- Since playing a pair of rapturously-received sets in New York last October, expectations for Theo Parrish's return to the city were high. Whereas those shows were at Output and Cielo, a pair of established nightclubs, this time he had been booked by DJ duo Analog Soul and DIY promoters Space Is The Place for an eight-hour set at their Brooklyn loft. Their last party together in July, where Mike Huckaby presented his reel-to-reel Sun Ra edits to a sweat-drenched dance floor, was such a success that the announcement of another Detroit legend was met with instant fervor.
I arrived at the loft, tucked away on a quiet side street, only to find no one there. I immediately feared the worst, as many venues in Brooklyn have spent the last few years tangling with the authorities in one way or another. Thankfully, the issue was only one of capacity—demand was so high the party had been relocated to a cavernous, repurposed furniture store in East Williamsburg.
As I walked in, Analog Soul were wrapping up their brief warm-up. The pair are always a joy to hear, but this time the sense of anticipation for Parrish was too strong to fully engage. Some devoted dancers crowded around the booth, but for the most part people were milling about in the back yard, hitting the bar or chatting with friends. This changed as soon as Parrish went on.
Opening with a snippet of Alice Coltrane's "Prema," he quickly dove into a barnstorming number and the audience poured in. Parrish's EQ workouts are legendary, and he didn't disappoint: throbbing, deeper-than-deep house and gorgeous disco selections were tweaked and viciously brought to heel at his command. Sometimes, as during an extended mix of his classic "JB's Edit," the mids and highs were searing to the point of physical pain, but for the most part the effect was startlingly unique, and the vibe in the room was close to euphoric.
A half-hour in, the music stopped abruptly and a voice came over the speakers. It was Gil Scott Heron and his "Bicentennial Blues": "the blues has always been totally American / as American as apple pie / as American as the blues / as American as apple pie, the question is "why?" / Why should the blues be so at home here? / Well, America provided the atmosphere." It was a powerful, perhaps necessary interlude, bringing to the forefront the haunting sense of rage and anguish that colors Parrish's work. Though his set was celebratory on a level that few DJs can match, there's a clear sense of purpose that goes beyond soundtracking a party. "A lot of the stuff that's coming out artistically is thin, vacant and plastic," he said in a recent interview, "and a lot of it is coming from black people and a lot of us are poisoned by this plastic thing. If we get to how we really feel, we'll run around crying and screaming all the time." Stretching out well into the morning, working the mixer and headbanging non-stop, it was impossible to deny the vital, unbridled emotion in his music.