Moby, Joy Division…and more Moby
by Savana Delacroix
I’ve had more Moby in my life in the past two weeks than I seemingly have in years. It started with a trip to the musician’s Destroyed photo show at the Kopeikin Gallery in Culver City. A collection of large format audience shots taken from the stage, each print captured the sweaty, ecstatic and sometimes confused (or perhaps just high) expressions of concert goers under a kaleidoscope of lighting. The almost fish eye effect to each photo gave the prints a surreal aesthetic. As we carefully studied each giant print, my friend and I developed a very fun game called, “Where is this audience from?” As usual, the Americans seemed to be the easiest to spot.
Moby, part deux came courtesy of Peter Hook’s show at the El Rey. Performing with his band Peter Hook and the Light, the former Joy Division and New Order bassist tackled the entire Unknown Pleasures album with aplomb. Joy Division are truly one of the rare holy grails in music, a band everyone tries to sound like but few can truly do justice to. I’ll be honest, my expectations going into the show weren’t exactly high and thankfully, they were far exceeded.
Hook roared through favorites like “She’s Lost Control” and “Shadowplay” with ferocious determination. When he brought Moby out on stage to tackle guest vocals on a number of tracks, my brief bit of hesitation was met with surprise when an eerily Ian Curtis-like voice barreled out of the bespectacled musician. Someone standing behind me turned to their friend and quipped, “Moby’s a great Ian Curtis cover artist… who knew?”
As the evening wore on, Hook pulled out additional catalog classics like “Transmission” before ending with “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” To be quite honest, I often listen to so many of their other cuts that I had forgotten about their most popular track. As the opening chords of “Love…” began, the audience turned into a sea of flailing arms. It truly seemed like an immense sense of joy had enveloped the whole room. This is a generation who never got to see Curtis perform these seminal tracks live yet, for one night, were able to gloriously relive the magic.
Peter Hook and the Light photos: Michi Tsunoda
Moby On SG Radio
Moby stopped by SG Radio HQ to record an interview with SG Radio host Sam Doumit. The pair talked about their shared love of Ian MacKaye and his band Minor Threat, Moby's old Connecticut neighbors (the Bush family), growing up in New York and becoming a punk rocker and straight edge boy, his birthday being on September 11th and being there on the day the Twin Towers fell, deejaying, drinking, partying, raves, music, making music, the industry today, MobyGratis.com (free Moby music for filmmakers), politics, this election, his show with Shepard Fairey and De La Soul at the inauguration of Barack Obama, and being a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function.
The interview will air on Indie 103.1 on Sunday, January 4th at midnight. You can listen to SG Radio live from anywhere in the world by going to Indie1031.com and clicking on the Listen Live button.
After the SG Radio interview was done, Moby took the opportunity to set the record straight about the wild and wicked orgy rumors in this exclusive video message for the SG Newswire.
You can catch Moby DJing live at Giant Maximus in Los Angeles tonight.
Moby Does Porno (and Bush)
Instead of blowing a pile of cash on a music video the usual way, DJ, producer, musician, and left field thinker Moby decided to offer a $10,000 cash carrot to aspiring and upcoming filmmakers. He launched a competition for the video for his new single, the disco-electro-pop "Ooh Yeah" (from the album Last Night), in June via his Moby Gratis site (which offers free music for independent and non-profit filmmakers). The winning entry selected by Moby, which was directed by Matteo Bernardini, was recently unveiled. On his website, Moby warns viewers, "if you're watching at work your boss might think it's porn" -- which is reason enough to give it a watch.
An outspoken political, environmental and animal rights activist, the video shows the lighter side of Moby, who spends much of his energy campaigning against serious shit, and blogging to promote his enlightened agenda, and the Democratic cause.
Shortly after Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination, in one of his entries Moby said, despite the tawdriness of the nomination process, that "Obama has run one of the best presidential campaigns in memory." I dropped Moby an email to find out why he thought that. He responded by saying:
Because he'd never run a national campaign and he raised tons of money and had great local field staff and stayed relatively on-point and went from being a community organizer in Chicago to the Democratic nominee for president in a matter of months.
I followed up by asking Moby if, given the confines of our current system, he thought Obama could really enact the level of change we need. He said:
I think he can, especially regarding the oil industry. There's finally the political and economic will to change our reliance on foreign oil, and I think that Obama will be able, with a Democratic congress, to pass legislation that limits subsidies to the oil industry and promotes domestic and sustainable energy production. I also think he'll be able to restore some of the rights (habeas corpus, right of public assembly, etc.) that were violently trampled on by the GOP and the Bush administration.
