Click Click: Diplo and No Age @ the Black Cat
On most nights, upon walking through the double doors on the Black Cat's second floor, it's immediately obvious what type of show is going on, judging only by the sort of people who show up. Punk rockers. Hip-hop heads. Indie rockers. Electro kids. Had you walked into the Black Cat on Wednesday night, however, you might have thought that there were four shows going on all at once. That's because Diplo's Mad Descent tour was rolling through town, bringing with it L.A. punk darlings No Age and Abe Vigoda, Brooklyn tribal experimentalists Telepathe, London electro act Boy 8 Bit and of course, the man himself, legendary Philly DJ Diplo.
We arrived on the scene just in time to catch Boy 8 Bit's set, and while it was clear that more than a few folks found it danceable, we felt like his take on melodically overdriven electro (or, if you must, "blog house") was a little cliché. Luckily, No Age washed that bad taste right out of our mouths, along with a few of our teeth. We had forgotten just how loud the L.A. duo is live and had neglected to pack earplugs—a near fatal mistake. Randy Randall had his guitar jacked into a massive effects rig and speaker stack, and the end result sounded more like a jet engine than a six-string. Drummer and vocalist Dean Allen Spunt, meanwhile, beat the tar out of his trap set, working overtime to keep himself from being buried under Randall's wall of white noise. No Age's recorded songs sound like Ramones tunes meet Sonic Youth squall, but in a live setting, the band takes a more confrontational, noise-driven approach, making for a far more tactile experience.
By the time Diplo finally hit the stage, anticipation was high and the crowd was visibly itching to dance. Unsurprisingly, Diplo didn't disappoint. Rolling an enormous rig onstage that looked like a metal kitchen counter on wheels (certifiably the largest stage setup we've seen at the 'Cat save for Autechre's) and lighting up the club like a Christmas Tree with racks and racks of LED lights, Diplo certainly had the artillery necessary to get the job done. But it was his DJing skills, not his expensive toys, that got bodies moving. Unlike lazy turntablists who seem to think that a bunch of Daft Punk samples makes for a good DJ set, Diplo understands the dynamic of tension and release. He knows how to use brief samples to tease, to entice and to lead on an audience; to rile up a crowd with a mere suggestion of what's to come. It helps that Diplo has a deeper, more obscure crate than most DJs and that he's done enough distinctive production work over the years that his style is both accessible and instantly recognizable. It also helps that instead of a standard issue hype man, Diplo has a giant, stage-diving, crowd-surfing slice of pizza (i.e. a guy in a pizza suit). There's no question that the Mad Descent tour could have easily descended into gimmickry, but thanks to the abilities of its participants, the show managed to feel at once like a dance party and a performance worth taking seriously, giant pizza notwithstanding.