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Dan Deacon, High Places and Golden Axe – - Friday 20 February, Cassette Number Nine

By David Skipwith

Last Friday Auckland venue Cassette Number Nine provided the altar from which American party-preacher Dan Deacon delivered his good-time sermon of crazy-cutesy humour and equally quirked electronic dance beats.

Supported by Brooklyn based experimental duo High Places and local electro-weirdo lovables Golden Axe, the night was invariably locked on the FUN setting.

With my evening running behind schedule I arrived at the venue too late to see Golden Axe. Having bared witness to many of their shows, I was assured by others they had again pleased all with their nerdy sci-fi multimedia house party style.

Chris Cudby and Dave King’s keyboard based noise-pop show has been a firm and popular feature among a diverse range of indie and art scenes since around 2004. The masked duo is equally comfortable at a fluro rave house party, punk rock show, DJing club and party sets or sharing stages with the Mint Chicks.

When international electro-artists like Mr Deacon stop by, Golden Axe are turned to as deserved local reps of that skewed style of party music and attitude. Golden Axe possess a quirky and enviable artistic bent and sense of fun that wins audiences over and aligns fans of diverse scenes in agreement of their coolness. Such style is widely imitated but rarely bettered, both here and abroad. I should have arrived earlier.

You move on from these setbacks however, and I did arrive in time to catch the next act, Mary Pearson and Rob Palmer of High Places. The pair lay out an atmospheric sound-scape of bass-driven jungle rhythms and beats, working together and taking turns leading the way. The two blend and loop samples and use different percussion tools and drum pads while Pearson’s ambient vocals rise above, tweaked and moulded to suit with delay and reverb. High Places was well received without ever drawing more than pockets of the audience into much of anything other than a bit of head bobbing, yet this nodded more to the laid back atmosphere of their sound rather than an inability to inspire.

It was with much anticipation then, that we awaited the return of the upbeat party theme of the evening, with Dan Deacon taking the floor. And he did so literally, shunning the stage and taking his sequencers and keyboard down among the masses, as he is notorious for doing so.

The man only had to open his mouth and speak, winning the crowd over before a note of music had been heard, with his revivalist preacher persona melting the crowd into his sweaty little hands. He spoke with the drive and conviction of a party-ready Brian Tamaki, directing the crowd into a series of actions (“stick your arms up and reach for the ceiling as haaarrrd as you can!”) and various fun-filled chants.

Deacon proceeded to launch into a fast paced set of electro party tunes made unique by the constant involvement of his audience. Each tune was accompanied a new joke or game, such as the tag-in/tag-out dance-off between crowd members, and watched by an audience encouraged to sit on the dance floor until the contest was settled and a winner declared.

Crowd enthusiasm was in the extreme, Deacon having to momentarily ask for some calm and for the audience to step back from his teetering equipment. They did so of course, but things were about to get weirder.

Cassette Number Nine and their neighbours in Vulcan Lane were subject to the writhing mass of a human snake-gauntlet, where at Deacon’s behest the crowd formed two parallel lines linking arms, under which the snake-like mass danced on through to continue the chain once arriving at the other end. This merry dance was taken right through the bar and down the stairs past bemused looking security staff, looping out into and up Vulcan Lane and back again. It was a scene to behold.

The snake run dance had a somewhat calming effect on the crowd who returned to watch the remainder of the set in an almost complete state of bliss and contentment. Deacon brought the party and Auckland lapped it up.

Contemporary indie dance parties carry a great sense of humour and tonight was evidence of this. It will be interesting to see how much of this particular type of underground party/dj scene is adopted and re-appropriated for mass consumption in the coming years, and whether artists like Golden Axe or Dan Deacon can move beyond their homes within the relative music underground and out into the wider electro music scenes. Whether they even want to is another matter. I just felt like a whole lot of people didn’t even know what they were missing.

-David Skipwith