A New York music and culture fanzine.

LOVE INJECTION
ISSUE 43 — NOVEMBER 2018

VINCE ALETTI
SA’D ALI
JOSH MILAN
SOUL SUMMIT

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 LOVE INJECTION
ISSUE 43 — NOVEMBER 2018

A New York music and culture fanzine ded-

icated to documenting and preserving our
communities’ creative output since February
2015. In print to give you a break from the
digital noise.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & ART DIRECTOR

Paul Raffaele

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Barbie Bertisch

COVER PHOTO
Credit: Barbie Bertisch

EDITOR AT LARGE
Nik Mercer

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Michael Mandeville

CONTRIBUTORS
Barbie Bertisch
Basim Ali Yasim
Brandon Locher
Brandon Wilner
Cesar Toribio
Charles Levine
Chuck Fishman
DJ Voices
Eli Goldstein
Ivan Berko
Josh Milan
Luke Jenner
Mike McCurdy
Nathaniel Jay
Nicholas Boyd
Nikki Cohen
Paul Raffaele
Tabu
Tajh Morris
Vince Aletti

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 ASK LUKE ANYTHING
A S K L U K E A N Y T H I N G
Chelsea in New South Wales:
After a break from years of touring, Luke Jenner has made it his life’s mission to restrengthen his connection with his wife and son, and help others recover from
Why do people have to feel anger? I feel like
its such an unnecessary emotion. I get really
sexual and substance abuse. As a musician and survivor himself, he’s doing his best to build recovery communities through music and mentorship.
overwhelmed by it.
Hi Chelsea,
Thanks for writing in. Sorry it’s
hard right now. I used to avoid anger like
the plague. In my family anger was only
safely expressed by my mom. My dad wanted
to be angry all the time and was quietly
simmering, but when he got angry he was really
embarrassed. This anger came out in all kinds
of weird directions. Mostly him just leaving
because he couldn’t talk. Sometimes he would
let us know he was angry, but my mom would
just make fun of him. On the flip side when
my mom was angry you had to act immediately,
everything had to stop and you had to make her
ok. You couldn’t take any breaks or think
anything, immediate action was required.
It was as if a nuclear bomb had dropped,
everyones face would melt off and you would be
sick from radiation poisoning. We all died
many deaths. Later she would wanna go out for
ice cream and pretend like nothing happened.
Fast forward to trying to have my
own relationship with my wife and kid and
there were some problems. I was so locked
up. Hiroshima or bust. If you can’t feel
anger you can’t feel anything. I was always
trying to be Mr. Blue Skies. This led to tons
of stomach aches and me being almost catatonic
during birthdays and holidays. I was just
so afraid all the time but I didn’t know. I
didn’t know who I was. I was struggling for
air.
Anger is like putting your hands out
before your face hits the ground. It’s there
to protect you, but you have to be able to
hold it. If you can’t afford to hold it, you
have to run from yourself and others. You may
feel the most alone in a room full of people,
especially you people love. Love takes on
weird tones. Grotesque even. There may seem
like no escape from this. I believe that what
my mom felt was more often rage than anger.
Rage is a kind of not feeling. It means it’s
not safe, it means the your body has to act
right away or be shut down. Code red, really
really red. Rage wants to annihilate, destroy
and it won’t accept anything less. It doesn’t
converse. Often the person who expresses it
pushes it so far away they don’t even know
it’s there. When you are a kid it’s like
living next to a waste dump that no one can
see with snarling invisible dogs who bite.
Anger is now my friend, maybe even
ASKLUKEANYTHING@GMAIL.COM
04
Love Notes From Brooklyn
NATHANIEL JAY
NIKKI COHEN
SHAKER MOUNTAIN,
my best friend, because it’s there to tell
me what I need to do to get safe. It’s
THIS PLACE
transitional energy. I’ve learned over time
to be able to pause and sit with things. Most A.R.T Wilson, “Rebecca’s Theme
of the time anger means I have to pause. I
(Water)” (Growing Bin Records)
He’s become a close friend of ours, lending invaluable advice and insight and we thought we’d share that with you. Each month, write Luke at
have something that I need to hear internally
before I speak to others. Usually I have 4 mins of extreme chill, this track is from
to get someplace and just be still. In the the LP Overworld, a project from Andras
asklukeanything@gmail.com and we’ll publish his responses. Please indicate whether or not you’d like to remain anonymous.
beginning I would go for walks. I would Fox which was composed as a soundtrack
talk to other people who were not afraid of to an Australian contemporary dance work.
my anger. I had to loose a lot of people
Sounds like a lake.
to do this. My old friends didn’t like the
We are living in the age
new me. My anger demanded my attention. It
wasn’t gonna take a backseat. I couldn’t just Udmo, “Slow Day” (Analogue Attic
stuff things anymore. My well was full. My
anger turned out to be a collection of voices Recordings)
that came from trauma that needed to be heard
buried deep down. I believe that all people
are really a collection of people and not this
Of the great dumbing down The first time I heard this I listened to it non
stop for an entire day. It’s honestly so beau-
tiful and I never get tired of it, but oddly it’s
unified consciousness that has been pressed
over human history. When I first heard this
I was really scared. I’m not multiple. I’m
Of everything great for napping.
not crazy. I think we can all relate to being
internally at war, even if it’s just about
what kind of sandwich we are gonna eat or what
The dumbing down of art
The dumbing down of politics
TV show or documentary to check out. This
doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you,
it just means you have work to do. You can do
The dumbing down of popular culture
it now, or you can do it later.
Anger is just one of many emotions
that need to be heard. I think of feelings
like a kind of bank account. Anger is being
something that is a large expenditure. But
amazing if you can afford it. It allows
things to grow and get loose, to shape
themselves into what we can become and not
what we think we are supposed to be, but it
takes time. Lot’s of time.
In an age when our brains
I think the job of any artist is to
find their style, you don’t choose what it is,
you do explorations to figure it out, to give
Are constantly flooded
With information
it room. Anger is part of that process. So
next time you get anger, consider not pushing Cherushii, “Far Away So Close” (100%
it away, not acting on it, just say “I hear Silk)
you anger,” I’m your friend and I will take
care of you. Make some art, write a song,
or do some doodling or painting. If you How did knowledge A sax intro usually gets me and this is really
no exception. Such a gorgeous record from
someone gone too soon. I only really started
can afford it don’t push it away and say it
doesn’t matter.
That being said I couldn’t afford my
anger for many years. I went to therapy, I
Become so scarce? listening to Cherushii’s music after the Oak-
land tragedy and can’t believe there won’t be
any more from her. Needs to be played often
did a bunch different 12 step programs, I got on a hot dance floor.
involved in spiritual seeking. I buried it
in my art, just to keep it away. All those
things helped me build strength to eventually Lexx , “El Sueno Lucido” (Permanent
hold this most precious of emotions, and be
able to sit with it to transform it into a
Vacation)
rainbow of me. A mesmerizing Balearic instrumental banger.
-Luke Especially good at sunset during high temps
and daylight.
Steffi, “Sadness” (Ostgut Ton)
The lyrics of this song are SO SAD but some-
how it comes off as peaceful and melodic.
Also the last thing you would expect from a
Panorama Bar resident which makes it all the
more special.
LVNO-16: Simoncino, “The Perguia EP” coming soon!
Conceived in Brooklyn, manufactured in the EU, distributed by Juno. SHAKERMOUNTAIN.COM / @SHAKERMOUNTAIN
www.soundcloud.com/lovenotesfrombrooklyn THISPLACE.NYC / @THISPLACENYC

SOUL
SUMMIT
Interview: Tajh Morris
Transcript: Nik Mercer
tajh morris: For our readers, I would like you
to introduce yourself. Where you’re from,
where you’re based.
tabu: My name is Tabu and Soul Summit is a
festival that’s been taking place now for about
seventeen years in Fort Greene Park. I’m born
and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where I
currently still reside.
Who are some of the other cofounders of Soul
Summit?
My partners are Sadiq Bellamy and Jeffrey
Mendoza.
How did Soul Summit come to fruition? How
did you meet? What inspired you to do this?
Seventeen years ago, what was going on that
made you want to do this?
We all had prior DJ careers before forming Soul
Summit and I knew both my partners from
various record shows, DJ stores, clubs, trading
records, and stuff like that. We talked about
exposing the music that we loved to a wider
audience. At the time, most dance music—house,
underground, disco—was mainly played in clubs.
You had to go out, you had to know about it.
We’re talking early internet, pre-social media, so
you had to be in the know to find this particular
type of music. We came up with the idea to
make it acceptable to people in the most obvious
way and, us growing up in the late seventies,
early eighties, we all are products of the jam
in the park. Hip-hop, breakbeats, funk, jazz,
scratching—the whole era. Instead of going that
route, we chose to play the music that we played
at our parties and the clubs, but I tried to expose
it to people who wouldn’t necessarily go to a club
or who wouldn’t be in the know to go to a club.
LOVE INJECTION
in Crown Heights. Our block would play another
block. We’d play backyard parties. By this time,
I was getting into the audio side of collecting
different mixes and tube amplifiers. There
was enough hip-hop records out at the time
to play a whole party and the breakbeat thing
was still going on. There were some guys that
were older than me and I wasn’t really DJ’ing
adult parties, but I was hanging out with them,
helping them run wires and [carry] crates,
paying my dues. They were playing stuff that was
on Prelude, Emergency—a bunch of that more
adult-oriented dance music. I watched them and
observed, and I eventually got my time to play
a couple promoter parties that I normally never
would have heard about or been able to get into
if I wasn’t bringing the sound system.
Eventually, I had enough equipment to get my
own sound system. Cards and networking and
meeting people. There used to be spaces… I
think every DJ in Brooklyn probably played, like,
the Masonic Temple. Ecstasy was on Eastern
Parkway. There was one or two spots on Fulton
Street that were, like, bank spaces that you
would bring your sound system into. [I did that]
before the club dates really started. We did a
lot of DIY spaces, where we owned the sound
system and would bring in the sound, promote
it by handing out flyers at the end of whoever
else’s party. Red Zone was still happening in
Brooklyn at the time. We’d go to other house
music parties—the World, Choice—and try to
get people to come to Brooklyn.
Some of the early Manhattan club dates… I
remember playing… it was not a club gig… it
was 626 Broadway, at Broadway and Houston,
with
down the steps. They used to throw parties there
in the early days. I also remember Jane Street
and the West Side Highway—there was another
space there that was a similar dance thing, so we
I think that’s very important because a lot of played parties there, too. We were getting outta
the music is in the club or at the big festivals Brooklyn, going into Manhattan, where it was
DJ TABU
nowadays. People don’t realize that all this a bit more diverse and the music was different.
stuff—funk, hip-hop, house, techno, disco— Honing the craft at this point.
comes from the same thing, and while there
were things going on in the clubs, there were What do you remember from those first,
very important things happening in the say, five years of Soul Summit? How does it
streets and at small bars and, like you said, compare to now?
the park jams. What area of Brooklyn are you We didn’t start in Fort Greene Park. We started
from and what are some of the block parties at a park called Cuyler Gore, a smaller park on
you remember growing up that inspired you Fulton and [Greene Avenue], where it comes to
to get started? a point. We started there. We did two hundred
people, three hundred people, kind of went
I lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and there Loft-style, played a little house, rare groove
was a park around the corner from me, Kingston classics. Did it for two years, three years, to see
Park, and they would have a party. Also, it was what would come of it. By the second or third
funny how we got around pre-social media, one, it was five, six hundred people there. We
Better Days. Then, I started getting familiar
pre-cell phone; I would go to the Bronx, I would didn’t think it would be [that big] until two,
with some of the DJs—Timmy Regisford, Merlin
go to Harlem. That was my street education on three years later, but the first year, we thought,
Bobb, David Mancuso. I mean, I had a bunch
DJ’ing. Without realizing I was a collector, I was We’re onto something here. The experiment
of Larry Levan records before I even went to
collecting, buying 45s of James Brown, pause went better than we’d planned, so we decided
the Garage. I bought the Gwen Guthrie album
tapes of “Funky Drummer.” We kinda all were we’d come back next summer, and it was our
and stuff like that. Vinylmania played a big part
into that. own success that eventually got us put to the
in it. A lot of the record stores at the time did.
community because we were going every Sunday.
Downtown Records. I started to branch out
Eventually, in Brooklyn, I started going to When we first started, we would do at least six
and go into more dance music and the parties
some other parties, where it was more dance Sundays from July to August and we kind of
I was attending started to reflect that. We’re
music-inspired. For me, at the time, I was aligned it where we would start that first Sunday
talking ‘89, maybe? I’m still going to hip-hop
still a teenager, so I was unaware of Paradise in July. We established that.
parties, but I was buying stuff on Easy Street, I
Garage or the Loft. Zulu Nation parties used to
was buying stuff on Profile. I was playing both
happen at the Roxy and it kind of was hip-hop Eventually, a couple hundred people… we didn’t
musics until the nineties, when we really got into
meeting punk, meeting dance, and I got into play the political game… a lot of political people
heavy dance music that was going on at the time.
going to Danceteria and the World, some other lived across the street… and the City Councilman
places, and my taste broadened to a little more at the time, James Davis, came to the party
At this point, I guess you’re starting to get
electronic-sounding music of the time. At that once and he spoke, and he was like, “If you guys
into your own DJ career? When does your
point is when I figured out I liked this just as never need anything, [come to] my office.” His
DJ career start? What were some of the first
much as the hip-hop and I thought I could go office was on Dekalb [Avenue]. Once the heat
parties you started playing?
and do it, and I was going out to the World, started coming… we just went to James Davis’
Some of the first early parties were on the block
the Choice, House Nation, Bassline, Garage, office one day—unannounced, no appointment;
06
SOUL SUMMIT
just showed up—and he said, “Hey, it’s you guys
from the party! What can I do for you?” It was
Wednesday or Thursday and we had a party
planned for that Sunday that they weren’t gonna
allow to let happen. He said, “Why don’t you
move it to Fort Greene Park? Just move it to
Fort Greene Park.” We walked outta there not
happy because we had to move it to Fort Greene
Park, but nevertheless, we did move it to Fort
Greene Park. I didn’t go up to the park—my two
partners and the sound guys went to the park. I
stayed at Cuyler Gore Park, directing people to
Fort Greene, which is a couple blocks away.
We [were supposed] to go only until eight or
nine, but of course we’d make it ten. Around
nine o’clock, because of moving the venue the
day of… I thought there wasn’t gonna nobody up
at the park, so [I thought] I’d go up there and
hang out with my guys, close it out, go home. I
walk up the hill to the park and not only was it
double the amount of people that were at Cuyler
Gore, it was amazing, and it was like, Wow—
we’re onto something! We found a new home.
When I say we didn’t want to do that park, we
did not want to do that park. We were kicking
and screaming. That was not the first choice.
Now, we’re at Fort Greene Park, so we’re
established [there] and we’re a little bit wiser, a
little bit older. We play the political thing. [Back
then,] on paper—on the permit—the event was a
poetry jam because, with the Parks Department,
you did not want to put you were having a DJ.
On paper, it was poetry, art, drumming, and
we needed a sound permit for the amplified
voices. That’s how it rolled for four or five years.
Eventually, we had to file for concert status, but
those early years, it was a poetry event on paper.
Earlier, you talked about how you like how
it’s accessible. Do you see a positive outcome
from what you’ve done? When I go to Soul
Summit, it’s a very family-oriented event—
you see families there, you see generations
of people there—and that’s a very beautiful
thing, and I think it’s something that you
don’t see in the city anymore, particularly
with music events of any kind. What’s your
takeaway from that?
That was the hammer hitting the nail on the
head; that was the goal. In our mobile life—
our DJ-for-hire life—we would always slip in,
[regardless] of what type of party it was, two,
three house records, and it always got a positive
feedback. It was always, “Yo, I like that! Where
can I hear that?” And these aren’t people going
into Manhattan, going into Alphabet City, so
[we knew it would work]. It was just a matter
of applying it and sticking with it. You could be
a flash in the pan thing and do two summers
and be out, but… as we kept doing it and getting
positive feedback… [we knew we were onto
something]. At this time, when we really knew
we were onto something, these parties had
twelve hundred people. It was the feedback and
the energy from the people that kept us coming
back. Again, we realized that, to keep this thing
up, we had to play the political side of it—it was
too big to be a poetry reading; it’s obviously
what it appears to be. When people tell me they
bring their kids out there… when people tell me
their mom is out there on the grass… I love it,
and that was the motivation that’s kept us going
many a time.
You’ve been going for seventeen years now,
but I feel like it’s only been in the past five
to eight years that you’ve been doing more
outside gigs—other clubs invite you to things;
you’re playing in other cities. What was the
07
tipping point when you realized that it was
bigger than what you were doing in your
community?
When you’re in it, it’s hard for you to realize the
effect you’re having.
One of my partners was in Paris and a lady
on this boat ride had a Soul Summit T-shirt.
One of my boys was taking his kid to college
down south, and in the airport, they had a Soul
Summit [shirt]. I’ve met people at the park that
I’ve seen only in London. They live in London,
but I met them at the park, and when I was
in London, I saw them. Stuff like that. And
then I get emails—“I’m coming to the United
States! I heard about this. What is this?” We
had no idea of how many people the event has
touched because we’re focusing on sound, this
record, that record, and we had no idea who’s
there. I’ve met writers from the New York
Times, photographers, directors, like Mario Van
Peebles. We just really realized that this thing
was touching people. We knew that it touched
the traditional house music community—the
people that would go to Shelter, Paradise
Garage, Sound Factory Bar. That community
was well aware and supportive of the event.
But my event—and I’ll go out on a limb and say
it—is one of the few events where I see it mixed
like that. Intergenerational, interracial, new
people, hippies, hipsters, thugs, Chelsea boys—
everybody. I’m looking at footage of some of the
events and… it’s really some of everybody.
Where do you see the future? What’s on the
horizon for Soul Summit, as a collective and
for you personally?
Well, we cut down the number of events from
eight to six to four to two. People weren’t happy
about that, but two is more than enough from
our perspective as organizers. We’ll probably
be doing similar-type events in different parts
of Brooklyn. Not that different from what we
already do.
We’d have these anniversaries, like the tenth
anniversary with Black Coffee, and we’re
approaching the twentieth anniversary, so what
are we gonna do? We gotta top some of the
things we’ve already done. We gotta keep raising
the bar on the experience, but, at the same time,
stay true to the roots of the event. We’re not
trying to be Lollapalooza—it’s a dance music
party and the music is first. Everyone’s welcome.
We’re gonna stick to the foundation stuff and
just grow it. If it’s anything bigger than it already
is, it would probably make sense to have those
really big events outside of Fort Greene at this
time. It’d make it more manageable and [help
us] stay in good standing with the community,
so that’s probably what’s on the horizon. And
we want to bring that live element back to what
we’re doing. Just keep spreading the music out
there for the people who enjoy it. Hopefully, we’ll
bring in some new people who aren’t familiar
with soulful house or disco classics or anything
similar in the culture. That’s still the goal.
—
Soul Summit returns to Nowadays
on Sunday December 30th from
3pm-9pm.
SOULSUMMITMUSIC.COM

