22 - Red Bull Music Academy Daily

DAILY NOTE
FRIDAY, MAY 31, 2013
22 22
of
DISCO ETERNAL
HOw nyc clubs fired up the world
ARTHUR BAKER / 5 BOROUGHS OF STYLE / NEW YORK HARDCORE
THE DAILY NOTE
LAST NIGHT
So, this is goodbye. A little over a month
and 22 issues ago, our colleague Jeff
‘Chairman’ Mao described the Red Bull
Music Academy and Daily Note’s entrance
into our fair Gotham as a circus arriving
to town. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the
improvisational drone-tamers, the insane
clown DJs, and the experimental musicians
on the flying trapeze. (No, we’re not sure
who the ringmaster is either.) We’re too
humble to claim that the past month has
been the Greatest Show on Earth, but we
want to acknowledge that we’ve had as
much fun as you. It’s been fun looking back
on New York’s international influence
(check out Tim Lawrence’s essay on how
the city’s clubs inspired a global clubbing
culture) and fun observing the direction of
our town’s future (see Anthony Blasko’s
photo essay on the look of young New
York). Now we’re like the kids who came
home from the circus: happily exhausted
and full of too much cotton candy. Better
yet, we’re like Ms. Grace Jones and Mr.
Larry Levan, the two legends who are on
our cover, smoking one in a post-coital
stylee. Honestly, it’s been a pleasure!
-Daily Note staff
MASTHEAD
Editor in Chief Piotr Orlov
Copy Chief Jane Lerner
Senior Editor Sam Hockley-Smith
Senior Writer/Editor Vivian Host
Contributing Editors Todd L. Burns
Shawn Reynaldo
Staff Writer Olivia Graham
Editorial Coordinator Alex Naidus
Contributors
Sue Apfelbaum
Bill Bernstein
Rob Carmichael
Mobolaji Dawodu
Adrienne Day
Tina Paul
Nick Sylvester
Creative Director Justin Thomas Kay
for Doubleday & Cartwright
Art Director Christopher Sabatini
Production Designer Suzan Choy
Photo Editor Lorenna Gomez-Sanchez
Staff Photographer Anthony Blasko
Cover Photo Tina Paul
Larry Levan and Grace Jones at
Sound Factory, NYC 1990.
All-Seeing Eye Torsten Schmidt
The content of Daily Note does not
necessarily represent the opinions of
Red Bull or Doubleday & Cartwright.
ABOUT Red bull music academy
The Red Bull Music Academy celebrates
creative pioneers and presents fearless new
talent. Now we’re in New York City.
The Red Bull Music Academy is a worldtraveling series of music workshops and
festivals: a platform for those who make a
difference in today’s musical landscape.
This year we’re bringing together two
groups of selected participants — producers,
vocalists, DJs, instrumentalists and
musical mavericks from around the world — in
New York City. For two weeks, each group
will hear lectures by musical luminaries,
work together on tracks, and perform in the
city’s best clubs and music halls. Imagine
2
a place that’s equal parts science lab,
the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and
Kraftwerk’s home studio. Throw in a
touch of downtown New York circa 1981, a
sprinkle of Prince Jammy’s mixing board,
and Bob Moog’s synthesizer collection
all in a 22nd-century remix and you’re
halfway there.
The Academy began back in 1998 and has
been traversing the globe since, traveling
to Berlin, Cape Town, São Paulo, Barcelona,
London, Toronto, and many other places.
Interested? Applications for the 2014 Red
Bull Music Academy open early next year.
Clockwise: James Murphy
in conversation with
Todd Burns at NYU
Skirball Center; Pick
A Piper playing at
UNOversal Dancehall;
Dirg Gerner (aka Flako)
playing at UNOversal
Dancehall at Le Baron;
Patrick Adams on the
couch at the Academy.
All photos by Anthony
Blasko and Christelle de
Castro
FROM THE ACADEMY
UPFRONT
“I think mistakes are cool, whether you’re DJing or
whatever. No one really likes perfection in any part
of life. Like if you meet someone and they have funny
teeth, you’re like, ‘Ooh, that’s cute.’”
— DJ/producer Seth Troxler, May 30, 2013
The Well Brooklyn
MAY
The DoOver NYC
Special
26
Aloe Blacc &
Many More
Saint Vitus
THE LAST
WORD
Over the past month, a
cavalcade of very special
artists and musicians
has graced the lecturehall couch at Red Bull
Music Academy HQ. We’ve
been highlighting one
quote per issue from the
talks, but it’s beyond
an understatement to say
that some great stuff has
been left on the cuttingroom floor. Sometimes
insightful, sometimes
hilarious, and often both
at once, here are some of
our favorite quips from
throughout the Academy.
“The microphone I was
singing on [for Daft
Punk] — aside from being
worth more than my car —
was the one Frank Sinatra
sang on.”
- Todd Edwards
“I don’t do anything
really. I just watch
documentaries and make
theories.”
- Brian Eno
4
Founding
fathers
“You won’t be hearing me
say I’m the greatest out
of context a lot, but I
am feeling myself.”
- Rakim
“I told my mom what every
white mother wants to
hear: ‘I want to be a
rapper.’”
- El-P
“I did a fanzine first
before I did music. I
was really into tape
trading as well. It
kind of ruined my life
actually...”
- Stephen O’Malley
“I can play a record
backwards and bring one
in forward at the same
time... That’s why they
used to call me the
devil.”
- Egyptian Lover
“It’s a great
chat-up line: ‘Oh yes,
I’m working with the
Beatles.’”
- Ken Scott
For the complete lectures go to
www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures
“We were between Italy
and Paris, vacationing.
I was doing my crossword
puzzles, having a
great time. But then
unfortunately — well, not
unfortunately — Daft Punk
came and pulled me back
in.”
- Giorgio Moroder
NYU Skirball Center
A TALK
with
James
Murphy
The Red Bull Music Academy New York 2013
draws to a close today, yet there are still questions
left unanswered. Questions like, “What is this Academy thing?” and “Who are the crazy people who put
this on?” Not to mention, “How did they get Red
Bull to pay for it?” We cornered Academy founders
Torsten Schmidt and Many Ameri, and asked them a
few questions about this epic undertaking.
What is the biggest thing that has changed from
the first Academy until now?
Torsten Schmidt: Definitely the internationalization. The first one was only German-speaking countries—you may imagine how extremely
non-entertaining that was—but from the second
year onwards it was eight countries, and it only got
more colorful from there.
What is the most faraway place a participant
has traveled from?
TS: Three or four years ago, we had this guy—
from Russia, obviously—who works at a marine
naval station in the Arctic Circle. He would just
watch migrations of fish over the year and do ambient music, which kind of makes sense.
“They used to put
classical music on a
pedestal. I took it
down... Nothing is above
anything, everything
is music, everything is
related.”
- Bernie Worrell
“When you get a
publishing check and it’s
from somewhere you can’t
pronounce, that’s the
craziest feeling.”
- Masters At Work
Who is your dream lecturer?
Many Ameri: David Bowie.
TS: I would like to speak to Orson Welles. Every-
26
Evian Christ
Bill Kouligas
More
Dishing with the Academy’s
ringmasters.
