- The basement of San Francisco club Monarch holds the kind of cramped, dark dance floor that's ideal for a communal, life-affirming experience, but on Saturday, December 3rd, no one felt much like partying. Less than 24 hours before, one of the deadliest structure fires in modern American history broke out at a 100% Silk show in Oakland, just across the San Francisco Bay. Most of the people at Monarch had friends that were still missing. Earlier in the evening, the night's organizer and rising local DJ Mozhgan posted the following message to the event's Facebook page: "After talking with friends we have decided to continue with the night, offering a safe place for people to come together through the healing of community, music and dance."
Of course, there were other factors playing into this show-must-go-on attitude. NGLY had hauled his gear over from Argentina, and the singular DJ Traxx was also there to perform. Soon after I arrived, a visibly shaken Solar told me: "Everything that could go wrong, has. NGLY is down for the count with food poisoning and I'm not sure where Traxx is. Mozhgan and I have been checking out texts for news on Oakland while trying to DJ." NGLY, despite setting up a table full of gear and sound-checking, wasn't able to perform.
Solar and Mozhgan—who are a couple—managed to keep the dance floor going throughout this nightmare scenario, a testament to the talent that's vaulted them onto the global stage. Solar, along with DJs like Carlos Souffront, Silent Servant and producers like Beau Wanzer, resides in an elusive zone between acid house, minimal synth, post-punk and EBM/industrial. He played back-to-back with Mozghan, dropping tracks from the likes of Spanish '80s synth pop band TodoTodo. Mozghan, who favors cuts with blocky, electro drums like Arnold Steiner's recent Metroplex record, took pleasure in slamming in the low-end over her partner's ominous mid-range.
Even managing to get out on a night like this was a feat, and the handful of hardcores were interspersed with curious onlookers from the upstairs bar, seemingly unaware of the pall that had fallen over the night. For those who knew, there was a "will he or won't he" type of tension around whether Traxx would actually play. He turned up around 2 AM and played one of the most bizarre sets I've ever heard, starting with some impossibly obscure synth-punk, before working in some rare Prince demos and eventually dropping a fierce drum track with what sounded like a metal chair scraping on top.
Solar ran around the room like he was at a punk show while Traxx—well, he's Traxx. He doesn't so much move to the music as convulse, all the while pulling off transitions that would prove impossible for most professional DJs. He goes for full catharsis every time he steps up to the decks, and on Saturday, that's exactly what the basement needed.