Tiny Event Review – Joker In Seattle

Ryan Xristopher’s Tiny Event Review – Joker in Seattle @ The War Room

Ryan Xristopher’s Tiny Introduction

If you’re following the front edges of the current semi-insider wave of dubstep culture washing over the West Coast right now, you’ve probably heard the name Joker mentioned. His is the shadowed face from the UK’s Bristol, and he is the sound that’s becoming synonymous with the sonic potential (listen to “Digidesign”) of the hybrid dubstep, grime, midtempo movement that’s getting worldwide attention right now, packing clubs and sliding its way into festivals. Don’t worry – every possible variation of the 140 bpm stutter is teasing its influence into the mainstream and the underground alike, whether you like it or not. Face it, or it very well might just stab you in the back.

Joker, much like his cousin-in-sound Flying Lotus, accepts no limits to his productions, has no intention of doing what’s been done before, and claims that video games are one of his biggest musical influences. Officially jumping on to the production scene just a few years ago, Joker already has releases on Hyperdub and Tectonic, two of the biggest tastemaking dubstep labels on the planet, and has done remixes for artists as varied as Adam Freeland, Simian Mobile Disco and the Basement Jaxx. He’s also put together special mixes for experimental music master Mary Anne Hobbs and others, leaving a trail of buzz in his wake. Joker is 21-ish right now, has been DJing since 15, and Pitchfork named him the 2008 Producer of the Year. Bring it on, eh, the next step in the new school is coming round the bend.

On tour, he and MC Nomad breezed through Seattle on a Tuesday night, performing at The War Room in Capital Hill with Seattle locals Introcut and Sublo opening for him. I had not yet seen any of these performers, and I had never been to this venue before – it was a clean slate, let’s get dirty.

Giddy-up.

Joker & MC Nomad
@ The War Room, Seattle November 24th, 2009

Introcut started the night, played sort of a low key set with a little bit of turntablism/scratching mixed in, but had some dull transitions between tracks for someone who’s been around as long as he has. It was good, but not memorable. The sound system was solid and the room filled nicely with all the low tones, as promised by the promoters who advertised that would be more bass in the place for this show. There was no active lighting, which was too bad, but live visuals twisting on the main wall set a nice frame next to the DJ booth.

Sublo came on next, and seemed to be in the middle of some type of an identity crisis. It was tough for me to follow, so I did some people watching and entertained myself with the mixed crowd. There was a group of guys next to me who would stand up periodically and backhand each other in the nads, in sequence around their circle. There was a guy who took up too much room dancing that was either dressed like a pirate or was still hanging on to the Burn, pigtails and black and red-striped socks complementing the standard dirty brown vest. There was the girl talking in the bar line, chattering to the guy behind her in line – “I’ll come and clean your house for free. It’s what I do for a living. I’ll even wear a sexy outfit. You just have to play music for me.”

At The War Room, there’s plenty of space for dancing, nice raised seating along the walls, and the bar and some more seating in a slightly separated room. At this time in the night, there was general milling about, and the common feeling was one of random distraction; definitely not DJ-centric at this point; even the dance floor was wobbling in all directions, chasing butterflies or hunting for the underrepresented female crowd contingent.

Eventually, Sublo retreated into the lowest common denominator of the dubstep movement, the newly-coined sub-genre ‘brostep’ (think Rusko’s “Woo Boost”). Musically empty sequences of sawtooth & sinewave patterns grind on my nerves, but they always seem to be crowd-pleasers for bassheads & crossovers. At the end of Sublo’s set, which seemed to last quite a bit too long, he was really ranging around, playing gabbery remixes (“Rhythm is a Dancer”, anyone?) alongside what sounded like pitch-dropped drum & bass. 12:30 had rolled around, the crowd had thinned (school night, you know).

Joker started at 12:40, cutting out Sublo’s last track and immediately starting into something deeper. There was one big surprise for me right away, and I understood immediately why Joker had brought an MC – he had almost no stage presence at all. Maybe just for this venue, though, or maybe just for this crowd, or on this night … Dressed in black and dark gray, black NY ball cap pulled low, back behind his computer and the 1200’s, just like his promo photos, he is a shadow. Even later, when he took his black jacket off, his gray button-down was a stark contrast to the intricate and explosive music he was playing. MC Nomad, on the other hand, was inviting and visible, and his voice brought all the elements of the music together. Usually, I’ve found MC’s to be a distraction and lessen the quality of the show; this was definitely not the case this time.

It took about 15 minutes for Joker and Nomad to chill the crowd out, tame the levels, settle the energy, and pull everyone together. After that, the show was what I expected and what I had hoped for. Deep, intelligent, grimey. Rhythmically complex, not so much prone to repetition as to variation. Waves of bass, reedy and occasionally jazz-centric synth lines, all wandering around in a big audio soup. Joker was using a vinyl control system through a Mac, not sure which program, and he’s a good DJ, which always helps. Sometimes his chops on the mixer got a little lazy, but you can tell he understands beat-matching, flow, and live audio structuring; those pieces of performance that producers can miss the mark on occasionally.

Halfway through his set, I was happily in the middle of the crowd up front, battling against a bunch of sweaty dudes who kept hugging each other and some poor girl who had no idea what was going on who was randomly headbutting people in their backs, fall over, and then start licking any taker’s faces in the front row. Nice! There were also few elbows and a few stepped-on toes. All in good fun. That’s what we have elbows and toes for.

1:15 and there was a nice controlled frenzy going on, but Seattle’s early club closing rules were about to surface. Relaxed into the best part of his set so far, you could see the surprise on Joker’s face when the bar staff tapped his shoulder at 1:30 and said ‘ten minutes’. Wha? Newcomers to the city are always surprised. I never understand why they aren’t warned.

Nomad hopped on the mic and asked for the last two minutes if we wanted dubstep or drum & bass, and the D&B got a bigger shout, so Joker put on a smashing train of bass and snare snaps for his final cut of the evening.

Ryan Xristopher’s Tiny Conclusion

I have to admit that I felt a little cheated that we only got about 50 minutes of what should have been an hour and a half show, but what can you do. Joker is going to blow up the rest of the way before too long, but I’m glad I got to see him for a minute before his space gets too crowded. When he’s headlining major shows around the world, I can say to myself in my head, “I remember that one night when …”

-Ryan Xristopher

Comments or corrections: email ryan.xristopher(at)gmail.com