Devito + $ = Z-Trip, Automator, Patton at FX wrap party.

Danny Devito likes cool music. The man is a fan. And when fans have tv shows of their own, they can decide who they want to play at their wrap parties. Sunday night I was at the wrap party for a show with a really long name. An old friend of mine was in town, who did A&R on the first Handsome Boy Modeling School record and has since become close with Dan, who told us to come through. The Automator was there as a guest of Patton, who's Peeping Tom record is out now after years of difficulty getting it distributed. Looks like Z-Trip was there as Devito's choice, as he doesn't collabo on the record.The show was fresh, with Automator on 2 laptops running the beats, a guitarist on stage and Z-Trip on the 1's and 2's. These guys hadn't rehearsed or performed together before and it looked like Z-Trip hadn't met either of the other guys before the evening. The songs sounded good all things considered, and Mike Patton still looks and sounds like a young guy. He has superb control over his voice, and was trying to get the small tv show crew to get into it. The set wasn't that long, probably 45 minutes with Z-Trip warming it up for 15 minutes before. They did a couple of songs from Peeping Tom including "Mojo", "Getaway", "Kill the DJ" and also "Are You Down With It" from the last Handsome Boy record, White People. The guys were really cool. I got to meet Mike Patton, which was cool, and we shot the breeze with Automator before and after the show. It was a funny scene, with old Taxi friends of Devito's wandering aroud the party. All I have to say is Mary Lou Henner is still a Stone Fox. Whoa!I'm told Patton is currently performing live with Rahzel doing a show that has no instruments, just the two of them on stage beatboxing cover songs and original stuff. (That I would love to see) I chose their song Mojo to highlight in the post, but theres a lot of good joints on the record, and a lot of guest performers and producers. Kid Koala is featured, along with Kool Keith, who resurfaces with his off-axis talent and better quality rhymes than I've heard from him in a few LP's. Bebel Gilberto and Norah Jones are on the record too, which really does a good job of blending styles and approaches. He has Anticon producer Odd Nosdam on a few tracks, and theres one produced by Massive Attack as well. There's also some straight up guitar/drum driven rock where Patton exercises his pipes a la Faith No More. The fresh part of it is how Patton approaches each track, and that it doesn't feel just like a collection of random parts, it works all together.I imagine Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park are getting ready to start their shift at Starbucks right about now.