Claude vonStroke at Kontrol

Claude vonStroke at Kontrol

3 March, 2008 | 4.46PM

• Written by: PhilG
• Filed under: Music News: craig kuna, kontrol, the end up

This past Saturday Claude Von Stroke headlined for San Francisco’s leading monthly techno party, Kontrol, and demonstrated that he is a man who can still keep us guessing about what he’s up to and where he’s helping to take the sound of San Francisco techno.

vonStroke was on the bill with Kontrol residents Alland Byallo and Craig Kuna, with Derek Plaslaiko, resident of New York’s Bunker, finishing off the night.

I’ve been checking out Kontrol since it was still a slightly underground event at the now defunct RxGallery in the Tenderloin, and it’s been gratifying to watch it expand into its new space at The End Up, and also, occasionally, slightly irritating to have to deal with the the more mainstream club crowd that still associate The End Up with house music on Saturday nights.

This time, however, the crowd was nicely diversified across black-clad kids in bowler hats and freaky haircuts, gay boys daring to take in something different, and many, many straight-up techno heads.

Though the crowd was lined up outside at 10.30 to get in, and the dancefloor was always full, there was still plenty of room to dance along without having to do the arms-by-your-sides shimmy.

The last time I was at Kontrol, to hear Alex Smoke, my friends and I were a bit disappointed by how housey the opening set was, something that we had remarked upon during a previous visit to Kontrol as well — we even joked that, once you signed up to do a night at The End Up, you had to have a house chip implanted in your brain.

But this time Alland was having nothing of that, instead laying out a deep set of laid-back churners that, at one point, had everyone listening on the back patio bobbing and dancing along.

Craig Kuna came on between Alland and vonStroke, and only had an hour to guide the transition from Alland’s warm-up of the crowd to vonStoke’s full-on dancefloor.

I, unfortunately, was outside for most of Craig’s set, but when I walked through to fetch a drink he had definitely picked up the energy substantially.

I have yet to figure out exactly what to expect from vonStroke; one DJ I know likes to drop his tracks because of what he hears as their hip-hop/ghetto tech inflection “that the kids go for,” but this is also the same guy who gave us the brooding study of “Who’s Afraid of Detroit?”

The one time I previously heard vonStroke was at Lovefest last year, when he played a deep, dark, trance-like set that, while seeming out of place on a bright Fall day, was the most interesting thing I heard during the entire event.

The main impression I got from this set was how big, progressive, and almost epic it was.

vonStroke wasted no time on setting up a beat, but rather lifted off straight from where Craig Kuna finished.

There were moments when I felt like some of the groove was sacrificed to abstraction, and that some of the depth was lost in an effort to go big, but, talking about it afterwards, my compatriots and I all agreed that there was also an exciting set, because you had the sense that maybe vonStroke is still working out his sound himself, and that we were given the opportunity to watch real creativity in action.

Kontrol happens every first Saturday at The End Up, and should be the first destination of choice for anyone who wants to hear some of the best local and international techno talent around.

All the artists on the Dirtybird label, including Claude vonStroke, Justin Martin, Christian Martin, and Worthy, will be celebrating the label’s 3rd anniversary next Saturday, March 8, at Mighty.

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