Review: Diplo and Dark Meat in Athens

Headed up to my old stomping grounds of Athens, GA this past weekend, in order to see Dark Meat and Diplo play the 40 Watt. My main motivation was to see Diplo, who has done some remixes that I've been pretty crazy over, and whose debut LP "Florida" was a favorite of mine during my days in the ATH. And, of course, I'm sort of a stan for M.I.A., whose initial success has been largely credited to Diplo (despite her protest to the contrary in some interview I read, which I don't really buy). I was also curious to see Dark Meat, who I first witnessed perform at the Flagpole music awards a couple of years ago. I recall really enjoying that performance, if only because it was so completely insane and over-the-top. The band created a complete spectacle, as its members filled the Morton Theatre with a cacophony of sounds, emitting from every instrument ever invented, and a parade of strange, drunk, dancing (gratuitous) townies. I remember the music being ok, too. So this combination of artist-that-I-like plus band-that-sort-of-intrigues me lead me to make the drive to Athens. That, and the fact that it was a beautiful summer night, and I wanted to do some drinking after a long week.

First, the bad news. Dark Meat was really terrible. I haven't heard any of their recorded material, which have actually gotten some good reviews, but live, all that came across was a wall of dense, indecipherable, uncomfortable noise. The first time I saw them, they played in the very large and acoustically-friendly space of the Morton Theatre, and, while the sound was huge and messy and loud, one could actually discern the various individual sounds: the horns, the guitars, the basses, the strings. It was all part of a big mess, but it wasn't intolerable, and you got the impression of hearing a grand, strange orchestra playing obnoxious bar rock, which was, in a way, kind of cool. At the 40 Watt, on the other hand, the sound just reverberated around the room to such an extent that, not only could I not discern the various instruments, I could not even discern chord changes or melodies. It was literally a wall of awful noise, like one continuous terrible rumble echoing infinitely throughout the bar, all set to a visual image of a lot of pretentious townies bouncing about self-seriously on stage.

Harsh, I know. But there are a couple of factors that lead me to judge Dark Meat harshly. The first one is entirely petty. The main guy in the band--the one who stands center stage and sings, etc.--was the biggest asshole server ever. He used to (still does?) work at this pretty great restaurant in Athens called 5-Star Day, and he was one of those guys who, no matter how respectful you were to him when ordering, no matter how sincerely you said please and thank you, he treated you like you were an annoying, uncultured frat boy, relative to his sophisticated, hip, indie rock individuality. Now, to be fair, this is a pretty common attitude among Athens-area hipsters, who long to be the compatriots of their Williamsburg counterparts, yet lack a borough in which they can be truly comfortable in their pre-fabbed idiosyncrasies, ever-surrounded by the cultural proletariat of the average college student riff-raff. But, because we ate at this guy's restaurant fairly regularly, we were subjected fairly regularly to his hipster hate-stares, and, while I guess we could have just stopped going there, I couldn't get enough of their eggs Benedict, so, I just sucked it up.

The second, and related reason that I cut Dark Meat no slack is that I feel they have largely insulated themselves from criticism by the adoption of (a) gimmickry and (b) an ironic stance. With regard to gimmickry, the band has drawn a great deal of attention to itself simply by the fact that they fill a stage full of strange people and strange instruments, such that, truly, there is nothing else quite like them out there. As Diplo himself said in an interview with Flagpole magazine, he was drawn to the band principally because he thought they were "weird," and, besides, he wanted to come to Athens to party. So, regardless of whether their songs are any good (or can even be discerned from their performances), Dark Meat is given a free pass by many, who just like to see something "weird." At one point during their performance, the singer/mean waiter announced that the next song was "9 minutes long:" oh man, that's so wacky! I thought, sarcastically, to myself. With regard to the band's "ironic stance," by their sheer strangeness, they are able to shrug off any criticism by announcing a "bad on purpose" aesthetic. Upon reading an article like this, I can imagine one bandmate laughing out loud and nudging another, like "he says we're a 'terrible wall of sound,' fuck yeah!" High five!

Diplo, on the other hand, was something else. I saw him perform sometime back here in Atlanta (at MJQ maybe?), and, on that night, he completely rocked the crowd. Not only is he highly skilled in the technical aspects of transitioning from song to song, blending beats, etc., but he also has a great ear for choosing songs that move a crowd. He moves about very quickly on stage, from laptop to turntable to turntable to mixer, constantly adjusting the mix and preparing for the next move. Despite the intense energy of his physical movements, he maintains a calm, expressionless face, creating the impression of great and easy concentration as he seamlessly brings his high-energy, bass heavy sounds together. In that sense, Diplo is almost the polar opposite of Dark Meat: no gimmicks, a minimal stage presence, and a total reliance on the quality of the sounds, with no need to adopt any sort of ironic stance to dismiss criticism.

And, on a personal note, I have to admit, with some embarrassment, that Diplo strikes me as the coolest (and I don't mean "nicest," because, hell, I don't even know the guy) guy possible. His life of making dance music that people love, traveling the world to DJ at exotic clubs, collaborating with new and exciting artists, partying a lot, being very popular: is there any downside to this? This near James Bond lifestyle seems frighteningly perfect, and is probably the sort of thing that a lot of guys (especially guys) wish for their own lives. So maybe my views of these two acts are driven, in part, by my predisposal to identify with Diplo's image and sound, and my countervailing bad personal impression of the personalities and "philosophies" of the members of Dark Meat. "The personal is political," as they say, and I suppose that same concept holds true in terms of our artistic tastes.