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Words by Ryan Patrick Hooper, photos by Dustin Downing, Additional photos by Joe Gall

For the past ten years, Detroit’s Movement festival has been notoriously fond of after parties. Whether they be of the renegade rave, abandoned factory sort or the most official, posh push-pop you can come by, the entire city becomes blanketed in non-stop nightlife until the sun comes up and the festival grounds once again reopen. Saturday was no exception as the Magic Stick (regularly voted in the top ten best venues in the country by Rolling Stone and Paste, home to the oldest bowling alley in the country) in Midtown Detroit welcomed nationally renowned electronic label Ghostly International’s 10-Year Anniversary to a packed house after tearing apart the Red Bull Music Academy stage earlier that day with the likes of The Sight Below, Lusine, Kate Simko and Ryan Elliott.

“It has been ten years of the festival, and it’s our ten-year anniversary,” points Sam Valenti, owner and founder of Ghostly International, hours before the showcase at the Stick backstage in the green room.  “It’s fun to run into friends that Ghostly has had for six, seven years all day at Movement.” And with Ghostly International Tycho by his side, it’s easy to see just what Valenti is getting at. “It’s exciting to be back where it all started over ten years ago,” adds Tycho. “To be right in the middle of it all…”

After an exhausting (read: really amazing) day hovering around the festival, the traveling carnival rolled north to the Magic Stick to catch magnetic sets by up-and-coming Detroit wonder whiz Deastro, New York’s Michna, Tycho and Chicago’s own Telefon Tel Aviv (myspace.com/telefontelaviv). The party elements of the show were healthy and intact — Deastro crawling across one of the pool tables like some sort of “sexy feline,” a wild-eyed blonde boy stealing beers from behind the bar — but the vibe became focused and colorfully intense when Telefon Tel Aviv began performing. If you’ve never heard the sound of a thousand clouds singing in ultimate sonic synth synchronicity, then you’ve never heard (or witnessed) Telefon Tel Aviv. With Tycho (whose set was equally heart stopping) taking care of the band’s live visuals, Telefon Tel Aviv was free to wander through the ear drums of over 300 people and distort everything they’ve ever thought “awesome” really means.

If you’ve never heard the sound of a thousand clouds singing in ultimate sonic synchronicity, then you’ve never heard (or witnessed) Telefon Tel Aviv. With Tycho (whose set was equally heart stopping) taking care of the band’s live visuals, Telefon Tel Aviv was free to wander through the ear drums of over 300 people and distort everything they’ve ever thought “awesome” really means. We caught up with Telefon’s Josh Eustis after the band’s set in the bowling alley — lights dimmed, lanes empty, crowd dissipating — and were quick to pat him on the back for such an amazing show, but also inquire about the difficulties of performing his first show since Telefon’s Charlie Cooper passed away in January — Eustis’ musical partner-in-crime for the past decade.

What were your thoughts on not only being part of the line-up tonight, but being part of Ghostly’s 10-Year Anniversary?
Josh Eustis: Really cool … especially considering we are not Ghostly artists. We are only surrogate Ghostly artists. We’ve done some remixes, and I’ve done a ton of production for Ghostly … but I haven’t actually put a record out on Ghostly, and that’s cool. That’s just a testament to the friendship [Valenti] and I have. It is a very cool thing to do, and a perfect way for me to start playing shows again.

And that is one of the things people are certainly intrigued by — your quickness to return to the road.
Josh Eustis: I mean, we were going to do this tour in February and that got all fucked up. I didn’t think I was going to play any more shows, and then people started asking the booking agents, “What are the chances? What are the chances?” We have five booking agents, and they were all told to give the same answer, “I don’t know. Ask me later. We’ll get in touch with you.” I thought about it for about six weeks, and I sat in New Orleans and did literally nothing for the month of February. I hung out with my mom, my mom, my brother, [and] my niece. And I thought, “Why not go play shows?” I just made this record. Am I going to pretend I didn’t make it? [Cooper] put a lot of work into that record, you know, and I don’t want his work to go unnoticed or go to waste. I want people to hear what he did in life and that means, for now, keeping the band going.

It seemed like everyone in attendance tonight picked up on the idea of this being much more than a show, a much more monumental thing…
Josh Eustis: This was the first show I’ve been nervous for in nine years … and that gives me great comfort [to hear], man. I don’t want to say we were unsure about it, but it was probably the most just thing to do … to play this record that he worked on and really believed in. [Cooper] and I had many discussions before this record came out about how this one was definitely our favorite, and the [one we were] most proud of. It was exactly the record we always wanted to make.

Photo Galleries by Dustin Downing

 

 

Additional Photos by Joe Gall

 

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