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Trance Forum » » Forum  Party Promotions - Alex Grey and Neuromotor, Portland, OR, USA 5/8/04
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Alex Grey and Neuromotor, Portland, OR, USA 5/8/04

BrettFromTibet
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  61
Posts :  749
Posted : May 10, 2004 23:28
Party Review – Awakening the Divine Imagination w/ Alex Grey and Neuromotor
May 8th 2004, Portland, Oregon USA
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The Portland underground scene reached a new peak on Saturday with “The Awakening of the Divine Imagination Art” show and all-night dance ritual. Held in a spacious indoor location near downtown Portland, the art show/party featured the works of the king of modern psychedelic painters, Alex Grey, and an inspiring spoken presentation by him.

Elliot, the promoter, did a super job of attracting a very diverse crowd, and providing a diverse mix of entertainment and a tasteful multi-room environment for people to cut lose, connect with others and explore their own inner dimensions.

The indoor decorations were professional and inspiring. There were 5 life-sized prints of psychedelic-electric renditions of the human form by Alex Grey, and extremely cutting-edge prints of new-school psychedeila by other artists on the walls of the main dance area and chillout rooms. There was an abundance of sacred objects that gave the space atmosphere: generator-sized crystals, a forest worth of potted trees and bamboo, large brass statues of Buddha, Shiva and Nandi. The stage where Alex Grey spoke from was decked out like a unimaginably luxurious Indian ashram, and the DJ stand was stunning to look at , a flouro-delic visual feast of original psy artwork by the Portland psy-trance crew.

This was no typical art show, with garden-variety paintings and a crowd full of cosmopolitan posers. Several hundred serious freaks and visionary geniuses from Vancouver to S.F. poured into the place, and gave the work a very critical eye. The art was second to none, and was visually arresting – and many people raved endlessly about it.

The house was completely packed for the 9pm spoken presentation by Alex Grey, who was extremely humble, and accessible to his fans. He signed prints, chatted for the entire night afterwards, and demonstrated new animations on his laptop. After Alex spoke about Art and Divine inspiration, there was a Kirtan of sacred chanting and performance with a full stage of Indian drums and music instruments. The gentler souls at the party loved this, and swayed and danced away with open hearts, smiling faces and airy-fairy hand motions.

The main stage began to play electronic music around midnight, with a live performance of funky breaks that were accessible, played at a nice tasteful volume - and got the crowd grooving right away, and didn’t scare anyone away.

This was followed by San Francisco trance man Deeper in Zen, who performed a very professional live set, that was the highlight of the main stage for me. Starting with some more progressive and semi-melodic night sounds, and progressing into heavier and darker crunchiness – Deeper In Zen played a smooth live that would rock on almost any nighttime trancefloor on the planet. As the music got more aggressive and punishing, a lot of the hippies and art people began to seek refuge in the chillout rooms or the outdoor smoking patio.

Luckily for them, the night in 3 downtempo rooms featured some of the best live music and DJ sets of the entire show. There were a variety of eclectic and groovy sounds to enjoy throughout the night, and people were writhing, grinning, hugging and melting and flopping around all over the carpeted floors with happiness. DJ Fractalien (Mauricio) of Chaos Existence stole the show in one room .His expert picks of rhythmic downtempo new-releases, combined with his superb mixing and turntable scratching, Fractalien delivered with power and confidence…one of the most amazing downtempo DJ sets I have seen anywhere in the world. People were grooving, bumping, grinding and cheering…faces in ecstasy..the room so packed you could barely squeeze in. He played the newest tunes (such as Abakus on Liquid Sound Design) with wicked, ass-shaking turntable scratching… giving the mix irresistible rhythm and groove. Unfortunately the main floor never got such a vibe and smile as the chillout room!
BrettFromTibet
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  61
Posts :  749
Posted : May 10, 2004 23:30
Party Review - Part II
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The highlight of the more rock-oriented downtempo room was the SF duo Waterjuice. With a live guitarist, and a casual ‘drummer’ sitting in a chair and working an electronic drum box – the level of funk and groovability was epic. People were twisted their arms and cheering with joy. Their live was very “live” and easy to watch how they were involved in each step of the creative process. Waterjuice has a very groovy and original sound, acceptable to rockers, artists, trancers, meditators, dancers and spliffed-out Rastafarians alike.