“I realized that making
people dance had a point
that had nothing to do
with art. I mean that
in the most positive
way. It’s like food — if
they’re not eating it,
you’ve screwed it up. And
if they’re not dancing,
you’re just not doing a
good job.”
- James Murphy
MAY
Oneohtrix
Point Never
MAY
27
Deviation @ Sullivan Room
Benji B
FaltyDL
Dorian
Concept
More
MAY
27
West Park Church
one else we’ve more or less had. But it’s kind of
fun how every Academy, there’s this silent ghost
who is somehow in the room but isn’t. This year it
was Bowie; he appeared in so many bizarrely different contexts and conversations.
What was the most difficult show you threw?
MA: Organizationally speaking, the DFA party
was definitely the most challenging—having 3,500
people roam through that place. As far as what was
fulfilling but still complicated, it was Drone Activity in Progress. It was what Europeans think New
York felt like in the ’80s and what Americans think
Berlin feels like today. You had die-hard fans and
people who had never heard this music before all
in the same place eating pizza. There was a really
special buzz.
TS: The Culture Clash was such a magical conundrum of lunacy. That was one of the most abstract
shows we ever conceptualized. Seeing how well it
worked here was great.
You’ve produced the Academy around the
world. What’s been special about the New York
City edition?
MA: When the Academy comes to New York, the
Academy comes home. There is probably no other
place in the world that has so many former lecturers, participants, and people we like and have been
connected with over these 15 years than New York.
The amount of love that we’ve been shown over
the last few weeks is quite special to us.
TS: We love arguments and we love opinions and
New Yorkers seem to be good at both.
Pantha
du Prince
& The Bell
Laboratory
MAY
28
Le Baron
UNO
NYC
MAY
28
Metropolitan museum of art
Alva Noto
+ Ryuichi
Sakamoto
MAY
29
(Le) Poisson Rouge
JUST
CAN’T
GET
ENOUGH
We know musicians can be
an obsessive lot — think
long nights spent in a
studio tweaking and retweaking a snare sound
endlessly. Inspiration
can come from anywhere
though, so we asked some
participants from Red
Bull Music Academy 2013
what (besides music)
they’re obsessed with
right now.
NYC In Dub
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry
The Congos
Peaking Lights
Sun Araw
Adrian Sherwood
ORQUESTA
LOUIS BAKER
SHADOWBOX
DJ SLOW
Bray, Ireland
Wellington,
New Zealand
Brooklyn, New York
Brussels, Belgium
I’m obsessed with
coffee. I stopped
drinking it for a
few years, and now
I am like “Why did I
ever stop?!” Maybe
because I had a few
panic attacks in the
past... I’ve really
been getting snobby
about it — I only drink
Stumptown coffee,
I won’t drink that
Dunkin Donuts stuff
anymore.
I’m obsessed with
trying all the
different drinks in
New York. All the
Snapple, Arizona Iced
Teas... and I really
wanna get a Slurpee
too. And I also
want to eat at White
Castle — I’ve never
been. The other night
I was there but I was
too sick to order
food.
soundclound.com/
shadowbox4u
soundclound.com/djslow
James Bond books.
[Another] ongoing one
is ’50s rock ’n’ roll.
Oh, and motorbikes.
I just really want
to get one and learn
how to ride. I’m into
the idea of driving
across America on a
motorbike. It’s quite
iconic.
soundclound.com/
orquesta
I’m not a very
obsessive person,
but I love sleep. I’m
a nine-hour kinda
guy. I’m well aware
of the concept of
[adaptation] and
things like that — the
New York night where
you get five hours or
whatever. You get used
to it. But I enjoy
sleep.
soundclound.com/
louisbaker
MAY
30
TONIGHT
Output
L.I.E.S. MAY
Kerri Chandler
Mathew Jonson
MOSCA
More
31
RECORDED LIVE
FOR RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY RADIO
TUNE IN AT RBMARADIO.COM
5
feature
feature
Tay — Harlem
the
block
is hot
We love to celebrate New York’s history,
but we’re also bullish about its present.
The look and sound of our city is as weird
and exciting as it ever was.
PHOTOGRAPHY ANTHONY BLASKO
STYLING MOBOLAJI DAWODU
6
7
feature
8
feature
Stan & Andre — Soho
Christian & Hugo — Bronx
Veronica — LES
Ashley & Kareem — Crown Heights
9
feature
feature
Laura, Oscar, Gryphon, Eliza,
Richard, Rebecca — Bushwick
10
11
CENTERFOLD
5/21 Technicolor Coding
ARTIST Trent Bryant
5/22 Drum Majors
ARTIST Serge Nidegger
RBMA NYC 2013:
TERM TWO EVENT ARTWORK
5/20 Deep Space
ARTIST Michael Cina
5/25 12 Years of DFA Records
ARTIST Hisham Akira Bharoocha
5/28 Pantha du Prince &
The Bell Laboratory
ARTIST Luca Zamoc
5/31 RBMA Closing Night
ARTIST Micah Lidberg
5/24 No Sleep Till Croydon:
The Roots of Dubstep
ARTIST //DIY
5/27 A Conversation with James Murphy
ARTIST Mark Chiarello
5/30 Pass the Gates: NYC in Dub
ARTIST Grotesk
5/23 United States of Bass
ARTIST Benjamin Marra
5/26 Blackened Disco
ARTIST Rob Carmichael
5/29 Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto
ARTIST Michael Cina
5/19 Byte Boogie
ARTIST Merjin Hos
5/28 UNOversal Dancehall
ARTIST Zane Reynolds
feature
feature
FROM
DISCO
TO
DISCO
Paradise Garage.
Studio 54. The Loft.
The heady influence
NYC’s clubs exerted on
global dance culture.
WORDS TIM LAWRENCE
On the dancefloor at the
Haçienda, Manchester 1990.
Photo by Kevin Cummins/
Premium Archive/Getty Images
14
the case is harder to make today, but once upon a time
New York hosted the most numerous and adventurous DJ-led
party spaces in the world. Visitors testify they had never experienced anything like it prior to their trip to the city. Some
even returned home with the dream of re-creating something
of their own.
New York’s influence can be traced back to the moment at
the beginning of 1970 when David Mancuso hosted the first in a
series of shimmering house parties that came to be known as the
Loft. Around the same time, two entrepreneurs known as Seymour and Shelley took over a struggling discotheque called the
Sanctuary and became the first nightclub proprietors to welcome
gay dancers into a public venue. Selecting records in relation to
the energy of their multicultural and polysexual crowds, Mancuso
and Sanctuary DJ Francis Grasso established the sonic and social
potential of a contagious culture. Better Days, the Tenth Floor, the
Gallery, Le Jardin, Flamingo, 12 West, SoHo Place, Galaxy 21, and
Reade Street bolstered the word-of-mouth network. With the media barely aware of its existence, the city’s dance scene remained
resolutely subterranean—to most locals as well as tourists.
That began to change in the spring of 1977 when one-time
restaurateurs Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager opened Studio 54
in Midtown Manhattan as a celebrity hangout. From the moment Bianca Jagger rode through the venue on the back of a
white stallion, New York discotheque culture circulated as a
global media story. It did so again in November when the release of the Brooklyn disco movie Saturday Night Fever carried the culture into its juggernaut phase. With Laker Airways
having recently launched Skytrain as the first long-haul, lowcost transatlantic airline, it became much more likely that disco
would travel via the firsthand experience of dancefloor immersion as well as vinyl, tape, and print-media distribution. The
industry-oriented Disco Forum, first staged in New York in 1976
and held annually, helped potential nightclub operators meet
lighting and sound operators. The hermetic culture of disco was
all set to spread.
