My first (and somewhat lasting) impression of the LA edition of this year's block party is that the boys from Philly have finally 'made it' now that they've moved out to the west coast. It's gone somewhat corporate. I remember the first block party in Philly; everything was free-food, drinks, merch-all free. This time around there were serious food trucks, and giveaways were sporadic and temporary.
My second impression was that the 'block' they selected was too long and narrow, meaning a substantial amount of space went unused and another substantial amount of space around the booths and such was out of reasonable hearing distance from the music. This worked nicely when you wanted to relax, but made the experience somewhat more disjointed than the Philly editions have generally been.
My musical impressions (to the extent that I remember them) are as follows:
- A live set from Major Lazer is everything it's cracked up to be. Diplo spun literally everything, mixed into that very specific electro-reggae vibe, and Skerrit Bwoy is insane.
- Death Grips is an instance of some white producers getting a mediocre at best rapper to work with them because having a black front man provides street cred. They do manage to focus on sounding like the apocalypse enough to almost distract from the fact that Spank Rock, King Fantastic, and Atari Teenage Riot all do this sort of thing much, much better.
- Dawn Golden & Rosy Cross is just one guy, and he is the American James Blake like Owl City is the Christian Postal Service. Not that that's a bad thing.
- Mad Decent is a great electronic/hip-hop label. They are a terrible rock label.
- Dillon Francis is a great LA hometown hero. Kids went nuts.
- Lunice is fun to watch and fascinating to listen to. He makes Soulja Boy and Lil' B listenable.