cesar toribio: You grew up in the church,
correct? Tell me about that. What kind of
church was it?
josh milan: I did. I grew up in Brooklyn, New
York. Fort Greene—real Fort Greene. I went to
a place called Institutional Church of [God in]
Christ. There’s a sound in the gospel world and
they call it “the Brooklyn sound,” and it came
from this church on Adelphi Street.
What are some artists there?
There’s an artist called James Hall. He goes to
a church called Citadel [Cathedral of Praise
Josh
& Worship]. He’s a famous gospel recording
artist known all over the world, but he came
out of that Brooklyn sound. Him and I went
to school together [and were in] the Brooklyn
Boys’ Chorus, and my man did his thing. But the
In
own
Brooklyn sound came from this church.
There’s a guy named Butch Heyward, who’s an
undersung gospel organist. I don’t know if you’re
familiar with Scott Joplin, but he did that on the
organ and made it kinda hip—he plays the feet,
and then the left hand and the right hand. So
that’s the Brooklyn sound—that’s where I come
from.
Were you always doing keys?
One time, I was in church, and my cousin was
the minister of music at the church—I loved
him, man; anything he did, I wanted to do—
LOVE INJECTION
and I used to watch him, like an apprentice.
Watch him on the organ. Every move he made
I watched. You know in church, when they feel
the spirit and they start dancing around… he
got off the organ and just ran down and started
dancing. I thought, This is my opportunity!
Nobody’s on the organ! I jumped on the organ,
man… made a mess of things. I didn’t know
what I was doing. I’d never played an actual
organ before. I’d tried the piano a few times,
but… the organ’s a beast! That was my first time
playing in front of a crowd.
And then, from there, you just kept playing?
Yeah, I kept tinkering around with television
commercials. The Odd Couple—the melody
to that. I would practice that. Didn’t know
the chords—just the one note. Individually, it
Did you study?
interview Cesar Toribio transcript Nik Mercer photos Joseph Paradiso
morphed into notes and chords.
I always wanted to, man, but when you learn by
ear like I did, you become more excited about
being hands-on. You don’t have the patience to
study. You wanna get right into it and, to this
day, I still don’t have the patience to study under
some guy. But I can still learn! I don’t know how
to read.
Lately, when you have gigs, are you playing
live?
08
It’s a weird time, man. I’m unfortunate in that I
wear a lot of hats. I sing—
Why do you say it’s unfortunate?
Well, you know, promoters, they like to play
these games. They try to get me to come and sing
and DJ. If you were to get Monique Bingham
and Ian Friday, that’s two different checks. To
ask me to do both for one price… you’re ripping
me off and smiling in my face, so… a lot of gigs
I just don’t take. I’m not gonna be a fool. So I
find that I’m DJ’ing more. It’s easier. With my
band, you gotta get these guys, and sometimes
there’s flights involved. It’s too much. And, to
be honest, man, people don’t know me like that.
You guys… you may know me because you’re in
this scene, but if you go to the world of R&B,
they don’t know me at all. They have no idea.
Thirty years, Grammy-nominated… don’t know
me. Don’t know nothing I’ve done. With gigs,
I have to consider that. I can’t ask for a lot of
money because they don’t know me, so I’ve gotta
be modest about it.
My grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher.
Pentecostals are really strict. Where I grew
up, if you weren’t doing God’s music—
You were going to Hell.
So how is it you ended up doing house music,
coming from the church?
When I started doing house, in ‘84, house music
sounded—
How old were you then?
Fifteen. The transition was very easy because
house music was pretty much inspirational. “Join
hands!” Everyone was so love, love, love—it was
easy! But my mother and my father were still
very strict about the church thing, so, when they
noticed I was making more money than both of
them combined—I was doing my thing; I was
traveling all over the world—they didn’t like it.
Milan:
You moved to Jersey, right?
That was during that time. When I came to
Jersey, crack was taking over the streets and
all my friends were strung out, so my mother
bought a house in Jersey and later divorced my
my
words.
father. I was left to my own devices because my
mom had to work and take care of everybody.
So me, the idiot, I took advantage of that and
stopped going to school. Stopped going to
school altogether. Had my mother thinking that
I was going to school, I was doing so well, but
I was going to the studio with Kevin [Hedge]
and Chris [Herbert], my partners. Chris was a
singer in my church. Not the one here—when I
went to Jersey, I landed in a church, playing and
everything. I was getting better at that time and
I met Chris.
JOSH MILAN
You were the organist and Chris was the
singer?
Yeah. He said, “Man, you gotta meet my boy.
He’s a DJ. He makes these beats.” I went over
there with my keyboard and we did a demo on a
cassette. What we’d do is record one track on a
cassette, pop the cassette out, play it over here,
press record over here—that’s another track; a
beat or whatever—and then do it again. That’s
how we did our demo.
What demo was it?
It was a song called “Whatcha Gonna Do.” Quark
Records heard that demo—
Is that—
Curtis Urbina. We did a record before that on
Ace Beat, called “Yearnin’,” but it was horrible.
Our first attempt.
Do you remember what you used?
Juno-106.
So you made this demo. You meet Kevin,
who’s not in the church.
Kevin and Chris lived on the same street.
In East Orange?
In Newark. I lived in Orange. When I got
over there, Kevin… turned me on to some old
classics. There was some Lenny Williams,
09
Oliver Cheatham—some real disco joints—and
house music. Marshall Jefferson was the first.
“Move Your Body” was the first house record I
ever heard and I fell in love with it, man. It was
infectious. That was amazing to me—and it was
simple!
And we did records, man. Got a five-hundred-
dollar deal. Five hundred dollars! Kevin sold his
turntables, combined it with the five hundred
dollars, and, with that, we went to the studio and
did it for real, and that was our first record.
How did you get in contact with Quark
Records?
Freddy Bastone was a DJ-slash-A&R guy. He
heard this cassette tape and found out who it was
on this cassette tape, and he got in touch with us.
Were you doing In-Sync then, too?
Yeah! I’m a founding member!
What we wanted to do was not be artists. Chris,
the singer, he was the artist! Me and Kevin,
we were producers, songwriters. We wanted to
produce groups. In-Sync was a couple of friends
of ours that could sing. Put ‘em in the studio and
that was our first production.
Chris had a little brother whose name was
Vincent Herbert. Vincent wanted to sing and
he did a group called Phase II. They had a

