Brotherhood of the Traveling Mash

I’m beginning to think that this mash-up thing is catching on. After my busy February in Los Angeles, I’ve been getting back into my regular Bay Area rhythms, bio- and otherwise. And that means hitting Bootie – the recurring mash-up party that takes over the DNA Lounge in San Francisco’s SoMa district on the second Saturday of every month, and now the fourth Saturday, too!Even though Bootie entrepreneurs/DJs/remixers Party Ben, Adrian and the Mysterious D are now bringing the gospel of the mash to L.A. on the first Saturday of the month, I was in transit to and from Hollywoodland; and thus, I missed a first-hand chance to see how they are presiding over one of the hottest club nights in Southern California. According to Adrian, Bootie L.A. (headquartered at the Echo on Sunset in Echo Park) done blew up at the top of February. “Lines down Sunset,” he said. “Couldn’t even get people from the guest list into the club. I think we need more space.” And sure enough, the following week’s L.A. Weekly’s nightlife column extolled the gig as the au courant place to be for Hollywood scenemakers and party people.I longed for the mix-and-match madness and the generally festive vibe, so this past weekend, I hopped on my motorbike and made my way south of the slot in order to Bootie up. Local mash-master DJ Fox spun to celebrate the release of his latest collection of bootlegs; the world’s first and foremost live mash-up band Smash-Up Derby rocked the house; the upstairs lounge, recast as the club-within-a-club Electro-Bootie, hosted a West Coast edition of New York’s electronic music party Warper; the Midnight Mash-up lip-sync tune featured drag queen extraordinaire Suppositori Spelling strutting her stuff; and Adrian, D and Ben headlined, fueling a packed and raucous dance floor in the main room with an audio-visual assault that justified the fuss I’ve been making about them. Too bad that one more hour of it was lost at 2 AM when we sprung forward into daylight-savings time.Next on the schedule is the March 22nd edition at DNA with guest spins by DJ P who was behind the seminal mix album Uneasy Listening Volume 1; the Party Scabs – C-Section and Jerk Party from Brooklyn - in the Electro-Bootie room, a Midnight Mash-up by Felicia Fellatio; and, of course, the resident Bootie crew - Adrian, D and Ben, plus Dada – throwing down throughout the night.Since I’ve been going on about a club that thrives on the dance-oriented aspects of mash-ups, I thought it would be appropriate to stream a beat-heavy collage to inspire much rolling of the rump. Austria’s DJ Schmolli took the monumental hip-hopping new-wave hit “Rock Me Amadeus” by Falco (his fellow Austrian), glued it together with bits of Nelly (“#1”), Luniz (“I Got 5 on It”), Mozart (”Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”), Run DMC (various renowned samples), Def Leppard (“Pour Some Sugar on Me”), Eric B. & Rakim (“I Know You Got Soul”), Fatboy Slim (“Rockafella Skank”), J-Kwon (“Tipsy”), Mis-teeq (“Scandalous”), Queen (“We Will Rock You“), and – yes indeed – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself (”Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”), and came up with “Mash Me Amadeus.” Talk about all over the map! And it goes a little something like, well…Just hit the “play” button.