15
feature
feature
Responsible for installing the sound systems at Studio 54 warehouse on Whitworth Street, agreed to call their venue the
as well as the Paradise Garage, a Loft-style private party locat- Haçienda, and advertised that DJ Hewan Clarke would play “the
ed in a gargantuan parking garage on King Street, bass inno- latest American imports.” “Tony Wilson said they had seen the
vator Richard Long vacuumed up a significant portion of the Paradise Garage and they wanted that concept in the Haçienda,”
technical work. The engineer described Studio 54 as his “best recalls Clarke. The live schedule featured the likes of Grandmascalling card” in an interview with Billboard, yet he also made ter Flash and the Furious Five along with local bands, many of
a point of taking clients with a purist bent (including the fu- them signed to Factory. The combination echoed the kind of
ture owners of the Zanzibar in New Jersey) to the Garage, an culture clash that was already being stirred up in New York, and
evolving sonic laboratory and the ultimate showcase for his when Danceteria moved from 37th Street to 21st Street, Danwork. By the end of 1979, Long had installed some 300 systems ceteria bookings manager Ruth Polsky, who had booked New
around the world, most of them in Europe and South America. Order to play at Hurrah before showing them around the city,
“Believe it or not, he was even contacted by an interested par- started to pay biannual visits to the Haçienda in order to check
ty in Iran,” Dance Music reported in early 1980. International out new talent that she could fly over to the States.
The first year, though, was a struggle. “The Haçienda was
dancers might not have been able to identify its point of origin,
but the state-of-the-art technology that drew them to the floor something different and the old school was opposed to any
change, even though the old school existed in dingy clubs
originated in New York.
Already home to the Northern Soul scene, the north of En- which had carpets that stuck to your feet,” recalls Quando
gland became an emerging hub for New York–style disco when Quango member Mike Pickering, who scheduled bands and
the Warehouse in Leeds and Wigan Pier in Wigan opened DJs for the Manchester club. “We were so ahead of our time—
during 1979. “The Wigan Pier was fitted out by a company called people were like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ There was nothing in
Bacchus,” notes DJ Greg Wilson, who started to play at the ven- the country like it.”
Pickering’s determination to integrate New York party culue in 1980. “The people who owned it were going to do a normal
club installation, but they got persuaded to do something New ture into the Haçienda intensified when Quando Quango appeared as the warm-up act for
York–style. It was actually adNew Order at the Paradise Gavertised as an American-style
rage in the summer of 1983. “It
disco. The logo of the club was
was mind-blowing for somean American flag with a frog
one like me,” notes Pickering,
underneath it.” When Wilson
who also visited Danceteria,
went to work at Legend in
the Funhouse, the Loft, and
Manchester in the summer of
the Roxy during his stay. “At
1981, the transatlantic connecthe Garage I used to stand in
tion struck him again. “Legthe middle of the floor and
end was a step further than
think it was heaven.” At one
the Pier,” he adds, referring to
point Gretton turned to Picka system that channeled the
ering and declared, “This is it.
high end through the ceiling,
This is what we’ve got to do.
the mid-range around the
This is what our club should
dancefloor, and the sub-bass
be like.” Danceteria also left
from the floor. “They even had
an impression. “[DJ Mark]
a sound sweep. You could send
Kamins could play everything,
the sound in a circular motion
and Danceteria was also a
around the floor. At the time
meeting place for creative
there wasn’t a sound system
- Victor rosado
people,” adds Pickering, who
to compare. There were never
brought in Greg Wilson to DJ
any specific clubs mentioned,
before launching a new Friday
but NYC was undoubtedly the
slot called Nude in November 1984.
influence.”
Although Clarke and Wilson had put in the legwork that
Studio 54 became the first New York discotheque to inspire
an international replica when a version of the venue opened in encouraged black dancers to try out a venue that grew out of
Madrid, Spain, in 1980, with Studio selector Richie Kaczor as its the indie scene, Pickering took on Friday night DJing duties,
DJ. (Rubell and Schrager had gone to jail earlier that year for believing that he was in the best position to conjure a New York
tax evasion). But the more compelling exchange continued to mix for the Haçienda floor. Within a handful of weeks numbers
unfold in the north of England when the Manchester band New had surged, he recalls, with the floor evenly divided between
Order, formed from Joy Division after lead singer Ian Curtis black and white dancers. When house music began to flow out
committed suicide, went on a muted tour of the United States of Chicago during 1985, Pickering integrated the sound into his
in the autumn of 1980 with their manager Rob Gretton, and sets and even co-produced an early UK house track, “Carino” by
Tony Wilson of Factory Records. Stopping off in New York, the T-Coy. The hope of reproducing a New York–oriented dancefloor
band opened for A Certain Ratio at Hurrah, the first New York had been achieved.
Yet the influx of ecstasy during the spring of 1988 and the
venue to blend DJing with live music. During their stay they
also went to the Paradise Garage and Danceteria, another ven- Ibiza-influenced summer that followed disturbed the Haçienue that mixed DJing with bands. They returned to Manches- da’s carefully calibrated New York equilibrium and persuaded
ter with the dream of opening a Manhattan-style venue where a significant proportion of the black crowd to move on. “I reeclectic crowds could come together to dance to diverse sounds. gretted the fact that once you’d come down off the E everything
In part because it reminded them of the post-industrial was pure house,” argues Pickering. “I could tell, even in 1989,
milieu they had just witnessed in downtown New York, Gret- that that wasn’t a good thing and that what we were doing beton, Tony Wilson, and New Order settled on a former yacht fore was much more precious, because we were playing a wider
“[what levan] had
created wasn’t
in vain—it had
inspired someone
to create the
ideals and ideas
of what a party
should be like”
Above left: Outside Paradise Garage, NYC 1990. Above right: Crowd on the dancefloor at Hurrah, 1979.
Photos by Bill Bernstein from his upcoming book and photo exhibit in the UK 2014.
16
Above: Studio 54 DJ Booth, 1979. Inset: Dancers entering Paradise Garage, 1979.
Photos by Bill Bernstein from his upcoming book and photo exhibit in the UK 2014.
range of music. By 1989 we were slaves to the beat.” For a while
London looked primarily to Chicago and Ibiza for dance inspiration, but shifted its gaze toward New York when Justin Berkmann opened the Ministry of Sound in September 1991. A
disillusioned wine trader who arrived in New York in 1986
(his father having sent him there in order to find himself ),
Berkmann danced at the Paradise Garage until the venue’s
lease expired in September 1987. “When the Garage closed
it just left such an enormous hole in everyone’s life,” recalls
Berkmann. “New York got pretty depressing pretty quickly. By February 1988 I was back in London.” Introduced to
James Palumbo and Humphrey Waterhouse, Berkmann
proposed they develop a nightclub drink, which they rejected, and then a Garage-style venue, which they agreed
to fund.