song called “Reachin’” that was humungous.
You ever see the reality show Tamar & Vince?
Tamar Braxton and her husband? That’s Vincent
Herbert. Many years later, he got famous and
humungous. It’s crazy.
Where’s Chris now?
I have no idea. When the Blaze thing went south,
I lost touch with both of those guys. Chris is a
good guy. I don’t know where he is.
Chris left first. Why?
Because Vincent did well in the music industry
and went the R&B route, and he did super well.
Lady Gaga and all these famous people. Vincent
thought, Let me put my brother on, so Chris
got a major deal with Arista. Some group they
put together—N II U was the name. Long story
short, that was it for Blaze. It was just me and
Kevin after that point.
But it was under good terms?
Yeah, yeah. Sure, man—do your thing. We don’t
wanna stand in your way.
I wanna get a sense of your day-to-day. You
made a few records that were poppin’—
We never felt like these records were poppin’. We
just wanted to do more, and we had that young
determination. I got bit by the bug! Remember,
the music industry was humungous at that time.
We got a remix for Dianna Ross—twenty-two
thousand five hundred dollars for a remix. That
same remix today… twelve hundred if I’m lucky.
I mean, we were making some real money, and I
wasn’t turning around after that. [The remixes]
were coming in by the droves.
At this point, you weren’t singing yet, right?
No, I really wasn’t. I sang a few records, but I
really wasn’t focused on singing records at all.
It was only because Chris wasn’t there that I
started singing. I never wanted to be a singer.
I still get a little shy, but I have to now! I’m
lumped in. It’s a good thing.
What was the workflow like? What were the
hours?
Well, my partner, Kevin, was very, very
determined to be the best. It was almost like
bootcamp—very serious, stern, strict. And he
was older than I am—three years older—and
when you’re fifteen and someone’s eighteen,
you feel like he’s the big brother. So Kevin’s
determination sort of fueled my determination,
so we ended up just overworking and doing way
too much. Trying to squeeze out two and three
remixes in a week.
Back in those days, we’d rent studio space; you
didn’t do it outta your house. It’s a real fancy
look, so you invite all these fine women up there
and order food. It was a party all the time!
Kevin had a knack for engineering. Great
ear, knew a little something about the mixing
board… and when it got serious, he dove into it.
And I dove into production. I never was a tech
guy—I was a producer. Well, we worked well
together. It was magic. Great time.
At this time, did you know Louie Vega?
Yeah, well, Louie knew us. Louie was cutting his
teeth on the DJ tip. He got into production later,
and his production now is just off the chain. But,
yeah, he was doing one of his beginning projects
and he called to say, “I want you guys to write
the song. I’ll produce it, but you guys write it.” To
this day, I still collab with Louie.
LOVE INJECTION
At this time, also, were you going to Zanzibar?
Yeah. It was a beautiful time, man. Zanzibar
was… when you’re fifteen—
You were allowed to go in?
Yeah! Listen, man, at fifteen, one of my first gigs
was at the Garage, but I’m too young to be in
there! That whole scene blew my mind. I’m a
church boy! I’d never seen two men do anything,
let alone kiss and make out! It blew my mind.
It was a life-changing time. So Zanzibar was my
first regular club that I could go to and not be
carded at.
Did it feel like you were in an era?
We knew we had something special. During that
time, Jersey was on fire. Fire. Kerri Chandler
came out of Jersey. CeCe Rogers—he was
huge. There was a ton of them, and it would
be nothing to get together and go to one club,
and all of us would be there that night. Nobody
does that now. It was a great, great time to be in
music.
At this time, did you stay in church?
Mm-hmm. I was smart enough to know the
money was good—I was making more money
than I ever thought I would in my life—but
something inside me told me to keep a job, so I
kept my job at the church.
“Hideaway,” the De’Lacy track you
produced—I wanted to ask you about that.
How did that come about? What equipment
did you use for that? Did you get to a point
where you copped certain things you always
used, or did you go to the studio and use
whatever they had?
No. We used the Juno-106 a lot. I used the Juno
1 and I used the Roland D-50, which is a rack-
mount. It had my horns and everything in it. We
always used an MPC. I still use it—the 2000.
Old.
How did it come to a point where you decided
to leave Blaze?
Well, we’d done all of these great records, and
all of those records were friends of ours. Kevin
was like my brother—matter of fact, when I
got married, he was my best man. Well, for
some reason, we stopped working. Maybe I got
married and things changed a little bit—
What year was this?
When I got married, it was 2004. 2010, we just
came to a complete stop and I thought, Huh—
let me call up Warner Chappel, our publishing
company. Lemme see if I can get a publishing
deal because I wanna start a record label. Maybe
they will give me an advance—something small,
thirty, forty thousand dollars; a good amount of
money to start a label. So I called and they said,
“Well, we would give you an advance, but you
still owe us from the first advance.” I said, “Wait.
I haven’t signed a contract with you guys since
1990. You guys definitely recouped!” They said,
“No, we didn’t.” So now I’m confused. I said,
“Show me the agreement,” and they sent me the
agreement, and I see that Kevin, my partner,
extended our deal.
How does that work legally? It was both of
you, wasn’t it?
Yes, but, how it works is, when you’re fifteen
and you’ve got an eighteen-year-old handling
business for you, and you don’t know anything—
all you know is what he’s telling you—he was
able to sign my name on these agreements. Four
times. He extended it four times, so, between
1989 to 2010, he spent about two hundred and
10
forty thousand dollars of my money. Now, some
people say I never had it, I can’t miss it, and the
truth is… yeah. And I choose to stay that way.
Any other way is poison.
Exactly. So I said, “You know, man, this is
the end of this, and this is the end of this
relationship as well.” I spoke to him and
he wasn’t apologetic. I think he was a little
embarrassed that he got caught, a little nervous
because I’d involved a lawyer. It was a little
uncomfortable… it was weird, it was awkward.
I decided to not press any charges, not go after
him. It’s not worth it to me.
I wanna know about the Elements of Life
thing.
Well, that was way before. Elements of Life was
just Louie… it was Louie… he had his son, Nico
[Vega], and he wanted us to write a song, and
we wrote “Brand New Day” for Nico. We loved
that synergy between us—Luisito [Quintero] on
percussion, me on [backing] vocals. We named
the band Elements of Life and Kevin and I wrote
that song, “Elements of Life,” and it stuck ever
since. I became a part of Louie’s thing and I had
my own thing.
You guys toured?
Yeah! All around the world.
I also wanted to ask about Axel Tosca.
Tosca! I was with him yesterday.
A lot of the cats I went to school with he plays
with. How did he come in to play? And were
there always two keyboardists in the Elements
of Life?
No. Louie likes to keep one main guy that knows
all the stuff, but Louie’s productions have been
growing, so there’s a need for another guy to
play the other parts. That’s when Selan [Lerner]
jumped in. Used to be Albert Menendez, and
then it was Albert and Selan. Albert did his own
thing and I started playing keys. I like to just
sing and let that be that, but now I’m playing. It’s
cool. I’m glad I could do it. But Axel is the guy
that… somebody brought Axel to the situation,
and Louie and Axel fell in love with each other.
He’s a ball of energy, man.
For me, to see all of this come together with
an aesthetic that’s not particularly Latin—it’s
house-ish, jazz-ish—is what attracts me to the
Elements of Life. And your stuff is naturally
like that, too. Tell me about how you started
Honeycomb.
2010. When I found out that Kevin got me for
so much money over the years, it was the fuel I
needed to be confident enough to… you know, I
don’t know everything, man. I don’t know about
percentages and publishing like I should, but I
still was determined to find out. There’s no way
I’m not gonna do this, so I called Adam Cruz,
who was Kevin’s employee—me and Adam was
close, and Adam and Kevin weren’t messing with
each other anymore—and said, “I need you to
help me start this label.” Adam has the smarts. I
don’t—I’m the musician guy. He knew it and it
was easy. Within a month, I had my L.L.C. and
Honeycomb was born.
Where’d you get the name from?
The honeycomb is where the bees make the
honey. If you found some fossilized honey, it still
has its nutrients and you can still eat it. I like to
feel that you’re making music that, thousands of
years from now… you can still eat this honey.
I had my job at the church. Keep in mind, this is
not 1989 anymore; I’m not making that money
as we used to make. The music business had
changed entirely—full one-eighty. I told my
wife I need to stop doing this church thing. It
wasn’t conducive to what I wanted to do. [I was
doing it for] twenty-seven years nonstop, and
the church culture was declining to me. I didn’t
like it anymore; I didn’t want to go anymore. A
lot of things were going down that I didn’t like
and I left.
What year was this?
2010. I turned forty years old. My life was
changing. Anyway, I started the label, and Kevin
was the engineer up until this point in my life. I
didn’t know anything about engineering. If you
listen to Honeycomb’s first records, they sound
so bad, man. The phonics… oh, man. I had to
trial-and-error, keep trying it. I learned, man,
and I have it now, but, back then, it was bad.
Out of all these places that you went to, what
about the Shelter? What was your perception
of it?
The Shelter was good at keeping the legacy of
New York soulful dance music alive. Timmy
Regisford is still one of the best DJs walking. It
was a good time for us musically; Timmy loved
our music and he played it all the time.
You guys became a piece of that thread.
Yeah. Kevin partnered with Timmy and Merlin
Bobb. It was their events. Timmy worked at
MCA and gave us these humungous budgets,
and we would do these remixes and put the
money right back into the club. That’s how the
club got its sound system. Respecfully I say this:
Everyone was young and dumb and lost focus,
and some things just weren’t adding up. Even
between me and Kevin. I’m like, Huh. We were
supposed to get paid for this gig. What happened
to the money? Even then I was starting to see it.
You live and you learn, man, and I don’t judge
Kevin. He was a kid, too, a child.
I learned the hard way that this music industry
is a business. They call it “music business,” not
“music love” or “music fun,” but we still wanna
have fun, man. We don’t wanna pay attention to
the business. In fact, if you say “business” to an
artist, they check out. They don’t wanna hear it.
Was “Thinking About Your Body” on
Honeycomb?
Yeah. Chinahblac has a song called “Till You Go
Home,” which was the very first Honeycomb
release, but then “Your Body” was my first
release as an artist. That happened, and when
that happened, life changes. I built some
confidence as an artist. I can thank Louie
because he constantly pushes me up to the front.
“Get on the mic! Get on the piano! People don’t
know you can play!” It’s a great thing.
What is one of the most important things you
would tell someone who’s getting into it now?
I would say, “You’re probably not gonna listen
to me, but you really wanna understand the
world of music publishing. That is where your
dollar is gonna come from.” I think there’s a
misconception of saying, “Man, you gotta get gigs.
The more gigs you make, the more money you
make.” That’s not true. Music publishing is where
it’s at. If Coca-Cola said, “We wanna use the song
‘Your Body,’” I am forever paid, you know? Just
like that. But if you don’t own your publishing
to something you wrote in your house, and some
dude owns it… you’re gonna feel hatred.
I took a hit. I remember that hit. I wrote a song
for the Super Bowl. The Colts and the [Bears].
Louie Vega was on the stage during the show. I
JOSH MILAN
wrote that song. It’s called “One Dream,” and I
haven’t seen a penny from that, not one penny. If
you had a song and it’s on TV, millions of people
watching… I haven’t seen a dime.
That song you played with Joe Claussell at
Le Bain a few years ago… a few years later,
I asked him about that. He said it wasn’t
his—it was yours. You have a remix of “Una
Palabra”? That’s so nice. You didn’t put that
out?
Well, I don’t have the rights. That’s Carlos
Varela?
Yeah. How did you find that?
I was watching a movie and I thought, This song
is fucking beautiful. That means “one word.” I
thought, Wow, this guy… whatever he’s saying,
I’m feeling this music! I just put it together.
You’re a good writer, man! Have you ever
thought about—
I thought about taking a class on creative
writing. I enjoy it, but I’ve got an eighth-grade
education, so I wanna be sure that I’m doing
it right. I don’t wanna sound like an idiot. I’m
thinking about going to this online college,
taking a course.
I think you could benefit from that, knowing
you’re at a high level already. If you went
to some sort of class, it would give you the
tools you need to go to the next level. ”I Got
Arrested” is crazy. I read it on your site. Tell
me more about that.
That story resonates with a lot of cats. I mean,
I was in the back of that car, and a cop car is
small! I’m a big dude.
I could see everything!
I forgot what I said, but I remember I was in
the back of the car, laying down. He was hitting
bumps and all of that. Man, when I got to that
cell, bro… jeez.
What year was that?
I gotta look at the dates.
I try to be transparent on my blogs because,
when I started in ‘84, there were guys I started
with, and these guys never saw what I seen, they
never had the success of seeing their records do
anything, and they’re still trying to get it, and
nobody knows anything about them, so I said,
Why don’t I share the story so they can at least
see what’s going on out here? And it stuck. It
started becoming a thing. Every time I take a
trip or go somewhere, I write about it.
I would say you should do it more, too. That
was a real story, but I can just imagine you
getting into a place of creating a story that
didn’t even happen.
I had a play idea. I wanted to do a play. I
still wanna do it, man, but it takes so many
resources.
Okay, so you went to South Africa. Can you
tell me about that?
I went to South Africa quite a few times, and
each time it was a different experience. The first
time I went, I played in front of a crowd of about
twenty thousand. They were there for some
soulful house music. It was life-changing. We
can’t even imagine twenty thousand for soulful
house!
You’re lucky if you get—
Six hundred. Twenty thousand!? And they were
all dancing hard, too. Young people! They knew
11
the titles, they knew the songs. South Africa,
they put life back into soulful house music. If
South Africa didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be
doing what we’re doing. We’d probably be doing
jazz or trying to do something else, but when the
South Africa thing happened, it resurfaced house
music and we all had jobs again. It was a great
time! And they’re still holding up the banner.
Do you listen to the radio?
No. I don’t. Because I’m an old guy and there’s
nothing coming out that’s attracting me—unless
it’s something from our scene. Experimental
jazz, fusion. There’s this guy named Terrace
Martin—he’s dope. Cory Henry. There’s some
guys coming out with a lotta talent, but there’s
not many of them.
With me, when I went to Berklee, I was a jazz
snob.
I wanted to go to Berklee so bad. I was accepted!
I couldn’t get financial aid.
I got a small scholarship and got some financial
aid. I finished.
That’s great, man!
But the tuition for one year is, like, forty
thousand!
Who’s gonna pay forty thousand?
Don’t get me wrong—some people do. And
there’s a lot of people who get full rides.
When I applied, I was really charged because
I was like, Aw, man, this is my dream. It was
cheaper, but… I was mistreated by the person
they have who deals with financial aid and these
kinds of things. I said, “Well, I’m a novice. I don’t
know anything about this subject of getting
grants or anything. Can you point me in the
right direction?” She said, “Well, you can Google
it!” That’s your professional advice to me? Don’t
make me feel like I’m stupid, lady.
What’s the future of Honeycomb?
I’m getting more into organic [music]. Actual
live drumming—real shit. Dawn Tallman’s
album’s coming out in January. Ritmo y
Tumbao… Cuba [Ulacia] and Dres [Ramos]…
have you heard any of their shit? Next-level. I
produced it. Man… they have a great album. We
wanna treat that right. That should be January
as well.
Janine Lyons is a poet. Poetry albums suck—
nobody buys poetry albums; that’s just what it
is—but I believe in her poetry, I believe she has
a voice, and I didn’t mind putting music to it.
It sounds good. That’s coming out, maybe in
December.
How do you have time to do it all?
Well, I do it every day. It’s my life. I don’t have
a nine-to-five. If I got time to watch the news,
I can be doing a track. It’s a lifestyle. But it’s
a decision! My decision was [between] being
rich and being happy—one or the other. And I
know guys that are rich, and they are not happy,
brother. No peace. I’m poor as hell, but I’m the
happiest guy you’ll ever meet.
@JOSHMILANHONEYCOMB
HONEYCOMBMUSICSTORE.COM

