DJ Irene @ BANG 4

July 7, 2004 3:32 AM
by [email]

DJ Irene slams it down at Bang!

Local 13 hosted BANG 4 at Shampoo this past weekend. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve heard so much about Local 13 over the years but never actually made it to any of their events in the past. For those of you unfamiliar with them, Local 13 is a local production company famous for their outdoor “rave” events back when the raves were commonplace. Well the RAVE act sponsored by Delaware Senator Joe Biden did a good job of attacking the Electronic Music Culture and many outdoor events ceased to occur over the past 4-5 yrs or so.

I’m not really sure why Local 13 completely stopped doing events, but don’t worry, this is just a first article in a long series of articles to dig deeper on this matter.

From my perspective, Bang 4 sure looked like a tremendous success. I wanted to show up earlier for the night, but unfortunately got there around 2am. Since this was a 6am party the club was still packed with lots of people. Man there was so much great energy and vibes in the place! We got there in just enough time to catch last call and to hear the rest of DJ Funk’s set in the main room.

I made a point of traveling around to all the rooms to check things out. There was old skewl hip hop, R&B, and electronic in the white room. DJ Geometrix from the Trooperz Crew in DC was keeping people moving all night long. He is a turntablist and his flows are fantastic. I loved the way he kept the energy in the room and moved around styles from New Order, to Michael Jackson and beyond to some classic older hip hop. Reading this, you might hear that last sentence and think he was all over the place, but it all flowed so tight…

I ventured downstairs to the House lounge. Turntables were set up on the small stage in the dancefloor and there were a lot of people hanging out. I was more interested in being in the main room, so I only stayed downstairs for about 5-10 minutes or so. On my way to the main room, I also checkout out the groove garden. Drum and Bass was featured in this room. Not typically my style of music, but again this room was jumpin too. There may be some additional coverage about both of those rooms in a future story by another COOLJUNKIE writer who was present. In the meantime, I was pumped to hear DJ Irene come on so I made my way up there and she was already getting started.

What a set it was! She knocked the energy up in the place by at least 2-3 notches! I really enjoyed listening to her flawless mixes and her super high energy tracks. Unlike many parties (including my own), where most people dance or hang out on the dance floor in little groups, I observed that everyone was facing the DJ booth, watching what was going on, and responding to her verbal assault on our ears. Occasionally she would lift her fist up in the air, and quite often was nodding her head to the tracks and receiving cheers from many of the people on the floor.

One personal highlight for me was hearing a remix of my one of my favorite tracks: Where are you now by The Generator. Instead of the big synth buildups in the trance version, this remix had a lot of beat driven buildups and much harsher type sounds in it. Different than what I am used to, but thoroughly enjoyable.

All in all, I loved the party, and I loved the crowd. There were not many of the typical Old City types in audience this time. This was a true EDM enthusiastic crowd. Everyone kinda walks, talks, dresses and dances to their own drumbeat in a way. There was a ton of individuality and friendly people there. In fact, I was quite shocked and amazed when some guy accidentally knocked in to me, turned around and actually said sorry! I almost felt like I was in England, where the clubber crowds get all dressed up in cool rave gear and really unique outfits for their big nights out. These were the Philly area cool kids hanging out, and it was fun to be there with them. Keep tuned to COOLJUNKIE for advanced coverage on Local 13’s Whistle 4 event on October 9th at Shampoo.