Star Eyes
Clad in T&B T-shirt and drug store vampire cape, Star Eyes, the only female member of DJ collective Trouble and Bass, was having an excellent birthday.
“I’m eating a red velvet chocolate cake that tastes like the blood of Hello Kitty,” she yelled over the pounding dub step. “Want some?”
Cartoon blood was an apt metaphor for the night. The basement of The Annex was crammed past max occupancy with celebrators not only of the lady’s birthday, but of DJ Atrak’s new release via grownup (but not “adult”) toy manufacturer Kid Robot: a bad-ass polar bear complete with psychedelic igloo and rapidly dissolving acid tab on tongue. More abstractly, we were celebrating a harmonious collaboration between frenemies Fool’s Gold Records and Trouble and Bass, as well as the thrill of partying far past any responsible hour from a Wednesday straight into a Thursday.
Star Eyes wasn’t the only one invoking blood metaphors. Patrick Rood, a.k.a. “The Captain,” paused in the hallway to wipe his brow. “All our parties have been so wild lately. Hot and sweaty...I feel like I’m bleeding from my eyeballs.” With little breathing room, many revelers resorted to that techno dance where you stand in one spot while bouncing up and down and throwing your hands in the air like you just don’t care. A bit awkward, but it got the job done.
Standing at the bar next to me, photographer/producer Che$$ said he was annoyed that the free vodka had run out far before it was supposed to. I asked him about the Atrak toy’s nerd factor. “Nerdy is cool now,” he replied. “In the ‘90s, everyone wanted to be like Mike. Now, everyone wants to be like Spike. It’s the resurgence of weird.” His black-framed Spike Lee glasses—as well as those of many Elvis Costellos, Rivers Cuomos and Tina Feys of dubious prescription milling about—backed this up.
The music was also fashionably weird. Nick Catchdubs of Fool’s Gold gleefully described it as a combination of dub step, bass line and other genres descended from drum and bass. “There’s commando netting on the turntable...this is the opposite of what New York has become,” he said. “The Gossip Girl culture has rubbed off on the kids. They wanna be on some Lindsay Lohan shit.” What of the friendly competition between his label and Trouble and Bass? “We all have the same goal: making music on our own terms. It’s nice to be able to do things differently.”
Before leaving, I asked the birthday girl if she’d be getting any birthday action. “Something like that,” she demurred. “Just put ‘wink.’ It depends if I’m the trouble or the bass...at 3 a.m., I become the bass.” What? “Your birthday doesn’t really stop until you go to sleep.” Well, that clears that up.
anonymous
