ADVANCE: $10
DAY OF SHOW: $15
FIXED with special guest
Sat., February 11, 2012 / 11:00 PM
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About This Event

Minimum Age:

21+

Doors Open:

11:00 PM

Show Time:

11:00 PM

Description:

This is a general admission, standing event.

Artists

Aeroplane (Belgium)
You fly with Aeroplane once, you don't forget it. In just three years, the Italian-Belgian duo have established themselves as party-starting DJs, remixers du jour -with their spacious cosmic-disco re-rerubs of Grace Jones (William's Blood), Friendly Fires (Paris) and Sebastien Tellier (Kilometer) - and, via their own piano-sprinkled melancholic beauties like Caramellas, leaders of the nu-disco and Balearica scene. So Aeroplane's debut album, We Can't Fly, arrives with sky-high hopes. Now that our appetites have been whetted by those brief, tantalising excursions, what delights await us on their maiden long-haul flight?

Plenty, it turns out. Recorded in Toulouse, Paris, London and Los Angeles, We Can't Fly (co-produced by Bertrand Burgalat), is a grown up, dazzlingly accomplished record that showcases not just a passion for stately, soulful disco and early 80s electronica, but a lush and bittersweet set of influences that stretch from Abba and film soundtracks to Floyd, the Stones and the Italian crooners that Vito Deluca's mama played him in his Brussels youth.

Aeroplane is now a one-man operation, Vito having amicably parted company with his bandmate Stephen Fasano. Not that we should be alarmed. "There are worse things in life!" says Vito. "Stephen's gonna do music on his own, I'm gonna do music on my own. I'm the studio guy, he was more the DJ so when the music became more important, the more I was alone in the studio. The future of Aeroplane was this album and I wrote it and played every instrument." The two are still on good terms: "He's picking me up tomorrow at the airport. I'm probably going to produce the stuff he writes in the future and I'm not going to have a word to say about it!"

Flying solo has given Vito the chance to flex his classically trained musical muscles: "We've been put in the dance music category but I'm a songwriter, that's what I know how to do. I wanted to go back to proper pop music, not being forced to do nine-minute tracks so the DJ can mix in before and after." Aeroplane have never been at the mercy of traditional bpms, and being free of "the dancefloor pressure" has given Vito additional license to slow things down and look around. "I'm at my best at 105bpm," he says. "That's the speed where I make the best music. You can do more, there's more groove, more feeling."

He's not kidding. Take We Can't Fly, the languid, showstopping anthem-to-be with which Aeroplane kicked off their landmark 500th Radio 1 Essential Mix at Circus in Liverpool earlier this year. Laying gospel harmonies over Compass Point-era Grace Jones reggae, blissed-out Rimini keyboards and kiddie vocal samples, it's handsome proof that dancability and musicality don't have to be mutully exclusive. It's going to sound rapturous live, when Vito and an expanded on-stage line-up play Aeroplane's first dates later this year.
JDH & DAVE P
Rumors of NYC nightlife’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. While the ever-pervasive rumors of “no dancing allowed” and draconian cabaret laws continue to reverberate around the world’s cities, the state of underground dance music in the big apple is indeed much stronger. This is thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of Dave Pianka and Josh Houtkin (DJing as Dave P and JDH, respectively). The two have been responsible for bringing over some of the most credible DJs and live bands and giving them a proper venue and environment in which to play. In addition, they have honed their DJ and production skills over the years, and are increasingly breaking new records and sounds with their back-to-back sets. Dave has also recently kicked into gear with production duties, contributing remixes of established acts like the Klaxons and Bloc Party.

The two first met through Josh’s affiliation with Flyer, a now-defunct cultural magazine. They were frequently booked separately to DJ at the same parties in NYC, often in the same rooms.

“We both came from very similar musical backgrounds growing up in the punk/hardcore scene,” says Dave. “We both basically progressed in the same direction from there, into indie rock and into the more electronic sounds where we find ourselves now.”

Says Josh, “Our influences come from a pretty wide variety of places. We both were heavily into the early-90's punk/ indie scene. Fugazi, Dischord Records, Bikini Kill, that sort of stuff.”

The two quickly teamed up, expanding their horizons into techno, electro and other permutations of dance music. In early 2004, they started a party called Fixed at the Tribeca Grand hotel, where they quickly established a forward-thinking booking policy that found heavyweight, Berlin-based techno jocks like Ewan Pearson playing one week, with on-the-rise indie acts such as the Long Blondes the next. To date, blue-chip artists like Erol Alkan, Soulwax, Whitey, Justice, Digitalism, the Klaxons, Peaches, LCD Soundsystem, Mylo, Vitalic, Simian Mobile Disco, The Rapture, Art Brut, Tim Sweeney, and many more have all made appearances.

In a city full of nights with style over substance, Fixed is now known as a party with an eclectic crowd of sincere music lovers, where all sorts of interesting styles and genres find a place to come together.

“Aside from our musical upbringing, we are both influenced by nights such as Optimo, Trash, and Bugged Out!, says Josh. “These are great parties that don't necessarily have a musical "policy" or "style." For us, every style of music is good and merits attention.”

In terms of their DJing, the two have forged a defined musical understanding over the years. They often play back-to-back, each pushing one and other to find the perfect record to follow another with. “There are times when Josh and I are djing and one of us will put on a record and we'll both reach for a track to play out of it and then realize that we both grabbed the same one,” says Dave. “We’re both very conscious of flow.”

Their Go Commando! Mix features many artists the two have brought over to perform, and also represents a broad cross-section of the styles and genres they play in a night. Joakim’s pop-funk kicks off the mix representing the more melodic side of their collective taste, later panning through avant-disco Stylings of Prins Thomas and In Flagranti, the deep, brooding techno of Swedish performers The Knife, into an electro barnstormer from Vitalic and finally touching down on a beautiful note with the panning synth swells of Superpitcher and Michael Mayer’s remix of Gui Borratto’s “Like You.”

Going forward, JDH and Dave P look forward to continuing helping interesting acts around the world establish a beachhead on US shores, as well as continuing to bring their act on the road. With recent DJ tours in Canada, Spain, the UK and Germany, they’re finding wider acclaim on a global stage while keeping up the ravenous appetite for breaking new sounds.
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