Convention 101 – Time for your history lesson

Source: CompressionLA.com

Dance music has gone mainstream. Daft Punk is arguably the most popular musical group of our generation, David Guetta’s “Sexy Bitch” and the Crookers remix of “Day N Nite” have become radio juggernauts, and the most popular music festival on the West Coast has some absurd name like “Electric Daisy Carnival” or something like that. These are wild times, and wild times call for some historical recontextualization. Forget bloghouse, trance, and electro for a second. Detroit techno dons like Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins and Derrick May were laying the foundations for electronic dance music when the Guettas of the world were still in grade school. Not that I’m bemoaning the popular shades of electronic dance music, but to restrict yourself to the palatable confines of the innocuous mainstream is to do yourself a dis-service. Knowing the roots of your passions is paramount for enrichment and enjoyment.

Fortunately, Compression LA is set to give dance music disciples some much needed history over the weekend. Convention 101 is a 3-day affair. Friday is the pre-party at the Vanguard, with Robert Hood, Orlando Voorn, and Joel Mull set to rock the house. The festival itself, which will be held in Downtown LA on Saturday on 613 Imperial St., is synonymous with quality techno. The lineup is emblazoned with DJs like Juan Atkins, Robert Hood, Jamie Jones, the Wighnomy Bros, both iconic and up-and-coming, with whom you should start familiarizing yourself with if you haven’t already. Lastly, the Sunday VIP afterparty will take place at the Standard Hotel in Downtown LA and will give festival goers a nice day to unwind by the pool after two nights of nonstop, blaring techno.

So forget about the cutting edge for a weekend. Go see where it all came from.
-Rob

© 2009, Rob. All rights reserved.