As the night waned on, I am sorry to report, the music in the main stage took a dive and never recovered. Around 3am, Amanda (Mistresses of Evil, SF) played a set of grim and fatalistic tracks….what I’d call “Trauma Trance”…...that made me vividly remember various my life hurts and painful experiences as I winced through it. With each stomp, all the bad things that happened to me in the past week seared back into my consciousness, and I’d switch mind channels and try to think of something more peaceful. The best praise I could give it was it sounded clear and was -remarkably- twisted and frightening, if that’s what you’re into…but a majority of the colorful and artistic people were apparently not. The crowd thinned out very quickly and noticeably during her set, and never quite recovered back to critical mass.

Sometime after Amanda was Neuromotor, from Mechannik Sound in France. He hogged the main stage for the rest of the party, and played some hard driving, aggressive sound. The 6 hour set reminded me very much of trying to sleep next to some busy train tracks. The music was very fast, completely without grooves or funkiness…and despite dancing to it for hours and genuinely trying to appreciate and get groovy to it…my acid-addled mind couldn’t find a single color, texture, tickle, or sonic trick that would make it particularly ‘psychedelic’ in any sense of the word.

Like the “dark dictator” style of Goa Gil and other hard-driving ego-trippers, Frederick didn’t seem to care what the crowd might like, or bother to play a variety of sounds tempos and textures to reflect the various moods and changes in the light cycle. He snickered and sneered, cackled and made chopping motions as he played one hard-lined “train track” after another. Most people wandered away, tired out or decided to go home..and he played his aggressive and unremarkable neuro-motor rotations for a tiny crowd of die-hard Dark trancers out of the several hundred at the event.

My bowels felt heavy, and I needed to get some shit out of my system. I wandered into the bathroom, which was clean but there was no toilet paper left. Luckily I remember the Indian way of cleaning with water, so I filled up a paper cup and sat down to excrete. I stared at the linoleum toilet door, watching it swirl, to the heavy pounding of the harsh rythyms echoing into the bathroom and bouncing off the tiles. All of a sudden…like an angels song…I heard a beautiful melody fill the air. I couldn’t believe my ears, but beautiful dream came to the end when I hear someone in the bathroom answer a cellphone. It was just a high-tech phone ring melody, but a wonderful hallucination while it lasted!

As the sun rose and finally the shone through the spacious windowed-ceiling skylights, the music did not change a single tone or bpm. A single melody, even a quick or dark one, was not to be heard. I tried hard to force a smile over the oppressive sonic atmosphere, but I didn’t not see a single smile on the dance floor. Not a moment of celebration. . DJ Neuromotor was dominant and In Charge….hogging the decks for 6 hours… desperate to keep the night from ending, putting all his might into pretending the sun wasn’t rising. He greeted the bright sunshine with bloodcurdling tracks like “Dance or Die” with a sample from it’s namesake that sounded like a bad horror film.

He was going to rip his night attack all morning long and he loved every minute of it. I have stomped trance floors on several continents, and was flabbergasted as I have never seen a party be played like this before – it was almost surreal. It was the night that never ended. It was also excessively loud, was impossible to speak to people on the dancefloor, and left me with a headache that persisted for a couple after leaving.

While checking out he morning chillout rooms, the crowd was thin, and the music was non-rhythmic and give little option to dance in the morning – and one of the rooms was just filled with people crashed out and sleeping. By 10 am, there were about 20 die-hards left grinding their teeth and dancing to Neuromotor, the rest filled their chillums somberly, tired… and it was obvious that the party was over, and there was going to be no reprieve or happy ending, so I headed home.

I enjoyed attending the party, and found the art show to be most inspiring. Everything except for the music booking was very professional. The early part of the night featured some music that really held and moved the crowd, but it was a train-wreck of noise in the morning – that was not at all psychedelic, inspiring, or fun. No hugs, no smiles, no good vibes. It was a sonic atrocity peculiar to the Portland scene, brought on, perhaps by hardships and yearly neurosomatic brainwashing sessions by guru-gone-bad Goa Gil . The music had no balance. I left feeling tired, and somewhat more jangled and abused than inspired.

Hopefully next time the crew will consider that in the trance-dance ritual there is a night, and a morning also. There is an established part of the global trance ritual called sunrise, that this completely lacked. There should be a spiritual side to follow destructive music – Why not get some talented people to work the deck and help heal people and put their minds back together at the end of a long and testing journey?

