Back in January, the Parisian electronica group Justice had a crazy idea. Their aesthetic borrowed heavily from arena rock, so why not hold a triumphant March concert in New York at an actual arena -- the 20,000-capacity Madison Square Garden, perhaps?
After all, the duo's 2007 album "†" for Ed Banger Records was the lodestar of that year's techno trends, full of gut-punch bass lines and synthesizers filtered to sound like heavy-metal guitars. And their set at that year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival had helped them become one of the biggest techno-pop crossovers since fellow Frenchmen Daft Punk.
Music blog comment boards roundly jeered the Garden booking, and anemic ticket sales would likely have barely filled the front rows. (The promoters got the hint and rescheduled their show at the much smaller WaMu Theatre.) There appears to be a ceiling of popularity for an electronica act whose live set consists of ephemeral button-pushing, a glowing crucifix and stylish cigarette smoking.
"Electro got boring, techno died, house came back and now everything is mixed," said Alex Ridha, the young Berlin-based producer behind the electronica act Boys Noize. "Hip-hop kids all over the world discovered electronic music, and indie-rock kids love the 'rock' elements in electronic music now."
Several up-and-coming acts heading to the dance tent at Coachella this weekend are poised to take the reins of alt-electro this year. These artists rely on more traditional means to make dance music fun to watch: punk energy, arty virtuosity and hip-hop swagger.
British quartet Does It Offend You, Yeah? took its name from a line in the British version of "The Office," and the band has regretted it ever since. "We'll be checking into a hotel and the clerk will ask me what our band name is, and I'll just be like, 'Ummm,' " said drummer Rob Bloomfield. "All the wind will be taken out of me."
The group's debut album, "You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into," shares the brutal, slithery bass lines and rock gestures of "†," and the comparison with similarly rising peers, such as Boys Noize, Erol Alkan and Deadmau5, is undeniable.
But instead of Justice's Metallica-size stadium techno, the group evokes a glammed-up basement hard-core band. Each member makes a point to play live instruments, and while the music is rooted in a four-on-the-floor stomp, onstage the band isn't tied to a bank of sequencers. If the chaotic, mosh-heavy videos for songs like "We Are Rockstars" are any indication, the band's grateful for the long leash.
