After making his way to Colorado last year to play the Communikey Festival in Boulder, Mike Huckaby has since forged friendships with a number of the good folk out here and has been back numerous times with in the past year. I got to witness him for years as a fledgling raver in the midwest years ago, where he was on constant rotation through out Pittsburgh, Cleveland and his hometown of Detroit where he is still lives. He is well documented with his work with Native Instruments Development and his instruction work at the brilliant Youthville facility in Detroit. So aside from being a complete badass and legend of a producer/DJ, he is a really good guy too, so it’s easy to see why he is just plain fun to be around.
Fresh off his nomination for Westword, brother in arms John Templeton hosted Huck at his monthly Emote music night, in the Beatport Lounge this past Friday, put on by our friends at PUNCHIS. After a nice dinner out, we crewed up and headed to Beta, which on this night had legendary Andy C of RAM Records fame, dropping the slam on the main floor, hosted by Sub.Mission. An all around good music night at Beta…way to go Beta.
Upon Arrival, the very talented and very kind Benjamin Shreeves, was warming the room up with a nice mix of electro and steely techno. The BPL was still in it’s transient stage of the night, where a good amount of clubbers make the loop around from the main floor, stop in to check out the lounge upstairs and maybe hit the patio for some air.
Ben left off nicely for the dynamic live duo of Jahnavi Stenflo and Nathan Jantz aka, the Normal Ones. Everything about their live show ruled…it always does. The most obvious thing to note was their position in the room this night. Their gear and themselves were perched a top the cabinets to the left of the DJ booth (if you’re looking at the booth), which changed the landscape of the intimate room dramatically. It was a blast of fresh air , as the dance floor instantly became wider with the length of the room in full use and the focus away from the usual. From there, the pair just laid a fantastic vibe of skeletal electro-ish 4/4 with quite varied, beautiful vocals. Nathans programming is incredibly clean and punchy, coupled with Jahnavis natural stage presence and enthusiastic vocals, they are a quality to the core and had the vibe slammin.
As their last track ended, the focus went immediately back to the DJ booth, where Huck dropped his first record to the sound of machine tinged techno with pace. A perfect segue out of the two opening sets, he may have thrown a few people off expecting stuff more on the house tip. Being the professional he is, he knew where he was taking us…also on being a professional, he did not bat an eye at the countless (and I do mean countless) times the needle skipped on his records through out his entire set. Now I know Justin the sound guy over at Beta took offense to our review of the sound issues a few weeks ago at the Martin Buttrich event in the BPL and maybe he was in the right. However, Beta again appears amateur in the contrast of the accolades they tote of being the best. They have two bass bins pressed directly against the DJ Booth, when at peak time whether the sound is dialed in or not, will produce enough vibration to shake anything off that booth…drinks, laptops and especially needles. Thankfully Mike Huckaby is such a pro, he just plowed through and progressed his set from the techno he started with to saxophone laden Detroit house sound and kept the heads happy as could be, despite the constant sound issues.
Did not spend too much time downstairs, but did catch some of Andy C’s set which was as expected, really good. Between the gorgeous mild weather and the combined years experience in the house that night, a good time was had by all. From there, our group widdled down to three and we cabbed to afters organized again by Emote. Make Mistakes darling Tom ‘Attentat’ Kamholz was banging some no nonsense techno when we got there to a small crowd, in a great little space in the Santa Fe Arts district. A burst of friends and faces came by from the club, Huck among them. The end of Tommy’s set was the highlight of the music for me, getting back to his weirdo-deep-slightly eclectic brand of techno. The Traveling S#!+ Show – a new DJ/live trio featuring The Missing Link, Sequence and John Templeton came on to finish the night. Heard about 20 minutes of their set before taking off, but it was good and techy, with warm undertones.
All in all a night out with a load of laughs and smiles…and was a perfect primer to the madness of biking around in the sunshine and drinks, that was a St. Patricks Day on a Saturday, in rowdy Denver.
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