LAist: Understanding House Music

guest

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:58:13 -0800

Thank God for the Internet and cable - it's a great place to find House, Trance, Techno from around the world via Radio webcasts. Another great way to find NEW music is some of the great web sites for indie and unsigned artists, literally plugging away some nice dance music. They are out there and are quite good... Artistopia.com

guest

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:40:11 -0800

Los Angeles has one of the best EDM scenes in the world. Wake up.

Esther

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:13:00 -0800

The Defected.uk label is probably my favorite for gospel/soulful house. I'd also recommend Mark Farina's stuff as required repertoire. In addition to Da Funk, I'd pick an obvious example for 303 craziness Josh Wink's Higher State of Consciousness. :) As far as scenes, every city's got their own flavor, but it seems to me L.A. was a receiver of the migrant child that is house and other types of electronic music. Techno from Detroit, House from Chicago and New York, the Breakbeat movement from Miami, if you get my drift. Then of course you have Crystal Meth and whatever they called it (Big Beat?) in Vegas. The same could be said for the UK but when they got their share, they're definitely the ones who took off with it running. Especially drum n bass. Bottom line is, though, if you really look for a good scene you can find it. L.A.'s just too big to have a non-existent scene.

C

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:40:59 -0800

Bob - Thanks for your comment. LA's scene is definitely not on the surface like it is in SF or Miami... There has always been a thriving underground scene in LA, at least as far as I go back. I started spinning in 1990 and have been to hundreds of electronic music parties throughout Southern California since then. Some have been a lot better than others, of course, but if you look hard enough, I think you can still find some good stuff. Some of the best parties I have been to have been very small (100-200 heads, but there are huge massives going on all the time too, and pretty much everything in between. Peace. ©

caliking01

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:37:08 -0800

Luomo's cd from about 5 years ago is amazing Soul house too.

guest

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:27:05 -0800

Not everyone understands House music; it's a spiritual thing; a body thing; a soul thing.

Bob LLama

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:12:09 -0800

LA is just about the worst target audience for anything house. I mean the electronic music scene in this country is appallingly small, proportionally. But LA's can't even rival that of, say San Francisco or Miami. I was a house DJ for a number of years here, and all I can say is that rock has a stranglehold on this city. Maybe it's because most of the major record labels are based here, maybe it's because people here are so shallow (aka unwilling or unable to appreciate anything for its merits, but rather for its popularity)... The bottom line is that people in LA inherently reject most DJ music. Felix da Housecat or Derrick Carter can probably fill a medium-sized club here in LA. In Europe, they're playing stadium-sized venues and filling them to capacity.

Ali Miller

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:08:06 -0800

Ah man what a great idea for a segment. For a while the only way to learn about electronic music was through Ishkur: http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html