A new spin on high art

Electronic music is often associated strictly with the
subcultures surrounding it, from hip-hop clubs to raves to basement
turntable parties. But, particularly in Los Angeles, growing
respect is being given to electronic and dance music as art worthy
of attention in its own right. It’s getting attention not as
a subculture, but as high culture. DJ styles are being accepted
into more traditional arenas in Los Angeles’ art world, and
spinning and DJing is starting to occur in museums, prestigious
music halls and the top music schools. KCRW’s World Beats
Concert held earlier this month placed the electronic music pioneer
Paul Oakenfold on stage with world music acts including
UCLA’s Samulnori Drumming group, creating more of a
multicultural outdoor concert than a rave or club show.
Oakenfold’s performance was the first time rave-style music
was performed at the venue, which previously kept away from most
kinds of electronic music. “The Hollywood Bowl is like a
museum,” said Jason Bentley, who hosts KCRW’s
electronic music show “Metropolis” and also hosted the
World Beats Concert. “It’s usually reserved for
classical music and the people there are really selective about who
performs, so it’s saying something that they would have a DJ
like Oakenfold play. It was definitely the most civilized rave
I’ve ever been to.” Electronic music is also finding
outlets in Los Angeles museums and art houses. The Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art has been regularly featuring DJs at its
exhibit openings. On July 26, MOCA is bringing in hip-hop DJ Z-Trip
for its Boo-Hooray art and music festival. This summer, the Getty
Center’s music and performance-art series is dominated by
DJs, from Algerian-born DJ Cheb i Sabbah, who mixes ragas and
electronica, to conceptual artist DJ Spooky who, according to
publicists at the Getty, specializes in “electro-modern
funk.” The Hammer Museum in Westwood has also recently
brought turntables through its doors. As part of the exhibit for
multimedia artist Christian Marclay (see sidebar), the Hammer is
hosting a series of DJ and experimental music performances in their
center courtyard, usually set aside only for traditional world
music or jazz performances.

A Changing of the Guard This increased artistic attention to
electronic music can partly be attributed to two trends: The
artistic establishment is reaching out to audiences that are
younger, and electronic music fans are getting older. You
don’t have to look farther than the ubiquitous Hollywood Bowl
advertisements around the UCLA campus to see that Los
Angeles’ artistic institutions have recently become more
interested in attracting teenagers and twenty-somethings. By
embracing electronic music, with its associations to cutting-edge
experimentation and youth culture, institutions like the Hollywood
Bowl and the Hammer Museum can make a stronger bid for younger
patrons. But while electronic music helps the arts community reach
out to younger audiences, electronic music fans themselves are
getting older and looking for outlets where they can play and enjoy
electronic dance music or hip-hop beats, but in a more adult
atmosphere. “I still play rave events, that part of it is
still important to me,” said Bentley. “But I’m
getting older. A lot of the people who listen to electronic music
want to see a future for the music that goes beyond just the
underground scene.” As electronic music fans grow up, they
are also becoming more influential in the art community. “I
know there’s at least three ravers on LACMA’s Graphic
Arts Council,” said Bentley. “As our generation gets
more influential, you’re going to see (electronic music fans)
becoming city council members and public figures and more of a part
of the artistic establishment, which is going to make electronic
music a more important part of the art scene.”

… And the Rest Will Follow Though it would seem that to
perform in such traditional art institutions would require DJs who
are used to performing at pulsating clubs to tone down their set
for the more low-key setting, playing in art houses and museums
seems to actually fuel many electronic musicians’ creativity.
The more traditional artistic outlets tend to be more receptive to
experimentalism than the often picky club floor. Performing in a
museum allows DJs to explore different directions with their music
without having to worry about keeping the audience moving.
“Usually when I’m performing, I have to provide some
specific ambiance,” said Daedelus, an L.A. DJ who performed
last month at the Hammer. “With the Hammer show I could go a
little crazier, I didn’t have to worry about what beat would
come next.” Unlike a typical club show, the DJs perform with
the audience focusing all their attention on them, often not even
dancing but quietly sitting and appreciating the music’s
complexities. “When you’re writing music for the dance
floor there’s a whole different set of criteria,” said
Steven Webber, a professor at the Berklee School of Music.
“You have to keep the bodies moving and you have to keep a
direct emotional link between the DJ and the audience.”
Oakenfold’s show at the Hollywood Bowl also revealed the
freeing aspects of playing in a more traditional venue. Oakenfold
brought in different elements of a club set, a rave and a world
music concert without being restricted to a single performance
style or structure which would have been the case had he been
performing at a more typical electronic music venue. “The
music scene has been great recently, and I put that on our art
scene,” said Daedelus. “It gives us overground avenues
to play our music, rather than weird raves or parties where you
just don’t get the same sort of treatment.”

“Old School” in the Classrooms Perhaps more telling
than electronic music’s growing importance in the artistic
establishment is that it is being embraced by the academic
establishment as well. Several top universities, including UCLA,
have begun offering courses on the social and artistic facets of DJ
culture and electronic music. For the last few years, UC Davis
Professor Michael Cagley ““ also known as DJ Destiny ““
has been teaching DJ culture and hands-on techniques to students,
covering everything from hip-hop, to house, to drum and bass.
Boston’s Berklee School of Music, one of the most prestigious
music conservatories in the United States, has begun holding
sessions to decide whether it should add turntablism to its course
options. Berklee Professor Steven Webber is the chief advocate for
bringing turntables into the conservatory. “So far, spinning
has been ignored by music colleges,” said Webber. “But
it is clearly an art form in and of itself, and we’re going
to see a real shift in the paradigm as this kind of music gains
more credibility.” Webber has taken steps to further
establish the turntable as a credible instrument through his book,
“Turntable Techniques: The Art of the DJ.” In the book,
Webber translates scratching, cutting and beat-matching into
standard musical notation that is used for any other traditional
instrument. “When the Beatles were first performing, they
never wrote down their songs,” said Webber. “Just how
we saw that transition in rock, we’re seeing it now with
DJing. It’s just taking the style one step further.” It
might seem that putting spinning into such a standard format
wouldn’t sit well with DJs who value creativity and
unconventional styles. But these efforts to turn electronic music
into a traditional art form have been embraced by electronic
artists. “People who are really serious about this music
aren’t going to complain about this kind of shift,”
said DJ Destiny. “Some of the top DJs, guys like DJ Qbert,
have used that kind of schematic approach to spinning for awhile.
Anything that pushes this culture forward is going to be
accepted.” This is by no means the first time such debate
occurred over whether a music style was truly an art form. In the
1950s a similar dispute was circulating at conservatories trying to
decide whether to incorporate jazz into their curriculum, and a
decade later they came around to the idea of treating rock music as
an art in itself. Now, as electronic music follows in the path of
these established music styles, its growing acceptance may come as
a surprise to some, but for others, wide respect for DJing seems
like an inevitability. “I feel like we all knew this was
coming,” said Webber. “It’s just such a huge
movement, there’s so much energy around this culture that
this style of music was going to be accepted no matter
what.”