When the elusive J. Man dropped us an email earlier in the week suggesting we attack the Turntables on the Hudson party at The Frying Pan on Pier 63 Friday night, we knew we had to go check it out.

Not only because the event's producers and resident DJs, Mariano Franzese and Nickodemus, are said to throw a great party but because Fauna Flash and Will Holland (a.k.a. Quantic) would be in the house spinning. The party was dubbed the Funky Beat Festival, and we sooooooo had to be there.

Fauna Flash is the German DJ-producer duo of Roland Appel and Christian Prommer, who when collaborating with DJ-producer Rainer Truby go by the name Truby Trio.

If you haven't heard Fauna Flash, then know this: Appel and Prommer have been making some of the most innovative and exciting dance music in Europe for several years now. Their sound is a nu jazz mix of drum-and-bass, jazz, soul, house and Latin music.

Like many of the artists on Michael Reinboth's Munich-based Compost Records, Fauna Flash have spent years experimenting with beats and samples while producing and remixing other people's music.

When Appel and Prommer finally went into the studio to create their own tracks, the result was 2001's "Fusion," a stellar collection of energetic, jazzy drum-and-bass rythms and sexy downtempo tracks. Last year, as part of Truby Trio, they released "Elevator Music."

Last night's Turntables on the Hudson also celebrated the publication of Re:Up Magazine's third issue, an excellent new downtempo-beats mag published in laidback San Diego. Re:Up has some of the freshest graphic design we've seen in a long time. In issue No. 003 you'll find an interview with Nickodemus and Mariano.

What makes Turntables so special--aside from the ever-reliable A-list of guest DJs--is the venue. The Frying Pan is a salvaged ship moored to Pier 63 in Chelsea, on Manhattan's far west side. Turntables on the Hudson, literally.

The ship, which is now a historic landmark, takes it names from the Frying Pan Shoals off North Carolina's coast, where it had been stationed for years. Later the vessel sank in the waters of a Virgina harbor. Some enterprising minds rescued the boat from the sea and brought it to New York City.

The 133-foot long ship is structurally sound and has been given an exterior makeover. The ship's interior, however, is like the Titanic's after it sank. It's still rusty from years of exposure to the sea, but in a ragged, aged way it's oddly beautiful, tinged with a haunted mansion-like ambiance throughout the corridors, lounge and many small bunk rooms sailors called home during the Frying Pan's months at sea.

It's in the Frying Pan's hull, in the main hold below deck, that Fauna Flash and the Hudson guys took turns on the turntables. They were aided by Quanteye, who served up visuals, and live percussion by Nappy G. Globesonic's Derek Beres and Eddy Plenty spun in the spooky, incense-filled lounge at the back of the vessel. Meanwhile in the main tent on the pier itself, Quantic (of Quantic Soul Orchestra fame) manned the ones and twos.

--Grand Central PlayStation

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