After talking with Luke about his mash-ups (read Sasha Frere-Jones’ primer from the New Yorker for a catch-up) at a Tim & Mari party a few months ago, I’ve been meaning to hit a Mash Ave night at River Gods. It’s a last-Tuesday-of-the-month affair, and last night worked out. Aimee and I met at around 7:15 for dinner (pizza, sushi, mmm), and stuck around to hang out with Luke before his set and to meet his uncle, down from Ispwich for the show. Luke’s partner in mashing, dj BC, took the first set at 9, so Luke, his uncle, and his uncle’s grad student intern and her boyfriend, her sister, and her sister’s husband (I, too, was confused) all hung out for a bit.

I enjoyed talking to Luke about his style, technique, and equipment, as well as the pecking order of the mash-up world, and how the Mash Ave collaboration came about. The music was fun, too, though it felt a little too much like a quiz for me sometimes; I almost couldn’t enjoy it as much as I should have because I was spending so much time trying to figure out the elements that each composition drew on. The staff at the bar kept asking the DJs, perched up in their booth over looking the bar (forgive the crummy photo), to turn things down, so it was also not as audible as I’d have liked it. Luke and I decided it was time for Tim and Mari to show their support, too, so I hope to see them out next time around. After listening to three hour-long sets, I headed for home, happy to have River Gods as a neighborhood bar and resolving to frequent it more frequently.