The HudMo Boiler Room this past Friday had been hype for the entire week preceding it. Somehow everybody knew that the all-RSVP entry list was well overstuffed, so kids were setting up shop on the sidewalk in lounge chairs a good four hours before doors opened. Shit was already getting kinda hectic as the queue snaked around the industrial neighborhood of the still-legit-as-fuck Lot 613 just outside of downtown LA – and then this happened:
For those crafty enough to finagle a way inside, the line-up favored leftfield aesthetics from start to finish. Warp Records’ heady beatmaker Oneohtrix Point Never performed when there were more people waiting outside than on the dancefloor. That was unfortunate, but the open bar made up for it if and/or when people did get in.
Videos by VICE
Numbers signee SOPHIE has been piquing ears all over with tracks “Lemonade” and “Hard”. They’re both glitched out bass jams with a candy coated, J-pop alter ego threatening to burst out at any moment. We had heard that SOPHIE “likes to play with gender,” and the artist recently took an interview on Skream and Benga’s BBC Radio 1 show in the voice of a little girl. Benga reckoned he was a Scotsman named Sam, though. SOPHIE’s physical form is most definitely gender bent, presumably a feller dressed up, and with some commitment, to seem like Barbie. The set was heavier on the hyper-pop aspects than the bass, but there’s some next level shit going on here.
By the time QT’s soda-themed, lip-sync-laden one-track debut interlude got in swing right afterwards, I realized that the event had very quickly veered into performance art territory. At some point, professional strange-guy Eric Wareheim appeared projected on the walls and nattered something only remotely inteligible. It was part for the course at this point.
If anyone was of the mind that the then-impending HudMo set was gonna somehow un-weird things, they would have been very wrong. With Kabuki dancers lumbering around smoke-shrouded gongs and some gargantuan otherworldly beat moping about on stage, Mohawke grasped the energy that had been building towards the show for days. He’s for reals. Whether it’s TNGHT, Kanye West, Lucky Me, Apple commercials, or his own ever-expanding catalogue of winners, Ross Birchard has come a long way from being the barely-noticed DJ playing the interstices between sets at Battles shows only a few years ago.
The crowd was rowdy for the entirety of HudMo’s performance – They very intent on maintaining a sizable moshpit. Listen, I understand that the occasional bro-down testosterone frenzy is hormonally useful once in a while, but join a fuckin’ softball team, dude! If i’m at a show/club/rave/whatever, I’d much rather pay attention to the music than be constantly shimmying around falling body parts in a state of panic.
It doesn’t matter, anyway. The way Busta Rhymes tumbled on stage, any crowd would have descended into chaos. The rafters blew off the warehouse as the swoll-as-fuck Rhymes battered through “Woo-Hah,” “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See,” and the motormouthed Drake co-lab “Look at Me Now.” It was awesome. It was left to Eclair Fifi and Lunice to pick up the pieces, but the latter drew acclaim for playing the only proper DJ set of the night. By that point, the whole thing had devolved into Howl’s Moving Castle b2b Enter the Void, so we’re just glad nobody crossed over.
For better or worse, this was by no means a typical Boiler Room affair. The whole BR ethos is built around being low-key and this was not that. There was a moshpit, Busta Rhymes showed up, and the whole thing was basking in the greenback glow of a partnership with Ray Ban. To put things in context: The last time Mohawke played a Boiler Room, almost four years ago, it was in some Dalston living room on a grainy live feed with about 20 people in the room. The HudMo of back then probably wouldn’t even have gotten into this event! Much respect. Free sunglasses wouldn’t have hurt, though.
This might just have made our list of Weirdest Boiler Room Sets We’ve Ever Seen.
More adventures:
We Went to FYF Fest and Only Saw Dance Music
It’s Carnage vs. The Internet
From “Shirt Cocking” to “Playa Diddy,” House Legend Lee Burridge on All Things Burning Man
