The Mayan Theater is definitely the type of place you’d want to be during the winter solstice of 2012. Maybe that’s just cuz the architecture in the theater resembles the ruins of a temple you might find in the Yucatan of Mexico, really though, I half expected to run into Lara Croft there. Everyone in the house that night knows what I’m saying, picture Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but instead of Harrison Ford, the Gaslamp Killer and friends took the spotlight. There were carved sculpture tiles all over the place, and that got me thinking maybe, just maybe, if there is a catastrophic earthquake that rocks the south land at the end of this year, the Mayan Theater might just be the only building left standing on the San Andreas fault line, that is if all of California doesn’t fall into the ocean from the tremor. But that’s just superstition right?
One way or another, the Mayan Theater was definitely an ILL spot for the Gaslamp Killer to host the release party for his new project, Breakthrough. The ambiance was surreal, the drinks heavy, and the sound system shook the house like there actually was an earthquake of bass at the multi-tiered venue. And that’s exactly what the doctor orders when GLK steps up to operate on the decks like heavy artillery. Even the digital projector work on the screens behind the stage was breathtaking, including visuals from assorted anime classics like Akira.
ILLsociety arrived at the venue fashionably late, and had unfortunately missed cutting edge sets from the likes of DJ Nobody and J.Rocc, but Venice Dawn was on stage rocking out on some Diamonds Are Forever Sean Connery sounding shit as we walked in. You may be familiar with the band’s frontman, Adrian Younge, who scored the likes of Black Dynamite and is working on the new Ghostface Killah album alongside the RZA, entitled “12 Reasons To Die.” Some of the band members looked straight out of Tarantino’s heist flick Reservoir Dogs, wearing black and white suit ensembles, or maybe they looked like the crazy 88 in Kill Bill, minus the masks, I dunno, that’s your call. Of course the drummer had to break dress code, but his snare was so shotgun like, I had to forgive him. Together, Venice Dawn totally brought 1970-something to 2012. I got the chance to chop it up with Adrian Younge after Venice Dawn played an encore and then humbly stepped off stage.
ISM: How did you transfer from the Black Dynamite Orchestra to Venice Dawn?
Adrian Younge: Well Venice Dawn came before Black Dynamite, so if it wasn’t for Venice Dawn, I wouldn’t be able to do Black Dynamite. So I was always doing that kinda like dark italian cinema type music, and to do Black Dynamite, I had to kinda switch it to more of a like American soul blaxploitation type of thing. But now I’m back to my roots, and that’s what this is.
ISM: I guess you had to put me up on game just a little bit, cuz Black Dynamite is how I became aware of the sounds you were making, and y’all really impressed me tonight… Can we expect the 12 Reasons To Die album to sound anything like what we heard from Venice Dawn?
Adrian Younge: The 12 Reasons To Die album is dark as shit. It’s cinematic and dark and it’s like if you can imagine watching The Omen, and RZA produced the soundtrack. That’s what 12 Reasons To Die sounds like.
ISM: You’ve been involved scoring films, do you ever wanna be behind the camera or do you want to stick with the orchestration of music?
Adrian Younge: I do a lot of film stuff, so I’ll always be behind the camera, you know? But my number one passion is always music. Nothing to me supersedes music. If I had a choice to do anything, I’m always doing music.
ISM: Word, cuz that’s what I wanna hear, more music from you and your fellow bandmates… Where can we get new music from Venice Dawn?
Adrian Younge: Our next album, which is Adrian Younge Presents: The Delphonics, will be released on November 20th.
ISM: wait, wait, wait… The Delphonics?
Adrian Younge: Yeah, The Delphonics.
ISM: You taking it back to 1960-something?
Adrian Younge: Yes, it’s a very special album to me man, so yeah… on Wax Poetic Records, November 20th. Man, please stay tuned. To me, I look at it as my deepest work. I really, really love the album, so check it out.
ISM: I can’t wait to hear that.
Adrian Younge: Thank you man.
Eprom took to the theater’s stage next, dropping an array of plutonium based electronic beats that had the crowd banging their heads like russian roulette. Flying Lotus made a guest appearance during Eprom’s set and then returned after he was finished to unleash his own brand of brainfeeder fusion, beginning with his first single off of Until The Quiet Comes, “See Thru to U” with Erykah Badu. Then he dropped some trap sounding breaks that created a splash as soon as they hit the audience. Things were getting turnt, and in the meanwhile… I saw Cut Chemist in the crowd by the bar, and Nocando too. The talented emcee was there showing love to his Low End brethren. Mad heads had come out to the Mayan Theater that night. DJ Luman and Doll Uno were in the house as was Thavius Beck. I dapped up Chris from Free the Robots as he was circling around and even saw DJ House Shoes and Alexander Spit there showing support.
And finally it was time for the Gaslamp Killer to storm the stage like how the FBI took out David Koresh at Waco, Texas. Or maybe like how Cortez took out Mesoamerica, considering that this was going down at the Mayan Theater… nah’mean? It was a headbanger’s ball for sure, mos def funky enough to make E-40 shake them dreads. Gaslamp played the cheese grater to your forehead electronic-grunge, space invader 8 bit psych-metal he’s world famous for, and still found ways to weave that into Eazy-E and Wu-Tang drops. The crowd was in a frenzy. The artwork for GLK’s new project seemed to live up to its imagery, it was like the wild haired producer had put on a robotic version of Michael Jackson’s sequined glove and then moonwalked across the speakerboxxes like a certain messiah had tippy-toed on water
The master Sensei of a producer, Daedulus, seemed to be the only suitable man for the job of playing music after the whirlwind of Gaslamp Killer finished painting on our ear drums. He had to fly under the sun, but not close enough to melt his wax wings. He broke us off with some digi-phonic Roy Ayres samples that kept the night owls in the crowd living their lives in the sunshine and then played a “Mercy” remix that would leave your chick thirsty enough to joy-ride another man’s Lambo.
After the new gods of rock made the sound system weep, they left the building without smashing a nann nutter turntable or drum machine into bits like Kurt Cobain may have done with his Fender guitars. And as the crowd thinned out and the die-hards began parking lot pimping in front of the venue, I got the opportunity to ask the killer of gaslamps one potent question before he had to dash off for photo ops and unknown debauchery.
ISM: Your record is named Breakthrough… what are you trying to break through? Like Jim Morrison to the other side? Like where are you trying to break through?
the Gaslamp Killer: I’m trying to take the samples to the live, reality. I’m trying to stop sampling, and take the knowledge that I’ve learned through digging, and create raw new original music from the digging that I’ve done, instead of looping shit like I used to. That’s the break through. I’m trying to make a live record.
So expect big things from Gaslamp as he gets his new age Jimi Hendrix on with his upcoming projects in the future. I could see the god dowsing his drum machines in gasoline and laughing as they lit up. A big shout out to the limited edition hit and run shirts that were silk screened live at the event. The Mayan Theater may not be the ideal place for human sacrifice, being that it is in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, but it was definitely a great place to see the Gaslamp Killer baptize the world with his new record. Don’t sleep on Breakthrough, it’s definitely crinack for the hearing impaired and those blessed enough to hear the music too.
-ya man’s drop jewelz
All photos and video shot by Sean David
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