FLIPSIDE

The Nightly Grind

Hartford Advocate

by Dan Barry

September 16, 2004

 

Cranking up the tempo with Newandyke, playing through the middle-aged favorites with Yellow 9, and diverse deep house with DJ Dave Russell

 

Later in the night, I caught a set by DJ Dave Russell at the Arch Street Tavern.   Self-described as “deep, vocal, soulful house,” Russell periodically hits the Hartford club scene, and drew a good crowd despite the construction on Adriaen’s Landing. His selections balanced a driving beat with cheerful, organic instrumentation. Russell shied away from candy-coated dance anthems, digging his claws into underground material just enough to keep things spicy. And speaking of material, there was lots of it. Russell cut quickly from song to song rather than let any track play for an extended time. The formula worked: it allowed him to work in remixes of popular songs, dark, ravey passages, and recognizable favorites all in equal measure.

 

Russell’s set was almost diverse to a fault. He covered all his bases so well that he backed himself into a stylistic corner, and couldn’t really take any risks of the sort that would make a crowd go hands-in-the-air wild. He traded the ability to surprise for the ability to please. Then again, surprise isn’t really the point of house music; perhaps that kind of excitement is better left to more hyper stuff like drum ‘n’ bass. People left the tavern at 2 a.m. with grins, and that’s enough to convince me Russell’s doing something right.