For any heads out there who like to move their bag of bones to a different beat, Orange County can sometimes be a very boring place. Interesting electronic dance music—whether spun, performed, arpeggiated or otherwise—is a rarity in these parts, but there are positive signs that a change is afoot. Thanks largely to the shadowy 19th Street Movement—a loose group of DJs and scenesters that's forged such weekly residencies as Avalon Bar's Acid Girls and Awaysted Youth nights—the kids can dance again. And now the same people who brought the beat back to OC present a rare West Coast appearance by the DJ collective Rub-n-Tug.
Formally known as Thomas Nicholas Allen Bullock and Eric Z Duncan, these NYC remix kings initially gained notoriety for throwing after-parties that flew in the face of the neo-con makeover New York City continues to endure. The Rub-n-Tug name was then transferred to their unique remix project, where the duo succeeded in transforming drunk-sorority-girl dance-floor standards into master-and-servant whip dances that all must obey. Since then, they've also reshuffled the musical DNA of Roxy Music, Out Hud, LCD Soundsystem, the Beastie Boys, Sly Mongoose, David Gilmour Girls, Coldplay and !!!
But Rub-n-Tug are best enjoyed live, whether it's to hear them take the dusty River Rock of Steve Miller and the Grateful Dead and add throbbing electro-house beats or plunder the latest No. 1's in Indie-land and re-edit them into a sort of robotic dub/punk/funk. This is the sound of a bearded discotheque adventure, where dirty prog and analog disco rub shoulders and bump uglies. You'd be a bloody idiot to miss out.
Rub-n-Tug at the Avalon Bar, 820 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 515-4650. Fri., 9 p.m. Call for cover. 21+.
