So it is around 1pm yesterday and I had just finished off my Beak review and I am texting back and forth with co-editor Helen Bach when she asks me if I had decided to skip the Holy Ghost! concert at PS1. Absolutely not. “Well won’t you be late?”. So I go on the MOMA website and I had my days wrong so I throw on my clothes, grab a cab and make a mad dash to reach there before the 2p start.
As I get a block away it is 130p and I can hear the disco dance dynamo’s playing and I’m like “how did I screw it up?”.
I didn’t.
MOMA didn’t bother updating the website and the set had been changed to 6pm and I had found Holy Ghost! in mid sound check, in the open area playground at PS1.
Last time I’d seen Holy Ghost was at tan entirely disappointing Central Park Summerstage opening s for Hot Chips, but any problems I’d had with the sound or the presence then disappeared completely watching the sound check. Holy Ghost! are clear as a bell and when you can hear em clearly the various components seem to sound out so easy to put together: every trace of the mix seems to come out singularly and yet fit together. Especially, the bass player is running through the bass line to Hold On” and it is so melodic and holds the song so tightly it managed to change my perspective on the song: I had always heard it as a synth lick but it isn’t. Also, it becomes clear how much of this is preprogrammed computer generated.
After the sound check I approach the two DJ’s behind Holy Ghosts! dance sound:Alex Frankel and Nicholas Millhiser for a mini interview. Both Woody Fuller and I have been stalking Holy Ghost! for an interview all summer but Woody is somewhere on Randalls Island at the Electric Zoo fest an and I essentially stumbled on to this one.
With no recorder on hand I figure I won’t waste their time with a lot of questions I won’t remember the answer to. First I ask about their history. Alex and Nick are childhood friends who have DJd together for years, travelling the globe. They’ve remixed songs for everyone from DFA label owner (Holy Ghost! record for him) James Murphy to MGMT to Moby. In 2007 DFA released the guys very own “Hold On” EP and this year’s the Static On The Wire EP. Holy Ghost! as a band experience played their first concert in May of this year and almost immediately opened for LCD Soundsystem at Terminal 5’s string of dates.
There is a 9 song eponymous and self-produced debut album ready for release January 2011 -thereby killing my remixes are the future of music speech.
Two more questions and I leave Holy Ghost! to go and do whatever dance bands do when they’re not dancing or banding.
1) Why did the Summerstage gig sound so iffy?
Alex, essentially the face of the band taking lead vocals and playing keyboards center stage, offers that it was a weird gig and Nick mentions that daylight gigs are always weird (except at PS 1 they claim, having played here before) and Summerstage has to keep the sound low due to 5th Avenue rich folks won’t whine.
2) How can I get my hands on an mp3 of their “Drunk Girls” remix?
They offer that I can get it on Itunes (I can’t) or their myspace (only for streaming).
2011 will belong to Holy Ghost! -may the Goddess Terpsichore be with them.