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Philadelphia freedom
DJ Manolo moves on without leaving Boston behind
BY MICHAEL FREEDBERG

Manolo Ferreiros, Boston’s most eloquent house-music performer, lives way out in the exurbs; but that’s not where he becomes "DJ Manolo." Instead it’s here, on Stuart Street, where we’re parking for tonight’s gig, with the John Hancock Tower looming above us like an oblong Godzilla, that Manolo takes shape. Inside a far smaller building is Rise, an after-hours private-membership club where he’ll be playing his last set — three hours long and more — before he moves to the Philadelphia area to be closer to NYC. Usually Manolo performs his disco magic at Avalon, where as many as 1500 dancers can revel in his hard-driving music. Rise holds barely 80 on a sliver of a dance floor that’s narrow and bent in the middle, like an Allen wrench. But the music at Avalon goes silent at 2 a.m., Boston’s music-quashing closing hour, whereas at Rise, because no alcohol is served, the music can, and does, go on and on, until whenever.

We’ve arrived at 1 a.m. — the hour when in Barcelona dancers start to gather after the usual 10:30 p.m. dinner time. We go into Flash’s, the first-floor bar, to drink ourselves loose a bit. We’re greeted by a huge table full of Manolo fans, gals wearing halter tops as well as guys in house music’s de rigueur baseball caps. As he steps to the table, each one hugs him, and he reciprocates. They’re sad to see him leave but happy that he’ll be getting a chance at the big time. We all talk music and say some goodbyes, and then it’s 1:30. Time for Manolo to move two flights up to the bent-wrench dance floor, and into its DJ booth, which is situated at the wrench’s bend.

The warm-up DJ plays on as Manolo (who’ll be back to spin at Avalon next Saturday) chooses his first tracks. His music is hard, unyielding in its heft and noise. But eventually that’s forgotten as he starts playing his sleek, subtle, slinky things. The slink keeps on keeping; the dancers smile and wiggle, jump and raise hands, and so it goes. Manolo keeps going, and going, until after 6:30 a.m. His set starts tight and smartly so, but eventually it loosens its stays, loses its serious tenor, digresses, throws its fervor this way and that. This is how it should be in a disco set. It rings the usual changes and then goes, "Oh, what the hell," as it shoots the dancers all across the rhythmic spectrum, toys with them, makes Frisbees of them. I like the set, the goofy last hour of unexpected lovers especially. Manolo’s not having it. "I made a lot of mistakes."

"You made a couple. Every DJ set does, so what?"

"I couldn’t figure out what they wanted to hear. I never felt that I had their pulse. So I shifted all over the place. Eventually, I just played what I wanted to."

That’s what a DJ is supposed to do! He’s not quite buying it. The way Manolo sees it, if he doesn’t connect with the dancers, he’s missed the mark — never mind that his mixes beat up on the music till it cries uncle. I don’t agree: his controlled, first half showed off his overlay mastery and his gifted ear for quick-cut opportunities. If it showed his taste debt to Danny Tenaglia’s vocals, Carl Cox’s beats, and more prettified tastes of "trance," it also showed the originality of his mixing arts. No one wields the volume-swaying fader knob like Manolo; no one slashes from rhythm to rhythm as mercilessly as he. Few DJs (and none locally) punch up the volume as ecstatically during an overlay — that’s why he has fans.

Yes, you could argue that the music fell into place too neatly. I’ve heard it before, the songs selected, the segues from Origene’s (justifiably) huge hit "Sanctuary" to a segment of hard, buzzsaw trance, the Tenaglia-inspired vocal monologues, the pushy, industrial Cox-like beats. Manolo himself has said, "If all you do is beats and riffs, you eventually lose the dancers." Manolo never does only beats and riffs; the first half of his set patched in quite a few vocals. Still, the very crispness of his sequences, for all their seamless musicality, felt too purposeful. A disco set should never display a purpose.

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Issue Date: June 25 - July 1, 2004
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