Theo Parrish
Lincoln Factory
1331 Holden St.t
Detroit
Friday, May 29
Am I aging out or am I growing up?
I’ve had a week to reflect on this, and I still can’t get it off my mind.
Last weekend, the Movement music festival took over downtown Detroit, smothering the city in electronic music and spawning an entire ecosystem of pre-parties, after-parties, after hours, ambient morning listening parties, detox events and anything else you can possibly imagine and successfully brand as a party.
After 18 years of attending the festival, covering the festival or being absorbed into the ever-growing umbrella of events that devour Detroit during its Memorial Day weekend reign, I completely avoided it at all. (Well, pretty much – I’ll get to that.)
“What are you doing for Movement?”
It’s the only question you’ll hear leading up to the festivities.
For the first time in years, I said, “Nothing.”
The look of shock, awe, disgust in people’s faces when I told them I was “retiring from Movement” this year!
“So, you’ve aged out.”
Quite possibly the most brutal response I got. It made me feel like my hip might crack in two if I even went near a dance floor after hearing that.
The late nights, the drugs, the dancing, the pulsating music wrecking my eardrums. Was I aging out, or was I growing up and refining what pleases me?
I had to find out for myself by popping into Theo Parrish’s marathon set at Lincoln Factory inside of a room they call the Freezer – a huge, open-air courtyard covered in graffiti and, on this early Memorial Day morning, filled with people dancing.
Parrish is a DJ’s DJ, if you will. You could listen to dozens of selectors over the weekend and then watch a Parrish set and realize, “oh, most DJs are simply not very good.” It’s a bit of a spiritual experience to watch Parrish, who hails from Detroit, perform live -- his gaze, his movements, the way he works the mixer to completely modify a record as it plays in ways you’ve never heard or even considered. He’s fascinating to watch.
He’s punk rock in a sense. His selections are unorthodox. I mean, when I walked in just after 8 a.m. (he had been DJing for five hours at this point), he was spinning “Step Right Up” by Tom Waits, a 1978 track that I can promise you you won’t hear in another set again. Parrish had given it a deeper groove, more body, more drums. He turned this ode to the traveling salesmen of yore and the carnival barker a whole new lease on the dance floor.
There I was, completely sober and watching and listening; not really dancing. I had left my iced coffee in the car. The coffee shop down the street was open all night, too, for the ravers. Several fentanyl drug tests were on the street outside (a welcome sign that at least some people were being safe and smart with their drugs).
A friend approached. He was sweating profusely from whatever he was on. Another friend approaches. “You can hit this weed if you want.”
The main conversation is always “How long have you been out? We started on Friday and haven’t slept since.” It’s a badge of honor, one I used to wear proudly.
But now, my response: “I just woke up from a great night of sleep, grabbed a coffee, watched Theo Parrish for an hour, and now I’m going to take a nap.”
There it is again -- the look of disgust!
But standing there in the morning air, listening to one of the greatest DJs to ever come out of this city, completely sober and completely connected to myself and the music, I knew I hadn’t aged out of enjoying one of the best live music weekends of the year.
I was growing up in how I went about enjoying it.
And it might’ve been my favorite weekend yet.
