In 2010, Mark Ronson, who enjoyed a great deal of commercial success this past year with “Uptown Funk,” produced an album for Duran Duran.
In working with the new wave legends, Mark basically said to the band: A lot of younger bands have been eating your lunch in the past 10 years.
As Simon LeBon told the Village Voice last week, “We were listening to this stuff like the Killers and Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand, who kind of have an Eighties sound, and Mark said, ‘You’re one of the originals of this sound; you should have it. It should be yours.’”
The resulting Duran Duran album was a critical and commercial success, but more importantly it demonstrated to me what was so great about Liberation Dance Party, the former weekly DC9 dance party that its creator Bill Spieler now resurrects every two months or so.
So many bands today take their cues from legacy bands that hit before them, defining and refining the sounds that make up the subgenres of rock and pop that we all enjoy so much—psychedelia, neo-psychedelia, punk, post-punk, new wave, shoegaze, dreampop, Britpop, house, etc., etc.
And Liberation Dance Party often has been a laboratory for exploring those sounds. Particularly with its focus on music videos, Liberation Dance Party to me always has been like a party celebrating an updated MTV culture, where you could tune in and see an exciting new post-punk song alongside a great new soul or house or hip hop number.
This Saturday, Bill will have music videos for you on the DC9 middle floor, while I’ll be visiting on the roof, presenting songs from my own collection that fit the Liberation Dance Party mold while reflecting my take on the modern sonic musical evolution. Lunch provided by Mark Ronson! — I’m kidding about that last part, but you will hear his fingerprints all over some of the stuff I’ll be playing.
Pay cover at the door, and RSVP on Facebook. You also can follow Bill’s Liberation Dance Party mixes on Mixcloud!
Liberation Dance Party
DC9
Saturday, August 8
Show @11pm
$2 before midnight/$5 after
21+
