[ GOTTA GET WICKED ]
DJs serve mix plate
at Indigo
Call it eclecticism, "mash-up," or straight-up turntable alchemy. When hearing the funky chit-chatter of Missy Elliott's "Gossip Folks" piggybacking The Clash's "Rock the Casbah," or Debbie Deb's 1983 electro-pop hit "Lookout Weekend" shifting seamlessly into The Cars' "Just What I Needed," it's impossible not to marvel at how the incorporation of such divergent sounds routinely spawns entirely new and wicked grooves. As the fearless Philadelphia DJ outfit Hollertronix has discovered, it's actually the surest way to bring down the house.
Wes Gully, aka Diplodocus, and Mike McGuire, Low Budget to Illadelph nightlifers, have forged careers as highly prized party-rockers through their uncanny ability to cross genres once thought to be completely contradictory. From '70s funk to '80s new wave to the southern crunk of now, it's all fair game for Hollertronix. Honolulu, a city long fabled for its inclusive, all-embracing outlook, will host the multifarious duo this weekend, as they lay it down at Indigo tonight.
Hollertronix
Where: Opium Den, Indigo, 1121 Nuuanu Ave.When: 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. today
Admission: $10 before 11:30, 21 and over
Call: 521-2900
While each had carved out a name for himself in the Philadelphia party scene for the past few years, it wasn't until LB and Diplo crossed paths at a gig in New York City recently that they truly hit it off. The Florida-bred Diplodocus' Dirty South rap selections caught the ear of Low Budget, who approached him after the show and struck up a friendship based on their eclectic, though surprisingly similar, tastes in dance music.
"Philly is the city of DJs, so we all know who's who out here," explains Gully. "It's the best place to learn and it's got some serious music history, especially hip-hop and DJ culture. I knew Mike was thorough and could rock more style than anyone else at the time. Me, I'm just mad-weird and idealistic, but together we're like flavor overload."
With such a liberal approach to DJing, it would have been easy for Hollertronix to be dismissed early on as trendy, fly-by-night mash-up jocks, were it not for the fact that, point blank, no one can quite rock a crowd like Diplo and LB. To see a dancefloor of thugged-out roughnecks and booty-bouncing hoochies gettin' busy to a crunked-up version of The Cure's "Love Song" is to witness the pure genius of Hollertronix.
"The only reason we incorporate so much style is cause I guess we, for real, are just postmodern DJs," relates Gully. "But we come out of Philly, so we have to be tight or we're gonna get clowned like a scenester DJ trying to rock a hip-hop club. We just bite it all and try and be vicious."
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