DJ Krush at Fashion 45

By Will Connor

Krush Crushes Honolulu!

They never knew what hit ‘em! The crowd at Fashion 45, that is. Last night in Waikiki, DJ Krush spun his set and left a sea of charred bodies in his sonic wake.

When I got to the club at 9:00pm on October 2nd I was almost the only one there. Even some of the warm-up DJ’s hadn’t arrived yet. The opening turntablist was pretty slick and his choices to get the sparse crowd going were well selected, including some nice excerpts from Kool Keith and some other tangible, yet experimental trip hop and avant hip hop acts. He knew what was coming, but I got the impression that he was one of the few.

The second DJ’s material was not in line with either the opening DJ’s set nor the Krush set to follow. His saving grace was in the smooth way he handled a series of technical difficulties and the slew of soundmen that were trying to fix the various problems with which he never should have had to deal. He was, at the least, quite professional. He also seemed to play to the crowd, which was good, but it reflected just how much the audience was going to be surprised, in a good or bad way, once Krush got to the decks.

When the moment came, people seemed excited and the majority, who had up to this point avoided the dance floor like a plague, came forward to see what was going to happen. The first note rang out as Krush dropped the needle one his first plate and the 17 or so concert goers that were ready to go nuts did just that. About 12 of them raced around to the side of DJ Krush’s booth and watched the master weave his magical rhythmic noise, cameras in hand documenting the moment at every given opportunity. The remaining 5, including myself, took the front row on the dance floor and threw down like there was no tomorrow.

Krush busted out with his unique blend of trip hop, hip hop, experiment, jazz, ambient, and flat out noise. Not one after the other though. Don’t get the idea that he beat mixed these genres into one another or that he played a track, hung out, and played the next one. This was a performance! He played them all at the same time almost every groove! The tweaked each sound with precision, using rack effects and various turntable tricks to get the most unheard of, amazing sounds out of his equipment! He used every thing in his arsenal of sound including some Miles Davis, Star Wars light saber sounds, and my favourite, samples from the Japanese Godzilla mythos film, Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster. Not a moment passed where there wasn’t a danceable beat or a spaced-out wash of sound that either grounded you fast to your spot on the floor or ripped you into the air and left you there as long he felt like it.

What a wonderful evening! My only disappointment came from the large number of people that seemed to vanish slowly but surely over the course of the night. I can’t for the life of me figure out why. The sound was great, the show was even better, heck, there were even videos of James Bondesque naked silhouettes dancing around in fields of colour projected on televisions around the room for your added visual pleasure (or a good laugh, but either was great.) All-in-all, DJ Krush was outstanding! I only hope that he makes it back again soon…

The promoters for the show, Double-O productions, did a fantastic job and I highly recommend checking out anything they get their hands on. Look for Dieselboy coming up at Nextdoor on Saturday the 14th of October for some take-your-head-off danceable madness and stay tuned for more from this great team.

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For more about Krush go to http://www.mmjp.or.jp/sus/krush/# or the unofficial Krush MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/djkrushjapan