After an exhaustive search for an appropriate site,
Berkmann settled on a parking garage located in Elephant
& Castle, an economically deprived area of southeast London, and negotiated a 24-hour, no-alcohol license for the
venue, which meant it would match the Paradise Garage’s
juice-bar status. Seeking to match the Garage’s celebrated
sound system too, he hired Austin Derrick—who worked
with Kenny Powers, a member of Richard Long Associates—to install the venue’s sound system. Only the intro-
duction of a VIP area stood as a direct
affront to the King Street setup. “The
concept was about 80% Garage and
then the other 20% would have been
a bit of Area and a tiny bit Nell’s,”
adds Berkmann.
Berkmann cemented the Garage
connection by inviting the venue’s totemic DJ Larry Levan to play at the
Ministry of Sound three weeks into its
run. Victor Rosado, who had become
close to Levan, stepped in after the
Garage DJ missed his flight. Several
more were missed before Levan finally
landed the following Saturday with no
records, having got into the habit of
selling his vinyl to raise money to buy
drugs. Jeremy Newall and DJ Harvey,
along with Berkmann, cobbled together a collection and Levan played that
night. “He was still the Larry we knew and had come to love,
with all his flaws and also his genius way of transforming a
room,” Rosado remembers of the set. “He was very happy to
see that what he had created wasn’t in vain—that it had in-
spired someone to create the ideals
and ideas of what a party should be
like. He was very motivated to take
London by storm by showcasing the
Ministry of Sound as his new home
away from home.”
The development was symbolic.
As a perfect storm of AIDS, gentrification, real estate inflation, and the
incremental city-led clampdown of
the club scene made New York a less
hospitable place for party culture,
London became something of a new
capital for clubbing. Ministry bolstered the case when it hired Zanzibar and Kiss FM DJ Tony Humphries
to begin a residency in January 1993.
But although Humphries looks back
fondly on the opening months of his stay, in the end he felt
underwhelmed by the venue’s “revolving door of DJs,” which
made it hard to strike up an affinity with the crowd. DJ, producer, and remixer François Kevorkian maintains that the venue
“didn’t understand that it’s the crowd that makes the venue,
not the furniture.”
New York still exerts a profound, if smaller-scale, influence
on global party culture. David Mancuso started to build Loftstyle parties in Japan and London when he became convinced
that if he worked with overseas friends he could hold onto his
house-party ethos outside of his home. Kevorkian launched his
own long-running Deep Space night at Plastic People in London because nobody at home quite trusted his vision (the party
eventually settled in at Cielo in NYC, where it still holds down
Monday nights). Kevorkian, Joe Claussell, and Danny Krivit
started to travel the world with their legendary Body & Soul
parties, building communities and hiring balloon machines
wherever they went.
Cultivated in New York, the practice of bringing together
diverse sounds and crowds in a single space for a night of dancing has grown to become one of the most compelling in global
party culture. At times its international take-up has been successful. On other occasions the purity of its ethos has been hard
to adapt. Either way, when they cross the Atlantic or head back
through to the Pacific, New York’s ripples of influence evoke a
pioneering history that will never be matched.
17
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Q&A
ARTHUR BAKER
A producer helps define the sound of 1980s New York.
PHOTO MAY TRUONG
You did some of your most famous work in New York,
but you’re originally from Boston. How did you get into
DJing? To get free records, really. Back then DJs didn’t get paid
much of anything. I started DJing in ’73… And in ’73, obviously,
it was just singles. So we discovered that if you got two copies of
the same single, you could extend it by playing a bit of one and
a bit of another. I’d do parties. I actually went down to Brooklyn
and bought a GLI, which was the company that made the first
mixer. So I got one of those and I had a few turntables, and just
started DJing at college.
You went to Hampshire College, which is in Western
Massachusetts, so it was a little bit easier to get to New
York… Yeah, most of my friends at college were from New York,
so we used to go on the weekends. It was like a two-hour [trip].
We’d go to Downstairs Records, which was probably the first
dance-music shop anywhere, I would guess. So we’d go there
and get records and then we’d go to record companies and I’d
say, “Oh, I’m a big DJ in Amherst,” and they wouldn’t know the
fucking difference. So they’d give me all their records.
You did some writing as well, right? At the time, you were
writing for Dance Music Report? I was writing reviews—
again, to get free records. I was working for Tom [Silverman]
and he decided to do a label, which he called Tommy Boy. I was
the only producer he actually knew personally, so he said, “Do
you wanna go in and do a record for me?” And I said, “Yeah,
sure. You’re paying, I’m playing.”
At this stage, your roots were in soul and disco and you
were working on club records. Tom asked you to do a hiphop record. Set the scene a little bit. Basically, back then
there was no hip-hop; it didn’t exist. But really, the roots of
hip-hop were club music and disco. Kool Herc was playing
breaks, but the breaks were from disco records or any kind of
records. There was no line between what was club music and
what rappers were rapping over. So Tom had this guy Afrika
Bambaataa who had, like, three groups: Cosmic Force, Jazzy
5, and Soulsonic Force. The Jazzy 5 were the most together at
the time. I went in with the band and Bambaataa came in and
we had all of these records, and [we asked], “Which one do you
want to rap over?” Back then you would try to take a current
record that was hitting the charts and do a rap over it. At the
time there were two that we were thinking of: “Genius of Love”
by Tom Tom Club and “Funky Sensation” by Gwen McCrae. I
figured that someone else was going to do “Genius of Love,” so
we picked “Funky Sensation” and called it “Jazzy Sensation.”
And that sold like 50,000 records.
Talk about Bambaataa’s follow-up. Well “Jazzy Sensation”
was successful and we decided we’d go in again. Tom said Soulsonic Force was next up. I had been listening to a lot of Kraft-
18
werk. There was a record shop in Brooklyn, where I lived then,
called Music Factory. There were these two brothers, Donnie
and Dwight, and I used to go down there on Saturday, hang
with them, and just see what was selling. It was a really great
time, the early ’80s—things were really starting to happen in
New York. A lot of good records were being cut in New York and
a lot of good labels were happening, like Prelude. They played
me “Numbers,” which was a Kraftwerk record. I just thought the
beat was ridiculous.
At that time, I was working at Carden Distributors, a onestop in Long Island. I was making records that sold 40,000
copies and I was sweeping the floor at a one-stop. We’d have
our lunch break, and it was right near the projects. You’d sit
there and you’d always hear [Kraftwerk’s] “Trans-Europe Express,” the handclaps, the melody. It was really surreal sitting
in the housing projects and hearing that reverberating off the
buildings. It just was very bizarre. But I thought that the beat
on that was too slow. Bam decided that he was into this record
“Super Sporm” by Captain Sky, the break. So we went in the
studio with these ideas and decided we needed a drum machine
because we were trying to emulate the electronic drum sound
of Kraftwerk. So we listened to different drum machines and
heard the 808 and said, “That’s it.” No one had an 808 then.
This is a true story—we looked in the Village Voice and we saw,
“Man with drum machine, $20 a session.” So we called him up
and he said, “Come on in,” and we went into a studio called
Intergalactic Studio.
Appropriate name. Well, yeah, and the Beastie Boys later
made it famous. The programmer of the drum machine had
no idea what the fuck we were doing. We played him Kraftwerk and showed him what to program. It was through a Neve,
which is an amazing board. It took us like eight hours. I took
the thing home—I was living in Brooklyn—and I put it on and
said to my wife at the time, “We’ve made musical history.”