a loving tribute to sa’d ali
FSQ DJ SET CIELO 201 —PHOTO CREDIT Q13 IMAGERY
by chuck da fonk & friends
Words: Chuck Fishman
“red parrot, roseland, club 88, paradise
garage, doc’s, zanzibar — these clubs were
very specific in their vibes and auras” — that’s
how Sa’d “The HourChild” Ali opens “Asylum”,
his 2018 debut record for Anane Vega’s NULU
Electronic record label.
Sa’d knows these clubs personally and their
impact on the evolution of dance music as he
was a young DJ growing up in Newark, New
Jersey in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Sa’d’s Asylum track continues: “I’m not famous.
I’m infamous. You have to know your shit to
know who I am”. This is an on point statement
considering Sa’d’s musical contribution to the
distinct and diverse genres of house music, hip-
hop, and funk.
Sa’d, born Dwayne Maultsby, unfortunately left
this world on April 21st, 2018 and his survived
LOVE INJECTION
by his 3 daughters, parents, sisters and extended
musical community.
We hope this profile of Sa’d helps shed light on
his importance to many crews - whether it was
the group we were in together, FSQ, or George
Clinton Parliament / Funkadelic, Soul Clap,
Tommy Boy Records, Louie Vega, Kenny Dope,
The Artifacts, AtomicHeadz, Fingers Inc. I tried
to reach out to as many people that Sa’d touched
and worked with which is an impossible feat
considering his span across the global music
industry, and there are also deadlines. So I start
this profile with how I came to meet and work
with Sa’d.
sa’d ali + chuck da fonk
I ran away with George Clinton & Parliament
/ Funkadelic to pursue a career in the funk.
Quickly after joining P-Funk on tour in 1995
12
at the age of 24, my parents became concerned
that my presence was illegitimate and called
George Clinton directly about it. Because of this
call, George assigned Sa’d as my passenger seat
companion to oversee that we made it to the gigs
and that no funny business went down. George
was cool with me being around but only if Sa’d
was my official minder. I drove my brand new
Ford Explorer across the US as a sag wagon of
sorts to the touring buses. I was already very
tight with original Funkadelic bassist Billy
Bass Nelson, and he along with drummer Gabe
Gonzales, who was also my fast friend, made up
the touring crew riding in my SUV. I was also
working on my debut solo album as “Chuck Da
Fonk” with Billy and Gabe, along with Tracey
TreyLewd Lewis, George’s son. Sometimes
Tracey also joined us when he wasn’t missing
dates trying to catch up with the tour. We were
the quite the crew if you can imagine!
Sadly, Sa’d at that time remained a mystery to
me, and he sat quietly in my ride every day. This
is very opposite of how Sa’d was in recent times;
he’s the ultimate storyteller and cheerleader!
I told Sa’d that in recent years he had become
“Harry Hippie” so much softer and loving than
I remembered and we agreed on this special
nickname. He could today still really go street
on you but like 2018 Sa’d is the ultimate lover
and supporter of all artists. Some examples of
his unwavering encouragement for other artists
follow in their own words, but first how did Sa’d
develop into this dance music butterfly?
sa’d’s role in p-funk & hip-hop
I don’t think I was aware Sa’d is George’s
nephew in those early days together. George’s
ex-wife Carol, mother to several of his talented
children, is the sister of Sa’d’s
mother Juanita. In 1995,
Sa’d was total hip hop and
seemed a bit gangster to my
young self. Billy Bass was
also trying to limit some
people taking advantage of
my situation, bless his soul,
so I kept to myself more on
Billy’s advice. Sa’d had a
green triangle mohawk at
the time and I wondered
what his long pinky finger
nail was all about. Sa’d was
road managing the group,
setting up and breaking
down stages. He was also
responsible for our SUV
crew. Occasionally he came
on stage to throw down some
rap verses, one song in the
P-Funk live set specifically
featured Sa’d :“Hard as
Steel”.
That jam comes from the
1996 George Clinton &
P-Funk All Stars album
“TFAPOAOM” which came
out on Sony Records. I also
did not know that Sa’d was
producing several of the
tracks from that album,
giving them a real hip hop
and house bent. He’s credited
under his government name,
Dwayne Maultsby. I had
too many stars in my eyes
watching George, Garry
Shider, Belita Woods, Bootsy
Collins, Bernie Worrell,
Amp Fiddler, Blackbyrd
McKnight throw down at
the album sessions at Chun King studios on
Varick Street in Lower Manhattan. Little did I
realize that Sa’d was over in the corner rocking
that MPC and providing lots of direction.
Meanwhile, I was recording with my SUV crew
over at Bill Laswell’s Greenpoint Studios over
on Greenpoint Avenue for my debut album on
Warner Bros Records, which was ultimately
dropped by the label.
That’s why I said it’s truly in my eyes it’s a damn
shame I wasn’t aware of Sa’d’s production work
ethic in the mid nineties as maybe he could
have saved that record. But we made up for
my oversight in later years, together forming
FSQ in 2012 with Grammy nominated hip-hop
producer Rob GKoop Mandell. Still in the many
SA’D ALI
years after I left P-Funk touring, I remained
oblivious to Sa’d’s work outside of P-Funk and
that’s a large and diverse catalog. Today I’m
still finding out about records he was involved
in and major artists he’s collaborated with.
Meanwhile beyond his production and musical
performances, there are his parallel careers
in the worlds of DJing, broadcast radio, artist
management, and A&R.
In terms of hip-hop I didn’t realize that Sa’d was
friends with so many in the community. I grew
up with Milo Berger of The High & Mighty. Sa’d,
at the time I was touring with P-Funk, was also
hanging with Milo (DJ Mighty Mi). We never
realized such overlaps until years after FSQ had
been formed!
You can hear Sa’d referenced and called out
Illustration: Overton Loyd of Overvision
on the track “Druggie Fresh” by his friend and
rapper Tame One of The Artifacts on Tame’s
project with Cage, known as the Leak Brothers.
The Leak Bros album came out on Mighty Mi’s
record label, Eastern Conference.
But Sa’d’s hip hop career had started much
earlier than the mid nineties. He was a member
of the Zulu Nation. In the mid 1980’s, he
relocated from Newark to Atlanta and brought
his burgeoning DJ skills. Going under the name
“Kool DJ Me”, Sa’d launched Atlanta’s first hip
hop radio show on WIGO AM before moving it
over to FM on Kiss 104.1. Sa’d’s influence on the
market attracted the attention of Tom Silverman,
the founder of Tommy Boy Records, leading Sa’d
to become part of the early hip-hop record label’s
13
promotion team. I’m not sure which hip-hop
records he produced and I’ve been digging - like
for instance you’ll see him credited on a Tommy
Boy record called “Gordon’s Groove” or on the
back cover of a Force MD’s record. Today, Sa’d’s
contributions to hip-hop as a producer, DJ and
artist manager are somewhat acknowledged (but
maybe not enough). He was appointed a board
member of the New York City based Universal
Hip Hop Museum.
on to that dance music shit
Sa’d and I reconnected in 2008 via MySpace
and we began plotting how to launch the record
label for George Clinton and the projects of
George’s children and grandchildren and
other artists George and P-Funk felt would
make sense to develop.
Sa’d by now had relocated
to George’s Tallahassee,
Florida headquarters and
Sa’d had a huge hand in
developing this new label
effort, The C Kunspyruhzy.
I had just moved to San
Francisco but I had a big
mark left on me from my
recent time in Philadelphia
when Hollertronix (Diplo
and Low Budget) emerged
and the scene around that
in Philly had just changed
the game. I felt this new
wave of dance music was
borrowing from everything
funky and George Clinton
could benefit from that, the
youth and everything that
was fresh about it. I was
approaching people like
Diplo and others producers
related to the Hollerboard
(a message board attached
to the Hollertronix project)
about working with George
Clinton and P-Funk but I
unfortunately wasn’t getting
any bites.
Sa’d and I started working
together on what kinds of
collaborations could advance
George into the dance music
world. At the same time, I
formed a new project called
FSQ (Funk Style Quality)
around 2012. Sa’d had found
a big voice on social media
and now seemed to me to be
the ultimate hype man, no
longer a quiet gangster in my eyes. I recruited
him into the group to be an online hype man
to help push the productions that Rob GKoop
Mandell and I were working on as FSQ. I had
no idea - again - that Sa’d was a child prodigy
DJ - and had stolen CB Radios as a kid in the
Dayton Street Projects in Newark to fund getting
turntables. When FSQ eventually started doing
DJ gigs to promote our first productions, Sa’d
had not even touched a CDJ but you would put
him on them and he would just rock the hell out
of them - given his expertise in turntable DJing
he just took to them. He was always surprising
me! I was working with Tom Silverman on a
digital music marketing platform and asked Tom
if he knew Sa’d because I was skeptical about all
CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
Mazes to the Motherlode LXVII, Ink and Acrylic on Paper, 2018 Brandon Locher is a musician and visual artist living and working in NYC.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
these stories Sa’d was now telling me. Of course
Tom exclaimed, oh yes, “Kool DJ ME!”.
We started getting out there as FSQ as we
ramped up to our first official EP release. Sa’d
and I also together as a team continued to
push George Clinton forward into the scene
via our connections, asking around about cool
opportunities. In 2012, we put George with Red
Bull’s SoundClash competition, and George
and us were paired with Mad Decent record
label affiliate, Jeffrees, performing a track date
together at Exchange LA. That was one of our
first successes with George in this new dance
music world. Also that year, I was introduced
to Village Voice music reporter Chris Tarantino
who was doing a profile on Soul Clap. Soul Clap
had come up with a whole concept that riffed on
P-Funk with an electronic bent, that they called
E-Funk. Apparently, Charlie (Charles Levine) is
a huge P-Funk fan having gone so far as to dress
up as George Clinton at his summer camp when
he was just a kid. Tarantino asked if I could
introduce Soul Clap to George. The request fell
perfectly in line with what we were trying to
achieve with George. There was a hidden silver
lining too. I quickly realized that Sa’d would
flourish with Soul Clap. So I said, look, “if you
want to meet George guys, it’s about more than
just George. It’s about the entire band and
community in Tallahassee and connecting with
P-Funk and Sa’d”. Ironically, about the same
time in LA we kept running into Glen Han from
Brainfeeder Records who wanted to link us with
Flying Lotus to create a FlyLo / George Clinton
collaboration (which eventually did happen),
but we couldn’t make the timing work out and
Soul Clap was the first group willing to come to
Florida work.
soul clap collabs & beyond
eli goldstein, soul clap: “One of my most
vivid memories is from that first encounter.
Charlie had spoken to Sa’d via text but we had
no idea what to expect. We came out of baggage
claim and Sa’d popped out of the sprinter van
with his signature feather hat and a blunt in
hand, arms open wide. This man who I had
never met before made us feel so welcome and
treated us like family from the first moment. I
believe he had an open heart for everyone and it
was so beautiful. Sa’d guided our sessions with
George. He was a part of all the jamming during
those early Tallahassee sessions and helped us
hone in a vision for the music we would release
with Funkadelic.”
Remember how I said Sa’d had transformed into
“Harry Hippie” over the years? Charlie Levine
adds: “Sa’d picked us up at the little airport,
rolling up in one of the touring vans and almost
leaping out with his trademark welcoming
enthusiasm; shades on, hat floppy as always,
leather vest and his jeans… oh the jeans! They
must have lived many lives of their own; tattered
beyond belief and so funky that he would have
to wear tights underneath them or else he’d be
giving the world an eyeful.
“Oh, a side note on the hat: I remember asking
him how he got that look, which was a sort of
broken perfection. He would say “You gotta
steal one of George’s thousand dollar hats, go
and put it under one of your couch cushions and
invite all your friends over!” That first contact
wasn’t like “oh, I’m Sa’d nice to meet you” it was
like “oh, THERE YOU ARE!” like we’d known
LOVE INJECTION
each other already for centuries. That was Sa’d
with the people, his heart was completely open,
he could see people for the goodness inside and
he paved a road of friendship as he went along.
From that moment we were bound as friends,
collaborators and very much so as cohorts.
Together with Chuck Fishman and Eli and many
others we had adventure after adventure.”
Now it was 2013 and Soul Clap really pushed
Sa’d along into the dance music world that
year. But Sa’d returned the favor when we all
convened in early May in Santa Monica at Red
Bull Studios for a further recording session with
Soul Clap and George Clinton. Sa’d coaxed Sly
Stone into joining the session and surprised
Charlie and Eli and everyone, including George.
Rob GKoop Mandell, Navid Izadi (RIP), and
Nick Monaco all joined in on these sessions and
the result was a joint EP with Funkadelic and
Soul Clap called the “Shake the Gate” EP. Some
of the tracks on the EP also appeared on the 1st
full length Funkadelic album in 33 years called
“First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate”.
After the Red Bull Sessions, I had to move to
New York to take on a new digital music job
to pay bills but Sa’d was ready for more and I
encouraged him to join Soul Clap and Crew
Love on the road. Nick Monaco: “The weekend
after we first met we all caravanned down to San
Diego for a show. We boogied all day and that
night Charlie, Sa’d and I ended up at someone’s
house and we played Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain
in an empty living and all hugged each other
for the entirety of the song. That’s when I knew
we were brothers.” Sa’d went on with the crew
Sa’d, George Clinton, Charles Levine, Eli Goldstein, G Koop at Red Bull Studios LA, Credit: Bill Kennedy
to Movement Fest where he kicked it with Seth
Troxler, and then also Tomorrowland where he
made fast friends with Lee Curtiss, Lee Foss,
Art Department, and Thugfucker. In the future
whenever FSQ had DJ dates with bigger artists
like these, they were so happy to see Sa’d again.
There were still more facts in the Sa’d musical
onion that needed be peeled back. For instance,
in his time after ruling Atlanta’s airwaves with
hip-hop in the mid eighties, and before joining
P-Funk on the road early nineties, he moved
16
to Chicago and managed house music legends
Fingers Inc. Sa’d was also tight with Louie Vega
from his early days in Newark / New York area,
so when the Funkadelic “First Ya Gotta Shake
The Gate” album came up, Sa’d got Louie to
remix the lead single “Ain’t That Funkin’ Kind
of Hard on Ya”. That remix wound up on Vega’s
Grammy nominated dance music album “Louie
Vega Starring...XXVIII”. So Sa’d had these deep
roots in house music that really helped FSQ and
our friends around us have an anchor in the
genre.
By the end of 2013, FSQ grew by two members,
Boston based Chas Bronz and Philly based
One Era, both multi-instrumentalists and Sa’d
encouraged our new members with so much
vigor. We debuted with our EP “Zulu Congo
Call” on Soul Clap Records on January 27th,
2014 with reviews from both Mixmag and DJ
Mag of 9/10. So now FSQ gigs followed, and
Sa’d and I went on to DJ major festivals as
FSQ like Voodoo Festival New Orleans, Soul
Clap’s House of EFUNK at Movement Festival,
Moonrise Festival Baltimore, and NYC venues
like Output, Black Flamingo, and Cielo. “Chuck
you’re a genius” he would exclaim, and I could
feel Sa’d’s excitement for what was to come. Even
though it was true that I was smart at pursuing
certain avenues, without Sa’d following up and
connecting with people we couldn’t have made
our success happen. If you put Sa’d in a party,
by the end of the night he’s made a dozen new
connections, all of them important that will lead
to new creative projects. We also held a daily
standing Facebook call at 12PM every day to
work on our “AI’s” - actionable items.
still so much yet to come
In 2016, Soul Clap asked us to help them
produce their full length self titled original
album. For the effort, we brought in more of
the Funkadelic family into the fold including
original bassist Billy Bass Nelson and Labelle
diva and solo artist in her own right, Nona
Hendryx. Nona appears on the track “Shine”
from the effort. Sa’d’s booming voice with its
dulcet tones opens that Soul Clap album on the
track “The Houchild Introduces”. In late 2016,
FSQ released a record with Dolette McDonald
(vocalist from Talking Heads, Sting, Laurie
Anderson, Steve Winwood) which garnered a
10/10 from Mixmag and as a result things were
really starting roll for us. In 2017, we were now
getting gigs abroad like the legendary Hostal
La Torre in Ibiza, and the Locomotive Disco
party London while we we worked on a bunch of
remixes for other artists.
Along with the success of FSQ and our efforts
for Soul Clap, together Sa’d and I still wanted
to do more for George Clinton directly. After 3
years of trying to make the timing work out, we
finally got George Clinton to do a Boiler Room
performance at the Sugar Hill Club in Bed-Stuy
Brooklyn. It took some convincing. George was
a bit more nervous about doing an extended
track performance, but Sa’d made it all work
out; he was the DJ and MC behind George’s
legendary Boiler Room Halloween performance.
Meanwhile, Sa’d was doing more than ever for
FSQ - he connected us with vocal legends Fonda
Rae and Tammy Lucas - who will both appear
on our upcoming FSQ full length album for Soul
Clap Records.
If you put Sa’d in the studio he will just work
and work for hours, so it was time for his own
music to be heard. He finally secured his own
record deal with Anane Vega’s NULU Electronic
records. His debut single called “Asylum” pays
tribute to the history of the DJ and clubbing in
the New York City area. Sa’d produced the track
with his friends from Hawaii, Higher Concept
and Willis Haltom. It was released on NULU
Electronic in January of 2018, as an EP made
complete with Louie Vega remixes. He asked me
to write his bio for that release which I almost
found impossible because how you distill such
an extensive and diverse career into a one sheet?
Here’s what I wrote ..
Sa’d Ali — DJ, producer, vocalist, A&R / artist
manager — he’s worn all these hats and was
completely present to ensure new music genres
like house and hip-hop fully developed to
find their hungry fans. His nickname, “The
HourChild” is a nod to the fact that Sa’d’s always
on time, always there, for musical history.
Sa’d will be there for the next musical evolutions,
either as a solo act, DJ, producer, member of
P-Funk, FSQ, or wherever he chooses to put his
tremendous energies.
Sa’d was very talented at the artist management
angle. After his solo record dropped, he turned
his attention to me and warned me that I was
biting off a little bit too much for FSQ work. We
launched a new band “The SQ’s” to accompany
FSQ live performances and he was concerned
that it was too much for me to manage. Still
he believed in me and we debuted the band
with Dolette McDonald at Soul Clap’s winter
residency at CMon Everybody on April 6th,
2018. I had to leave town right after that gig and
it would be the last time I would see Sa’d as he
suffered a heart attack a few days later.
charlie levine echoes the sentiment as
sa’d as a great mentor: “Sa’d watched me
grow as a person and as an artist. He was there
for me when i needed a friend, when i needed
a reminder that no matter what b-s may come
down the line the world is full of beauty. From
my time with Sa’d I learned to believe in myself
and the importance of spreading the message of
SA’D ALI (CONTINUED)
love. Sa’d would say “You can’t dance to every
record at the disco”, which was his way of being
deeply in the moment, not caught up in the fear
of missing out... I find myself rambling here a
bit because I want to try and paint a picture of
this man who I admired so much. I know this
feels jumbled, but no amount of writing or story
telling could truly capture just how incredible
Sa’d was and an attempt to do so would be futile
anyways.
The night i got a call from Chuck Fishman
that he had passed I was in Rome and had just
finished DJing when my phone rang. I knew
immediately before i even picked up and once
the call was complete I went outside to avoid a
breakdown in front of strangers. I looked up
into the sky and saw a shooting star, which sort
of sums it all up; magical, inspirational, cosmic,
beautiful, but just like all of aspects of life
fleeting. I wish I could have a thousand more
years with Sa’d and even that wouldn’t have been
enough. I love you Sa, fly on brother.”
Sa’d had been very productive in 2017 on the
production front and a few new records should
be coming from him soon including a release
called “No Couture,” and a feature on Lonely C’s
forthcoming album “Charles and Tribulations”
both on Soul Clap Records.
++
Basim Ali Yasim, his cousin, was Sa’d’s musical
partner starting in 1977 when Sa’d was 13 and
he got his turntables. Basim was told to come
to Atlanta when Sa’d established himself there
working the radio airwaves in 1984, now just
twenty years old. Beyond leading Tommy Boy’s
southeast US radio promotions, Sa’d and Basim
were the first to bring Chicago house music
to Atlanta specifically to clubs like 688 and
Metroplex. “Sa’d would sign us up for all kinds of
stuff and we were way over our own heads, and
then I was told to go execute the plans Sa’d came
up with. But in this way we were at the forefront
of bringing to Chicago House music to the area
just on the heels of Sa’d introducing the city to
New York City hip-hop.”
basim explains: “Sa’d and I were already
members of the Universal Zulu Nation, and
Afrika Bambaataa came to town and right off
the tour bus walked Kevin Irving. He performed
his song “Children of the Night” but a few others
like “Donnie” that weren’t even his tracks. We
learned that some of these cuts belonged to
Harry Dennis, and Larry Heard. Kevin went
back to Chicago and told his crew about the
clubs we were putting parties on in Atlanta.
Fingers Inc (Larry Heard, Robert Owens, Ron
Wilson) came to play a show for us at Atlanta
University and then Sa’d said “we should manage
these guys”. Sa’d then left at the age of 22 on tour
as the European road manager for Fingers Inc
upon the success of the Jack Trax record label
bringing Chicago House music to the UK.
—
“The Spirit of the Hourchild” Roots
NYC presents A tribute to Sa’d Ali
with Louie Vega, Anane, Soul Clap,
FSQ, Wendy Escobar, and Holmar
is happening at Cielo on November
28th, 2018. Cover charge from the
event and any additional donations
will go towards the education
expenses of Sa’d’s daughters.
17
MIKE MCCURDY
JUICY STREET
Gotham Flasher, “I’m Never Gonna
Leave You (New York) (Juicy Edit)”
We really started Juicy Street for two reasons.
First off my Friend Francis built this incredi-
ble space and we really wanted to help make
it better and take advantage of the opportu-
nity. The second was I got tired of hearing
people say that NY lost it’s edge or was over.
This classic funky disco jam is to me, is per-
fect for Juicy. When that “New York is my life
and I’m never gonna leave” vocal comes in I
lose it every time.
George Benson, “Broadway”
(Lee Douglas Edit)
A classic song everyone has heard and anoth-
er nod to the greatest city on Earth. A classy
extended edit from homie Lee Douglas. This
came out a while back on Prince Language’s
Edition Discos label. We were listening to it
while sound-checking one night and thought,
with our party being on Broadway it’s kind
of an unofficial anthem for the spot. Play it
at the beginning of the night or the end or
at home when you want to feel like you on
Broadway.
Fringe Society, “42” (Young Blood EP)
Now for a couple new ones. I grabbed this off
Bandcamp a few weeks ago. I like it because
it’s really trippy and sounds great on a killer
system. Synth-Punk, New Wave, maybe
techno. I played at the beginning of last Juicy
and it worked. A mind bender.
Craig Richards, “My Friend is Losing
His Mind” (The Nothing Special)
A new one from Craig on his, The Nothing
Special Label. I found out about this one
when I went to the label’s Bandcamp page to
grab the Jonny Rock- Way Over There Album
(which is also great). Play this one late when
everyone is really feeling it and watch peoples
friends possibly lose their mind, I did. I love
the production on this one he really throws
sounds all over the room it’s genuinely wacky.
Longhair, “Renate Schallplatten EP”
Longhair is a new project Marko Peliac and
Been Swift our buddies from the magical club
Renate in Berlin. Marko has been sending me
some stuff for a little while but I think this is
the first one they are putting to vinyl. My fa-
vorite cut is called Aquamen it’s a nice builder
that I have played a few times and always had
a cool reaction.
FIND JUICY STREET OR LET IT FIND ITS WAY TO YOU.

