Charles Feelgood @ Nerve Review

May 12, 2004 2:12 AM
by

When we talk about house, it no longer is exclusive to the soulful sexy sound that it once almost solely stood for.

More than ever , the incorporation of different styles is more appreciated as audiences become more diverse in their tastes. Baltimore’s Charles Feelgood has been one such DJ and having had a start in the late 80’s, he can be considered a veteran and connoisseur of house.

He has spun for a wide gamma of audiences ranging from the underground raver to the fashionable city clubber, building a reputation for being a creative force behind the decks.

His last visit to Miami brought a decent size crowd to I/O Lounge, who knew exactly what they were in for. I was hoping that that would be the case this past Friday the 7th at Nerve.

We arrived at around 1:30 and quickly made our way in with ease, as Nerve is the kind of venue that welcomes true clubbers at heart. The club was slightly filled, just enough to keep the moderate size dancefloor somewhat filled.

Fortunately, the small bunch was incredibly energetic, keeping their feet moving and the shouts surfacing every time the bass was kicked up a notch or a build up culminated in a juicy delivery.

Although the crowd was small, the ambiance was there and Charles was having as much fun from the towering booth, as the jumping crowd below.

In the Feelgood tradition, his set started a smooth (borderline sultry) compilation of essentially minimal house except it had a nice cranking bass lines and a touch of male and female vocals.

The transition of styles was not a prolonged but rather a quick less formal process. Nevertheless, the changes were not abrupt and quickly he began to drop a more tech style that had progressive flavor with techy/dreamy lyrics and dubby tweaks.

The set, however, didn’t turn entirely dark, instead it reverted to the sort of instrumental laced tracks with drums, piano and sax. The kind of house that you might hear in Europe.

Still the set was straight forward, non-complicated house, touching all its’ multi-facets. An occasional drop of a high energy track like Onionz “Latin Lovers” with it’s characteristic salsa lyrics , prompted the few standing at the bar to make their way to the nitrous blast on the floor.

BPM’s raised again and he dropped the tech-house version of Tim Deluxe’s “It Just Won’t Do” (a fine example of the tracks being released on Carl Cox’s label Intec Records).

One particular track that got them moving had a chunky break intro and developed into this sort of break/house/funky track with Samples of De La Soul’s “Me Myself and I” and quickly jumped to some hard beats and again the floor lit up with the few but energetic.

He slowly worked up to soulful and dropped Junior Jack’s “Stupid Disco”, and again the few loyal fans made the booty shaking move to the floor.

With Charles Feelgood you never know when it’s a remixed track or samples as he’s known to play and have fun on the decks. He dropped excerpts of Lyrics from Dee Lite’s “Groove is the Heart”, Guns-N-Roses “Paradise City” and stirred nostalgia with the lyrics song from the 80’s TV hit “Different Strokes”.

Even booty music made an impromptu that broke into a juicy breaks track with samples of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”.

Diversification is the name of his game and he did it with nice transitions and with a nice balance of elements. The pitch, Bass, Treble, etc. were nicely balanced so you could appreciate the make-up of the track without loosing the thump.

Mr.Feelgood as always, put his best forth to please his fans. He made the best of a semi-empty room, reciprocating the high energy from a not so large crowd.

His reputation for having a good attitude shined through and even on a small scale crowd, he made toes tap and faces smile. Himself, having as much fun as the one’s dancing to his music, pumping out diversity and innovation.