There was no rap [on it], it wasn’t finished, but just listening
back I knew. When we went in the studio I wanted to make a
record that was going to be uptown and downtown, a record
that people into Talking Heads would play and that people into
Sugarhill Gang would play. We wanted to sort of merge them.
And that had a lot to do with Bam, because he was open to
that. Because, you know, Kool Herc was playing uptown but
you wouldn’t see him playing downtown at Danceteria. So Bam
definitely crossed the boundaries.
What music was being played in clubs in New York at the
time? New York at the time, from ’81 to ’84, was definitely the
heyday of clubs like the Paradise Garage, the Funhouse, Better
Days, Danceteria—those were probably the main ones. These
were not small clubs—they were like 2,000 capacity, and were
just all kicking off at once. Looking back, the best clubs for me
were the Paradise Garage and the Funhouse. Those DJs would
play anything. Larry [Levan] was playing the Clash; he was really open to anything that would get people dancing. Jellybean,
at Funhouse, used to play a record [called] “Slang Teacher,” by
some band from England, an indie sort of weird record. He’d
play Cat Stevens’ “Was Dog a Doughnut,” anything that would
work. Along with that, guys like Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay were
open to playing Aerosmith, they were playing all kinds of stuff.
So it was really an amazing time, because you could try things
and then bring the tape down to the Funhouse and Jellybean
might throw it on. Once you had the rep, you could have your
stuff played pretty instantaneously. Danceteria was an amazing
club—Madonna came out of Danceteria because Mark Kamins,
who discovered her, DJed there. She was at the clubs every night;
she was just a club kid, really. That’s where it all came from at
that point: the clubs. In the early ’80s, you could go to five or six
places and there’d be thousands of people dancing to great stuff.
You mentioned playing bands from England. There was a
little band from England you did some work with as well.
New Order got in touch with me after “Walkin’ on Sunshine” and
“Planet Rock.” A friend of mine, a guy by the name of Michael
Shamberg, worked for Factory [Records]—the label that they
were on—and he thought we should work together. Ian Curtis
had died six months earlier and they were putting together the
new band. So when New Order came in, it’s funny… We went to
this studio in Brooklyn. This guy Fred Zarr, the keyboard player
who worked on all the Madonna stuff, had a little studio way out
in Brooklyn, Kings Highway. It’s sort of like the Jewish ghetto
thing happening there. There was a temple next door and we’d
bring New Order there and they didn’t know what to make of it.
Their whole reputation was being really dour and moody; they
never smiled. So we tried to write songs together and it wasn’t
really working. They were sort of intimidating [to] me—there
were four of them—and I was really intimidating them, which I
didn’t know at the time. So nothing got done for a while. Then
we went in the studio and the clock was ticking, so we started
writing. From that session we came up with “Confusion,” but
also “Thieves Like Us.” And then they flew off and took the tape
for “Thieves Like Us,” and I figured I’d never hear about that one
again. Then one day about two years later, after “Confusion” had
already come out, I’m going into a club and I hear this beat. I’m
like, “Damn, that sounds like one of my beats!” I finally climb
up the stairs and I look and it’s “Thieves Like Us.” So basically,
they’d finished it up and put it out. But I got my credit and everything. I just hadn’t really ever expected it to be seen again. I
thought they were going to be some sort of really flash, polished
English band. And they thought I was a flash, polished American
producer. So we were both wrong.
Interviewed by Jeff ‘Chairman’ Mao at Red Bull
Music Academy Toronto 2007. For the full Q&A, head to
redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures.
19
COLUMNS
Columns
LANDMARKS
H
N
Y
C
LO G OS
The origins of
iconic images from
NYC's musical history
explained.
n e w y o r k h a r d c o r e , t h e sped-up,
ideological hybrid of punk and metal that
emerged in the early ’80s, has many factions
and one overarching symbol of solidarity: the
letter X with the initials N-Y and H-C written
through it. That tribal mark not only brands
the local scene but has also spawned countless
copycats in cities and ’burbs around the world.
Club bouncers would write an X on the
hands of underage kids at shows. By some
accounts, Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson of
D.C.’s the Teen Idles (and later Minor Threat)
had gotten their hands X’d at a West Coast
club and Nelson, a designer, brought the image
into their artwork. Over time, as they asserted
a drug-free message as inspired by hardcore
heroes Bad Brains, the symbol morphed to
signify straight edge. As Glen Cummings,
former bassist for NYHC band Ludichrist and
a designer who has studied the X in depth,
explains, “It changed from ‘I can’t drink’ to
‘I won’t drink’ [and as the scene grew more
violent] to ‘I’ll beat you up if you do.’”
While Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, and
Murphy’s Law came to define New York
hardcore, it was the lesser-known straight20
edge band the Abused’s lead singer Kevin
Crowley who put the NYHC X on the map. He
started using it as part of his painstakingly
drawn flyers for the band’s shows at clubs like
CBGB and A7 in Alphabet City. As Crowley
recently told the Noise Creep blog, “I wanted
to make people remember us [and] I wanted
our music and the artwork associated with
the band to be cohesive. The hardcore scene
was pretty territorial. New York, Boston,
D.C.—it was almost the way people are with
sports teams. I was a huge fan of the music
coming out of those other cities, but NYC was
my hometown! In a way, the NYHC logo was a
declaration of our scene, a statement.”
In addition to being a badge of hometown
pride, the symbol was an easy way for
unknown bands to communicate, “Hey,
we’re part of this genre” on their flyers,
says Cummings. Steven Blush, author and
filmmaker of American Hardcore, also credits
the Abused with “taking the X to the next
level,” noting that “the four letters of NYHC
brought to the X a perfect symmetry.” Crowley
says, “The truth is, I never imagined it would
catch on like it did.” -Sue Apfelbaum
A column on
the gear and
processes that inform
the music we make.
talking about your creative process
can feel like you’re giving up secrets, shorting
out your persona, or simply being crude about
a beautiful thing (i.e. music). Which is to say,
many thanks to the artists and engineers who
endured these interrogations. This is the last
Work Flow column. If anything has come out
of the last 20 or so pieces, it’s not tried-andtrue tips so much as slightly less oblique strategies: what working music people do when they
feel stuck or limited. Here are a few core ideas
that our interviewed artists touched on in one
way or another.
1. Limit yourself to one machine. Even if
it’s not the best-sounding machine! Artists like
Derek Miller from Sleigh Bells and Slava both
start from a single synthesizer workstation to
get things going. It keeps the focus on making a song—not just sounds. The one-machine
limit forces them to become better critics of
their own work too. Being excited about your
work in its rawest state is a good litmus test
for quality.
2. Play it the wrong way. Experimental
artist Noah Kardos-Fein from YVETTE is a
monstrous example of this—instead of playing guitar through effects pedals, what if you
played the pedals themselves? For booker Ric
Leichtung, the same idea applies to performance spaces: how can a technically “bad”
sounding room make the music experience
more exciting?
3. Try taking the long road. Little imperfections can accumulate in meaningful ways—
make your music sound weird and wonky and
human. Avoiding Ableton means that Ital’s
Daniel Martin-McCormick assembles drum
hits and vocals samples one-by-one in Audacity. For Daren Ho, founder of synth shop Control, modular synthesizers force you to understand the fundamentals of sound creation, so
that you have a better sense of the possibilities
for manipulating them.
