Partyharders & The Crookers @ Paris Social Club, Paris – 13th June 2008
France
and Italy – Italy and France; two countries, perspectives and ways of living that seldom match, cultural barricades and a latent patriotism from both sides. If this is true for most of the times, Friday night at the Social Club in Paris, the atmosphere was very different. To welcome the guys from Partyharders and their Italian fellows The Crookers, there was, in fact, a high number of important characters from the electro French scene. Personalities that it happens to see quite often on the stages of the Parisian nights – one for all, Teki Latex from Institubes – plus a lot of photographers, tons of fluokids (from the infamous blog), and even Pedro Winter – for those who were on Mars during the last 10 years: the former manager of Daft Punk, the guy who launched Justice and Ed Banger, and the spiritual guru of the so-called French Touch 2.0 – were all in attendance.
As soon as we get in, we are able to feel an atmosphere charged with great expectations. Among the people in the audience as well, we see many “Fucked from above 1985” t-shirts, as if we were in Milan, more than in the heart of France; and on stage Bot from The Crookers is wearing a tee with the face of Pedro Winter, represented as Jesus Christ. Although under the picture there is written “Kill your idols”, as to ease the strong impact of the image with a sip of irony. We ought to admit that Ed Banger is starting to play tough with their logos; comparing themselves to Jesus Christ was too much even for the Beatles, and the danger of sounding pretentious can be very close. As well as the use of a whatsoever message just to make people gossip about it is a practise that even those who have always followed the French label with a passion start to look at with suspicion.
The night starts with the Partyharders Squad, 3 DHs from Belgium who play, in fact, “hard”. Very “hard”. Their music is a weapon. It is definitely not very common to listen to songs by Slayer, The Knack, and Snoop Dogg put so close to each other in a DJ set; and the speed in changing songs and genres is even more surprising than the variety itself. We are chilling on a hip-hop rhythm, when all of a sudden the tempo becomes almost twice as fast and we are dancing to a techno song. At some point we even start to mosh, but someone in the audience seems not to enjoy the heavy metal atmosphere, and soon we quit. It's a tough DJ set. The guys on the stage are not too interested in doing a technically-precise show, but this does not negatively influence their strong impact. The final result is definitely powerful: those who wanted a drop of the hard stuff probably found the perfect act, they’re worth seeing whatever your preference.
When The Crookers get on stage, the sound becomes more homogeneous. The two DJs from Milan play hard as well, but, at least, we know what to expect. Bot and Phra's sound has strong hip-hop roots, and their remixes seem to never forget about it. Take this rap background, feed it with powerful and ultra-catchy riffs, make all the sound as fat as a pimp from an American television series, and even The Chemical Brothers or Busy P can sound like Crookers. Their capacity of having created such a personal sound, basically, just doing remixes is, in my opinion, even more admirable. From Milan to Paris, the audience and the electro VIP scene get the chance to see a very good set, full of their inimitable, filth-driven energy, and plenty of hot new unheard bits.
It’s evident that when the mission is the same - to make people move and dance - the so-called differences between nationalities can be forgotten. At least until Tuesday evening, when football will once again divide what music united on this great night.