I named my cat wrong.

I was invited to a private party on a Thursday night not so long ago. A swanky new artist had his gallery showing in london and for the after party the gallery asked him what entertainment he wanted. So 5,000 odd pounds later the gallery got Luciano to play for the night in a very swanky bar/club just off regent street in london. Usually the hang out for celebrities and people that arrive in Limos, this party was Swank with a capital S. So swank they had several maids attending the bathrooms that were made of Crystal. And no I am not joking. Even the urinal. Really, I pissed on crystal.
So doing the good kiwi thing I rocked up drinking bottles of beer on the street, wearing jandels (thats flip flops for you english idiots) and looking and feeling somewhat out of place. Luciano and his crew (his crew being all of the Phonica people) came on push bikes.
As far as I can tell everyone else probably showed up in Hummers. I went in and it was all free drinks and the like and 'glamourous' girls who looked ridiculous. You know the sort. Gold shimmery dresses that are too short and skyrise high heels. One day I really wanna chop 2/3s of the way thru some of these heels and watch one of these stupid cows topple over 45 mins into wearing them, then laugh at them while they flail around on the ground looking like fish with their scale-like dresses.
The bar itself probably held about 100-130 people. The decks and serato were set up in the corner with no monitor and the sound system was shit. Luciano came along and made them get in a monitor and another speaker for the dance floor and we were off. He started off quite techy and moved onwards into some housier numbers passing thru Abe Duques 'What happened' and a Recloose track. So far so good. Mixing was tight, but very short. 2 to 4 bars at best. Every single mix he would high pass fiter the playing track heaps, then bring in the new track, drop the bass on that, pull the other one out. There was an overall overkill of filter all night really. Now, the people who were on the floor, Phonica people, The artist and his mates, my group. We all know our stuff. Luciano knew we did from various people speaking to him and the fact that all of Phonica and their mates were there. But he continued playing music that was just getting worse and worse. He played Heater, which was alright but so overplayed over here now its not funny and from there on it was all downhill. I mean really downhill and I mean really bad music. ie. Whitney Houstens I wanna dance with somebody bootlegged together with Kraftwerk. I shit you not. There is a couple of other goodies (baddies?) but I tried to wipe the shitty music from my memory banks. It just got worse though. That fucking abomination of a track that goes 'Absolutely everybody, everybody' was another lowlight. Nothing like his sets online, it was all just really bad pop song remixes. I tried to look for the irony in it, you know how Michael Mayer plays cheesey music but those Kompakt boys play it in a cool and ironic way, and they are usually pretty good tracks anyway? But I couldn't see any. What was so funny, is that apart from a few people who were looking disgusted most people, including everyone from Phonica were still practically sucking his cock, which is laughable cause I know if you went into there store and asked for some of those tracks they would laugh in your face and spit at you.
Anyway, you know the scene from Terminator 2 when Sarah Conner sees the world explode? Well thats what it was like for me. I sat in the corner in disgust. Then I left.
Now. The first 2 hours was awesome, so thats ok, and perhaps he was just playing down to the crowd? Although if all members of staff from one of the most respected (supposed to be anyway) electronic record stores in London was at a gig you were playing at would you dumb yourself down? Also......It flummoxs me that he even owns such music? At heart is he a total cheese fest. The last hour of his set would have been more at home on a ministry of sound compilation rather than something from Cadenza. Actually I dont even know if some of the Ministry of sound people would play music as shit as he got.(Thats a total exaggeration, of course they would. They are some of the biggest cunts the world has to offer.)
Luciano Dumbing himself down. I was so confused. ...and startled...and feeling dirty.
I named my cat wrong.