4. Separate cause from effect. Technology helps us exploit the space between the
performance of music and the sound of that
performance. Producer Joel Ford used MIDI
to record live improvisations for the Autre
Ne Veut record, then mapped new sounds
onto the data afterward. Red Bull Music
Academy participant Leo Aldrey used Max/
MSP to make Tonal Pizza, an entirely new interface that breaks free from the typical and
immediate one-to-one relationship of musical
instruments.
5. Submit. Let the accidents surprise you.
“Sometimes the more control you try to exert over something is the thing that’s taking
you the farthest away,” says G. Lucas Crane
of Casper Electronics. “You can’t see the box
you’re putting yourself in.”
-Nick sylvester
Chung King
Studios
rap was born in the South Bronx, then found commercial success in recording spaces like John King’s
Chung King Studios. Originally dubbed Chung King’s
House of Metal by Rick Rubin, King initially opened
on Centre Street, above an old Chinese restaurant;
the cramped space hosted a variety of rock and punk
acts before King solidified a partnership with Rubin,
Russell Simmons, and the Def Jam roster. The timing was perfect: artists like Public Enemy, the Beastie
Boys, Run-DMC and LL Cool J were making waves, and
King helped amplify those waves into a titanic cultural
movement.
The little space quickly outgrew its confines, so in the
mid-’90s, King recruited Frank Comentale, an engineer
and all-around sound maven, to design and build a new
10,000-square-foot facility at 170 Varick Street. Comentale cut his teeth designing rooms at the now-defunct
Hit Factory studios, and that prototype influenced his
work at Chung King where he “built out a whole floor.
They were some of the best rooms I’ve done,” he says. “At
the time really state-of-the-art.”
When Comentale first started in the business 45
years ago, everything was analog—in other words, size
really did matter. “At first everyone did eight-track
[recordings], then it was 16, then 24, 48, 56, 78... The
equipment just kept getting bigger.” Larger and larger
rooms were required to hold everything, especially the
massive consoles. But then digital technology changed
everything: “In the late ’90s, when people started doing
pre-production at home on their computers, the big studios couldn’t carry their [costs].” Chung King took another hit in 2001 since it was located near Ground Zero
and had to close for a time following 9/11. According to
Comentale, the studio never fully recovered financially,
and the space shuttered in early 2010.
After a couple of years, John King opened a new
space in the old Skyline Recording Studios. Comentale
went on to design rooms for some of the biggest names
in the biz (Wyclef Jean, Diddy, Alicia Keys). Coincidentally, he also designed Red Bull Music Academy’s own
console room, where the Academy has hosted its New
York 2013 participants. -Adrienne Day
Top
5…
NYC Hip-Hop
High Schools
PRESENTED BY
Hip-hop is a lot like high school: insular,
competitive, cliquey, traumatizing, and exhilarating. But just where did your favorite NYC
rap artists (and their favorite NYC rap artists) actually attend high school (or at least
cut class on their way to achieving professional
music notoriety)? Hip-hop authors/TV producers/
list-makers/history majors/class clowns ego trip
(egotripland.com) studied up to drop this education on rapper matriculation.
The places, spaces,
and monuments of
NYC's musical past,
present, and future.
16
THE BRONX
past featured landmarks
1 max neuhaus’
12 Daptone
“times square”
2 The Thing
Records
13 The Village
Secondhand
Store
Gate/Life/Le
Poisson Rouge
3 The loft
14 The Anchorage
4 Marcy Hotel
15 Electric Lady
5 Andy Warhol’s
Factory
6 Queensbridge
Houses
Studios
16 Crotona Park
Jams
17 Fat Beats
7 Record Mart
18 Mudd Club
8 Deitch
19 Mandolin
Projects
9 Area/Shelter/
7
17
Park
21 Fillmore East/
The Saint
11 Market Hotel
6
5
8
5
Brothers
20 Addisleigh
Vinyl
10 Studio B
1
7
15
2
13
3
9 8
MANHATTAN
QUEENS
5
21
10
8
18
4 12
14
12
11
20
What: Chung King
Studios
Where: 241 Centre
St.; 170 Varick
St.; 36 W. 37th St.
Why: Legendary
recording studio
When: 1979-2010;
2012-present
19
STATEN ISLAND
BROOKLYN
1 2 3 4 5
High School
of Music & Art,
Manhattan
Known as the Fame
school (and now
LaGuardia High School
of Music & Art), Music & Art’s past rap
student body — Slick
Rick, Dana Dane, Mobb
Deep’s Havoc and
Prodigy, Organized
Konfusion’s Pharoahe Monch and Prince
Po, MC Serch, Nicki
Minaj — is gonna live
forever. (Cue Irene
Cara.)
Murry Bergtraum
High School For
Business Careers,
Manhattan
In the ’80s, this
downtown learning
institution seemingly specialized in
careers in innovative
Afrocentric hiphop. A Tribe Called
Quest’s Q-Tip and
Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Jungle Brothers’
Afrika and Mike G,
and X-Clan’s Brother
J all hit the books
here.
George
Westinghouse
High School,
Brooklyn
Old school, new
school, need to
learn: Biggie, Jay-Z,
and Busta Rhymes are
amongst those with
hip-hop honors to
walk Westinghouse’s
halls.
Andrew Jackson
High School,
Queens
Captured on LL Cool
J’s B.A.D. album
cover, AJHS not only
boasted James Todd
Smith as a former
student, but also
class acts like Run
and Jam Master Jay,
Curtis ‘50 Cent’
Jackson, and hip-hop
music-video auteur
Hype Williams.
Adlai E. Stevenson
High School, The
Bronx
Former Stevenson
students include Big
Pun, Remy Ma, DragOn, and Mickey Factz.
But if it wasn’t for
another graduate,
ex-Black Spades gang
member turned Zulu
Nation founder Afrika
Bambaataa, this rap
ish probably never
would be going on.
Uptown, baby.
21
NEw york story
NEw york story
4'34"
Listening as a mode of survival.
WORDS Piotr Orlov
illustration Rob Carmichael, SEEN
for much of my American life, I have been trying to
answer a question that has prevented me from reaching
a level of critical self-comfort and fulfillment I thought
to be my inalienable right: why do I cry at the emotional tipping point of sappy saccharine scores to mediocre
Hollywood films? Despite a near-complete awareness
of the emotional manipulation that, say, a John Williams or a Howard Shore score is trying to impart upon
my being, the moment that the movie reaches a tender
late-in-the-fifth-act denouement and the accompanying strings start to crescendo, my eyes begin to tear uncontrollably, even as my reason curses the machinations
that have deceived me into this fragile state. Recently,
I’ve started trying to think more clearly about the cause
and effect of this phenomenon, and think I’ve found the
culprit. I blame New York.
Some background may be in order: I arrived at JFK
Airport as a displaced seven-year-old foreigner, thrown
into the deep end of Elmhurst, Queens (then to Jersey
City, the West Village, and South Brooklyn), without a
lick of language and with no capitalist-ideal advantages.
My main tools of assimilation were a cultured pair of
ears and a deep empathetic streak, so music became a
natural gateway.
