By: Neil Munshi
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Cansei de Ser Sexy - Photo by the Rock 'n Roll Star
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Ain't nothing better than a hotspot Monday night dance party on the hottest damn day of the year. At the Varsity this week, Diplo delivered just that, with a little help from baile funk quintet (3 MCs, 2 DJs) Bonde Do Role and indie-popsters CSS — Brazilians, the lot of 'em. Suffice it to say, had the A/C been bumping half as hard as the music, we would have been freezing our asses off. As it was, the Varsity — in all its laidback bohemian charm, easily the best small venue in the Cities — was populated thinly enough to give the weary a chance to sit and the charged enough room to get down.
CSS, or Cansei de Ser Sexy (Portuguese for "Tired of Being Sexy") bounded on stage after Bonde spun a tight set. Word is the mastermind behind the group is the only (and presumably alpha) male, Adriano Cintra, but it's his five devilish ladies who provide the spark that keeps CSS burning on stage. As a whole, the girls — all aged in their 20s — resemble either: a) rejects from a casting call for The Warriors, cute in a hell's belles sort of way, or b) a female, Euro-styled version of The Strokes, but replace the girls' jeans on the fellas with guy shorts on the ladies. Or maybe I'm just being redundant.
Opening band or not, lead singer Lovefoxx writhed and jumped and danced spastically all over the stage and out into the crowd. (Think Bjork on crack and you're halfway there.) If there was a focal point for the energy — giddy, funny, kitschy and campy, much like their well-received eponymous Sub Pop debut — the Foxx was it, dressed in gold leggings and a tan tunic, split down the middle vertically by a rainbow swath of fabric. The rainbow striping ended up in a long, Beaker-style turtle neck, which Lovefoxx proceeded to play around with as she sang. It was impossible not to picture this chick wearing a helmet, strapped to the jungle gym with Mike Myers in that Phillip skit on SNL — not at all a bad thing. It's said the band started as a joke, which is easy to tell; but these tunes are so utterly danceable, the lyrics so ironically over-the-top and the band so full of let's-get-this-shit-going energy, ain't no one laughing at them.
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Diplo - Photo from his MySpace page
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After CSS, Diplo came on stage and, frankly, blew up. Diplo, he of M.I.A.-producing and –romancing fame; Diplo, one half of Philly's Hollertronix; Diplo, born in the Dirty South but teeming with Brazilian beats.
Bobbing and weaving behind his decks, while a screen behind him played the videos for the tunes he was spinning, Diplo threw together divergent genres like MacGuyver — give this cat the a cappella of a baile funk tune, the guitar lick from an 80s monster ballad and the beat from Jay-Z's last jam and he comes up with some shit that will explode. There were new songs like Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous," classics like The Beatles' Ed Sullivan version of "Twist and Shout," TV on the Radio's "Staring at the Sun," some Missy Elliot, The Bangles, and hell, even The Cure. It's a testament to Diplo's talent that none of these songs sounded forced or foreign out on the dance floor. He played them off each other, over and under each other for a sort of layered sonic-scape in which new bled into old into foreign.
Mash-ups and their creators are long overdue for a major upswing in perceived credibility (Grey Tuesday was years ago, and was as much political statement as affirmation of Danger Mouse's genius). Cropping songs, chopping them up and mixing them together to create something unique is a skill that should be promoted not only as meritorious on its face, but also as an inherent part of the DIY aesthetic upon which music should be based. Joe Blow in his basement in Idaho should be able to create his own music, even if it is cribbed from the musical canon. Diplo is a prime example of where Joe Blow can go, the heights he can achieve, and the people he can get shaking their asses on the hottest Monday of the summer.
Location Info:
First Avenue
Artist Info: Bonde Do Role, Cansei de Ser Sexy, Diplo
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