DJ Masonic with Jeff Grubbs; Kerem Gokem; DJ aFugate - Wednesday February 17, 2010 - WYEP

It may not be obvious but this post connects to the next one I will write as DJ Masonic is the DJ moniker of Mason Bates, the composer of the major work on the Pittsburgh Symphony's weekend program. I was not planning on attending any of these shows but got roped in by Markus and my own ears after streaming some of Mason Bates' classical compositions.

My friend and honorary cousin, aFugate was the opening dubster. The music he creates (?), channels (?), mixes (?) with mesmerizing visuals is quite intense, fairly in your face (definitely in your eyes). At one loll between numbers, he bemusedly looked out at the audience, asked if we were doing OK and noted that "this isn't really sit down music". Yes, we in the audience were sitting on our asses, drinking our complimentary beer or wine and munching down pizza and pierogies. This confirms again how important context is in the producing and experiencing music. In a club or hall with young people who have come to move, you would have had a throng of bodies synced up with the music and visuals. Anthony does play some live percussion with his music and actually is responding to it himself in his movements. His music is quite visceral and does call that forth.

Kerem Gokem was a different kind of DJ. His music was generally quite chilled out and as he changed things with his computer and mix board, he looked like a technician rather than a musician. Perhaps he was responding to the context and decided not to get in our faces and let us be comfy on our bums.

DJ Masonic was somewhat like Kerem in the way he presented to the audience. One twist was the he had Jeff Grubbs, bassist from the Pittsburgh Symphony, playing live with him. Mason noted that they had just met an hour before this show so there wasn't time to actually rehearse. While it took them a few minutes to get into a groove together, once locked in it was something to see and hear. The DJ Masonic mix was at times overtly jazz, with sax solos, etc... Jeff mostly played pizzicato with some bowing mixed in. I don't think of PSO musicians as able to improve but Jeff was impressive in his lively and inventive bass lines. DJ Masonic clearly was playing off and with Jeff though again looked like a technician. He could have been updating his facebook page and we would not have known it in the audience.