VINCE ALETTI:
DISCOPHILE interview Paul Raffaele transcript Nicholas Boyd additional editing Barbie Bertisch, Nik Mercer photos Barbie Bertisch
[Drake plays on Vince’s home hifi, he turns it off
as we begin recording.]
paul raffaele: Do you listen to a lot of
contemporary radio?
vince aletti: Yeah. Well, not radio. I’m still
probably one of the last people to buy CDs, so
that’s what I mainly listen to.
CDs were abundant at Tower Records in
Japan as of my last trip there.
It’s so frustrating not to be able to find them
anymore. Anyway, the only place that I can
find that actually has a decent stock in New
York is Barnes & Noble at Union Square,
which has a huge CD department and is really
well organized, but it’s not very up to date,
unfortunately.
We went to Amoeba in Los Angeles last year
and I was shocked at how many amazing CDs
they had for just two dollars each. I brought
back to so many. It’s a great medium for
discovery.
But I’ve been meaning to get out to Rough Trade
in Brooklyn which I haven’t been to yet, but that
sounds like a real record store.
So you were born in Philadelphia?
Yes.
And grew up in Florida?
Yes, Fort Lauderdale. We moved there when I
was ten. I graduated from Fort Lauderdale High.
What was your upbringing like? What did
your parents do for a living?
My father died when I was ten. He was a
chemical engineer, which I’m not even sure
what that means, but he worked at a plant in
Philadelphia. My mother was, until my father
died, a housewife. Later, she bought a motel that
we lived in, in Fort Lauderdale, then became an
adult teacher later in her life.
I read that your dad was into photography?
My father was a photographer. You know, like
a camera-club photographer, so I remember
having a darkroom in the house which in
later years I realized was very influential. Just
growing up with someone who took pictures and
LOVE INJECTION
put them in frames. I think we were probably
the only family in our neighborhood who had
my father’s photographs in a frame on the wall
and who actually let me watch and develop
pictures in the darkroom and all that. So I sort
of forgot that for a long time, but thinking back
to it I know it’s very formative to me. That whole
experience of the darkroom.
And he did he do it atypically from how
parents generally document their kids
growing up?
Yeah.
So he did it in like a kind of artful—
Artful way. Yeah, I mean, he was conscious of,
you know, making pictures of birds in flight and
still lifes, natural still lifes, and things like that.
I mean, there were pictures of my grandmother
and whatnot in the house, but they weren’t
typical family snapshots; they were more formal
studies and things like that. That was definitely
influential for me.
When did that click for you?
I’m not sure. I don’t know why it took me
so long. I really repressed a whole lot of my
childhood. I remember, like, one-tenth of
anything that happened, especially a lot to do
with my father, so I didn’t really think about
that for a long time, but then when I was really
writing very regularly about photography, it
came back to me. Spending time with other
photographers that I knew in their dark rooms,
remembering that smell and the water rushing—
all those kinds of very technical things about
the darkroom, but also the sort of magical
things about the darkroom. This is part of my
childhood that I hadn’t really thought about for
a long time.
Did your mom play music in the house? What
are your earliest music memories?
My parents used to have dance parties for their
friends after we kids went to sleep sometimes.
I remember sneaking down the stairs from my
bedroom and watching. This would have been
the early ‘50s and it seems to me they listened to
pop like Sinatra, big band vocals and jazz. I also
remember my mother playing the radio while
she cooked. Wish I could remember more. I was
18
a total music freak as a kid. I still have some of
my 45s from the time when I was twelve years
old. I was buying all the early Bill Haley and the
Comets, all the early rock and roll records. I had
a little portable 45 player and I just remember
inviting friends over to listen to music, and
that being like a really obsessive thing for me at
eleven and twelve. But now actually that I say
that, [I was] even younger because we moved
away from the neighborhood that I had a lot
of friends in when I was ten. So I remember
playing music before that, so it had to be like
eight and nine. And you know, just all little
neighborhood friends dancing around to rock
and roll. [Laughs]
Do you remember what sparked the interest if
it wasn’t your mom or your parents? Did you
pass a record store?
No, it was probably Bandstand. You know,
Bandstand started in Philadelphia, so I
remember watching Bandstand on TV as a really
young kid and being just enthralled by the whole
culture of kids dancing, and because they also
looked familiar. They were mostly these Italian
kids from Philadelphia. They were older than
me, obviously, but still there was something that
I could relate to. That was where I heard the
music. I don’t [remember] radio in particular.
I’m sure we had radio playing in the house, but
I don’t remember that. But it was Bandstand,
definitely. You know that was the introduction
to so much. All the Rate-A-Record kind of stuff.
I know I was very obsessed with all that. I knew
the dancers by their names; the way you do
when you’re sort of obsessed Anyways, that’s
where it started.
Did you ever work at a record store?
No. Not until Tower, which was late in life.
Okay, got it. What made you want to
start writing about records? Did you do
for yourself before you started to do it
professionally?
No. I didn’t do that until I was in college. I went
to Antioch in Ohio, which is a real great liberal
arts college, but relatively small. You would get
to know almost everybody in a very small town,
but in Ohio, which turns out to be a great black
music place. There were all these amazing R&B
stations in that neighborhood from Dayton and
Cincinnati and Columbus. I remember I was
listening to R&B radio and I started writing
about the music, the records that I’d like, for
some column in one of the college newspapers.
That was what got started for me. I would just
talk about the records that I liked and I have
no memory of exactly what that was, but I just
remember there being this really great range of
R&B [that was] almost Southern. Not urban or
not like New York—when I came to New York, I
was hearing a completely different sort of R&B.
This was much more grounded in a way. Anyway,
I loved that. I knew some records that I’d never
heard before, that I wouldn’t have heard. But,
also, I remember early in my time at Antioch
was early Motown, so I was completely gone on
early Motown—Marvelettes, the Supremes, Four
Tops. Just really, really pre-hit Motown, but [all]
things I heard on the radio there. Antioch had
a work-study program, and one of my first jobs
was in Washington, D.C., another amazing music
town with completely black radio. That’s where
I remember hearing the first Motown records
and just getting obsessed by Diana Ross and the
Supremes and Mary Wells. That changed my life.
Mary Wells, Smokey Robinson—that was it.
Who was the first person to hire you outside
of the school paper to write about music?
How did you get that job?
Actually, it was connected, in a way, to Antioch.
VINCE ALETTI
It was a guy that I knew in Antioch who
somehow knew people at the paper here called
the Rat. It was like an underground leftist paper
published, weekly or bi-weekly, and they were
kind of looking for people who wanted to write
about music. Not that they had any money
to pay anybody. I was working at a bookstore
at that point and this guy remembered that I
had been writing about music at Antioch, and
he said, “Would you be interested?” and that’s
where I started writing. Since they didn’t really
pay, you could really do more or less whatever
you wanted, and I wrote about anything and
everything. I wasn’t really focused on any
particular kind of music the way I became later,
so I wrote about Crosby, Stills & Nash. I wrote
about James Brown at the Apollo. I just took
the opportunity to go see shows and write about
them, and that lasted for maybe a year and a half
before the paper was taken over by a feminist
faction and all the guys were kicked out. But by
that time, I think I sort of established myself on
some level and I ended up getting a job in the
publicity department at Columbia Records that
lasted for a year.
And what year was that?
‘68, ‘69. I wrote bios in the publicity department.
During my time [there] or immediately after, I
started writing freelance for Rolling Stone and
Crawdaddy and some of the other smaller music
19
papers that were just starting then. I’m not even
sure how that came about, but having some
reputation from the Rat and having some sort
of grounding [gave me an] opportunity to move
into larger kinds of music papers.
When you went out and experienced the
music live, did that add a whole other level of
intensity for you?
Yes. Depending on who it was. I remember when
I was first in New York, going to the Motown
Revue at the Brooklyn Fox and other kinds of
shows where an act would come out and do
one and a half songs, and someone else would
come out immediately after and do another, and
it would be not a very creative environment to
perform in. But if the performer could actually
do something in that environment and get you
excited—which almost all of them could—that
was major. I remember seeing James Brown at
the Apollo early on and that was unbelievable.
Performers who were actually doing more than
just dance routines were just riveting. Most of
the papers or magazines that I was writing for
were more interested in performance reviews,
initially, than record reviews, but I did end up
spending much more time doing record reviews,
especially at Rolling Stone.
And what was your first experience seeing
DJs?
It was. You know, once I moved to New York,

