i went to a gabber party and it was the worst shit ever

[Eric P]

gabber is dutch for mate.  it is techno turned to 11.  Ultra-fast, ultra dark, ultra-aggressive.

Here is the flyer for the party.  I have friends from DC in town and they wanted to see  drumcorps, which is a one man PA (public appearance which is when an electronic artist performs live rather than DJs music) involving aggressive drums and guitar and keyboard, having an almost industrial edge. 

http://www.myspace.com/barcore

I was up for it because it sounded interesting and I've never been to a pure hardcore party and we decided that if it sucked, we could walk a few blocks to La Poisson Rouge and catch Glitch Mob and DJ Rheka.

We show up to the party which was held in an infoshop/artspace (aka commie hang out), and the first artist up is Akon, which was basically really fast techno made up a kick drum going damn fast with an occasional hit or sample to break up the monotony.  Essentially it was built for speed and aggression.

They have a VJ who was doing image manipulation showing things like experimental short films interspersed with cgi psychedelia and occasional violent imagery.  Which was frankly a bit expected.  Hardcore, Gabber and Darkcore/Terrorcore focus on violent aggressive behavior and the music, cultural art and the video selections reflect that, but going into it informed is not really the same as experiencing it first hand.

There was another artist who did darkcore with strong overtones of violence against women while the VJ used clips of women being tortured and clips from horror films divorced from any context.  As a fan of horror films and books, I felt that there was a great disservice done to those films because it divorced them from all context and placed them into an attempt to give a sick thrill when coupled with the sexual and violent samples in the music itself.  It was disturbing to say the least, which while i can intellectually comprehend that, it was still quite different to experience in the dark under constant sonic assault.

One thing which really grabbed me by surprise was the amount of women there and people of color.  Gabber has picked up racist overtones in its culture (much like the National Front coopted Oi) and my impression was that it was a pretty exclusive culture (due to the imagery alone).

My friend was in the bathroom when a fight broke out that included someone getting a bottle to the face and losing at least a tooth (he said he saw bits of tooth and blood on the floor afterward).

Then we went to LPR and it was Douchey McDoucherton and all his friends there while Brooklyn residents performed parodies of DJ sets. 

Glitch Mob was pretty cool though.

http://www.xlr8r.com/listen/13750/mp3/Podcast_Mix_2007_10_04.mp3

[duckman2000]

Holy crap, this shit is still around?

Then again, I'm pretty big on noise and death ambient, so maybe I shouldn't pass judgment.

[Eric P]

There was another artist who did darkcore with strong overtones of violence against women while the VJ used clips of women being tortured and clips from horror films divorced from any context.

Ugh what the hell

 how big was the event? surprised no one gave a shit, especially the women inside. I can't even imagine how screwed up they must be.

/judgmental

If you take out the ultra dark ultra aggressive are you left with regular techno?

(The myspace page gives a clear vivid idea btw lol)

i don't know about how screwed up they are so much as possibly just desensitized.

the event was maybe about 30 people strong, which doesn't seem like much but the venue itself wasn't that large.

Holy crap, this shit is still around?

i knew it was still there on the periphery, but out of a city of many millions i don't think 30 really constitutes a scene.  well a scene but probably not a movement.

[patrickula]

Sounds terrible.

[Eric P]

the dress was more industrial.  women in latex, men with dreads etc.

there were a few people dressed in the track suit with bald heads but they were outnumbered

also the audience was pretty spread out.  early 20s to mid 30s

[T234]

the dress was more industrial.  women in latex, men with dreads etc.

there were a few people dressed in the track suit with bald heads but they were outnumbered

also the audience was pretty spread out.  early 20s to mid 30s

I dunno what the problem was.

If I lived in NYC, I think I would probably go off the deep end.

[Akala]

Hardcore (or any of the variants) never really got big in my city. There used to be parties that I'd hear about in New Orleans, but the first one I got around to getting to was in some warehouse and was raided like 30 minutes after I arrived. I really never tried to get to any more hardcore shows in unfamiliar territory after that. 

This is interesting to me because I thought gabber died years ago and was absorbed by the weird happy hardcore people. All the changes in the genre from when I stopped paying attention seem worth looking into, although I'm pretty sure it will make me feel old.  :'(

[tiesto]

Yeah, I didn't know gabber was still around, thought it was all that half-happyhardcore/half-trance type "freeform" or whatnot. I used to be online acquaintances with Omar Santana's (famous hardcore producer from NYC) brother.

Both Ferry and Tiesto got their start producing gabber before moving on to trance, and I'm sure there are probably tons of other Dutch trance artists who did too.