Demon Days review (I was actually lucky enough to attend)

Demon Days
Mezzanine, San Francisco
09 February 2007

Demon Days is being touted as the best underground party in the world by the those perpetually unnamed sources known better to us blokes as the people-in-the know. With limited tour stops in Detroit, Chicago, New York, as well as SF (where co-creators Gamall Awad and Car first enthusiastically met way back in 1991)only a select few of us will get to be in-the-know this year, for which we are thankful.
The February stop of Demon Days came shortly after the release of a podcast mix from the previous party in Detroit on Samurai.fm. Carl Craig’s mix from that party was filled with tribal house monsters like Dennis Ferrer’s smash “Transitions” on Defected (I’m with you indeed) and vastly different than the set I saw him play at the BG club in Amsterdam at last year’s ADE. What would Carl be playing in SF at the cozy confines of Mezzanine, a far more underground space than other SF hotspots like Supper Club and Ruby Skye?
When we first arrived we were treated to the sounds of DJ Gamall, a proponent of digital DJ’ing, who would experience some of those cliched technical difficulties that killed the music momentarily and left clubbers feeling listless and hissing catcalls about laptop DJs. He quickly brought the energy back with the skills of a true pro rocking a great set of Euro-influenced bouncy, minimal tech house with nods to dudes like Carola, Holden, and Borrato. My wife definitely thought Gamall’s programming was spot-on and by far the best of the night -and she’s one to know such things. The crowd swelled to a sea of heads when Norway’s Hans-Peter Lindstrøm followed dropping the sounds of nu disco. His energetic laptop performance and an ill selection of his sex-drenched Italodisco had me and the rest of the throng movin’ and groovin’ like it was 1999. The tempo of Lindstrøm’s set increased exponentially from the loungier side of things to the more electro tinged sounds that have won indie rock approval. Eventually he found his stride and destroyed the dance floor with some of the sleaziest new disco grooves ever laid down. Sadly, I was wishing for more of the sleaze but Lindstrøm was simply toying with a crowd already hyped up for him. Carl Craig came on at 1AM and kept the dance floor moving for three full hours. There was a slight flutter in the programming where I felt he lost the momentum but as soon as the spacy arpeggios of Nathan Fake’s “The Sky Was Pink” came floating in the crowd knew it was on again. Wave after wave of new school and old school dance floor assaults came as Craig controlled the energy of the tasteful and energetic crowd. “Strings Of Life” garnered many cheers as well as obscure U.R., Nitzer Ebb, and Basic Channel reworks by Craig himself.
Demon Days was like Detroit landed in the Bay for the night, reminding those of us old enough to remember how the world once looked to America for great parties. However, with Lindstrøm’s decidedly European flavor, DJ Gamall’s Sheffield roots, and of course Carl Craig representing all of us punters here in the good ol’ red, white, and blue, Demon Days is truly a nexus in the future of dance music. A future where there is simply a globalized spectrum of sounds and styles representing the best of both worlds. I cannot wait for the next installment in June.

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