It would have been a perfect night for a funeral. Amid a freezing deluge of rain late last month, the 100-year-old Lincoln Heights bar known as the Airliner quietly faded into oblivion. But no formal eulogies or farewell celebrations honored its historic past as the sanctuary of the weekly beat scene club night, Low End Theory. A goodbye party, headlined by the Glitch Mob’s edIT , was abruptly canceled a few days before in favor of an ‘80s vs. ‘90s dance-off.
In its prime, Low End Theory torched the wasteland caricatures and coastal biases that chronically plagued perceptions of L.A. It was the antidote to bottle service excess and shallow industry sheen. In this rickety sweatbox club, several micro-generations of musicians divined an experimental fusion of hip-hop, electronic, jazz, R&B and psychedelia. The impact radiated globally.
Artists Mndsgn and Lionmilk perform during outdoor music event listen to music outside in the daylight under a tree. While still subverting the algorithmic mainstream, the Leaving Records and Floating series provides an inverse of the more raucous affairs that defined the recent past. From roughly 2006 until 2016, there was a sense of cultural renaissance, where it felt like you could strike out in any direction in search of any subgenre and discover something startlingly innovative.
“There will always be the same thirst for kids to connect with underground music, but how it manifests is different,” says Loren Granich, the co-founder of A Club Called Rhonda, who DJs as GODOLLARS.