A moment with LCD Soundsystem

It was like Christmas in the summertime. Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem playing together at the Hollywood Bowl. Oh my. This is going to be seriously fun.

I like the Arcade Fire, but pour moi this one's all about James Murphy and the gang cranking up the disco machine. It's one of those shows that had me all geeked-out in front of my computer at precisely 9:59 a.m. the morning tickets went on sale. Good times.

I've been hot on Murphy's trail for a while now. I saw one of LCD Soundsystem's first shows in Miami during the Winter Music Conference a few years back. They were opening for the Rapture, just fresh from the explosion that was "House of Jealous Lovers." Both bands brought it, but there was something special about LCD Soundsystem that night.

The last time he brought the band through Los Angeles, LCD followed a triumphant Coachella set with a sold out three-night stand at the El Rey. I randomly bought a ticket for the middle night. This would turn out to be a very good move on my part.

The show was what’s becoming for LCD customarily awesome. For me, the highpoint was when they tore through a cover version of Paperclip People's "Throw." Loooong story there, but it's a classic Detroit techno tune produced by Carl Craig. The band covers it faithfully, and on that night, they straight killed it.

So imagine my excitement with KCRW's super-fun Rachel Reynolds invited me down to the studios to watch LCD record a session for "Morning Becomes Eclectic."

I got there just in time to see the band launch into "Time to Get Away." It is one thing to hear the band play at a show — seeing them do it in a small radio studio is another thing entirely. The intricacies of the songs open up like mid-period Talking Heads. Murphy is hilarious between songs. He even called out the Chemical Brothers for "stealing" two Grammys from them. Classic. 

After the show, he was gracious enough to chat. He pointed out that he had the t-shirt I was wearing from Chicago’s Life During Wartime dance parties. I complimented him on his version of “Throw.”

“Oh, you must’ve gone to the middle night. That was the only night we did that song.”

And that’s why it was a good thing I got tickets for the middle show.


The picture above is one that I took at the LCD Soundsystem show at the El Rey.

The picture below is one that I took of James Murphy(R) with KCRW DJ/producer Raul Campos