Tag Archives: Kraftwerk

Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Moogfest Pt. 3 (Asheville, NC–4/25/14)

Giorgio Moroder speaks at a panel (Photo courtesy Moogfest)

Giorgio Moroder speaks at a panel (Photo courtesy Moogfest)

Although Moogfest ran for five days, I only truly availed myself of three of them. Sunday’s program, it should be noted, did not run late into the night as did the other days.

On Friday, April 25, the big draw to the show as legendary producer Giorgo Moroder. The 74-year-old Italian synthgod is still working hard, and he was scheduled to make three appearances at Moogfest on Friday–on two panels and one performance.

Unfortunately for me, he didn’t make the panel I caught. It actually was a film and accompanying discussion. Moogfest has within in a small “film festival” as well, screening various Moog-related films around town, and Friday afternoon the Orange Peel screened Scarface. All of the songs sung by Debbie Harry or Elizabeth Daily or others in Scarface were written and produced by Moroder, and he was one of the musical arrangers as well. So the idea was to watch Scarface and then discuss the importance of the soundtrack and score to the film. We received a report, however, that Moroder wasn’t feeling well and skipped the panel in to keep up his strength for his DJ gig that night. So we’ll get back to him in a bit.

Other than Giorgio Moroder, the big draw for Friday was two performances by Kraftwerk. The German quartet put up two shows back to back at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, and they both went very well. I caught the first show, which was very good indeed. Doing so compensated somewhat for the fact that I had to miss them at the 9:30 Club two weeks earlier.

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Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Kraftwerk @9:30 Club—4/4/14 (By Christine Hall)

Kraftwerk graphics (Photo by Christine Hall)

Kraftwerk graphics (Photo by Christine Hall)

(Editor’s note: Long-time Kraftwerk aficionado Christine Hall was kind enough to report on last week’s Kraftwerk concert — a very important show indeed — as yours truly was out of town.)

Robots! Space travel! The Autobahn! For those who yearn for what was once “the future,” Kraftwerk’s sold-out, two-show, 3D spectacular at the 9:30 Club on Friday, April 4, was wondrous.

The best part was the man in the machine.

The artistic concept is impressive: four man-machines in matching neoprene uniform-jumpsuits (in an irregular, phosphorescent grid), expressionless and stationary before (luminescent-trimmed) cuboid synthesizers, making robot-music, accompanied by retro-3D animation (and some black-and-white film sequences).

Versions or elements of the show were previously presented at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, London’s Tate Modern and Munich’s Lenbachhaus. Visually, the 3D animation, ca. 1980s/early CGI, is thrilling to behold (through good old-fashioned 3D glasses), especially when a flying saucer bears down on you with unsettling urgency (see: Spacelab) or a giant man-machine head peers around and speaks at you rather eerily.

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Music, The Features, We Love Music
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The Winning Ticket: Moogfest @ Asheville, NC, 4/23-4/27/14

Moogfest_1_29_7
We at We Love DC are no stranger to ticket giveaways! But today we have a very unique opportunity with a pair of general admission tickets to a respected music festival that takes place not too far away from our fair city.

We are giving away a pair of tickets to Moogfest in Asheville, NC, on Wednesday, April 23 through Sunday, April 27.

Moogfest 2014 celebrates the synthesizer, and the slate of headliners scheduled to appear this year cross genres and boundaries as groundbreaking artists. The five-day festival features three performances by German pioneers Kraftwerk as well as a dance party featuring disco legend Nile Rodgers and his band CHIC.

You may recall Rodgers recently collaborated with Daft Punk on their Grammy-winning album, Random Access Memories, as did Giorgio Moroder, who will be on hand as a DJ and a guest lecturer. Performance artist Laurie Anderson will present her solo show, “The Language of the Future.”

In addition to these strong headliners and dozens upon dozens of other bands, Moogfest only yesterday announced the addition of the Pet Shop Boys, M.I.A., Flying Lotus and Dillon Francis to the lineup!

Asheville, where synth inventor Bob Moog spent the last 30 years of his life, has been home to Moogfest since 2010. The pleasantly idyllic metropolis hosts Moogfest across a number of venues, including The Orange Peel, one of the most famous concert venues in the country. If you’re up for a road trip, Asheville is an easy seven-hour drive from DC.

For your chance to win these tickets, simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 5pm today. Feel free to leave any comment, but perhaps tell us what Moogfest artist you would most like to see! One entry per email address, please. Tickets for this show are also available through Ticketmaster.

For the rules of this giveaway…

Comments will be closed at 5pm and a winner will be randomly selected. The winner will be notified by email. The winner must respond to our email within 24 hours or they will forfeit their tickets and we will pick another winner.

The tickets must be claimed with a valid ID. The winner must be old enough to attend the specific concert or must have a parent’s permission to enter if he/she is under 18 years old.

Moogfest
U.S. Cellular Center Asheville
Asheville, NC
Wednesday, April 23, to Sunday, April 27
$199-$499
All ages

Entertainment, Music, Night Life, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Deadmau5 @ 9:30 Club 7/28 & 7/29

Photo courtesy of
‘Deadmau5’
courtesy of ‘Max Cook’

Joel Zimmerman aka Deadmau5 played 2.5 concerts at the 9:30 Club last week. After delivering stunning shows on Wednesday and Thursday nights, Deadmau5′ set on Friday night was cut short when he vomited and passed out on-stage. Immediately after his performance the night before, Deadmau5 posted “God damn… What’s wrong with me now? Ugh… Me no feely so good” on Twitter. Sources indicate that on Friday Zimmerman had been vomiting back-stage before the show and that he tried to tough it out before collapsing. After passing out, Zimmerman was immediately hospitalized, diagnosed with exhaustion, and the next day it was announced that the remainder of his world tour has been canceled.*

I was not at the Friday night show. I was, however, at the concerts on Wednesday and Thursday night to witness the Deadmau5 techno-spectacle road-show first hand. Since debuting his new stage show at the Coachella Music Festival back in April, Deadmau5 has been touring hard around the world with an incredible show that blends electronic music and digital visuals better than almost anything else I have seen.** His aggressive campaign to take the crown for best electro-concert experience has been relentless and I’m afraid has now taken its physical toll on him. With each show, Deadmau5 makes his case for best dance concert experience with an astonishing display of visual fireworks that envelopes and overwhelms you while his bass-heavy House/Electro beats toy with you like a sadistic cat would a dead mouse. For fans of performance spectacle, the tour is a visual feast. For dance music fans, Deadmau5′ current tour is about as close to nirvana as it gets.

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