But even before the halcyon days of house made their mark on Morel, he was also playing in rock bands at a time when the segregation of the two worlds simply did not exist, he said.
"The Stones were doing disco songs- 'Miss You,'" Morel said. "You weren't thinking, 'oh, this is disco, this is rock.' You were listening and music was just happening. Then all of a sudden, things slowly went into their categories, and dance music was, like, put in the back. Like, keep that way over there… let's not even talk about that! Which was so strange for me, because I was like, what the hell happened?"
"Even when it got huge, mainstream press was refusing to look at it, and I could never figure it out," he continued. "They cared about indie rock, which I also like, but what about this whole [other] section? Why is a rave not gonna be written about, but some band that comes and plays a rock and roll club and gets 150 people there, is gonna be put up to some pinnacle of importance? Is it because it's a drum machine? Where's the hostility there? It's funny, but it's definitely there."
A Nov. 27 column in Billboard made the same point. Journalist Michael Paoletta highlighted the similarities between Morel and the critically adored Interpol, who have been pushed as a rock band and currently have a top 20 modern rock radio hit with "Slow Hands."
"Even though Interpol and Morel reach back to the post-disco, new wave '80s for inspiration, they are part of two different scenes-modern rock (Interpol) and dance (Morel)- with the former receiving major media coverage and the latter often treated like a second-class citizen," Paoletta wrote. "In other words, for many alternative rock is cool, dance is not. The reality is this: Morel is as cool as Interpol."
One place the two worlds meet without hesitation is at Blowoff, the bimonthly party Morel and punk legend Bob Mould (Husker Du/Sugar) tag-team DJ at the 9:30 Club in Washington. (They have also taken the party to New York and Chicago for one-off dates, Morel said.) Guitar-heavy tunes by Snow Patrol and the Dandy Warhols have featured early in sets that later progress to house heroes like Junior Jack and David Guetta. While the two ends of the spectrum may not seem to have a place in the same set, Morel insists that he and Mould know what they are doing.
"It's not totally haphazard," Morel said. "It's not like we're throwing My Bloody Valentine after Daft Punk… although that can happen. Usually, it will start in almost more of a rock and roll, alternative sense, with the music that we're picking… you know, you kind of follow what the people are doing, and when people are getting there, they're just loosening up anyway. They're fine hearing an old Tears for Fears song with, like, a My Bloody Valentine song. It's all good and they're loosening up, and when it starts getting funky, everybody's looser anyway."
"People may expect from my remixes that I'm going to do an entire deep house set, or like the Pink Noise stuff I do, but I like being able to play, you know, that band Colder?" he continued. "Like, I love their record, and I love being able to play that next to a house mix and having it all make sense. Music is so big now. There's such a history. It seems like a shame to say, 'Well, I'm going to play the newest club/house music from the last two weeks.' That's too difficult for me anyway."
Other music aficionados seem to agree. My partner in crime for the band's gig at Velvet Lounge accompanied me to the downstairs of the 9:30 Club a week earlier to witness Blowoff's musical mix-and-match. By the time the attendance peaked around 12:30 a.m. we were dancing shoulder-to-shoulder with a crowd that largely reflected what we would see a week later a few blocks over. Three black jazz musicians stopped in to profess star-struck appreciation for "Queen of the Highway." Morel said that night that while the party has its regulars, there are always new people stopping by.
