Bad Boy Bill Review

February 17, 2005 11:32 PM
by

An experienced local may very well know this about South Beach, but in order to avoid parking problems, it is always best to valet; in order to avoid dealing with velvet rope goons, it’s best to find a way to get on the list ahead.

This is definitely the case when going to see someone as acclaimed as Bad Boy Bill, whose singular style of mixing is unlike any other DJ in club land.

Arriving at 1 am, the crowd was surprisingly sparse with dense pockets of people splashed throughout. I immediately headed to my favorite spot above the DJ booth to get a bird’s eye view of the amazing talent that was playing tonight.

I watched as Steve Smooth, the opener for Bad Boy Bill, played the tech version of Praise Cats, “Shine on Me.”

Realizing it was time for him to shine on the crowd, BBB unraveled his headphones and stood in front of his own DJ setup, which included two Pioneer CDJ 1000’s, two Technic 1200’s, and a Pioneer DJM 600 mixer.

BBB opened with his signature style of dropping a vocal sample and tweaking it with every effect and dial available on the mixer.

Once the beat dropped, Bad Boy Bill began bobbing his head to the beat, with the crowd shaking it along with him.

He put records on the decks faster than he was taking them off, scratching to the drops like a dog with 1000 fleas, playing records backwards and controlling the decks and mixer unlike any other.

During the break of Fuzzy Hair’s Remix of Mousse T’s “Right About Now”, the crowd began screaming and shouting, both in praise and in anticipation of the oncoming beat.

All the while the beasts and beauties couldn’t stop shakin’ every part of their bodies, with A3TV there to film almost every moment. They even captured on film the beautiful Julia Stepanova, who couldn’t stand still, gyrating to every beat BBB was dropping.

For those of you who have never seen BBB on the decks, the man is a genius of the turntables, infusing a hip hop style of cutting, scratching and back spinning to house and seamlessly beat matching while mixing.

His control of the mixer would have impressed even the most experienced DJ, throwing the bass down and the high’s up then building the bass as he dropped a sick tribal track.

Continuing on with his impressive style, he transitioned smoothly between funk backed by tribal beats to hard and fast Chicago style house.

His unbreakable rhythm kept flowing with trumpets laid over another hard groove, making every person in Crobar shake and move.

With the lights turned down and the volume maxed out on the mixer, BBB turned the echo up over the break in the track , then switched the effect to filter to create an amazing sound, and dropping out the effects as the hard bass line hit and the lights of the club lit, showing the crowd in a dancing frenzy.

BBB never stopped moving behind the decks, whether his hands were throwing records on the tables, scratching to a build up or spinning every knob on the mixer, he was always grooving along with the crowd.

After echoing out of his last mix, Bad Boy Bill paused and heard the well deserved clapping and whistles from the crowd. Exiting the DJ booth at 3:30 after an amazing two hour set, he stepped in to a mass of people who were waiting to congratulate him on amazing set.

Bad Boy Bill adapts so many styles of mixing and infinite improvisational techniques all which create a wondrous masterpiece for the ears, body, and soul making him truly an artist on the one’s and two’s.