It’s been a minute since I’ve DJed at The Mermaid, long enough where I hadn’t seen how the corner near the DJ booth now looks like an underwater cave (see pic above). It’s super cute. Anyhow, last night was an open format set, so you heard everything from new Alison Goldfrapp and Tyler the Creator to oldies from Brenton Wood and Creedence Clearwater Revival to everything in between. Set list is below.
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One of the first things I learned as a baby DJ was that genres aren’t all that useful. On a very basic level, they can refer to stylistic conventions (dub) or specific movements (punk) or both (hip-hop), but then the terms get overused (post-punk) and are totally watered down (psychedelic) until they become a meme (goth) and, ultimately, meaningless (indie).
Genres define music for marketing or search engine purposes, but they don’t mean much for human ears. Whether or not songs fit together has less to do with metadata and more to do with qualities that are objective, subjective and pretty hard to describe. That’s all just a long way of saying that I really like when there’s no genre tagged to a gig, which is the case for Splash at The Mermaid, where I played last night. Here’s the set list, which includes new music from Wet Leg, Marie Davidson, Model/Actriz and clipping., classics from Max Romeo (RIP), The Smiths and The Delfonics, a holiday tune from I-F and more.
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Fontaines D.C. dropped a new track last week, “It’s Amazing to Be Young” and the song was one of two from the Irish band to turn up in my set for Splash! at the Mermaid last night. Another new-ish tune worth mentioning is “The Silence That Remains” by The Horrors, which is from their forthcoming album, Night Life. It’s out on March 21 and I’m really looking forward to it.
Recent releases from Optometry, Mogwai, Dustbowl Champion and FKA Twigs also made it into the Splash! set, but since there are no genre limitations for this night, I tend to play whatever is stuck in my head in the days leading up to the gig. Tracey Ullman’s cover of “They Don’t Know” was that song earlier last week until it was dislodged by the most persistent earworm I’ve had in a while. I’ll reveal what that song is tomorrow, but it is somewhere on this five-hour set list, so maybe you’ll figure it out before then.
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This Sunday, February 23, I’m back at The Mermaid in Little Tokyo for Splash! Catch me in the DJ booth from 8 p.m. until close, playing a little bit of everything. Seriously. Check out my previous playlists to see what has made it into my sets for this night without genres. The Mermaid is located at 428 E. 2nd Street in Little Tokyo. There’s street and lot parking, plus the venue is just a block or so away from Metro’s A/E station in Little Tokyo. There’s no cover, but The Mermaid is 21+.
As for the rest of this week, and early next week, some highlights include Kool Keith at The Paramount on Thursday, David Longstreth and Dirty Projectors on Friday and Saturday, DIIV in Ventura on Monday and Bon Entendeur at The Fonda next Wednesday.
Not surprisingly, there are loads of great movies back in the theaters this week, including screenings of Chungking Express at multiple theaters, The Juniper Tree at Philosophical Research Society on Saturday night and much more, so keep scrolling to get the list.
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FKA Twigs dropped a new album, Eusexua, on Friday. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole thing yet, but, I really like the song “Drums of Death,” so I tried it out to open last night’s set at The Mermaid and you’re probably going to be hearing it more in my sets. Splash! Sundays is genre-free, so the set ranges from ‘60s rock and soul to new darkwave and indie.
I woke up Sunday morning with “Silver Rings” from Matt Berry’s new album, Heard Noises, stuck in my head, so that made it into last night’s set, sandwiched in between Shocking Blue and Los Bravos. Other new-ish songs in the set include “No Longer Mine,” from South Bay soul group Thee Heart Tones, and Male Tears’ latest synthpop jam, “Little Doll.” Keep scrolling for the rest of the set list.
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The Legend of the Stardust Brothers is playing on one of the TV sets inside The Mermaid when I arrive. The movie is bonkers in the best way possible and, since it just started, I take that as a sign that tonight’s going to be a good night. And it is. I start playing a little before 8 p.m. and, not long into the set, someone starts dancing to Amy Winehouse, then continues through Freda Payne at Stevie Wonder. Someone else starts head-bopping to Talking Heads and the guy who was dancing to the soul jams sings along with Madonna.
Splash!, on Sundays at The Mermaid, is not a genre-specific night, so really, anything goes at the DJ table. For two-and-a-half hours, I jump across decades, from the 1960s until today. I work in “My Generation,” from the latest La Femme album, which I’ve been listening to on repeat since I bought it earlier last week, and two songs from Fontaines D.C.’s album-of-the-fucking-year, Romance.
The crowd ebbs and flows, as is usual at bars, but it’s always a vibe. A group sitting next to me ask about “Tears Run Rings.” It’s Marc Almond, I tell them, “y’know, from Soft Cell.” They don’t know. I realize that we’re at a point where young adult Angelenos don’t remember the good KROQ Flashback Weekends, when you could hear “Sex Dwarf,” and maybe even “It’s a Mugs Game,” several times before Sunday night came around. I think that my new calling might be preserving the legacy of Los Angeles as a city where Soft Cell is not a one-hit-wonder.
