DAILYSESSION

By Matt Harvey – NY Post

In 1990, a 13-year-old who wanted to know what went on inside of Max’s Kansas City during the late ’60s and early ’70s would have to search for clues. He would pour over passages in Jim Carroll’s Downtown Diaries enough times and listen over and over to the Velvet’s Live at Max’s, recorded in 1970, pausing especially for the few snippets of unmuffled dialogue (Lou Reed telling the crowd to dance; Carroll asking a waiter for “a double Pernod”). He would take a walk up to Park avenue South and East 17th Street, see what was there and try to blot it out with an imagined black-andwhite marquee moon. If he did all that, a mental picture might begin to come into focus: andy Warhol’s red-lit court and its swirl of artists, drag queens, superstars and speed freaks. [Read More]

By Jon Pareles – NY Times

Sunlight hit sequins at Electric Zoo, a two-day electronic dance festival on Randalls Island. For 12 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday, disc jockeys (not all using discs) pumped out 4/4 beats from four stages, and dancers in party costumes — with cat ears, fake-fur leggings, fluorescent wigs and all kinds of glitter — raised their hands in the air to channel them.

It was the second annual Electric Zoo, sold out with 25,000 people each day. In a musical zone that diligently parses itself into subgenres, the festival’s 67 acts added up to both a dance marathon and a broad-spectrum survey, from crowd-pleasing trance and relentless techno to abstract minimal house. In the three tents and on an outdoor main stage, with D.J.’s front and center acting more like cheerleaders than technicians, every style put bodies in motion. [Read More]