There's a lyric on the Arctic Monkey's latest album that keeps hitting pretty close: "Who wants to sleep in the city that never wakes up? Blinded by nostalgia".  As I was reading about Robert Hood's new mix being released, it hit me once again.  I certainly do live in a city "that never wakes up". 

In Columbus, Ohio we have this sort of collegiate attachment to modern art where current events are trended by a rotating 4 to 5 year stint at the Ohio State University or the Columbus College of Art and Design.  We don't really wake up here, so much as "roll around in bed" and get a glimpse of what's going on around us, not really experiencing things globally (unless your in business which is pretty big here).  I suppose this is fine, since I do like it here.  The city itself doesn't really have to wake up as long as I, myself,  feel awoken.  You don't have to agree.  Being from the midwest, this has been a popular theme in my life.  We have plenty of bright, motivated people and we're good at extending across continents.  I have my own sleeper cells across the world to tap when I need to.  ***Don't take that the wrong way NSA.  I am still talking about art and culture.

As for the nostalgia part, that's where Robert Hood comes in.  I said he took me way back.  I went to this party in Cleveland in spring 1995.  I hate to call them raves, because people get the wrong idea.  This party was named "420" and for two reasons:  it took place on April 20, 1995 and at the time it was (and I guess it still is....)  cool to reference 420.  Take that for what it's worth.  That was the first time I caught a true, legendary Robert Hood performance.  It wasn't one of those pitch black performances in Detroit where all you could see was intellibeams, smoke and a pair technics sitting on a stack of cinder blocks.  Not to downplay the Detroit locals in the 90's, but when you get the Cleveland Police involved and there are 15-20 cops onsite just to make sure no one blows anything up, you know there's something special going on.  That was probably the greatest time had in Cleveland for electronic music.  Robert Hood at the time wasn't even really that well known to me and the other 5,000 folks who were there.  Most of the crowd was drooling over the "Jungle Music" as it had its own room before it was called "Drum 'n' Bass".  And the house music arena was pretty much going off with the likes of Carlos (who I think was from San Francisco) when the Definitive label was taking shape out of Detroit.  But Robert Hood was making music with just his turntables that night.  He created an undertone of melody and beat that no longer matched the the actual records that were playing.  He tricked us over and over until we weren't quite sure what was happening.  Ok, so that sounds exaggerated, but it's true.  I carried around this cassette bootleg of the Robert Hood performance from that night for the next several years.  As many times as I listened to it, I never remembered or likened one part of the cassette to the actual performance.  For lack of a better phrase it was like techno-magic.

I probably still have that mixtape in my archives somewhere.  I'll have to track it down and convert it to digital for everyone.  Or maybe I'll just save it for my own self.  If I remember correctly the flip side was a live performance by Dubtribe Sound System from San Francisico.  Man, I can just keep going and going about that night.....  I'll stop there before I ramble on too much, but everyone gets the idea.

As for the Fabric series and Robert Hood's newest mix, I can't wait to hear it.  In honor, I think I'll drop some moveable parts for the mix show this week.  That's a great single.   Keep your ears open and let's hope I can dig it out.