Classical pianist Jeremy Denk recently gave some insight into his education: “The daily rite of discovery… is
how learning really happens,” he wrote. I too adapted by
soaking the city in, sponge-like, person by person, neighborhood by neighborhood, sound by sound. And while
the diversity of my playground made it easy to encounter the baggage carried by the wider population’s diverse
musical choices (much less the sonic-critical discourse
being unpacked in the then-great Village Voice), for a
long time, it was a chore to tell genres and their social
trappings apart. Why did some kids insist that “disco
sucks” but listened to Queen’s “Another One Bites the
Dust”? Why did teen boys quit the basketball team, suddenly adapt uniforms of black mascara and sad dispositions, all the while failing to laugh at Morrissey’s jokes?
What did knowing which color fat laces should be worn
on a specific kind of Fila sneaker have to do with enjoying Whistle’s “Just Buggin’”? How come Bruce Springsteen isn’t cool, when a stadium full of people says he is?
I was oblivious to the social contracts being signed
and the mores being practiced by my peers, even as I
was beginning to understand the radical differences the
stories their music choices told. My own pop blanket
covered them all equally, just as, it seemed to me, New
York had room for all of their voices, be they tired, poor,
and huddled or ecstatic, stoned, and immaculate. The
22
self-satisfaction I began to feel at my attendance and
understanding of diverse experiences—late-night gay
dancefloors, freestyle rap ciphers, and hardcore matinee
mosh pits—almost made it feel like I was a native. Except
that, of course, natives don’t usually feel equally at home
in all of those settings.
Something happens when you fully lift the dam to audio stimulation and let music penetrate you beyond reason, allowing it to flood every bit of your emotional space.
It is a state at once outside of being—and if you could
simultaneously remain cognizant of the physical narrative playing out all around—completely in touch with
the present. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose—especially
when abetted by light psychedelic stimulation and not
fiddling about with media-fueled excitement. And once
the floodgates are open, they are very hard to close at will.
I have not seen the inside of a cipher or a mosh pit in
a long, long time (dancefloors are another story). Having
grown older and more restrained, I have been forced to
refine my music consumption—not least because catering to those habits has changed so drastically in the digital era. I still try to listen to the city and its music the way
that the younger me once did, but honestly, I recognize
this is impossible. I’m too often focused on the history instead of the finished pieces in front of me, be it a sample
or what a particular location might have been a decade
prior. It probably has something to do with the endless
yearning for youth, a topic that I’ll save for my therapist’s
couch. With maturation, my emotional openness and extreme connectedness to music has waned.
There is one listening practice that does remain completely in place, where the defense perimeter has not
been so fully rebuilt: the corny movie scenes and their
sappy accompaniments. Be it rom-com, dramedy or a
Bildungsroman—regardless of if I am rapt or inattentive—once the emotive moment comes, the tears begin
to flow. This has also become a lesson in itself. As growing older and tougher has made crying more difficult
and less frequent, I have begun to enjoy this feeling of
being overpowered. It may be a false emotional tonic,
but I like to think that it speaks to a humanistic quality—one that reinforces my need to not forget to listen,
to hear things without prejudice, and to not decry sappy
endnotes. Like this one.
Piotr Orlov is a writer, curator, and creative
producer who was born in Leningrad and now lives in
Brooklyn. For the past five weeks he has served as
editor in chief of Daily Note. You can find him at
twitter.com/RaspberryJones.
23
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Hugo & Marie Hunter HuntHendrix Ian Isiah Ian Kelly Ian Purtill Ian Sweeney Inaba Ivan Rivera Izzy Sanabria J.u.s.t.i.c.e. League Jaci Kessler Jack Mcdonald Jackie Nguyen Jackie Santos Jaclyn Bouton Jacob
Moyers Jacques Renault Jacquie St Pierre Jadakiss Jahdan Blakkamore Jahiliyya Fields Jake Viator Jakob Quadder James Chance James Friedman James Fujii James George James Murphy
James Sanabria James Singleton Jameszoo Jami Attenberg Jamie Allen Jamie Strong Jane Lea Jane Lerner Janette Beckman Jarrett Allen Jason Adams Jason Coatney Jason Fisher Jason
Hanson Jason Jarosz Jason Nocito Jason Reif Jason Tschantre Jasper Patch Jayme Mattler Jean Grae Jeff ‘Chairman’ Mao Jeff Brisbin Jeff Conrad Jeff Franser Jeff Regis Jeffrey Inaba
Jeffrey Johnson Jeffrey Rabhan Jemal Countess Jen Lyon Jen Pray Jen Ross Jennifer Cooper Jennifer Gonzalez Jens Nave Jeremiah Davidson Jeremy Couillard Jeremy Dean Jeremy Pettis
Jermel Williams Jerry Jess Rotter Jesse Garbacz Jesse Silbermann Jessica Blanc Jessica Gonzalez Jify Shah Jill Dimeglio Jill Leckner Jill Smith Jillian Ramirez Jim Petty Jim Sauter Jimi
Nxir Jo-Ann Finning Joan Gallagher Joe Hazan Joe Lovano Joe Oppedisano Joe Schumacher Joe Theophilus Joey Carvello Joey Ng Johanna Fateman Johannes Ammler John Amorosa John
Bohannon John Chavez John Connell John Emch John Love John Moore John Staniforth John Tempereau Johnny Moy Jolly Mare Jon Hopkins Jon Wilson at Donyc
Jonathan Dacuag
Jonathan Galkin Jonathan Minard Jonathan Talley Jonny Santos Jorge Parreira Jose Aguilar Josh Berman Josh Flaherty Josh Greene Josh Madell Josh Moore Josh Reitz Josh Wood Joshua
Scott Juan Colon Juan Maclean Juan Manuel Bonilla Juan Puntes Juaquim Judie Worrell Judy Miller Silverman Julia Chipouras Julia Gorton Julia Holter Julian Brimmers Julian Cubillos
Julianne Shepherd Julien Love Julio Nava Julyett Spoltore Jung Hee Choi Just Blaze Justin Carter Justin Derry Justin Kinard Justin O’daffer Justin Thomas Kay Justine Delaney Kaan Düzarat
Kai Ando Kant Smith Kardinal Offishall Karen Wong Karma Gardner Karrie Goldberg Kate Glicksberg Kate Oppenheim Kate Watson Kathleen Tripp Kathryn Aberlin Katie Longmyer Katie
