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For too long,
electronic dance music has been the domain of studio-oriented
British artists schooled in Detroit techno and Chicago house.
American originals The Crystal Method are helping change that with
their bristling brand of electronica - played live as well as on
record - which stems from a love of rock, hip-hop, electronic and
soul. The Crystal Method's Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland helped
re-establish America's place on the dance music map with the
acclaimed 1994 City of Angels single "Now Is the Time," which
married samples and sound bites with pulsing breakbeats and
electronically generated hooks. Several singles, compilation
tracks and remixes later, The Crystal Method started recording
songs for Vegas (Outpost Recordings), their debut album, released
Aug. 26, 1997. The two first worked together as DJs in their
hometown of Las Vegas, but it was a move to Los Angeles that
precipitated the band's surge to the forefront of America's
burgeoning electronic dance movement. After "Now Is the Time" made
them an underground sensation, The Crystal Method were asked to
open an L.A. show for England's up-and-coming Chemical Brothers
(then still operating under the already-in-use Dust Brothers
moniker) in January 1995. "I was scared to death because I'd never
been in a band or anything. I was visibly shaking," Jordan says of
his first live experience. "But several beers later, we calmed
down a little, and it was great. Even though it was our first
show, we totally tried to decide what kind of live act we'd be -
whether we'd just bring our studio on stage or if we'd do it more
as a performance. So we pretty much went the performance route,
and we ended up having an excellent crowd response." The Crystal
Method have since balanced their time precariously between the
studio and clubs. Besides sculpting distinctive songs and remixing
tracks for Moby, Black Grape, Keoki and Zen Cowboys, among others,
the duo has set dance floors ablaze spinning discs from Toronto to
Florida and from Seattle to San Diego. A gig at Boy George's
London club Smirk in June 1996 garnered accolades from crafty Brit
crits quick to notice similarities between The Crystal Method's
high-octane breakbeat electrono-rock and music coming from
England's digital denizens. "We know we're different," Jordan says
of the comparisons to other electronic bands. "We're more
song-oriented and more melodic. That's not to say bands who don't
write or record music that way are doing anything wrong, but this
is the way we approach things. There are similarities between us
and AC/DC, too, you know?" According to Kirkland, growing up amid
the flash floods of popular music genres in the 1970s and '80s
helped shape The Crystal Method's blend of everything from soulful
grooves to rock flourishes to bouncy trip-hop to quaking drum and
bass. "My parents were young when they had me - my mother was 15,"
he explains, "so I was raised with my mom listening to disco and
my dad listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Then I got into
heavy metal and then Depeche Mode." Jordan cuts in: "Zeppelin and
Stevie Wonder influenced us more than Aphex Twin." Their eclectic
background is exhibited on Vegas in standout cuts like "Keep Hope
Alive." Originally released as the duo's second single for L.A.'s
independent City of Angels label, the song features a sample of
Jesse Jackson's rousing speech at the 1992 Democratic National
Convention, spliced, diced and mixed in with careening sonic
washes and a breakbeat that's got more kick than an outraged mule
on amphetamines. Speaking of drugs, don't jump to any conclusions
about the band's name based on Vegas tracks like "Trip Like I Do,"
"Vapor Trail" and "She's My Pusher." The name actually derives
from a woman named Crystal whom Jordan and Kirkland simultaneously
had a crush on. "A friend of ours, a rapper, heard about our
little dilemma and blurted out, 'Ah, the Crystal Method.' We just
liked the way it sounded," Kirkland explains. The duo does,
however, have something of a clandestine lab rigged up in the
two-car garage on the property of the house they share in
Glendale, Calif., but it's not for manufacturing illicit
substances. The Crystal Method records, produces and mixes music
created on keyboards, sequencers and samplers at this facility,
dubbed the Bomb Shelter because of a relic in the front lawn left
over from the Cuban Missile Crisis. "Our studio looks like some
science fiction control room," Kirkland says. "It's a weird little
capsule we've created where we sit in our chairs with wheels and
bounce from synth to synth and pull out all these old effects
pedals when we're inspired." Jordan adds: "We've soundproofed it
pretty well, and we have the 210 freeway in our backyard, so that
provides cover." Kirkland agrees: "It works out really well
because we could be up late working on a big, beefy track, and you
could walk outside and not even know anything is going on. It's a
very suburban, family-oriented neighborhood; you go out in the
morning and kids are playing and neighbors are walking their dogs.
It kind of brings us back to reality." The music reverberating off
those soundproofed walls eventually made it to tape and then into
the hands of Justin King, a DJ from Great Britain, who was looking
to start a label that would showcase American electronic dance
acts. He teamed with Scottish transplant Steven Melrose to form
City of Angels. "Now Is the Time" was the label's debut single. It
was also the first salvo in a barrage of high-energy, techno-laced
tracks that came to include a remix of "Now Is the Time" by Secret
Knowledge, whose Kris Needs spruced it up with bludgeoned samples
of Motцrhead. Outpost Recordings executives soon took note of City
of Angels' inventive roster, which also includes San Francisco's
Mephisto Odyssey, San Diego's Chop Shop, L.A.'s Uberzone and
others, and formed an alliance with the label in February 1997.
According to Outpost, a representative Jon Sidel, who signed The
Crystal Method, Outpost initially became interested in the band in
September 1996, months before major magazines started proclaiming
electronica the "next big thing." "The sound these guys made was
different," attests Sidel. "I listened to every electronic band
out there, and I compared each one to The Crystal Method. Ken and
Scott had more of a sense of songcraft, and they are the best at
recording and writing these types of records." Vegas bears this
out. With infectious, propulsive beats perfect for dancing,
thoughtful, sultry melodies suited for home listening, and vocal
snippets that add humor, spirit and sometimes political insight,
The Crystal Method offers America a first-rate electronic dance
band of its own - even if some persist in equating Jordan and
Kirkland with their contemporaries across the Atlantic. "We don't
compare ourselves to what the European electronic groups are
doing," Jordan allows. "If they move ahead in making America a
little more receptive to different genres of music, and if they
can help make people not so afraid to dance, that's great. But
we're not counting on them to pave the way, and I'm sure they're
not counting on us either." "We're so disconnected from them,"
Kirkland affirms. "We love music, so we pay attention to what's
happening in Europe because there's some really great music coming
from there. But it's a whole separate thing from us as far as the
creative side of it. We just go into the studio and make music
that's right for The Crystal Method, and if anyone else digs it -
cool!"
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