- After five years of near-monthly parties and ten 12-inch releases, San Francisco house and techno institution Icee Hot went for broke in January, throwing a non-stop 28-hour party in San Fran's Mission neighborhood. Most of the lineup had flown in for the gig: Anthony Parasole, Max D, Joey Anderson, John Barera and Will Martin and the White Material crew from the East Coast, Gerd Janson, Andy Stott and Kowton from Europe, Pender Street Steppers and Hashman Deejay from Vancouver. The lineup looked more like a European festival than anything you'd normally see in the US, but it left a lot of questions. Would draconian liquor laws leave top DJs playing to empty dance floors? Would San Francisco's scenesters have the stamina for such an event?
I entered the club around 2 AM on Sunday morning. Andy Stott and Kowton had already played, Robert Hood was on and the ecstatic gospel vocal from Floorplan's "Never Grow Old" was pouring out the front door. The crowd was peaking along with the music. Hood mostly played Floorplan-style ecstatic house, calmly presiding over the decks while two floors of partygoers raged in the knowledge that the party wouldn't end for another day. Upstairs, in the venue's more intimate loft space (the only area open during the morning and afternoon hours), Anthony Parasole demonstrated why he's such a favorite in the Ostgut camp, dropping punishing, hypnotic techno. All the while, Icee Hot played themed videos behind the DJs, depicting cartoonish patterns of pills, beer and for some reason, tennis rackets.
Future Times co-founder Maxmillion Dunbar steered the party through the alcohol-free 4 AM to 6 AM hours The knackered faithful hung tough as Dunbar gesticulated wildly, dropping a blistering half-hour of jungle around 5 AM. Mood Hut's Pender Street Steppers and Hashman Deejay shared the stage at dawn, the idea being that their relaxed, classy house would ease partygoers into the day. Yet a sizeable and amped-up audience remained, and Jack J and crew tried to match them, starting with Greg Wilson's edit of Chocolate Milk's "Whose Getting It Now," before dropping Dude Energy's "Renee Running" and Mood Hut's closest thing to a peak-time banger, Kinetic Elecronix's "Astral Kin." Still, the rowdy crowd—one-third Icee Hot regulars, one-third curious tech types and one-third traveling dance fans—looked like they would have been more up for another obliterating Robert Hood set.
On Sunday afternoon, it was 75 degrees in San Francisco. Upstairs in the loft, almost all natural light was blacked out and Joey Anderson was playing late-night house, dropping tracks like DJ Yoav B's "Energize" to a thin but dedicated crowd. It was enjoyable, if a bit ill-timed. Icee Hot resident Low Limit was next, spinning last in the upstairs loft. His set was an unexpected gem, infusing Anderson's house trips with a bit of melody and tension. Moodymann's "The Hangover," Delroy Edwards' warm and fuzzy "Can U Get With" and Leon Vynehall's "Sister" were among the highlights.
A party of this duration breathes, changing moods as its constituents filter in and out. Night two didn't have the high-strung energy of the earlier hours, though the large downstairs dance floor stayed upbeat. It was here that Young Male and Galcher Lustwerk played back-to-back, though they proved a bit of a mismatch. See-sawing back and forth for the duration, the former built from ambient to patient, dub techno, while the latter lent on his cool, detached brand of soulful house. There was more chemistry between local favorites Matrixxman and Vin Sol. The latter was wearing a Dance Mania baseball jacket and it wasn't just for show—the first half of their set consisted of wiggly Robert Armani-style drum tracks. As they unleashed classic party cuts like Technotronic's "Pump Up The Jam," the duo smiled ear-to-ear.
Gerd Janson would play that track's obvious predecessor, "Move Your Body," late into the three-hour masterclass that followed. Looking a bit pensive early on, the Running Back boss opened with KDJ's "Shades Of Jae" before working his way through the genres. Randomer's "Huh" stood out in the midst of an electro interlude, which slowly transitioned into '70s classics (Chic's "I Want Your Love") and an extended edit of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams." At 12:30 AM on night two, most of the Icee Hot residents were visibly emotional. Other attendees regaled each other with stories of a sleepless weekend, as they prepared to face the post-Icee Hot world.
The crew's marathon finale was an unprecedented and nearly unqualified success. One issue, though, was that out of the 23 acts, not one was female. This gender bias may be endemic in our scene, but there really is no excuse when booking a lineup of this size. That aside, those seeking to put a finger on the pulse of underground house in 2015 would have been better served attending this party than any of the exponentially larger American festivals. Icee Hot's crazy idea worked, and I wouldn't be surprised if the crew was coaxed out of retirement to make the impossible possible again.
Photo credit: Amanda Kershaw