Ryan Ritchie/OC Weekly

​Meat Beat Manifesto
Feb. 10, 2011
El Rey Theatre

A blind person could attend a Meat Beat Manifesto show and walk away completely satisfied, but that person would be missing half the fun and not even know it.

You see, the British techno/electro/industrial/drum and bass duo of Jack Dangers and Ben Stokes doesn't just drop insane beats and expect the crowd to come up with its own visual images. No, these guys perform with two screens behind them projecting images that often have a connection to the music.

More >>

​As we mentioned earlier today, tonight marks the opening of Disney's California Adventure's "ElecTRONica" attraction, which ties in with the forthcoming release of TRON: Legacy in theaters on Dec. 17.More >>

2010 © Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved

Poreotics Crew Members: Can Nguyen, Matt Nguyen, Chad Mayate, Justin Valles, Lawrence Devera, and Charles Nguyen.

Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew is in the midst of its fifth season,  with just seven crews left battling for the top spot for the $100,000 grand prize. The show started off with its regional battle, where five crews from each region vied to be in the top three. Only nine crews remained to make it to nationals--and television. Judging the crews are teen idol from 'N Sync JC Chasez and hip-hop artist Lil Mama. New on the panel is  R&B singer Omarion, known for his popping-influenced dance style in music videos; he also starred in You Got Served. And, of course, hosting the show is Saved By The Bell's AC Slater (Mario Lopez).

Last night's show, Lopez announced that the show ran into technical difficulties that may have altered the votes. Because of this, the show decided not to eliminate any crews and everyone made it to the next round. However, two crews will be voted off next week's show, making it a high-stakes performance.


Yusuf Shariff (OC Weekly): So what's with the sunglasses?

Poreotics Crew: The sunglasses are for having a character on stage, it's pretty much hiding our eyes, so that you think we are serious, but our dancing shows that we are not. We're actually goofy. When we have glasses on, it pulls the audience in thinking that we're serious, but when we dance we're the opposite of that. More >>

​
What the hell is DJ superstar Paul Oakenfold doing at Sutra? We have no idea either. But it's probably to be fucking insane. Plan on going? Get there early--seriously.

Oakenfold is probably the DJ to credit with pushing the dance genre and culture to mainstream consciousness, kicking off his signature sound as a trance DJ in Ibiza in 1985.

After the jump: Event info, full flier.More >>

​Despite the fact that it falls on a weekend, this year's Valentine's Day puts club-goers (at least the ones who have to work on President's Day) at a slight disadvantage. It's hard to get super crazy on a Sunday night while worrying about Monday's madness.

It's a little strange to sense all the buzz surrounding Europe's new dark wave of dance floor sounds, which combine tribal drums with deep, chugging bass and a simmering sense of bacchanalia. The likes of Loco Dice, Sven Vath, Dubfire and Radio Slave have been churning out this latest club-land flavor, which lies somewhere between minimal techno and dubby house music. But it's been done before.

Fabric London

The doctor is in the house.

​

Rewind to the mid-1990s and behold one Southern California native Doc Martin, who was rinsing out evil, "druggy" house for the after-after-hours underground. Dry, loopy tracks would declare "New York-London-Amsterdam" ad nauseum; or a song would state, "It's dark in here ... it's wet in here ... it's deep in here ... I like it here." Even before DJ's DJ Danny Tenaglia was declared the king of the "twisted" sound, Mr. Martin was tweaking bodies and minds.

A DJ hero who has been at it since the late 1980s, Doc has never been a flavor of the moment. He's always been his own man, anchoring his strictly underground Sublevel events while jetting off ocassionally to headline the world's greatest superclubs. (London's Fabric is a frequent destination). Check out Doc's timeless, bottom-heavy grooves Tuesday at Focus.

Focus presents Doc Martin Tuesday at Tapas, 4253 Martingale Way, Newport Beach. 18+. Tickets $8 in advance. Doors at 9:30. Info: focus-oc.com.

Some would credit Europe with this thing we call electronic dance music by pointing back to the pioneering work of Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Can. They would be half right: Contemporary electronic dance music, like blues, rock and jazz, is a progeny of the interplay between black and white music. (See Juan Atkins, Frankie Knuckles and Moby). And so, for many years New York was the club capital of DJ culture, and Southern California was its backyard playground.

DJ T

​

But Europe has, in recent times, exacted a swift revenge on the world's dance floors. Berlin, Barcelona and Ibiza, Spain have surpassed New York, Miami and Chicago as clubbing's premier map points. And early techno and electronic dance artists such as Germany's Sven Vath, Booka Shade and DJ T - some of them beyond their 40s -- have come back with a vengeance, adding that lost ingredient of early European electronic - soul - to their teutonic groove boxes.

More >>

​

​As the '00s dawned a fresh crop of DJs and artists descended on club-land. Where the last generation had mastered the long mixes and hip-hop-style tricks of turntables, the new kids were getting under the hood of technology to produce multimedia experiences on the dance floor. James Zabiela is chief among the new wave of spinners.

The Brit burst on the scene in 2000 by winning a mixtape contest put on by a UK dance music magazine (Muzik). He was soon embraced by the progressive house elite (Sasha, John Digweed) and ended up showing them how it's done. Zabiela's groovy, forward-moving tech-house style is almost overshadowed by his skills: He often spins and mixes DVDs instead of CDs, and lately he's taken on the live performance software suite known as Ableton Live, which allows DJ to break songs into parks and reconstruct them on the fly.

It's a far cry from 1999, when it seemed that everything that could be done using two turntables and a mixer had been done. Things were getting stale. Little did we know that 10 years later jocks like Zabiela would take DVD decks, laptops and video screens to breath new life into pop's most technologically advanced wing, electronic dance music. Check him out tonight [Thursday] at Giant in Newport Beach.

Giant presents James Zabiela tonight at Code, 4221 Dolphin Striker Way, Newport Beach. 21+. Doors at 9. Free with RSVP; $10 for "express" entry. Info: giantclub.com.

​

Long Beach's Basement Lounge is on a roll. Lots of times, promoters come into Iowa by the Sea and claim big things are going to happen. Then they never do. But so far, the new people running the Basement Lounge have got a pretty good thing going on.

This Thursday's weekly Big Audio event includes hometown hero Greyboy spinning a set of soul music all from 45s. Watching him change records every three minutes should be pretty entertaining. I wonder when he'll find the time to take a piss break.