Redeye October 23 2003

Virtually yours: Some of the most off-the-hook events of the Oct. 17-18 weekend were promoted not (exclusively) by word on the street but by word on the superhighway. You’ve read about it in Rolling Stone, Spin and just about any other magazine featuring Ashton Kutcher in a trucker hat. So why not CL? __Friendster.com is an Internet epidemic so widespread you’ll sound like you’re in a Prozac ad discussing it. “He’s on it. She’s on it. Is everybody on it? I’m worried. They seem to be functioning pretty well. Should I be on it, too?”

Well, if you’re involved in Atlanta’s electronic/dance music community, you probably already are on it. Which is why Friendster proved so useful in promoting a widely popular reunion of sorts at Fairlie-Poplar “ultralounge” The Mark (nee Karma), and a last-minute appearance by the Netherlands’ Legowelt (along with Dutch label mates Orgue Electronique and Macho Cat Garage), held in a “private” residence two doors down from RedEye headquarters of all places. (Follow the white rabbit through the looking glass. And if you find yourself here, you’ve successfully processed the red pill.)

The former was a mammoth party attracting many one-time Karma regulars and featuring a range of resounding basement bump provided by the talents of several Friendster-registered DJs, including J-Stroke, Grant, Gnosis, Tim DeGroot, Jonathan Edwards and more. The latter was for 150 or so of the “slickest, sickest, sluttiest and sleaziest” fans of Italo-robo-disco-ghetto-booty-electro-funk-house.

Want to know more? Go to Friendster and locate The Mark’s Pablo or Plane Representation’s Carrie, click through the increasingly lessening degrees of separation, and you’re sure to be hooked up with plenty of people and places to go. I’m on there. Should I be worried? I seem to be functioning pretty well.

Reserve the date: RedEye’s running a little low on energy but not material, having just returned from a week-long stint barreling down I-5 in a van with local laptop producer Richard Devine. Touring a string of West Coast dates from Vancouver to Los Angeles with Devine and his Schematic Records label mates was certainly eventful. Look for an upcoming article chronicling the perversions and conversions; distorted music and distorted reality; insight, foresight, hindsight and blurred sight of the first five dates of Devine’s tour. It will be published in CL’s Nov. 6 issue to coincide with Schematic’s appearance at MJQ on Nov. 10__.

Keep one RedEye open, and send all comments, questions, observations and invitations to redeye@creativeloafing.com.