And, knowing the bald one lived next to the Bush compound in Connecticut in the mid-80s, I asked Moby if the Bush family made better neighbors than leaders. He told me:
They lived on a huge compound and I never saw their house, let alone them. Every now and then a big motorcade would whiz by, but that's the extent of contact that I had with them. It has always galled me, though, that people (and the media) bought into GW's 'Texan' act. His family's from Greenwich, he went to school at Choate and Harvard and Yale, he summered in Maine, and he bought his ranch in Crawford in 1990. But yet the media and the great unwashed welcomed him as a regular guy from Texas. I hope that somehow the criteria for choosing a president can be improved for the upcoming election. Having 'he'd be fun to have a barbecue with' seems like depressingly low criterion for choosing the leader of the free world. And when the criteria for choosing a president is less demanding than the criteria for choosing a plumber, well, we know we're in trouble.
Virgin Music Festival , Toronto Day 1 TRIPPY!
Virgin Music Festival: Day 1
Sept. 8, 2007
Toronto, Canada
This was my first trip to the 2nd annual Virgin Music Festival in Toronto and I didnt really know what to expect. I was informed the concert would take place on an island and Ill be the first to admit I didnt realize that Toronto even had an island. Saturday morning I went down to the press check in and after getting sorted out I was told to wait for the next ferry. Ferry? This is where the differences between V Fest and other festivals began. I took a short ferry ride across the water to the Toronto Island Park. I exited the boat, roamed around the grounds for awhile and saw a beautifully laid out theme park filled with rides, food vendors and four concert stages. This was trippy! It seemed to me that this was Perry Farrells original vision for Lollapalooza, Come out to the island to see some great music, learn about some worthy causes, eat and drink and take a break and ride a roller coaster or a bumper boat.
My day of music began with the 20-year-old Scot that I just cant get enough of. Paolo Nutini took to the main stage at 2:15 in the afternoon and the crowd couldnt have asked for a better way to start the show. Nutini and his boys played a terrific 45-minute set which included his hits, New Shoes, Rewind and Jenny Dont Be Hasty along with an amazing new track Rainbows. The band also threw in an excellent rock cover of Mobys Natural Blues. The kid is really coming into his own as a live performer. Hes always had the material but in the early days it seemed hard for Nutini to interact with the crowd, choosing to look down at his feet instead of making eye contact with his fans. These days hes moving around, having fun, talking to the audience and the crowds are eating it up!
Next up on the main stage was K-OS. To be perfectly honest, Id never seen the man and his band live. On stage, K-OS combined all the great elements of The Fugees, Rage Against The Machine and Bob Marley. One minute he was crooning like Lauryn Hill with Pras and Wyclef backing him and the next hed fire up the political stance like Zach De La Rocha with a less aggressive Tom Morello on the axe. It would be hard to classify K-OS into any musical category because he doesnt define himself. From rock to reggae to r&b and hip hop, the man put on a show that I consider to be one of the festival's best.
Anticipation boiled over as M.I.A. was taking the stage. Shes played at so many festivals that Ive attended but, for whatever reason, Ive never had the chance to watch her perform. While I really enjoy her recorded work it just didnt seem to translate well live. The songs were there but the energy was lacking. That special something just didnt seem apparent. That being said, the ladys outfits were bangin! Pink sunglasses and black leather daisy dukes will go a long way when it comes to remembering what to write in a review. It is hard to forget such a memorable ensemble.
While sitting on the shore I took a much needed break and enjoyed my slice of pizza and a hot dog. The venue offers up the most amazing view of the downtown skyline. The break was short lived, however, because the Arctic Monkeys were about to take the stage. I really wanted to see what the hype was all about. I loved the Arctic Monkeys debut album but was less than impressed with their recent follow-up, Favourite Worst Nightmre. The kids from Sheffield were quite impressive as they ripped through an hour long set that included the wonderful I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and the current hit Brianstorm. It was a much needed energy injection near the end of a long day. It got the crowd riled up and everyone wanted to see more! One of the highlights from the festival occurred hours later when I listened to the boys playing acoustically outside of their trailer. They played with assorted friends, drinking Strongbow cider and singing James Blunts Beautiful.
As with all festivals, multiple acts play at the same time and youre forced to make decisions as to what band(s) youd rather see. Interpol vs. Mute Math was case in point. I decided to see the second stage headliner, Mute Math, and keep up my streak of skipping Interpol festival performances. This was the best decision I made all weekend long! Im new to the phenomenon that is Mute Math but Im a definite convert. Without hesitation I will tell you that this was the best performance all weekend long. For whatever reason, these guys remind me a lot of The Police during their heyday but with added pop sensibility. Terrifically catchy songs combined with a great light show made for the most memorable performance of the day.
To end the night I needed to catch a glimpse of Bjorks performance so I could leave with a smile on my face. The queen of Iceland always makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and this was no exception. She took the stage wearing a golden dress and it seemed as if she had painted her forehead green. The cast of characters behind her reminded me of the Polyphonic Spree on acid. Like the Spree, multiple members donned multi-colored robes but these backup performers had painted their foreheads, as well. It was awesome! I stayed long enough to hear the first couple of songs and then hightailed it to the ferry for fear that Id be stuck on the island all night long.
Stay tuned for a report of Day 2 of V Fest...