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Venue

Music Box

1337 India St., 92101, San Diego, CA, US

musicboxsd.com/

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Doors open: 21:00

Concert in your area for Electronic.

Find out more about Electronic.

Paul Oakenfold biography

Paul Oakenfold was born on the 30th of August 1963. Hailing from London England, he has been one of the music world’s most iconic DJs since the early 1990s, able to create hit songs of his own while being quite possibly the most in demand remixer in pop music.

The man might have begun DJing in the late seventies but his beginnings in the music industry proper were behind the scenes. His first major break was his job as an A&R man for Champion Records, a London based record label known for its soul and dance music.

He scouted his adopted home town of New York City, USA for talent and, unarguably, he found it. He didn’t just sign Salt-N-Pepa to the label; he also signed a little known duo called DJ Jazzy Jeff And The Fresh Prince. Yes, technically speaking we have this man to thank for Will Smith’s film career.

This would make a career in its own right but Oakenfold wasn’t done yet. In 1987 the success of a birthday party of his in Ibiza led him to create one of the first major acid house club nights in the UK, this was the time that he started being recognized for his ability as a DJ and in his downtime from the night, started putting together music of his own.

That spark of creativity became a fire in the late 80s and all of the 90s, where he was pretty much the UK’s biggest name in electronic music. His remixes for Happy Mondays were top five singles, he was invited to DJ at The Stone Roses’ legendary Spike Island concert and in 1990, he won a Brit award for his production on the Happy Mondays album “Pills ‘n’ Thrills ‘n’ Bellyaches”.

As the 90s continued, he played to 90’000 people at the 1995 Glastonbury Festival and his remix of the U2 song “Even Better Than The Real Thing” charted higher than the original in the UK, such was his popularity. Unlike many musicians popular in the 1990’s, however, he didn’t implode by the end of the decade.

2002 saw the release of his debut album “Bunkka”, it went on to sell one million copies world-wide and truly cemented him at the top of his game. Since then he’s done official remixes for everyone from Radiohead to Madonna, even stopping off in between to record his own version of the James Bond theme in 2002.

Oakenfold might just be the man who legitimised electronic music to the mainstream music world. And for that, he deserves the respect of any and every true music fan. He’s a legend, and he will be for a very long time.

The Crystal Method biography

The Crystal Method is an American electronica/ trip hop duo from Los Angeles, California consisting of Scott Kirkland and Ken D. Jordan.

While working as a DJ, Jordan was also working at a grocery store and where he met Kirkland; and eventually teaching Kirkland how to DJ. When Jordan moved to Los Angeles, Kirkland would follow them and thus The Crystal Method came to life in the basement of their new house in the early 90s. Eventually one of their demo tapes reached British DJ Justin King, who was looking to start a label to showcase American electronic dance acts. The Crystal Method’s first single, “Now Is The Time” was also the first release of City of Angels record label.

The duo was then signed with Outpost Records in 1996 and they immediately started working on their first full-length album. On 8 September 1997 they released “Vegas,” which fared extremely well, peaking at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 200 and then reaching certified gold in 1998 (eventually reaching platinum in 2007). In 1999 they returned to the studio to work on “Tweekend,” which featured guest artists such as Rage Against the Machine, Stone Temple Pilots, and Doug Grean. They followed up with a mix album entitled “Community Service” based on a radio show they had.

Their third album, Legion of Boom, was released in 2004 and peaked at number 36 on the Billboard 200. In 2005 the album was nominated for Best Electronic/ Dance Album Grammy award, and sold over 25,000 copies. In 2006 the duo composed the soundtrack for the film, “London” followed by a re-release of “Vegas” in 2007. The release of their self-titled album was unfortunately delayed due to Kirkland going into brain surgery; consequently, the album was released early in 2014.

Live reviews

Paul Oakenfold, at this point in his career, is a genuinely legendary British DJ, ranking alongside peers like Fatboy Slim in the rankings if we were to go by sheer influence; his unmistakeable brand of trance, which takes its own cues from so many far-flung touchpoints, is synonymous with the past three decades of British club music. He’s never really been away, either; since 1994, he’s turned out an impressive number of frankly visionary club mixes, and has repeatedly flirted with mainstream chart success, too; one of the finest examples of the latter, of course, is the superb ‘Faster Kill Pussycat’, which featured vocals from the late actress Brittany Murphy. What he’s probably best known for, though, are his live sets, which - if I’m completely honest - have been packing clubs up and down the UK for longer than I’ve been alive. Key to their appeal is his genuinely unique approach to dance music; he takes basic electro and trance sounds, blends them to form a bedrock, and then throws all sorts over the top; different elements of house, big beat sounds, and even remixed film soundtracks; it’s no wonder he’s held up as a genuine icon of the UK underground to this day.

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Joeg_67

The Crystal Method has the ability to make heavily catchy and danceable electronic music and to see them perform it live is almost indescribable.
Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan of The Crystal Method know how to make a show interesting. During live performances Scott and Ken are located behind their mountains of synthesizers blasting their original brand of trip-hop music that has made them so lauded in the electronic music scene. All of The Crystal Method’s music is highly danceable with loud, thumping bass and drums, and punchy synthesizer leads resonating over the pounding sound of the rhythm. The band also uses many samples and adds many effects such as delay and reverb to vocals to create psychedelic sounds. The music also has the tendency to build up to epic sounds. It starts from smooth electronic sounds and builds itself up to an ultimate crescendo where the whole crowd goes insane to the breakdown.
The light show is perhaps the greatest part of The Crystal Method performance. All kinds and colors of lights are flashing and strobing everywhere creating an entrancing and invigorating atmosphere almost similar to a rave. There are smoke cannons on stage that will spontaneously blast smoke all over the stage creating an epic vibe to the performance. There is also usually a video screen at the back of the stage during The Crystal Method’s performance that is showing wild visuals and psychedelic patterns. The crowd is always enthusiastic at the band’s performance by jumping up and down to the beat, and loosing themselves to the music with their fierce dancing. The Crystal Method is guaranteed to put on a fantastic show with great surprises. They always are coming up with interesting renditions of songs with their sampling, like the time they turned a Black Sabbath song into an electronic breakdown. Whatever The Crystal Method does visually and musically they can’t seem to do anything wrong.

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