LA's Low End Theory club...roadblock

Last Wednesday, Mary Anne Hobbs, ex-BBC Radio 1 DJ and Ted speaker, came to Los Angeles as a guest DJ. She was on the billing at Low End Theory, the bass-driven, dub-step loving, low-tempo club that has sparked a worldwide revival in head-nodding!

Residents of Low End Theory read like a who's who of the scene: Daddy Kev, The Gaslamp Killer, Nobody, D-Styles and MC Nocando. Read more about the club (affectionately named after the seminal Tribe Called Quest album of the same name) at the LA Times.

LOW END THEORY Video for Qetic from Qetic Channel on Vimeo.

Roadblock and U-turn  Little did I know that arriving 45 mins after the doors opened was a sure way to wait in line behind 100 clubgoers! And the club doesn't look that big! Should I have known? Well, school is out, Mary Anne Hobbs is a fave of this scene  and may be EPROM, the other headliner, is big too. What I do know is that I didn't wait in line. Instead I returned home and downloaded the podcasts to enjoy in the comfort of my "yard."

Moral of the story  You can't sleep when you're trying to outpace 100 tweeting youngsters. Get connected! ;) And check out those podcasts...there are 20+ of them, including Mary Anne Hobbs.

Resources

• Low End Theory radio:  Check out this Last FM radio channel dedicated to the resident DJs and various artists who have featured at Low End Theory over the years.  

• Low End Theory podcasts: download the podcasts (I recommend iTunes)

• Mary Anne Hobbs's mixes and podcasts 

Hot MARY ANNE HOBBS Cloudcasts on Mixcloud

L.A.'s Beat Music catches heat in the U.K.

Low End Theory club, Gaslamp Killer, Flying Lotus...these are all names familiar to me, but I didn't know about the "beat music" label attached to it all.

What's it sound like? Beat music is an equal measure of chillout electronica, jazzy niceness, dub step and broken beat mixed into a blend of head-nodding vibes!

And BBC Radio 1's very own Mary Ann Hobbs has been pushing these tunes to the U.K. radio listeners, club goers and even Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who eventually collaborated on a track for one of the genre's leading artists, Flying Lotus, on his album Cosmogramma.

Sample this! Words can't do justice to this beat music sound so here's a taster of L.A.'s beat music scene selected by the "First Lady of Bass" (as electronic music magazine XLR8R called Mary Anne Hobbs) and streamed courtesty of N.P.R. For all five tunes compiled by Mary Ann Hobbs click here.



Extras If you want to hear more from Flying Lotus and his connection to Alice Coltrane (jazz musician, composer and wife of the legendary John Coltrane,) here's last week's radio interview with him that explains his influences and ongoing role in L.A.'s beat music scene.



And here's a video trailer from the, yet-to-be-seen, Low End Theory documentary.