which was, like,’70 or ‘68, I met some friends
who were going out to clubs. I remember going
to a number of smaller places before I went to
the Loft—I remember going to this place called
the Tenth Floor—but the Loft was really kind of
the turning point for me.
I read it in your book but I hadn’t heard about
it before that.
It was, I think, in retrospect, an influential place
because it was a relatively small. It was strictly
gay. It was very stylish. I mean, the whole design
of that place was, for me, the template for almost
every other gay club after that, even though the
other clubs were probably ten times the size.
Stepped up banquetes covered in gray industrial
carpeting. Huge flower arrangements. A Juice
bar. A small DJ setup on the same floor—I
don’t remember it being raised. And almost no
other decor. Really just very clean and simple,
but great music that I hadn’t heard anywhere
else, and it had a very intense sort of fashion
crowd. I don’t even know how I got in. I went
there probably, at the most, five times, but it was
very influential for me in terms of hearing that
music and having a sense of this culture that was
developing around music and around dancing,
which I didn’t really appreciate until the Loft,
which was somewhat later.
The Tenth Floor you said influenced the gay
clubs that came after, which were bigger. So
this predated the Sanctuary?
I don’t think it predated Sanctuary. Sanctuary
was very different, anyway—it was in an old
church. I’m not even sure if I was there more
than once. It was more like Limelight, another
old church space, so not very designed except
for the space that it already existed in. The
difference with Tenth Floor was the space was
designed as a club—it was designed as a space to
relax [in with] almost no distractions. For me,
it became the template for 12 West, Flamingo,
the Saint, which was later. Very simple decor.
12 West was almost exactly the Tenth Floor but
expanded.
So that and the Loft were kind of your two
entry points for you?
Yeah, and a few other places, like Le Jardin,
that are all sort of blurred together in my mind,
although Le Jardin was very unique in its own
way. But I never spent any real time in any of
these places the way I did at the Loft because
the Loft really became a regular weekly thing for
me and a group of friends. It was those friends
who introduced me to it and who I would go
over with and spend time with, and that became
a whole other sort of culture for me. But David
was so influential in my way of thinking about
music at that point and hearing records that
I hadn’t heard anywhere else. I mean, for me,
a lot of it started by visiting these friends who
ended up taking me to the Loft and seeing their
record collection and thinking, Where did you
get this stuff? I haven’t even heard of half of
these records and where did you find them? At
that point, I was on record lists—I was getting
records in the mail from most big labels because
I was reviewing pretty regularly and I thought
I had everything, so it was really shocking and
illuminating to go to friends’ houses and see a
whole collection of records that I had never seen
before and that were great. That was a huge
turning point for me. Realizing that there’s this
whole other culture out there that was going on
[that was] very deep at that point, but [that] I
didn’t know about until I went to the Loft. That
was exciting for me. It was like being invited
into some new club, and it was, very literally.
LOVE INJECTION
Eventually, the more I was hearing this music
and realizing that it still remained a kind of
underground phenomenon, [the more I knew]
it was something that I had to write about at
some point. There had to be a way to talk about
this music that was very powerful for a lot of
people that had not been exposed in a kind of
overground way.
It makes sense to me now that the Loft so
influential to you prior to your Rolling Stone
article.
Yeah, I wouldn’t have done it without having
gone to the Loft.
The music selection in the Rolling Stone piece
is very “Mancusian.” Generally when I think
of pre-disco music or “danceable R&B” I’m
thinking about Motown, or Eddie Kendricks,
Marvin Gaye.
Yes. [Laughs]
But you wrote about the J.B.’s and Barrabas.
J.B.’s is funk, loosely. Barrabas is Spanish
rock. Willie Hutch was R&B. And these are
things that I can point to David.
Exactly. Everyday People’s “I Like What I
Like”—I wouldn’t have ever heard that if I had
not been to David’s. I was trying to open it
up beyond the Loft, but I realized a lot of the
records that I talked about were things that I
heard there and that were very much his style,
his taste, but clearly that taste kind of migrated
out of the Loft and became a kind of more
general.
So “Soul Makossa” is something that people
attribute to David as he was one of the—
First people to play it.
Yes. I read that you said that he was a part of
the puzzle, that there was a lot going on that
contributed to that record. Could you talk
about all the things you saw going on around
that record?
It’s hard now to go back to that because I
did attribute it to David, but once I started
researching, I realized that there were clubs
in Brooklyn that were playing that record, too,
that I never would’ve been at, and that the
record had sort of migrated from a number of
different places almost simultaneously. David
was my entry point, but that record had already
been picked up at various other places as
well. I just remember part of doing that piece
was convincing Rolling Stone that this was
important to do, and then having that Manu
Dibango as a hook because of its success, but
also wanting to turn a really, sleuth it out and
figure out where this came from, who first sold
it, what store had first stocked it, and where
people found it. I did find some stuff just by
word of mouth at that point. It was fun to
do that because, again, it was my sense that
there was this stuff going on that was about to
break. It was about to be somehow much more
overground, and so I was really glad to be able
to have “Soul Makossa” as a hook to talk about
what seemed to me a sound that was coming
together that still didn’t have a name at that
point.
When did you start to have a casual
relationship with David?
It’s hard for me to pin down dates. It seems
to me I had started going to the Loft in ‘72,
73—something like that—through friends, and
I met David and basically just became someone
who always would ask, “What is that record?”
Gradually, I just became friendly with him.
20
Again, it’s one of those things I can’t exactly
pin down at this point, but it was a very casual
connection that became more focused once disco
became disco. I don’t remember how close I was
to David before the whole Record Pool business
started, before there became a sense that people
needed to organize in order to get the records
they needed. That just took it to a whole other
level of organizing and David proved to be
really pretty good at that. As flighty as he could
be, he still really was happy to provide a space
where people could meet and talk about these
issues of getting records and how to convince
record labels to deal with DJs. Once it became a
real business, it became clear that if the record
companies wanted their records played, there
could be this exchange, and that was very useful
to both sides.
And were you involved with the original
Record Pool and the organizing of that?
Yes.
With David?
Yes. I mean, we were. We, together with a few
other people, wrote the first proposals about the
Record Pool because it just seemed essential to
to put this group together and to make it clear
why it was important to the record labels. I
know that I was involved in writing this whole
proposal to convince the labels that it was to
their benefit and our benefit that things become
a little more organized. What was happening
was all these DJs—and some people who
claimed to be DJs—we’re showing up at record
labels in their publicity department and asking
for records, and no one knew who was legitimate
and who wasn’t, so one part of the Record Pool
was to say these are DJs we’re certifying in
a sense. We are vouching for them. They are
playing so many nights a week at this or that
club. They’re part of this group and so it was a
way of kind of legitimizing that whole process.
Again, you know, benefiting the record labels
so they didn’t have to deal with all these kids
popping up and asking for stuff when they didn’t
know if they were real or not. The Pool became
the drop-off point for records and, gradually,
more and more elaborate procedures [were
adopted], but it was an idealistic sort of thing at
the very beginning. Doing the best that we could
for the DJs and for the labels.
And then, eventually you wrote a piece in the
Voice about the Loft specifically? What made
you do that?
Because I thought David was so fascinating. In
the end, it happened as David was moving into a
larger space at 99 Prince Street, so I thought this
was an interesting moment. Initially, my idea
was that I wanted to profile a DJ and talk about
DJs as a group, and that David was, in some
ways, typical, but, in other ways, atypical. What
made it even more atypical, at that point, was
that suddenly, in the middle of getting this piece
together, there were all these protests in Soho
from people who lived there and who didn’t
want a club in their midst.
And these were artists?
These were mostly arts people, but not entirely
[sure]. I mean, a lot of those people were living
there illegally, although they had become more
and more settled. It was a very transitional
moment for Soho and I think they were nervous
about a club opening in their midst, anyways,
but especially a club that attracted all these black
and Latino kids who never would have been in
the neighborhood otherwise. David really had
to sort of calm them down in a lot of ways and
I think a lot of people still resisted it for a long
time. II think he made it clear to those people
who went there that there needed to be a certain
level of discretion in the neighborhood. In any
case, it was an issue and that became a big part
of the piece. Something that was cut out for this
version that was in Disco Files because it felt
like it was of the time, but it didn’t really apply
to what was going on later. So what we ended
up doing in this Disco Files version was sort of
just focusing on the profile of David and taking
out the business of the protest and sort of more
stuff that didn’t really apply later. It became a
problem in terms of doing that piece because
there was no way I could just go ahead and do
this sort of admiring profile of David without
dealing with the issues that he had brought up.
I recently interviewed Mark Riley and he told
me that that’s how he met David. He went to
the community board meeting and he was one
of the only people who stood up for him.
Oh, good for him. I love Mark. He’s a key person
in the early Record Pool, and then in Judy
Weinstein’s record pool. He was key to that pool
as well for a long time.
Absolutely. So David... he had an aesthetic.
Yes. [Laughs]
To quote him: “I spend a lot of time in the
country listening to birds, lying next to a
spring, listening to water.” He relates music
to the arch of a day or, you know, “calm,
circus, re-entry” cycle at the Loft. “I’m just a
part of the dance, a billion-year-old dance.”
Was anyone else talking like this or was his
voice just the strongest? Did you meet anyone
else who had this kind of mindfulness about
them?
Well, that’s a very good question. I mean, clearly,
when I was doing the column The Disco Files,
I was talking to DJs every week in order to
get their lists, but I wasn’t really probing their
aesthetic. Very rarely. Some of them I got to
know better, like the guys in New York, like
Jellybean and Tony Smith, but no one talked like
David did. He was such a mystic in a way about
what he was doing and he had really thought it
through, and I think that’s a lot of why he was
so influential. He really did have this sense of
how the night built and changed and he made
it real. So it wasn’t like he was spouting off all
this mysticism—he really made it work every
night. I don’t remember ever talking to a DJ who
VINCE ALETTI
had that sort of philosophical approach. They
may have, but I never uncovered it—it wasn’t
something that I was really probing for. David
was the one I spent the most time with and I
don’t think - I never did another profile like that,
so I don’t remember really having that kind of
conversation with other DJs. Mostly what I was
doing was getting lists from them, and it was
trying to do it as efficiently as possible. Talking
to them about what they were playing, what they
were excited about, what was new, and what they
were up to, but nothing larger. Generally, it was
kind of “we need to get this done, on the phone,
as quickly as possible.” I knew that sometimes
I was waking them up in the middle of the day
and I was lucky to get them at all, so we didn’t go
much beyond getting a top ten list.
Can you talk about logistically what that was
like? You kind of alluded to it. Were they
happy to give you this kind of information?
Were they hard to track down? Did they want
to be featured or were they reluctant to give
you their secrets?
I mean, first of all, I came into this and no
one knew who I was. I was just starting this
at Record World out of [nothing]. I had been
writing for all these other magazines and
newspapers, but never at a trade and never really
connected to most of the DJs that I talked to, so
I was a new person to them. I had to introduce
myself, but once I did, I found them really very
easy, very accommodating, and really happy
to talk about what they were playing. It took a
while to really get the whole process down and
to understand, to make clear that I wanted a
legitimate top ten. I didn’t want them to impress
me. I didn’t want them to try to list all their
ten new-like records nobody else was playing;
I really wanted them to get me a list that
represented the most successful records in their
clubs that day or that week or whatever, and
that took a while because some people were still
trying to impress me. I really felt that there was
this sense of wanting to share what they were
up to, and they were happy to be paid attention
to because no one had really asked them this
before for the most part. For them to know
that their name was on the list and it would be
published within the week. In a way, it took a
while for them to understand how things work,
but I think that it became important for them
that they represent themselves legitimately and
that they didn’t put something out there that, in
the end, people would make fun of or wouldn’t
21
believe. It was more and more obvious, I think,
as time went on, that they were happy to do this,
that they often spoke to one another, and I was
really impressed with the grapevine, that went
on across the country. The DJs in New York were
talking to their friends in Miami and L.A. and
vice versa.
They certainly were, in some ways, proprietary
about the new records that they were playing,
but they were also happy to talk about them
with friends, especially if there was something
that they had that other people didn’t—they
were really glad to sort of be the one to kind of
promote this new record because it was doing
well for them and they were excited. I really
loved that whole process. I mean, there were
different people who were more difficult than
others in terms of actually finding them and
making sure this wasn’t too early in the day for
them, but it became a really interesting process
for me, and they were, for the most part, really
forthcoming and really glad to be asked and to
have their club be represented, especially people
outside of New York, who often didn’t get paid
much attention to. It was important to me to try
to represent the country as much as possible.
I’d always ask people, “So what other DJ do you
know in your neighborhood or in your city that
I should be talking to? Who else should I be
getting on the list?” That’s sort of how it all built,
by asking DJs who they thought I should be
paying attention to.
How did you find people across the country?
Did Record World help you logistically with
that stuff ?
No. They weren’t involved at all. They were
encouraging with the column and they were
really happy that it was getting attention, but
they weren’t involved in the process. Also,
because I felt I was writing this column for the
DJs, once I started I thought, I don’t care who
else is reading this. I’m writing this for the DJs
and that was the audience that I had in mind.
For the most part, my memory is that they would
turn me on to other DJs. I would always ask,
especially at the beginning, “Who else should I
be talking to?’ And I would get a list of ten other
people and follow that up because it was always
interesting, having that experience of being in
Ohio and hearing music that I knew I would
never hear in New York. It was interesting to me
to hear what somebody in Miami was playing
that no one was playing in New York yet. Or

