A good number of you have tried the DJ Quiz! You can keep trying! Dial 915-97-LOBOS (915-975-6267). Here’s a sample, with me getting three correct (so, I’m giving you four answers: I press 2-1-2-1).
Reminder: Desyn & Rama at Mansions on Saturday. Here’s another Desyn mix that I’ve linked before. Here is one from Rama.
Part of 109th & Broadway is now named after Thích Nhất Hạnh.
At White Columns this week, three talks about Gordon Matta-Clark’s graffiti archive.
I really enjoyed reading Owen’s review of Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine (the book on Spotify).
An old interview with Chris Nazuka that I missed late last year. He talks about his time coming up with Mark Farina, etc.
Our man Roadkill Tarpey made his Hardwax.com debut with Mr. PLO and the Snp 500 boys. “Mom we just put out a new record…” “Well, what’s it called, son?” You can listen to the entire record on YouTube.
There’s a lot to be gained from reading old magazine features and blog posts. It’s nice to revisit these pieces, and I think that—for dance music, especially, as so many of our publications return to dust—it might be worth going back into the archives. At some point, I’d like to compile a small set of features from the online dance music journalism of the previous decade that ought to be required reading for anyone interested in dance music1. In the meantime, I’ll list a few here that I enjoyed last week.
This last week, I mostly read older RA features. Reading this 2009 op-ed from Peter, the other SSG, it’s striking how much of it could have been written in the last couple of years. From that same period, there’s this article on a few cases of tracks that were “too sampled.”2 I regularly think of this 2008 piece about distributors EFA, Watts, Nemesis, Syntax, and Amato folding, as it explains the financial background of the music going into the 2010s. And probably this one, on the circle of NYC house producers affiliated with Halcyon Records, should get read, too. It’s also interesting to see how RA would interview James Zabiela and DJ Sneak nearly every year for a while3.
I believe I wrote about this once previously. I was at The River with Joey and Narek. When we walked in, we saw two dudes sitting at the bar talking. One of them was doing a one handed shuffle. It was the dude on the left in the YouTube video linked sitting next at the bar to the other dude in the video. I at least knew that they were doing some cardistry; however, I had no clue I was looking at the Lebron James and Dwyane Wade of cardistry. For those unfamiliar with the artform: imagine basically boys doing vape tricks, just now with playing cards. I recognized that they’re doing that, I think it’s ridiculous.
So I look over across the bar and say, “Hey, are y’all doing magic tricks over there?” You should know that I love card tricks.
One of them turns to look at me and says, “It’s a little more complicated than that—but no.”
I then call him an asshole, basically4. The guy stands up and comes over to Joey, Narek, and me. I’m not interested in fighting in general—especially not with a guy whose claim to fame is making a deck of cards look like a snake to a Plastikman soundtrack. Anyway, we let him know that we were aware of the art of cardistry. He lightened up and proceeded to reveal that he is, in fact, a celebrity in the world of cardistry—and that his companion sitting next to him at the bar invented the term itself. Eventually, I stop being rude, and I ended up finding him a little likable, even if I’m not interested in his card flipping. We convince him to show us a trick. He does, I don’t remember the trick.
If I can figure out how to get the first English-language reporting of Dommune in this syllabus, I will. Speaking of, Pedro was back on Dommune just the other week. The camera work
Top 5 best plagiarism cases in dance music? Not counting Baby Ford and Jeff Mills putting out DATs that weren’t theirs our under their own name. Nor am I counting a really good edit obviously… I think Emmanuel, who runs Arts putting out some Tolkachev bites was funny, the tracks weren’t that offensive! Will.i.am copying pretty directly from a good DJ Lag heater was bad though. How many people tried to rip Jaguar… how many records did that Holden record inspire??
Who will be our generation’s James Zabiela? Who will be our generation’s DJ Sneak? Zabiela used to be everywhere all of the time. He still has a substantial following in the UK; however, he has played NYC twice in the last decade.
Me, being rude the entire time: “What do you mean it’s more complicated than that?” “It’d be like calling a painting a bunch of brush strokes” (LMAO — you’re shuffling with one hand bro). Me, still being rude: “You don’t have to condescend to me” “What was that?” Me, … classic: “You’re being an asshole”