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Moog instruments above all are meant to be played. Part of Moog’s legacy is electronic instruments that are really workable in a live setting, making electronic music into an event rather than (or, as well as) an abstraction. Special Disco Version, the DJ project of James Murphy and Pat Mahoney (formerly of LCD Soundsystem), playing Moogfest on October 30, is also an incarnation of an idea—bringing you to the party their other music always suggested.
LCD Soundsystem had a classic formula “dance-music dynamics at rock-music speeds,” as Nitsuh Abebe aptly summed it up in his seminal goodbye to the band back in March. The formula wasn’t groundbreaking, calling to mind electro-rock bands from Devo to !!!, but man was it well executed. In albums featuring lead-ins, segues, power cuts, and outros—true compositions rather than the mere hit parades most pop records constitute nowadays—the band told stories with highs and lows that gripped us, made us snicker to ourselves quietly when we heard them played in bars and made us dance in our chairs at work when we listened on our headphones.
For some kind of ultimate party, some sort of endless, fun, evolved disco in the sky where all the local heroes go when they die.
LCD Soundsystems’ live performances were similarly well-composed. As a New Yorker, I have suffered through more awful shows in Madison Square Garden than I care to remember, hearing acts from Nine Inch Nails to Depeche Mode foiled one after another by the awful acoustics of that cavernous arena. Somehow, in LCD’s final show there, James Murphy solved the puzzle.
LCD songs draw you in with ideas and jokes. The lyrics aren't exactly poetic or witty—more suggestive and authoritative, perhaps fatherly or unclely. The image of the band in my mind is always of a tired studio tech insisting on one more take to get the track just right, or a late night DJ on a college station carefully explaining the significance of a lost pop music gem. LCD songs also make me think of all the jaded New York stars moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, as rich European people move in to gentrify each one in turn. "New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down" was the swan song of the tough, canny worldliness that comes from watching one edge-of-the-slums neighborhood after another sapped of vitality by fashion and money. It may be all over now, but for those of us who just can't accept that, LCD was like a last hurrah or a rallying call.
But a rallying call for what, exactly? For some kind of ultimate party, some sort of endless, fun, evolved disco in the sky where all the local heroes go when they die. That's what I imagine when I think of Special Disco Version: the great dance party we're all looking for when we troll through promotional websites or traipse through the neighborhood looking for something to do.
One interpretation of DJing is that it's a performance of taste, so who could possibly pass up a DJ gig by the people who wrote "Losing My Edge" and "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" (or who founded DFA Records, for that matter)? LCD Soundsystem taught us, basically, that the future is a dance party—perhaps Special Discco Version is it.
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