somebody in New Orleans. It wasn’t like a major
regional difference, but things would break in
different parts of the country at different points
and they might not hear what was playing in
New York yet, but they had something from T.K.
that they were excited about.
Yeah. How often did you, when you were in
the thick of it, go out to see the reactions that
these records were getting? Because a lot of
these records were about the way they made
people react in a visceral way.
I didn’t go out as often as one might imagine.
I probably went out once a week and maybe
twice if it was a new club opening. I tended to
go back, again and again, to first the Loft and
then Paradise Garage, and try to go to new
places as they opened to see what was going on.
It was always really interesting to hear a new
record in a club. A lot of times, I would bring
records to hear how they went over to Larry or
to David because I was curious. I really liked
this. I would never bring something I wasn’t
sure about, but something that I really liked
and wonder whether it would go over or not.
Sometimes, it didn’t at all. Sometimes, it was
too weird and I liked it, but no. But sometimes,
it was something that was really fun to hear and
get a reaction to. Because I tended to go at ten,
at midnight, I would be one of the first people
in the door, so if they put something on just to
hear it, maybe there were, like, seven people in
the room, and they weren’t going to clear the
floor or whatever. They were just going to hear
what something sounded like and maybe put it
on again later to see if it went over. Sometimes,
it was interesting to me just for them to hear it
and see what they thought, and maybe later see
whether the dance floor responded to it or not.
But beyond things that I brought, it was always
fascinating to me to hear something new and
see how it went over, especially to see a new
record get a lot of excitement and you knew that
that was a hit. It was a very interesting time for
records labels because they’d never had this kind
of instant response. If somebody played it on the
radio, you’re never really sure about the radio
response, but to see a dance floor either erupt
or clear, that was the best way to tell whether
a record was going to work or not. When the
record labels realized that that was such a clear
barometer of success, it was very interesting to
see that happen and how their respect for the
clubs evolved. And also to see radio DJs show up
to the various places and take music that they
heard there and put it on the air in only a day
or two. It was really a phenomenal time to hear
new music and hear it break really fast.
I read that you love going early to the clubs for
that reason, but also for the interesting stuff
that David mainly would play to start a night.
When I go record digging I find interested,
more left-field records on majors and I find
myself wondering “who the hell bought these
things when they came out?” and “how did
these records get signed?”. When you think
about how a disco record could be played at
a club leak to the radio and become a hit, I
wonder if it worked the same way with some
of the weirder, more obscure things.
I don’t know. That’s a good question, though it’s
really hard to answer because there weren’t that
many people there at the beginning of the night.
It was time to sort of set a mood—that was my
sense with Larry too. Either they’re trying new
things, something they just brought in, or, with
David, it was mostly just setting a mood, getting
the place warmed up in a way, so it would
be jazzy stuff, instrumental, Middle Eastern,
LOVE INJECTION
whatever. I loved that whole period because it
was really just sort of warming up. Warming up
your ear in a certain way and getting you ready
for something a little more beat-heavy. A lot of
the early stuff was really not exactly danceable—
it was more like just setting up a mood. But it
was a lot of odd stuff I couldn’t really identify.
I think of Ozo, “Anambra.”
Oh, yes. I love that record. That’s exactly the sort
of thing that David would play. That’s what made
it interesting. Yes, you could later hear “Devil’s
Gun” or whatever, but it was the unexpected
things that made all those clubs interesting.
When did you start going to the Garage?
When it opened.
Did you know Larry before that?
No, but I knew of him through David and
through all these channels. I think Judy
Weinstein was kind of involved with them early
on. She’s a good friend. I don’t know, but I
remember going to the opening and early, early
on because it was the big new place, and Larry
had a reputation already, and it was great to go
to a big space that was nice and roomy.
I attend today’s incarnation of the Loft. It’s
still alive and thriving. I think of the Loft as
what it’s always been, a bit more cerebral, a
bit lower in dB and audiophile sound, and
today we have 718 Sessions, which I equate
must have feel like the Garage.
Exactly.
Bigger room, higher dBs, mixing, technique.
With Danny Krivit, it’s not just the music but
the message in the music, the idea that he’s
playing lyrics, playing songs, vocals, and that he’s
playing to your spirit of the night. That, to me,
is what’s closest to the Loft. David was always
playing music that he wanted you to hear what
he’s saying. I think Danny does that same thing.
I like so much of the way he plays, but, really,
it’s the idea that he’s still playing music that has
something to say.
Which is rare these days.
But I haven’t been to the David-less Loft in a
very long time.
Was there a balance for you? You said you
went to the Loft and the Garage a lot.
I guess, but I feel like, at the time, I really was
going to Garage, the Loft had pretty much faded
away—it wasn’t like I went to one or the other.
There was almost no Loft left and if there was,
there wasn’t what I felt like was the same mood
anymore. So I pretty much only went to the
Garage for a long time, and then to a bunch of
other new clubs, like the Palladium and other
places, much more occasionally. I felt like
the Garage had sort of picked up that mood,
although “mood” is probably not the right word.
Picked up that crowd.
Right. Speaking about music with message, I
found your conversation with Michael Gomes
really entertaining. It’s really funny.
[Laughs] I haven’t read that in a long time.
How he got so hung up on “Runaway Love.”
[Laughs] I don’t remember this.
He was just upset. He was like, “Back in
the heyday, the music was so much about
love and happiness, and now everyone’s
just complaining.” And saying about Linda
Clifford, “It’s no wonder why he left you!” And
22
he kept bringing it up out of context later in
the interview. He was so bothered about it.
Oh, that’s very Michael Gomes. Oh, I don’t
remember it very well, but yes.
I’ve seen and heard a bit about Michael’s
zine, Mixmaster. Could you tell me little more
about it and it’s place in the scene?
I just remember it being a much more personal
thing. It was really like Michael’s diary,
practically—at least that’s my memory of it. It
didn’t have the same kind of formal ambition.
It was really very personal, so it was much more
fun. And he did run playlists, if I remember,
but it felt more diaristic, so he wasn’t trying to
become the next big thing. He was really just
sort of getting his personality out there, and that
personality was so vivid that it became really
a fun thing. I don’t know how long Mixmaster
lasted, but it did feel like a little newsletter
from the underground that he maintained in an
interesting way.
And he was a photographer, too, right?
Yes. His photographs were part of Mixmaster,
too, to my memory. You know, photographing,
usually, DJs at turntables, people in clubs.
In your conversation with him, Michael
was saying how Jellybean Benitez had a
‘vigorous sound.’ He was saying how all the
new kids that were coming up sounded more
promising. I guess I can imagine there were
so many DJs trying to be heard and, in the
age of the record pool, everyone was getting
the same records every week. What were the
big differentiators between them? Why was
Jellybean known as being vigorous? What
was he playing?
Well, everyone was getting maybe the same
core group of records, but everyone was also
always going out to Vinylmania or all the other
record stores and looking for everything else.
Record Pool was not getting imports. All those
kind of unusual records that you still had to go
buy, that was what distinguished everybody.
They were still always looking because they
knew everybody else had the same records, so
what could they get that no one else had and
what could they discover? I think DJs were still
going to record stores in Brooklyn. I think a lot
of people felt like they had their own private
place that they knew about, and I’m sure a lot
of them knew distributors and had a way to get
things that were unique to them. That’s what I
think distinguished a lot of people. It was also
not just the individual records, but it was the
way they put them together, obviously. I think
Jellybean, even though I didn’t hear him play
more than once or twice, had a vigorous sound.
It was the kind of intensity of the way he put
music together; not necessarily one record or
two but the way he hit you with it so I think that
was really what distinguished people. It was
their style, the kinds of things they emphasized
or didn’t. My sense with Jellybean was he was
always a little more pop, which, for the clubs he
played at, was ideal. Other people were a little
more obscure. I think people tended to want
to change up as much as possible and not to be
predictable.
But I do think that the DJs were… it was about
personality in the end. I know now what to
expect from [Danny Krivit] and it’s what I
love. It’s not retro in any way, but it’s a sound
that I totally recognize from the Loft and the
Garage. It’s something that’s rooted in gospel,
sometimes, and I feel like it’s an emotional
evening with him, whereas other DJs I think
don’t care about emotion. It’s all about the beat.
It’s all about the ah-ah-ah! Driving you insane.
With Danny, I think it’s very much about saying
something.
Did you have any emotional connection to
Better Days? I know you talked to Tee Scott a
lot for Record World.
Yeah, Tee was great. I don’t think I ever went
there. It’s embarrassing to say. I mean, I
probably went once. I went to almost every club
once, but I didn’t go out that often, and I didn’t
go out alone. I didn’t tend to go out alone, and
if I couldn’t find someone to go out with me, I
stayed home. I was not like a disco person every
night. I never could have kept up my writing.
[aughs]
It’s embarrassing, in some ways, because there
were these major, now legendary clubs, like
Better Days, that I wish I had experienced in
a different way. You know, I tended to go to
Palladium when that was new. It was only,
like, three blocks away, which made it more
convenient and it really had a kind of… well, it
started out with all this art stuff. They mounted
a number of art shows at the very beginning and
they had incredible art in the club itself, so it
became a whole other environment. I don’t even
remember the music at all, but it was a really
interesting place to go at the very beginning.
With things like that, I was tempted. Often, a lot
of times new clubs would have events, so I’d be
invited to an event—an opening of some sort—
and I’d end up there instead of a club that’d been
open for twenty years that was probably a lot
more important.
I can relate. I try to not get so caught up with
my work that I am no longer a part of the
community I’m documenting. But truth be
told, I’m only getting what I need from the
Loft, from Danny, from 718 Sessions, and Joy.
Have you ever heard of Joy?
Joy? No.
It’s fantasic. I’ve only been going to the Loft
for five or six years. 718 Sessions, much
longer, but the first time I went, David was at
the door, just greeting people but at that point
he had stopped music hosting. That was the
last time I actually saw him there.
Oh okay. I didn’t realize he had stopped playing
that long ago.
Yeah, so I only know a Loft where Douglas
Sherman, and more recently, Colleen Murphy,
and Edowa Shimizu are the people putting the
records on.
That’s quite a different experience.
Yeah, well, I can’t compare, but I think that
says a lot about how well his vision translates
through musical hosts other than himself. He
always said he was just “part of the whole.”
Yeah. I’m sure you’ve heard David was not a very
good mixer.
I never heard anything about his technique,
but I heard he abandoned mixing at some
point.
He never… the record would stop. There would
be a moment or two, then another record would
start. He was not mixing for the most part.
That’s still how they do it today.
Compared to other places, it would be just
shocking—it was just one record after another.
For me, for the most time when I was going
VINCE ALETTI
there, it was mixing, or at least there wasn’t
that kind of dead air in between a record and
another. Even if it wasn’t exactly mixed, at least
it hit one after another.
That’s one of the first things I noticed
when I first went. It made me think of the
transference of energy through applause
being almost as good as a mix. Douglas once IVAN BERKO
put it interestingly by saying if you’re not
mixing then you don’t have to think about JUICY STREET
tempo. You could play Fred Wesley’s “House
Party” into a soft but faster paced soulful
house record and it’ll—
Riccardo Schirò, “Dunas” (Gravity
It’ll still work. Graffiti)
I pretty much buy everything of Gravity
It’ll work next to one another if you don’t have Graffiti and this one might be my favorite so
to mix it. If you’re only thinking about BPMs, far. Its deep and trippy and extremely JUICY
you’d never think to put those two records STREET material. Really looking forward to
together. And the applause kind of brings you the next Lamusa II record.
to the next thing, which I think is interesting.
When did you stop the column? In ‘78? Atlas, “E Ancient Electronic Plaza”
’78. Yes. (Digitalo)
This is what it sounds like when DJ Sotofett,
I got a job with Ray Caviano at RFC Records—I Skatbard, and Laure make a record. Sounds
was the A&R person at RFC with Ray. I mean, like a proto house/ garage record made on
the column had sort of run its course—I had mars in an alternate universe.
never done anything weekly for four years
before that. As much as I enjoyed it, as much as
I enjoyed the experience of it, inevitably it had
to end sometime. I really liked Ray. We spent a
lot of time together. We heard music in the same
way, so it was an ideal job for me, and suddenly
I was actually making money. Having offices at
Warner Brothers Records. It was fun while it
lasted.
What was your point of view on what you
wanted to bring to the label? Gathering all the
knowledge you gathered, did you have a sense
that you know what worked?
A record that I liked, that I knew people would
dance to. You’re faced with this situation where
you’re not creating the record, you’re buying
something that exists for the most part, unless
you’ve got an act and you can work with them
on their second record mostly. I was there
for maybe a month when I went to MIDEM,
[Marché International du Disque et de l’Edition
Musicale], for the first time. I was there to hear V/A, “Mogul 4” (Themes For Great
new music and find something for the label Cities)
and I ended up coming back with two records Pretty much every track on here is playable
that did very well for us. One of them was Love but I’ve been playing the Wolf Müller cut the
DeLuxe’s “Here Comes That Sound” and the most. This was a highlight a few Juicy Streets
other was Freddie James’s “Everybody Get Up ago around 3pm.
and Boogie.” Both records that really sounded
interesting that weren’t quite like anything I’d
heard before. You know, grab them up at a very Stijn Sadèe, “Affetto” (Kitjen)
good price at MIDEM and put them out within I love slow acid with weird animal sounds so
weeks. naturally I have been playing this cut.
MIDEM is like the film festival at Cannes except
it’s for music. Producers, labels—all these people Francisco & Cosmo, “Lineabeat Raccol-
go. It’s like a place to exchange information but ta” (Slow Motion)
also to find new music. It’s a big marketplace, Every track on this LP is absolute, laser beam,
essentially. I’d never been there. I’d never Italo, perfection, mixed and mastered to
been to Cannes, so it was really an interesting bump the club.
experience for me, but I ended up hearing a
number of things and two records that became
our first early hits. It was a good experience. But
to answer your question, it’s really just about
hearing things that I thought could work. I
didn’t have to talk Ray into that for the most part
because if I heard it, he would hear it, and I don’t
think we ever disagreed seriously on anything.
You know, it was really kind of grabbing for what
was out there. Some things you would hear were
suddenly available, and it was finding if there was
a way to get them on your label. FIND JUICY STREET OR LET IT FIND ITS WAY TO YOU.
23

How often did things unfold like Barrabas,
who wrote “Hi Jack,” and then, for whatever
reason, an American label hired Herbie Mann
to cover? Was that the type of thing you do if
you couldn’t get the act? How often did that
happen?
We never did anything like that.
Would that be immoral?
No. We totally would have done it, but the thing
was we were a completely new label. We had
no acts, so in that case that’s a good example:
Atlantic had Herbie Mann. They had an act
to cover something that they couldn’t get. We
didn’t have anything like that, so that wasn’t
an option for us. Once we signed Change, that
could have been something if they wanted to
cover something that’s already out there. But
it certainly wasn’t immoral. It was done all the
time, and sometimes the cover would be better
than the original.
Or better sounding.
But it wasn’t an option for us for the most part,
and it’s not the sort of thing we would’ve done at
that point. We were looking for new things. Ray
brought in Gino Soccio, who grew to be really
strong for the label, and Change, which was
really the biggest hit I think that we had. But it
only lasted two years at Warner Brothers, and
when it did, that was it for me.
At that point, you kind of moved to more
photography—
Back to music.
Oh, back to music?
Yes. Back to writing. There was a year in
between where I was basically freelancing again,
writing about music mostly for The Village
Voice, and then I got this job at Tower here when
Tower opened their first East Coast and first
New York store, which they just went all out for
because it was a big deal for them to be in New
York, to be on the East Coast. They spent a lot of
money. They did a really great launch and they
wanted to get interesting people, and I guess
that I was the R&B and disco buyer for them,
but I was also, like, actually on the floor, selling.
I had never been in that place before and it was
interesting to go from being someone outside of
the music business as a critic to somebody at the
trades, which was, like, weirdly inside-outside
place, and to being at a record label for two
years, very completely inside the business, and
then to be at a record store and be again in an
inside position, but also feeling like an outsider.
I really enjoyed the experience of hearing, of
knowing what people were actually buying. I
guess I’ve always been sort of a nerd in that way
about charts and things like that. I’ve always
loved Billboard. I’ve always loved Record World
as well, and I was writing for them, but the
whole idea of charts and what that all means,
and to actually see what people were coming
in and asking for and going away with… it was
fascinating for me. Of course, it completely
impacted my job as a buyer because I had to see
what was actually selling, not just, like, thinking
it would be good but knowing that it would
actually sell. Part of my job was writing up a top
ten list for my department, and really counting
records and not just thinking that did really well,
but actually knowing, like, 350 copies [sold]. It
was an odd position for me to be in, but I liked
having all these relationships to the music, closer
and further away from being a critic, and after
that was over, I went back to being a critic again,
writing about music for another probably six
years, mostly at the Voice.
LOVE INJECTION
So through the eighties?
Yeah. Most of the eighties.
You have an eye for art. You saw art, hip-hop,
and punk converging in the early eighties.
Was that something you were particularly
excited about or felt compelled to write
about?
Well, wrote about, no. I mean, I was writing
about records.
Little by little, I got into writing about
photography. I was always paying attention
to the art scene in New York, and then when
it really got happening in New York—I’m
sorry, in the East Village—I was kind of in the
middle of it. I was seeing new galleries pop up
and new artists come. Getting to know some
of them and just seeing that whole cycle of
art galleries opening and closing and moving
around. I’d already been going to the galleries
in Soho pretty regularly to see a sort of younger,
ground-level group of galleries opening up in
my neighborhood, which was a range of kind of
early graffiti art and conceptual stuff, and just
a whole range of stuff that was very much of
this neighborhood, in a way, or at least became
identified with the East Village. Having watched
that develop definitely affected my later coverage
of photography.
These artists did everything. They made
music, they DJ’d, they wrote poetry, they
made films. When Basquiat made “Beat Bop,”
was that something you took seriously?
I don’t remember thinking that the record was
very great, but the album cover was brilliant and
I definitely bought that. [Laughs]
You have an original?
[Laughs] Yes, I have that. I have almost all
the graffiti covers because a lot of that was
happening when I was at Tower, so that was an
interesting time. Keith Haring used to live in
this building.
The one we’re in right now?
Yeah, I met him early on. I was really excited by
this younger group of people, especially when
Keith was making all the stuff in the subways
and doing the subways. Were you around during
that time?
No. I was born in ‘86. [Laughs]
Anyway, it was a really exciting time because
there was this sense that art was everywhere and
it was not just some elite thing that people were
putting in the frame and taking away. Art was
really being made for us and by us in a certain
way, and it was really exciting.
Did you do any work that combined the
worlds? Music and photography? Like, did
you write any forewords for photography
books on the disco era? Or was it totally
separate?
It was pretty separate. The one time I was
approached to write an intro to a book of photos
about disco, I turned it down because I didn’t
like the work. No, most of my photo writing has
been about photography itself, not so much the
subject. You know, the art of it.
Were you collecting photos through the
period you worked in the music industry or
did it start after it?
Both. I started when I finally had some money,
but in a very small way. Mostly, I was collecting
when I was at RFC and continued after that.
24
VINCE ALETTI
And I read that you like the stuff that you while because people keep saying they can’t find
found that was anonymous just as much as the book, that it’s really impossible—and it’s so
you like it from photographers. expensive if they do find it. At different points,
Yeah, a lot of the early stuff I bought was I approached different publishers, and usually,
from flea markets and I was very influenced they say, “Well you know, your book already
by a number of curators and collectors who went through a pretty long [cycle], had a lot
appreciated anonymous work, put anonymous of books in print. I don’t think we can make
work alongside well-known photographers any money off of it.” But I just kept pursuing it,
because it was really about the eye that saw thinking somebody should want to do this at
the picture. You didn’t need to have a name in some point, and I was glad that D.A.P. agreed
order to make a great photo. t was exciting to to it because they’d originally distributed that
realize you could go to a flea market and find a version at one point. Not the initial printing, but
picture that spoke to you for ten dollars or three when it went back and was reprinted the first
dollars or whatever. For me, it was always about time, DAP distributed it and they got it into a
training my eye and not worrying about value, lot of museum stores. They’re really good at this
not worrying about names, but just responding kind of museum-level distribution especially, so
to an image. Again, it was something I learned they knew that they’d done well with it and, for
by seeing collections by interesting curators and whatever reason, they decided to try it again. I’m
collectors. so happy.
And that’s what you did in 2008 at White That’s great. I actually bought this for
Columns: “Male.” How was that experience? seventy-five dollars from someone and you
How did that happen? inscribed it to...
It happened because Matthew Higgs, who runs I had signed it…?
White Columns… do you know the name?
Yes, but to a...Teddy.
Yes, of course, Matthew invited us to do an “Teddy – Keep dancing.” I wonder who that was. —
exhibition at White Columns last year. The Disco Files 1973–78 New York’s
Oh, of course! It all comes together. You know I was wondering if you could— Underground, Week by Week By Vince Aletti.
he’s obviously this huge music nerd. He did a Sign it to you? Interview with Fran Lebowitz. A new edition
show that I don’t know if you were around for of the essential chronicle of disco culture
of album sleeves, liner notes. He did a show of Yes, sign it to me. [Laughs] is out soon via D.A.P. Pre-order now via
liner notes. Thanks so much, Vince. orders@artbook.com.
I didn’t know that!
Probably was in, like, 2006 or 2007—something
like that. I had done a number of liner notes over
the years, so he came to me to borrow two or
three. I can’t remember what he used. While he
was here, he said, “You know, this is really kind ADVERTISEMENT
of an interesting collection. Would you consider
doing a show?” I said definitely, I’d love to, and
that just came from that. It was really just his
inspired moment of just looking around and
saying this could be a show. And then I did a
book after that.
Parallel, White Columns did those xerox
copies of Disco Files?
Yes. I forgot. It all comes together.
It was around the same time?
Yes. He launched it at the opening of the “Male”
show because, again… this goes back to the
whole music nerdom thing and knowing that
I’d written this column, and that I had all these
copies of Record World piling up here… so the
initial version was all xeroxes of the pages in a
three-ring binder. Did you ever see that?
He showed me one.
So that’s what started the whole thing. The guys
at DJHistory were the ones who said, “I think we
can make this better.”
After the show?
Yeah. After the publication of the White
Columns binder.
Very cool.
I didn’t realize, but I thought I had every copy
of the Record World and I didn’t, so the guys at
DJHistory researched it and found all the copies
that we didn’t have. They made a much more
complete version and decided to include all the
other writing I’d ever done on disco. That’s how
that came about.
So, why now for the Disco Files reissue?
It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a
23
25

