click to enlarge - Courtesy Of Ginny Cummings
- Andy Kershaw
Cold Cuts
Things are getting a little bit cooler over at Burlington's already chic-AF Deli 126. Though the relatively new speakeasy and sandwich shop is primarily known as a jazz haven, the club is dipping its toe into the late-night dance-party scene. Beginning on Saturday, March 2, a new monthly night called Deli Edits takes over the swanky venue. Recent VT transplant Andy Kershaw hosts.
Originally Boston-based, Kershaw is well known in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he spent the last 10 years. And if you happened to be at Club Metronome on October 7, 2018, you may have seen him behind the decks as part of Sunday Night Mass' 20th anniversary series.
In December 2016, after he'd been living in the Bay Area for eight years, Kershaw found his life permanently altered. His wife, Amanda Allen, was one of 36 people who lost their lives in the infamous Ghost Ship fire. The artist collective housed in an Oakland, Calif., warehouse caught fire on December 2. It was the deadliest blaze in the city's history and forever changed the landscape of the Bay Area's DIY arts scene.
"I never thought I'd leave the West Coast," Kershaw tells Seven Days. "But I needed to get out of there. I found that the tragedy was defining me too much out there. That was the beginning of the journey that [led me to] Burlington."
Kershaw was no stranger to Vermont before heading west in 2008. He gigged in the Queen City somewhat regularly during his previous life as a Boston rave DJ. Even then, in the early 2000s, Kershaw felt an affinity for Burlington.
"When I was younger and coming up here for gigs, there was something much different [about Burlington]," he says, pointing out the similar, laid-back vibe shared by Burlington and northern California.
Kershaw is a notable DJ in SF's underground club scenes, as well as the manager of record label 3AM Devices. His primary modus operandi is the elusive "edit," hence the name of his new residency.
You might wonder what defines an edit, exactly. I admit that despite having many edit-style remixes in my digital library, I've never thought too much about what distinguishes an edit from any other kind of remix.
"They call them edits if they're basically true to the original [song]," Kershaw explains, noting that edits are all about extending a song and amping up its energy with streamlined beats rather than chopping it up and putting it back together.
You can hear for yourself this weekend and every first Saturday of the month for the foreseeable future.
Nobody Told Me
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I need to get something off my chest. I recently experienced a natural part of getting older: the realization that the music that was all the rage in my twenties is now so old that it's the basis of theme nights. What blessed me with this epiphany? An upcoming show, on Thursday, February 28, at Burlington's Club Metronome.
Dubbed Somebody Told Me: 2000s Indie Night, the event features live performances from local indie-pop outfit Full Walrus as well as Brooklyn five-piece Barrie. But, given the event's branding, the main attraction is the concluding dance party. Expect the event's host, DJ SVPPLY, to hit the decks with a hot selection of the bands and artists that fueled the blog boom of the 2000s. Think Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Postal Service, LCD Soundsystem, Rilo Kiley and, of course, the Killers, whose first major hit, "Somebody Told Me," gives the party its name.
It's funny. When you're in your twenties, it just doesn't occur to you that a mere 10 years into the future, your favorite contemporary music could be fodder for a theme night. You think, This music will endure and remain relevant, and that will never, ever change. But it will. You will get older, and the thing you thought was cool will fall so far out of vogue that it will shoot past passé and land solidly in the realm of fetishism and nostalgia. I guarantee it.
Take the Just Like Heaven festival, for example. The upcoming two-day rager in Long Beach, Calif., features Phoenix, Passion Pit, Miike Snow, Neon Indian, Washed Out — basically all of the electro-pop bands that were blowing indie-heads' minds 10 years ago. And now they're all lumped together into a festival. You know what that same festival would have been called a decade ago? Every major North American indie music festival.
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not vexed. Thursday's event sounds like a hoot. It's just funny that these grand life realizations come when you least expect them. Just Like Heaven and Somebody Told Me make me yearn for my days living in San Francisco. Back then, a dear friend and I cohosted a pirate radio show, on which we played all of the 2000s indie acts. Those truly were, for me, "the good old days." And as Andy Bernard says in the series finale of NBC's "The Office," "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." I couldn't agree more, Andy. It's a conundrum.
By no means do I think that this era was the pinnacle of popular music. It's painfully clear that the 2000s were not a very inclusive time. Nearly every band that I mentioned above is primarily white and male. There's still such a long way to go on that front, but, judging by Coachella's 2019 roster — or, locally speaking, the 2019 Waking Windows lineup — progress is being made.
The bottom line is that nights like Somebody Told Me at least momentarily keep the music of the era alive and, maybe, something close to relevant. And for those of us who hold a special place in our hearts for Bloc Party and Hot Chip, it's nice to know that these kinds of events might become a regular thing.
Listening In
If I were a superhero, my superpower would be the ability to get songs stuck in other people's heads. Here are five songs that have been stuck in my head this week. May they also get stuck in yours. Follow sevendaysvt on Spotify for weekly playlists with tunes by artists featured in the music section.
Twin Shadow, "Brace (Featuring Rainsford)"
Starsailor, "Good Souls"
PREP, "Cheapest Flight"
Rina Mushonga, "Pipe Dreamz"
Guster, "Don't Go"