm got it back up and running and forgivingly, the kids resumed their boogie, but something had been lost that was not to be recovered.
He worked his way through the sharp angles from "Grand Ideas" and didn't shy away from squirting a disco-vox sample on the cake from time to time. The set showcased tweaked up bass that turned what is a relatively pristine deep house sound into a teeth-rattling distortion bomb.
By all accounts, it was a radical set. But it would be dishonest to completely gloss over Hans-Peter's technical party foul. The bottom line has to be that if you're not going to play live and you're not going to spin, then your one job is to deliver the tunes reliably on the computer. A good dance set is like a trip to the masseuse—you're trusting your well-being to the hands of a professional who can either hurt you or make you feel amazing. Lindstrøm has garnered a boatload of goodwill with his two LPs and an army of quality remixes, but he probably lost a few fans that night in the Paradise Lounge.
Beat Broker, with his workmanlike performance and crate of disco plates, probably gained followers for mere competence in contrast with his successor's train wreck.