Q&A WITH
KRISTIN: Usually in these pieces
we discuss the musician or
DJ’s non-musical inspirations.
The idea of the non-musical
takes on a different sense when
introduced to your label, Fake
Music, where you reissue silent
or non-existent music. Your
tagline for this project is “music
can only be fake when there are
listeners who are really fake.”
So is Fake Music non-musical?
What is fake? What is music?
Other Voices is a monthly column by
Kristin Malossi aka DJ Voices
unscented dj: Fake Music is a reissue label that
I do with my friend Willy Smart. We deal with
works of silent or nonexistent music, ones that
cannot be reissued in contemporary music-
publishing formats, and we admit our inability
to reissue them. In practice, this looks like us
deciding on a piece of music to work with and
sending out a press release-style PDF describing
the work and explaining why we are unable to
reissue it.
I’d like to suggest as humbly as possible that the
goal of this project is to work toward expanding
our idea of what can and can’t be considered
music. Early on we were working with
purposefully musical statements like the band
Reynols’ album Gordura Vegetal Hidrogenada,
which was a CD jewel case with no CD included.
But we’ve since become interested in what I’ve
come to refer to as historical fakeness: history
intervening to prevent an otherwise musical
person or thing from producing music.
An example of this is the 1973 OAPEC oil
embargo, which came about after the U.S.
LOVE INJECTION
UNSCENTED
angered a Egypt- and Syria-led coalition of
Arab states by providing weapons and supplies
to Israel, whom the coalition had invaded in
attempt to recover Israeli-occupied land. OAPEC
stopped the flow of oil to the U.S. and a few
other countries, which affected the then vinyl-
dependent music market. Record companies had
to experiment with recycled vinyl, which was
of poorer quality. Records produced with these
compounds had issues with surface noise and
warping, and they often became unplayable.
By including it in our catalogue, we have
taken this geopolitical event and, for better
or for worse, turned it into a musical one. I
understand, feel, and appreciate the discourse
around music being love and a guiding
light toward personal fulfillment, but I also
want music to be a tool that helps me better
understand the world.
Fake Music had a short-lived Discogs page.
Many users didn’t see its validity since there
no playable music to sell and eventually had
it removed. It seems like most people would
26
DJ
see Fake Music as more of a research-based
writing project. Why did you want Fake Music
to have a Discogs page?
It’s true that Discogs deemed us unfit for their
site because a written PDF does not fit under the
category of recorded music as they define it. I
still disagree with their decision.
We consider the project a record label. The
music we deal with cannot be “recorded” in the
traditional sense (i.e. put to tape), so we have to
record it through writing (i.e. documenting its
existence). We record and publish music.
Like the label in general, the decision to add our
releases to Discogs was a serious joke. I wanted
us to be included in the most comprehensive
music database of the day, where all other labels
are represented. I also just thought it would
be funny to have Pootie Tang’s silent hit from
the movie on there. Once we started adding
the releases, we found that we were actually
reaching more people because those who were
looking up Reynols or Eliane Radigue would
click on our page and see what else we were up
to. We had a few people join the mailing list or
reach out because they’d found us in this way. It
was a helpful avenue for getting our work out to
like-minded people.
I think a lot of people relate to the idea of
music being a tool for understanding the
world, especially those that have familiarized
themselves with the history of techno and
house. Fast forward to today, any thoughts or
feelings about the current intersection of club
music and what some might call activism? Is
there an issue lately that you’re glad people
are speaking up about?
I’m glad that people are engaged right now in
general. I went to the first stop on the new night
mayor’s “listening tour” and was happy to see
loads of people out to listen and contribute to
the conversation. There were music people there,
but I didn’t see terribly many people from the
club world. I’m excited about what the Office of
Nightlife means for New York, and I know that
Ariel Palitz has been reaching out to great people
from our corner, but I just hope that given this
opportunity, we can keep up engagement so
that this new focus on nightlife can offer real,
positive change and not just become the city’s
way of regulating its newly acknowledged and
dear revenue stream. For that to happen, I think
we (myself included) will all need to actually
organize and show up to city meetings, elections,
etc. instead of just posting online about the
issues they address.
It’s not really an “issue” per se, but it’s exciting
to see people implicitly asking the question of
what it means to be free in New York right now.
Are we free if our favorite places to be are being
marched on by the city for no clear reason? If the
arts and community spaces bubbling up from
the underground are shut down as they stumble
along the confusing path toward legality? If the
ones opened by minorities have a much smaller
chance of surviving? If our POC/queer/trans/
differently abled friends don’t feel comfortable
in these places? Dance music has always been a
plea for freedom. I feel fortunate to be in New
York at a time when we can substantively work
to answer it.
What are some other influences on your
relationship to music?
I think a lot about the statement by the poet
Solmaz Sharif, “Every poem is an action. Every
action is political. Every poem is political.” I
swap out “poem” with “track” or “song” and
wonder whether I agree with the statement. I
don’t think every piece of music has a political
effect (I think most absolutely do not), but every
piece of music is affected by politics in some way.
I identify as a Marxist materialist. I guess I try to
keep material conditions and history’s influence
in frame when I consider pretty much anything,
so listening to music follows suit.
You have quite a bit of poetry and
experimental writing published, did your
Master’s studies in literature, and contribute
music writing to Resident Advisor. Does your
brain tend to compartmentalize this version
of your creativity from DJing? If not, how do
they overlap?
I have learned some helpful strategies from
literature that have influenced the way I find
and organize music. I’ve been into the France-
based writing group Oulipo for a while now,
and I’ve spent time with members and worked
in their archive in Paris for a few months. Their
work is vast, but they’re best known for using
self-imposed constraints that allow them to
write toward new, “potential” forms of literature.
The best-known example is Georges Perec’s La
Disparition, a novel about a disappearance that
does not use the letter “e.”
For a long while I gave myself a rule that I wasn’t
allowed to buy records on Discogs. I just went to
record stores all the time, and whatever I would
find in shops would become the basis of my
DJing. It made it so that what I played felt like
it wasn’t totally up to me, although I did use my
own taste and judgment to navigate the shops I
was in. It basically made me be really open with
everything I heard because I knew that if I didn’t
go for it while I was in a shop I would have
missed my only opportunity to find some new
tunes that day.
This strategy also helped with the goal I
mentioned before: for music to be a tool that
would help me learn about the world. When
I moved to New York four years ago, I was
meeting so many people and learning about the
goings-on just from going digging all the time.
I think too of an idea that I arrived at through
reading literary criticism, that the sheer scale
that book publication reached in the late-
18th and 19th centuries that allowed us to
have the classics that we recognize now. A
booming industry of popular, perhaps pulp-y,
now-forgotten works laid the framework for
adventurous books like Frankenstein and
Tristram Shandy to come into being. Some think
that for this reason, it’s worth taking broader
OTHER VOICES
looks at forgotten works in order to get a better
sense of a given era’s literary landscape.
This is true of records too, and that’s one reason
why I love digging at places like the Thing so
much: you can really learn a lot about your
favorite music by examining the other detritus
that surrounds it. Of course it’s wonderful to
listen to Larry Heard records all the time, but
you’re not really going to totally appreciate how
great they are or understand their significance
if you don’t hear all the other attempts that
indicate how hungry people were for beautiful
house records around when “Never No More
Lonely” came out. This sort of thinking has
made me a lot more patient with the music that’s
slipped by. I like to try to listen to find strengths
in lesser records, even if the vocal is a bit cheesy
or the production isn’t as advanced.
Do you have a favorite record you’ve found
through this kind of listening?
One that stands out is a record called “Japanese
Love” by E.L. Gang. If I have a signature record
at all, I guess it is this one. I play it all the time
and every time I do, someone comes over and
asks me what it is. It’s produced by this Italian
guy called Frankie Marlowe, who made some
pretty bad Italo house in the early 90s, and
his one departure from this style is a somber,
Orientalist downtempo track featuring a pretty
shallow take on “Japanese-ness” and an opera
singer. It’s like Malcolm McLaren’s “Madame
Butterfly” drawn from more of a garage house
pallette.
But I love it anyway. It’s such a weird cultural
mish-mash and sounds so earnest that it just
makes me wish more people’s insensitivities
yielded such high-quality results.
You’ve got a good memory that tends to dig
up quotes relevant to whatever is happening
at a given moment. What’s one you can give
us here?
I don’t want this to be read as “here’s my favorite
quotation,” but the end of Ralph Ellison’s essay
“Living with Music” feels like it’s always with me
and is pretty apt in this case: “In the swift whirl
of time music is a constant, reminding us of
what we were and that toward which we aspire.
Art thou troubled? Music will not only calm, it
will ennoble thee.”
These words are directly related to what we
talk about when we talk about true deepness
in music. Colonialism and its neighboring
systems of devaluation have robbed the world
of so much history and cultural richness. An
unspeakably sad loss. When we hear deep
rhythm, and especially when we dance to it, we
feel and begin to understand these histories, and
just how much has been lost. Ennobling is an
understatement.
— residents Andrew Devlin, Onkel-S, and
Brandon Wilner is a reader, writer,
twin, and DJ who lives in new york. He
plays under the name unscented DJ
and, full disclosure, also happens to be
my romantic and dj partner. Catch him
at Mood Ring on December 7th, and
check out some of his design work at
areaware.com.
FAKEMUSIC.ORG
SOUNDCLOUD.COM/BRANDON-WILNER
27
— “The Spirit of the Hourchild” Roots
NYC presents A tribute to Sa’d Ali
with Louie Vega, Anane, Soul Clap,
FSQ, Wendy Escobar, and Holmar is at
Cielo on November 28th, 2018. Proceeds
will go towards the education expenses
of Sa’d The Hourchild’s daughters.
(18 Little West 12th St, New York, NY,
http://cieloclub.com)
— The Lot Radio is taking taking
over a repurposed old money exchange
bureau in Times Square for the
entirety of December. Times Square
Transmissions will stream from 1568
Broadway from 10am-10pm everyday.
The kiosk will remain open and the
winter cabana will be in full swing.
(http://timessquarearts.org, http://
thelotradio.com)
— Resolute celebrates 20 years of
Theo Parrish’s Sound Signature label
with Theo and crew on December 1 at
an undisclosed location. Resolute the
party is celebrating their 11th year.
(Tickets via Resident Advisor, email
resolute.signature20@gmail.com for
location)
— The Love Injection Holiday Party is
Saturday December 8 at Le Bain at the
top of the Standard, Highline feauring
Toribio, Barbie Bertisch & Paul
Raffaele. No cover. (848 Washington
St, New York, NY 10014)
— Classic Album Sundays NYC presents
LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver
at Nowadays on December 18th, 12-
3pm. Active communal listening on a
hybrid hifi: CAS’ own meets Shorty’s
SBS Intelligence Series. This is a
seated, co-educational music event.
Come to be immersed and stay for the
Mister dance afterwards. (56-06 Cooper
Ave #1, Ridgewood, NY 11385, http://
classicalbumsundays.com)
— NYC’s legendary ESG celebrates
its 40th year at Elsewhere on
December 5th. Joining the bill
are our favorites Future Punx and
IGBO. Tickets via Eventbrite (599
Johnson Ave, New York, NY, http://
elsewherebrooklyn.com)
— Benny Soto presents 718 Sessions
with Danny Krivit on Sunday December
9th at Good Room at 6pm. (98 Meserole
Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222, http://
dannykrivit.net)
— December 15th at H0l0, The Level
Party host Montreal’s Gene Tellem with
Working Women. (Tickets via Resident
Advisor, 1090 Wyckoff Ave, Ridgewood,
NY 11385)
— Love Injection is holding residency
at Ace Hotel every Friday in December
from 8pm-2am. Free. (20 W 29th St, New
York, NY, http://acehotel.com)
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