By: Michael Bradshaw

Rating: 8/11

July 24^th, 2009

It’s possible that an abandoned hotel hidden under the elevated JMZ subway line in a remote corner of Brooklyn is the perfect place for a night of weirdo electronica.

It’s possible, as long as the dull thuds of a 909 beat out of barred and boarded windows onto the streets of Bed-Stuy, and creepy hand-painted eyeballs multiply on every decrepit interior surface of a ballroom that time has forgotten, as 40 ounce bottles roll across its floor from a crowd of boiling bodies leaping in unison to the pulsing of a computer beat.

It’s possible that Market Hotel is just that place.

And, late Friday night (or was it Saturday morning?), it seemed electronica duos Extreme Animals, Teengirl Fantasy, and Javelin were just the weirdos to make a perfect night of music.

They came damn close.

New York natives George Langford and Tom Van Buskirk of the amazing Javelin went on at 1am, erecting a small temple of vintage boom boxes at the foot of the stage. The sound of ocean waves undulated from various boxes and switches among papier-mâché stalactites suspended over The Market’s cavernous ballroom. Javelin owes a lot to Sidney sample-pioneers The Avalanches, but their eclectic, Fitzgerald-electo-dance-party-sound held well enough on its own to drive the party Friday towards vertical frenzy.

The heat in the ballroom was intense. Langford beat a cowbell. Van Buskirk shouted into a CB mic. The speaker towers flanking the stage trembled. The crowd surged, thrusting their fists in defiance. Javelin killed it.

After an unnecessarily abrupt break, (the surprisingly Google-able) Teengirl Fantasy took the stage, immediately jamming on the breaks and slowing the night’s energy to a crawl. They being a spacey, down-tempo live PA act, billing such meditative house music at primetime was a mistake. Teengirl’s labored tempo dragged tediously in the sweltering heat. By the time the duo worked up to party-pace, most of the party had split.

Extreme Animals were left to pick up the pieces, which they did, happily. The party’s population, a quarter of what it was an hour before, twitched, overheated, drunk, and ready to rock.

Foregoing the stage, David Wightman and Jacob Ciocci (also of the infamous Paper Rad) set up smack on the dance floor. In a single, controlled attack, the two lunged at their equipment, assaulting the space with machinegun fire hip-core. The energy spiked. Wieghtman slammed on his drum kit. Cioccie molested blocks of machinery. The crowd was seized. Taking too long to load the next song and sometimes confused as to what that song would be, Cioccie reveled in the chaos, splashing gallon jugs of water over already sweat-soaked bodies. Wieghtman, wearing a t-shirt with a bullet-riddled smiley face, filled in the blanks, launching each new track with drum assaults. Shoving, swaying, the scene was critical and the crowd rioted with saturated glee in Extreme Animal’s audio strobe light.

The JMZ train, propped just outside the Market Hotel’s barred windows, must have rumbled next to the building all morning. No one noticed.