Felix da Housecat @ The Loft (Barcelona, Spain)
Posted by ariadna on Tuesday, November 30, 1999

There´s something about Felix da Housecat that I loathe. It has something to do with the fact that I let him write his email address on the back of my shirt but then never answered my interview questions when I emailed him. It also has to do with the fact that of the fifteen Felix sets I had none of them stood out because he is king of rehashing tunes and mixes. It´s partly because he found my brilliant albeit not completely original idea for a music video preposterous. That smug smile is the cherry on top.

But, I´ve never been able to completely despise him because the man is also king of producing and remixing. I don´t know any of his material when he was a strictly house DJ but in the electro category he is unparalleled: Silver Screen Shower Scene, What Does it Feel Like?, Happy Hour, Madame Hollywood, and every single song on the Devin Dazzle and The Neon Fever album (though the lyrics are weak) are amazing. And his remixing is wonderful! He makes the beauty of every track shine like a supernova.

Moreover, the two times I´ve seen him play in Vancouver he blew me away like few have. The first time was at Sonar (July 2004). I went expecting the worse; just another typical Felix set with the same burnt-out tracks and the same amateur mixing. Instead a got a walloping of new material and innovative mixing. Surprisingly, even though he was on the Devin Dazzle and The Neon Fever tour there was only one sample from the CD on the entire track. He had the entire crowd going nuts all night and I was beside myself with pleasure.

The next time he came to Vancouver was early this year at The Caprice. Instead of hiding away in the elevated DJ booth he had his set-up on the ground (a far cry from the pictures I saw of him playing at Sonar in 2003 where there was a velvet rope cordoning off the DJ booth - WTF?). Again, he slammed us with new tracks. There were some mainstays that I was super surprised he hadn´t put to rest yet (i.e they were from his Excursions CD) but whatever, most of his music was new. He also deviated from a strictly electro selection. This was also the case in 2004 but this time ´round the non-electronica was much more prevalent. I recall him playing Snoop Dogg and Marilyn Manson, and maybe that Blur track that always makes people jump. He blended all the tracks marvelously and neither the rap nor the thrash emptied out the dance floor.

But now my fate with Felix is sealed. He sucks. I saw him at The Loft in Barcelona (which happens to be there very same place I ever saw him spin) in June and it couldn´t have been any more of a disaster.

He started off great. He mixed electro with punk with techno and it was all very danceable. Then these two guys jumped on stage and one of them had a Bedazzled megaphone. The two of them hugged Felix like they were childhood friends and spent the entire set egging on the crowd and pointing at Felix like he was da bomb, yo! And that megaphone wasn´t just an accessory, the kid used it incessantly to yell out stuff in English - even though we were in Spain - and the siren feature was used relentlessly.

I don´t know if ego had exploded from the two-man fan club but Felix´s mixing got disastrous. Actually no, it wasn´t a disaster, it was absent. He spent most of the set cutting one track into the next. Me may have mixed five songs at most. And to boot, he stopped the music seven times (I counted) so he could do that thing DJs do when they think they are immortal. It got the crowd riled up in the right way but my date and I were ready to vomit. In fact, Jen left early because he was such a flop (and she´s way easier to please than I am).

Then there was the actual music. The mix of genres, though not what I was hoping for, was fine because it was still club material. About two-thirds in he went full-on into thrash metal. I´m not exaggerating. I don´t know who these bands were but they were loud and meant for moshing (and the Spaniards were moshing!).

I vowed to never see Felix da Housecat ever again but he´s playing here on Halloween and I´m already having my doubts that I can hold out (actually, now I know I´m not going to hold out). His sets in Barcelona have sucked ferociously but his performances in Vancouver have been so consistently awesome. Maybe I´ll buy myself a megaphone just in case.