Remix-loving characters get down to RAC, Classixx & Cosmic Kids

Reviewing DJ sets isn’t an easy thing to do, unless it’s a producer with an album or more of work in their quiver that the crowd can identify with. So in reviewing this show, which featured remix specialists RAC, Classixx & Cosmic Kids November 15th at the Mezzanine, it comes down to describing the command of selections, the vibe of the room and the people that were there.

I arrived during the Cosmic Kids set, and they might have been my favorite set of the night. Their sound is deep, heavy 90’s influenced house that blended seamlessly from one song to the next. Cosmic Kids kept the Mezzanie dancing without interruption, and their use of flow really impressed me.

At one point I saw a blacked out girl with a half-shaved head putting her head down and plowing through people just standing there yelling “I’m empowered!” really angrily. No one knew what the fuck she was talking about, or what she was on, but I would like to think she was high on Cosmic Kids. In reality though, judging by how much she was sweating and the nonsense she was yelling, I think she was probably on some serious uppers and not even aware she was at a show.

Classixx between Two Ferns

Next up were Classixx. This was my fourth time seeing them, and I always really love their shows. Their sound was more tropical disco, which went along nicely with the potted palm trees they had flanking the DJ booth. I saw them a few years ago open for Cut Copy at The Echo in LA, then again at V Lounge in Santa Monica opening for The Twelves and Grum. Between those two sets they had improved immensely, and their Mezzanine continued the upward trend.

The show flowed really well, and the crowd seemed to be really into it as they played a few of their remixes and originals, plus tracks from other producers. The person who seemed to be into it the most was a guy with a haircut that I can only describe as Post Apocolyptic Fabulous. It was like half a star on the right side of his head trailing into a sideburn, one sideburn, while the rest was shaved bald. This guy was going off to Classixx, presumably because if you have a haircut that looks like it was given by an epileptic Karl Lagerfield, you reserve the right rage like no one’s watching.

Classixx ended their set with their track “I’ll Get You,” which is one of the first tracks that really got the daytime disco sound going with U.S. born producers. It’s a few years old but always a jam, no matter what party you’re at, and it gave them a strong end to the show.

This is RAC

Next up was RAC, and everyone went nuts once they started. RAC is so prolific with their production and remixes that they could have just played their own material, and they pretty much did, sprinkling in other great tracks of the moment and songs they are into. “When You’re Dancing” is their own track that seemed to get the most people moving, and their remix of Foster The People’s “Houdini” brought the place down.

They dropped Marcus Marr’s “The Music,” a track with a funky bass line that has been getting a lot of support from DJ’s lately, and the Mezzanine crowd approved. There was a girl holding a library book and dancing with it, and she was trying really hard to make a library book the next must-have accessory at a late-night dance club.

It’s an awful picture, but you can sort of make out the book in the girls hand in the bottom-center. I was too much of a pussy to just walk up and take a flash photo of her from two feet away.

She seemed to be enjoying RAC and doing the most actual dancing, and not just jumping or fist pumping. When I finally left just before the show ended, she was still out there clutching “To Kill A Mockingbird” and getting down for all the literate dance hounds.

All in all, this show delivered and the crowd kept me interested and laughing, even when there were intermittent lulls or down points, which were few and far between. Check out any of these acts if you get a chance to see them.

This artsy bum-ster was outside with a typewriter, just typing in the rain as we left. She may have been Book Girl’s literacy accomplice.