Perfecto - Celebrity Deejay Oakenfold Will Put a Spin on Local Rave
By: Mark Richens richens@gomemphis.com - The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN
December 29th 2001 8:55pm
"Words cannot describe my feelings that night. It may sound a
little cheesy, but it was the closest thing I've had to a religious/
spiritual experience." Ask clubbers and partygoers worldwide about Paul Oakenfold, and
you might hear something like this posting on a forum on
midsouthraves.org, the cyber-salon of the area electronic dance-
music community. The British deejay, producer and remix artist has inspired many
such metaphysical epiphanies over three decades and six continents on
his way to becoming the undisputed celebrity king of dance music.
Oakenfold is the definition of the globetrotting, jetsetting
superstar deejay, rubbing elbows with the likes of Madonna and U2 and
playing for tens of thousands in exotic locales like Peru and Morocco
(in the past month alone) but staying close to the trendsetting
underground of vinyl collectors, event promoters and boutique record
imprints. When Oakenfold takes his spot early Sunday morning in Memphis
behind three turntables and a mixer, the scene at first glance may
not be that much different from the underground beginnings of rave
culture in Great Britain: the gut-shaking, 130-beat-per-minute pulse,
the teeming masses of sweaty dancers, the mind-blowing light
displays. But thanks to Oakenfold as much as anyone, the soundtrack
of that culture has become perhaps the world's most popular music,
transcending national, linguistic and class boundaries like few other
art forms. And the culture itself has become a worldwide phenomenon,
fusing music, dance and technology into a new form of expression. Oakenfold was one of the first deejays to be recognized as a major
performer on his own merits, opening for U2 on their 1993 Zoo TV
world tour. His remix of the band's Even Better Than the Real Thing
outsold the original. He was honored in the Guinness Book of Records
as the world's most successful deejay, and he and his contemporaries
helped make household words out of an out-of-the-way Spanish island
called Ibiza and an obscure stimulant pill called Ecstasy. Quite a
journey from his late teens, when he spun rare soul records at a
London wine bar and aspired to be a chef. As 2002 beckons, Oakenfold is not simply a deejay or producer. He
is a multimedia brand whose Perfecto imprint defines European-style
progressive dance music much as Sean `Puffy' Combs's Bad Boy empire
defined Clinton-era "bling-bling" hip-hop. In the past year `Oakie'
has seen a string of hit remixes (Afrika Bambaata's Planet Rock,
Madonna's Do You Know What It Feels Like For a Girl? and the theme to
Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes), constant touring (including a prime
spot on Moby's Area:One tour) and a couple of highly anticipated CDs
(the "Perfecto Presents Another World" mix and the soundtrack to
Swordfish). Now it's on to the final stretch of 2001, culminating in
a wild New Year's Eve double-header: a block party on Hollywood's
Sunset Strip followed by a trip to Las Vegas's House of Blues for an
after-hours event hosted by London superclub Ministry of Sound,
ending at noon New Year's Day. Playing Memphis, which has an enthusiastic and educated but still
relatively small dance music scene, shows that Oakenfold is serious
about continuing to spread electronica in this country, where it thus
far has failed to dominate the charts as it does overseas. Armed with the latest vinyl test presses and ultra-rare acetate
dubplates, he'll curate an epic two-hour exhibition of the dark,
brooding trance and breakbeat instrumentals that are ruling European
clubs, along with the occasional vocal track to help drive the
"massive" into spiritual experience territory. It'll be a fitting end of the year for the growing Memphis dance-
music scene. Standing strong amid law enforcement scrutiny and media
hype over drug use at events, the rave community presents maybe its
most significant concert of the year in Memphis. Silver Promotions Presents A Perfecto New Year kicks off tonight
with music by deejay Big Brown from Little Rock. Texas deejay and
Perfecto artist D:Fuse presents his brand of psychedelic trance at
midnight, leading into Oakenfold's "peak time" set from 2 to 4.
Stylus, resident deejay at Melange in Cooper-Young, wraps up the
party around dawn. -- What: Paul Oakenfold deejays at A Perfecto New Year -- When: 9 p.m. Saturday; Oakenfold's set is 2-4 a.m. Sunday -- Where: Shelby County Building at Mid-South Fairgrounds -- Admission: $30 - Mark Richens: 529-2332
 (C) 2001 The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
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