Ratings:
Decorations/Art and Atmosphere: 10/10
Down Tempo Rooms: 7/10
Psychedelic Music: 4/10

M.o.E.
Amanda
Started Topics :  6
Posts :  88
Posted : May 11, 2004 00:41
hello,

this is amanda from mistress of evil. first i would like to apologize to brett: i'm sorry that your painful life experiences inhibited you from being able to open up your mind to my set.

second, i would just like to say that a lot of people within the psychedelic trance community like this type of music because it creates a trance dance experience that enables them to work out their shit...in other words: believe it or not some people find it healing. this is the type of experince my sets are geared toward.

i also like to turn people on to new and innovative developments in the psychedelic trance genre. i guess i can understand that change and innovation is very scary for some people....but i don't know....i'd personally get bored if every artist out there tried to be like gms(in fact gms would not be gms if they had not developed their own style that is quite different from the original 'goa music' that inspired them)

so anyways.... i thought the event was great, totally worth the drive from san francisco. i agree with all of the positive comments that brett made about the party. however, i personally loved neuromotor's six hour set: i heard some killer new and old tracks and i danced almost the entire time. my body and mind thanks you and the promoters for such a wonderful experience.

peace,
amanda

BrettFromTibet
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  61
Posts :  749
Posted : May 11, 2004 02:34
Amanda, no need to apoligize, and no disrespect to you. I'll say it again, if you like bone-chilling and scary trance, and many people who go to art shows don't: Amanda's is one of the crystal-clearest and most frightening sets I've ever heard. I supose if you have machocistic tendencies (not that this is a 'bad' thing, just a different vibe than 'traditional' psytrance culture) it could be somehow healing or purging.

However, I think that the "healing value" claim to agressive music goes right out the window without light sounds later on to balance it out...and re-integrate people out of their trip. The musical cross fader at this party was BROKEN...just black hard music all morning....

I don't want to hear 6 hours of GMS in the morning. I want to hear a variety of psychedelic, colorful and re-integrative sounds.

Neuromotors 'morning' set provided neither variety nor positive or uplifting moemnts...and a vast majority of the people at the party didn't like it enough to stay and dance. Yes, about 40 die-hard dark freaks loved it - and the rest got the heck out of there or sought refuge in the chillout rooms before they wound down early...
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my experiences in the morning, in parties on other continents with several hundred attendes and loads of trips (like this event) - is that an Army couldn't stop the people from dancing until the end or get them to go home.

The measly remainder of dedicated trancers who stayed for the end at this event - shows that the music was not successful at camptivating and inspiring people to stay and dance - and didn't turn many new people on to psy-trance.....which struck me as unfortunate....considering the vast potential audience of turned-on people in attendance....

I wish the promotors well, they did very well in terms of selling tickets, and hope we have another art/fusion event of this caliber in the future. I'd be happy to contribute my efforts and energy to it! But it should have balanced music that is being played for the crowd....something accessable and enjoyable to the majority of very psychedelic-minded people who came to see Alex Grey.....not just the die-hard old time regulars
alienfreaksho:)
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  23
Posts :  237
Posted : May 12, 2004 02:12
go amanda yaya:) the masses need something to shake them out of the comfort zones!!! YAYAYYAYAYA!!!!!           freaks unite!!!!
psychickita


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  25
Posted : May 14, 2004 10:03
Bret,
it sounds like you don't like hard music
for the reasons you so eloquently described (most of which are just your bad trip)... for me it translates into not wanting to deal with your shit. Valid standpoint, no doubt, yet.. hmm..

The way you berrate the styles of music you don't like, though, seems to me a symptom of what tears the psychedelic scene apart. I did like the music, but I will not get all over people that want to listen to other things. This was a diverce event and dark psychedelia was just a part of it.

Can't we all just get along?
Cyzum
Cyzum

Started Topics :  77
Posts :  347
Posted : Jul 14, 2004 00:08
I liked the part where he talked about taking a shit.

In all my years, I've never read a review where someone said, so I took a shit, then I felt much better.

Rik
IsraTrance Team

Started Topics :  107
Posts :  966
Posted : Jul 15, 2004 13:59
The combination drew my attention... combining this level of art, neuromotor and the spoken presentation... intriguing!!           www.psytracks.com :: Brand new website for sharing your psytracks with the world. Get a free 250Mb Artist profile, Blog and events calender!
www.psygarden.be :: Upload your psychedelic art and partypictures to our gallery!
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