The Phantom of the Paradise is playing when I finish up my set at around 10:30 p.m. David and Stefano take over on DJ duties. (Go listen to their project Tibia, especially if you’re into synthwave.) They’re playing jams and I hang out for close to an hour after I play to chat with them and wait for the rideshare prices to drop. Camp Flog Gnaw, which was happening at Dodger Stadium, must have just let out because Lyft is a good $3 more than it normally is at this time and Uber is more than double it’s usual price. When Lyft finally comes down to a rate that I’ll settle for paying, I head home. I mention the show and the surge prices to my driver, who starts telling me about how much less the drivers are making now than pre-pandemic. He said the drivers are basically “fighting for crumbs” right now, which I understand, and which you probably get too, because that’s life in the 2020s if you aren’t the sort of person who can pay to make elections go your way. It’s a conversation that I’ve had with a lot of drivers lately, but this one ends on a hopeful note, and I think that this same conversation keeps happening is hope. It means that people are seeing that tech wields far too much power over our existence right now and things have to change.
But, anyhow, you probably just came here to see what I played last night, so here’s the set list. Maybe come out to a gig soon. Click on this link to see where I’m playing next.
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Sunday night, I played an open format set for Splash! at The Mermaid from 8 p.m. until last call. It started out as a quiet night, which was to be expected given the excitement of the past two nights in L.A. I didn’t mind the night’s slow start either, because it gave me time to DJ and catch up with friends who I hadn’t seen in ages and stopped by early in the evening.
At around midnight, though, a swell of people came into The Mermaid. Once I spotted the wave, I rode it and dropped the L.A. party bangers, like “Nowhere Girl,” “Living on Video” and “Send Me an Angel,” plus, of course “Blue Monday” and “Two of Hearts.” When I realized that we were close to last call, I slowed it down with the Art Laboldies. To give credit where it’s due, playing “Darling Baby” by The Elgins came via a dude who was blasting the song from his bike while cycling through Chinatown recently.
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I had just returned home after a meeting and noticed a text asking if I could fill in for the opening DJ set at Splash!, which was set to start in a little over an hour. I said I could get there at 7:45, then ran out, got dinner, ate half a banh mi, wrapped up the other half for later that night, grabbed my laptop and the controller that I had yet to unpack from Nocturno on Saturday night, scheduled a ride and showed up at 7:43 p.m., which was more than enough time to set up and get started at 8 p.m.
Since I still had my Nocturno folder loaded into Rekordbox, I played more of an alt. ‘80s set, with a few other random songs that I either happened to have on my laptop or was able to download quickly. It ended up being a great night. I met some super cool people, dropped some tunes I hadn’t played out in a while (“Get the Balance Right,” “Our Darkness,” “No More Words) and finished with Pia Zadora and Jermaine Jackson’s duet “When the Rain Begins to Fall,” from the sci-fi epic Voyage of the Rock Aliens, because why not?
Here’s the set list. I’m still scheduling August gigs, so I don’t know when I’m playing next, so follow on Instagram and I’ll the next date when I have it.
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It was totally last minute, but I filled in for Splash! at The Mermaid on Tuesday night, playing ’80s music from 8 p.m. until last call. I was in a Roxy Music, Japan and Duran Duran mood, which manifested in the set. Plus, I’ve had the Real Life song “Openhearted” stuck in my head on-and-off for a few weeks, so that made an appearance in the set too. Check out the set list below.
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Splash! is Dolce Vita’s new Tuesday night ‘80s party at The Mermaid. You’ll still hear Italo disco in the mix, but you’ll also hear new wave, synthpop and more subgenres of the decade’s dance music . I played for the first time since the rebrand for the first half of the night tonight and it was lot of fun to get to drop some of my Italo favorites (Ken Laszlo, Pino D’Angio) with a few of the ‘80s night standards (OMD, The Cure, etc.), some tunes that I don’t get to play out so much (Olivia Newton-John “Twist of Fate”) and a few tracks from the era that are actually new to me (Angelyne “Sex Goddess,” thanks to the Dark Entries reissue). Oh, and I was able to work in the best song from Voyage of the Rock Aliens (Real Life “Openhearted”), a movie I’ve been trying to write about for a while, but I still can’t make sense of it, which might be the point. My only regret is not adding Pia Zadora to my ‘80s virtual crate. Next time.
Also, it’s Christmas in July at The Mermaid. The tiki mugs in the top photo are part of the promotion. You can buy one solo or with one of the drinks on the Cocktails for a Cause menu, all of which have Christmas horror names, like Santa’s Slay. The mugs were so cute— my favorite is the sand/snow man in the center of the photo— so I had to take a photo.
Anyhow, keep reading for the set list. Seen you next on Friday, July 12, for Yeah Yeah Yeahs x Siouxsie Nite at Club Underground.
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