Marino Katie Riding Katja Oortmann Katya Guseva Kayla Corcoran
Keith Parry Keith Wescott Kelly Schwaberow Ken Farmer Ken Meier Ken Scott Kendel Shore Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez
Kenny Meez Kerri Chandler Kerri Holt Kerry Santullo Kerstin Wittmütz Kevin Cummins Kevin Klein Kevin Sanchez Kid Millions Kid Smpl Kim Gordon Kimou Meyer Kissey Asplund
Kloke Knox Korakrit Arunanondchai Koreless Kraftmatiks Krampfthaft Kris Lapke Kris Norvet Kris Petersen Krisanne Johnson Kriss Gulbrandsen Kuhrye-Oo Kustaa Saksi Kwabena
Slaughter Kyle Porter Kyle Sauer L-Vis 1990 Lady Leshurr Larissa Naegele Larry Gus Lars Wilhelm Laura Forde Laura Gates Laura Levine Laurel Halo Laurence Jaccottet Lavina Yelb
Lawrence Kumpf Le1f Leah Selvidge Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry Legowelt Leo Aldrey Lesley Alpert-Schuldenfrei Leslie Arrington Liam Mcwilliams Lily Sheng Limor Tomer Linda Brumbach Lindsey
Bostwick Lindsey Houston Lisa Rosman Lisa Tilney Liza Kramer Lizzi Bougatsos Lois Najarian Loren Wohl Lorenna Gomez-Sanchez Lori Moore Louis Baker Love Cult Luca Zamoc Lucia
Larrosa Luke Wyatt Lynnel Herrera-Ross M. Geddes Gengras and the Raw Power Band Maartje Kardol Maggie Lee Magic Juan Mala Malcolm Cecil Mandisa Norward Mannie Fresh Many
Ameri Marc Heiman Marc Maron Marc Schaller Marc Whalen Marcella Brys Marcellus Hall Marcia Resnick Marco Cibola Marcos Cabral Marcus Bonnée Marcus Marr Marek Inglot Mari
Ronquillo Maria Stanisheva Mariana Salem Marina D Mario Tama Mark Bowen Mark Chiarello Mark Frosty Mcneill Martin Roth Mary Halvorson Mary Lord Mary Mccorkle Maryam Zadeh
Masa Matana Roberts Mathew Jonson Matt Dianella Matt Hayes Matt Sutton Matt Tucker Matt Werth Matthew Caron
Matthew Covey Matthew Hopkins Matthew Schnipper Matthew
Smith Mattis With Max Cole Max Glazer Max Joseph Max Vogel Maximie Sorensen Maya Wild Megan Potter Megan Wilson Melmann Memphis Bleek Merjin Hos Micah Cohen Micah
Lidberg Michael Bell-Smith Michael Cina Michael Coleman Michael Fusco Michael Gonzales Michael Halkias Michael Hampton Michael Holman Michael Merck Michael Nikolla Michael
Vieira Michaelangelo Matos Michail Stangl Michele Fleischli Mick Barr Mike Freeman Mike Heaver Mike Rubin Mike Schuster Mike Servito Mike Simonetti Miles Huston Mimi Eayrs
Mind Pirates Mindy Thantu Minka Farthing-Kohl Mireille Perry Miroslav Wiesner Miss Info Miss Rebecca Mitch Strashnov
Monica Dhar Mookie Singerman Morgan Geist Moritz Guth
Mosca Motormouth Media Mr. Easy Mr. Selfish Mr. T M ss ng P eces Mungo Park Mykki Blanco Nacho Fernandez
Nancy Whang Nat Weiner Natasha Diggs Natasha Manley Nathan
Marcus Navine Karim Ndilyo Nimindé Ned Sublette New York Daily News Niabi Caldwell Nic Luna Nicholas Isani Nick Catchdubs Nick Collingwood Nick Hook Nick Robertson Nick Sabine
Nick Schwartz-Hall Nick Spain Nick Sylvester Nicolàs Blankenhorn Nicolas Jaar Nicolas Marti Nicole Cassesso Nicole Formisano Nicole Hegeman Nicole Marie Mirasola Nicole Roeder Nicole
Stoddard Nicole Swickle Nigel Godrich Nik Mercer Nikki Schlecker Nikki Sneakers Niklas Jansen Nile Rodgers Nils Hickey Nina Sky Nios Fearr Protection Nithya Natarajan Noah Norman
Nora Colie Nts Radio Nuit Blanche Nyla Hassell Objekt Octo Octa Okayplayer
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Mcgregor Patrick Pulsinger Patrick Seddon Patrick Spag Lo Paul Clay Paul Hahn Paul J. Levantino
Paul Lindahl Paul Nickerson Paulina Mandeville Pbdy Peaking Lights Pete Swanson
Peter Ferraro Peter Nevenglosky Peter Rehberg Peter Rosenberg Peter Williams Pharmakon Pharaohe Monch
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Ralf Schmerberg Ralph Durka Rami Haykal Ray Baxter Ray Hearn Razan Khalife Razauno Rbma Radio Rebecca Lynn Red Fox Regina Greene Reiner Laptey Rene Johannsen Renee
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Richie Clark Richie Hawtin Richter+Ratner Richy Gomez Ricky Blaze Rob Carmichael Rob Kenner Rob Ricketts Rob Roman Rob Sassano Robert Glasper Robert Lopuski Roberto Polillo
Robin Carolan Robin Hannibal Robin Hurley Robin S. Rocky Li Rodrigo Rojas Roel Concepcion Ron Morelli
Ronen Givony Ronnie Faile Rosie Koocher
Rosie Mcnamee
Roy Ayers Roy
Hargrove Roy Rogers Rudi Zygadlo Rufus Jones Ruvan Wijesooriya Ruza Blue Ryan Imparato
Ryan Kunimura Ryan Woodhall Ryder Ripps Ryuichi Sakamoto S.H. Fernando Jr. Saanttu
Mustonen Sal Principato Salva Sam Hockley-Smith Sam Posner Sam Valenti
Samantha Gold
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Sanjib Mukhopadhyay Sarah E. Wood Sarah Kesselman
Sarah Kinlaw Sarah Lincoln Sarah Lipstate Sarah Standley Sarah Weiss Schoolly D Scott Gallo Scott Gries Scott Rexing Scott Thrift Scottie B Scratch DJ Academy Sean Dack Seretan
Serge Nidegger Sergei Sklyarenko Sergi Noe Sergio Aguilar Sergio Madera Seth Troxler Seva Granik Seze Devres Sfv Acid Sgt Pokes Shadowbox Shawn O’Sullivan Shawn Reynaldo Shawn
Schwartz Shazila Mohammed Shelley Oto Shirley Matthews Shit Robot Shlohmo Siebren Versteeg Simon Maccoll Simon Reynolds Simonne Jones Sinjin Hawke Skream Smax Snkr Joe
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Green Stephanie Latscu Stephanie Whittaker Stephanie Zellhoeffer Stephen Halker Stephen Massey Stephen O’Malley Steve Arrington Steve Glashier Steve Reich Steve Stein Steven ‘Sneezy’
Rolon Still Going Strange Vip Styles P Subatomic Sound System Sue Apfelbaum Sun Araw Susan Janneck Suzan Choy Suzanne Kraft Sven Ellingen T. Williams Tamara Gonzales Taryn
Proctor Taylor Brode Td Sidell Teebs Telli Ninjasonik Terry Lyght Thanh Tran The Andy Warhol Foundation The Combat Jack Show The Congos The Crystal Ark The Do-Over The Door The
Fader The Jogging The Mela Foundation The Peronists The Rapture The Underachievers Thomas Nguyen Thristian Bpm Throwing Snow Thundercat Tifa Tillotson Design Associates Tim
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Tom Butch Tom Forkin Tom Hemmerick Tom Moulton Tony Francisco Tony Visconti Top Shelf Premium Torsten Schmidt Tracy Morales Tracy Rusiniak Trancemicsoul Trent Bryant Trevanna
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Gaebele Yacht Yanni Nassis Yannick Elverfeld Yelena Mahkin Yodashe Young Chop Young Guru Young Turks Zan Emerson Zane Landreth Zein Zubi… AND NEW YORK FUCKING CITY.
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