2008年 Apr 20日 Sunday, 7:22

Sat 19 Apr – DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist
"Hard Sell" is the name of the third outing of DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, mixing exclusively on 7 inch 45s. It follows on from Brainfreeze and Product Placement, but no hard sell was required to get me to turn up to the Big Top at Luna Park in Sydney…you couldn't keep me away!

A couple of DJs took turns to spin some discs as a warm-up. The first focused on classic funk, such as the classic For The Love of Money, while the second was a bit more eclectic. Once they were done, their decks were cleared away in preparation for the main event. When Shadow and Cut did come out a little after 10:30pm, they began by explaining a little about what we were about to hear. They were clearly very flattered at having been asked to headline at the Hollywood Bowl with reprise of Brainfreeze. To do justice to such a prestigious invitation, they decided instead to devise an entirely new show. That was Hard Sell. At that point, they left the stage for a screening of the Hard Sell intro, all about the 7 inch 45, scratching, looping and their 8 deck set-up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je1QjRbDu1E
The "Hard Sell" Intro

Then they came back to start the mix, promising musical styles ranging from rock, hip-hop, country and even zydeco (apparently a genre favoured by Cut). There were plenty of classics in their mix, including Apache, Mistadobalina and Strong Island. But they were digging deep and wide for their sources and some I picked were Pop Music, Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat), I'll Be Back, Rock Around the Clock, Eye of the Tiger and, to my astonishment, 59 to 1 – Tuxedomoon and DJ Shadow are two extremes of my musical taste I never expected to be combined! The mixing was flawless and inspired: for example, combining Stairway to Heaven with the theme from Gilligan's Island was a bizarre juxtaposition that just worked.

Throughout the show, dual video screens alternated between animated pastiches and feeds from cameras pointed at Shadow and Cut, which allowed the audience to see just how fast their hands were moving. A wrist-cam on Cut provided an unusual and slightly vertiginous angle on proceedings.

After a set lasting almost an hour and a half, they stopped to ask whether we wanted the full show…Perth had had the full show…did we want it too? Needless to say, the crowd did want more and so the two DJs launched into another set, this time much heavier, with more electronic beats and frenzied scratching. As part of the climactic finale, they both strapped on portable turntables and ripped up Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner. Now that I would have liked to have seen at the Hollywood Bowl.

What a show!