Where's The Love?Where's The Love?
San Fransisco, CA - The electronic music world has Love Parade. And one look at San Francisco's hippie strongholds would suggest the city's Summer Of Love refuses to die.
Then why couldn't those two legacies of love have come together when reknowned German DJ Rainer Truby, of Truby Trio fame, played the Poleng Lounge last Saturday?
Here's what happened:
Rainer played an awesome set resplendent with his trademark mix of Brazilian broken beats and cool-jazz horn riffs. The crowd, though it started to thin out by about 1 a.m., totally dug it. Rainer was friendly with his co-DJs (hailing from Japan and other places) as well as clubbers, who at the end of the night tripped over themselves to light his post-coital cigarette. The DJ even heartily agreed to an on-the-spot interview with me. I asked him how San Fran--where he's played four times--compared to other cities around the world. Laughingly, he said, "Er, slightly more strict door people." I wondered to myself what he meant.
Later some old, washed-up looking dude wearing a Bluetooth headset came along and told folks to leave the quarter-block area around the club entrance for noise-complaint reasons. Fair enough; in my newspaper days I wrote about noise ordinances killing budding music scenes. But the guy then started threatening the DJ! Fans quickly defended him, saying he was doing interviews and, uh, was the main attraction at the club and probably the reason Mr. Too-Skinny-To-Be-A-Real-Bouncer got paid that night. Said the bouncer-wannabe: "I don't care who you are, I get paid $25 an hour to beat people's ass!"
Luckily, no one was terribly frightened, and I managed to talk with Rainer for a few minutes before the official end of his nine-stop U.S. tour. Interview highlights after the jump.
Did you spend a lot of time in Brazil and that's what got you interested in these beats?
No, I just really got into it by listening to other DJs... I became really good friends with them... I got really hooked on it, so I went to flea markets looking for Brazilian music. I went to Brazil to DJ there one time. It was good, but it was a bit strange--being German and to play to the the Brazilian people this music of their grandparents!
Maybe they liked your music because it was more modern?
Well, I have two sides. Sometimes I go months when I play like an old person, but I have the clubby side as well.
How do you mix old jazz horn riffs with Brazilian and/or more traditional electronica rhythms?
It's whatever comes naturally. I have this big box of records... What comes next is what I pick up. I like it when it's like homemade music and there's this natural element.
Where are you going next?
I'm going home tomorrow. I was just here in the States for 10 days, and played nine nights.
(Bouncer-hopeful then came over and started posturing.)
Well, I'd better stop so that no one gets in more trouble.
Oh, OK (laughs). Thank you so much.
