No. 8: Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy
Putting in the work with the New England Balearic Breakfaster
Colleen Murphy – aka DJ Cosmo or Cosmodelica – was a shoo-in for this Substack. She perfectly embodies our theme of individualists who exist in close interaction with collective subcultures, who may not adhere to any given group identity but are nonetheless materially involved in the evolutions of particular, important movements. She’s our first American subject, but plugs into the cultural networks we’ve already covered as an adopted Brit for almost quarter of a century. And she’s all about soundsystem culture, albeit not in the directly Caribbean-influenced UK sense: rather, via her work with the late David Mancuso1 and then preserving the legacy of his Loft parties, she transmits a particularly New York worship of ultra high fidelity party rigs as a vehicle for blissful and spiritually nourishing music.
This manifests in the Lucky Cloud parties that she co-founded to bring Mancuso and The Loft to London in 2003, in the Love Dancin’ soundsystem tent with sprung dancefloor that she and husband Adam “Daddy Ad” Dewhurst2 created for We Out Here festival – and in the Classic Album Sundays events, which centre around getting an audience to listen to an album together on a kick-ass soundsystem, usually accompanied by talks by the artists and/or experts. Full disclosure: I hosted a couple of these – on Spiritualized3 and Fleetwood Mac4 – when they went online in Covid lockdown. She also has an online radio show, Balearic Breakfast, which has now spawned two compilations, and which expertly joins the dots from Mancuso’s Loft aesthetic through the decadently psychedelic ethos of Ibiza and surrounds in the 80s to the present day.
There’s more, lots more, besides – but a lot is covered in the interview, and more is there for you to discover if you dig. This was an interesting one to transcribe, because I had more “like”s, “kind of”s and “you know”s – and words repeated while she looked for the next one – to edit out than in any other of these interviews (which is pretty much the only trimming I do of these transcripts). It was bizarre, because I hadn’t registered them at all as we were talking: Cosmo is fluent as anything, and in the moment this grammatical furniture disappears into the background as the torrent of ideas comes out - and indeed as you’ll see, this was the most conversational of these conversations yet. So here it is: as we spoke on Google Chat, her surrounded by vast shelves of vinyl as she almost always seems to be, we kept circling around certain themes about work, satisfaction, art-and-artist – but again and again, it came back more than anything else to the moment of listening and delight in sound. So here you are…
OK, so what's taking up your time at the moment?
Everything! You know we are relaunching the loft in London, there's remixes, gigs, touring classic album Sundays, Balearic Breakfast radio. It's the ever shifting juggling act really....
Do you thrive off a big workload? Do you do you do you feel like you do best when you are juggling?
I... well, I identify with northerners. I really do. Because I think being from New England, there's a really intense work ethic. And I've always had an incredibly strong work ethic: I was working through a very young age, working long hours. Even at the age of 16, when I was in high school full time, I still worked in a record shop and I had a radio show three mornings a week at 6.30 in the morning! I think I embrace life, and I don't take it for granted. And and I also have a pretty intense creative fire in me, like I have to create things, I've always wanted to create things. Even when I was young, I was always making things or writing things or playing piano or whatever. So I've always had that kind of creative kind of spirit. But I think it's that combined with the work ethic. I was watching the show on David Hockney yesterday, you know, being a Yorkshireman, and I... not that I have the kind of body of work that he has, by any means – but I identify in that that I get up and I work. Me getting up and maybe reading a book or doing something for myself is very rare, although I am trying to do more stuff – you know, like more more relaxation things, more things for myself that aren't necessarily related to music. Because pretty much everything I do is is related to music, it's my entire life, which is great, but I do have other interests and I try to carve out some time, so hopefully the older I get, the more I get to pursue those interests as well.
Interesting – that got me to thinking that in underground music, there are people who are super focused on work and building, and those who are in it for the pleasure principle, who love leisure, and there's a kind of balance in how each contributes to the whole...
Well that's not the reason I got into DJing you know – just for the fun of it! I can't imagine any women DJ my age got into DJing that much for those types of hedonistic pursuits, just because they weren't necessarily always available to us, you know? Or, or if you did indulge, then you were kind of compromising yourself in some way. Yeah, it was never really about that pursuit. Also in America, we didn't have the acid house movement. We had disco in the 1970s, which of course, when it went overground was very hedonistic, we had certain subcultures, but my generation didn't have the acid house movement, which was, I feel, based more around hedonism first. America was never as much about bragging about how many drugs you take, I think that's been a very big difference. If you look at the American DJs from New York, there's very few like that, that I can I can think of – and those who were, they didn't really last.
So I think for the people who are really into it for creating and the rewards that brings, it wasn't necessarily about that, not that it's completely divorced from it at all, but it wasn't the be-all-and-end-all, and it certainly wasn't for me. I know there's a lot of guys where he's just like, “Yeah, I just wanted to get sex, get laid, take drugs,” But you know, I don't think I think I went to one after party the whole time of DJing in New York, unless it was like my boyfriend's house, like my inner circle in New York. Or one, maybe – I think I only went to one and that was because I knew the people. But generally, I just wouldn't as a woman alone, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't put myself in that position. You get wasted, then someone takes advantage of you – I just always kind of had I always had like a little voice, an off switch. I've been in a lot of dangerous situations, like travelling alone and things like that, but I wouldn't willingly put myself into that into a situation like that, as well.
This is such an important thing to remember that those hazards directly form our culture by limiting opportunities. But on the on that topic of working and building it really struck me how much actually you echoed – actually an acid house person – the late Andrew Weatherall: when I've interviewed him, “I like making things” was a common refrain5, and he took that ethic back to having worked on a building site, on understanding that work means work.
Ha, right now I'm making a peach cobbler, even while we're talking! When my daughter was little, I had the biggest arts and crafts cabinet, we'd keep everything to make arts and crafts, and I've always enjoyed just the act of creating, painting and all that. If all of what I do was for just commercial pursuit, I would have been making money, but with different things and playing very different music, that's for sure. I'd be involved in very different scenes. But it's the act of doing the thing that makes me what I am, it's just my raison d'etre. One of the huge focal points of my life is creating. I was thinking about this last night, watching this David Hockney, who's just a complete inspiration. And he's in his 80s, and he still works every day. And I thought, wow that could be me – if I if I'm lucky to live that long. What it would be I don't know, would it be commercial? I don't know. I mean, would it be something that somebody would be able to sell? I don't know, but I will. I'm always making things and doing things like that and I hope I always will. I think my problem has been, there's too many things I want to do. It's hard for people to find their place when they're like that.
With Andrew Weatherall it's kind of similar in a sense of – well, I came from indie rock, I came from psychedelic rock I didn't come from the jazz / soul background. I went to hardcore punk shows and was part of a lot of different scenes simultaneously... and actually, that's another reason why I like his mixes when they come up on Mixcloud, like oh fantastic you have The Fall or The Cramps or... He was kind of hard to figure out and I think it's very similar for me in terms of you know, some people say, oh, you know, she's a disco goddess. That's not necessarily true. You know, disco is one thing but I started in very different scenes and Balearic Breakfast is different and Classic Album Sundays is different. And some of my remixes have nothing to do with disco or house or anything at all. And I did an album with Gary Lucas from the Magic Band6, and Captain Beefheart was not disco, you know? So in some ways, it's been maybe a detriment to my career, because I'm not easily pinpointable. And it's not like a thing where you know exactly what you're getting. But at the same time, I have to please myself first, and in terms of creative fulfilment I just have too many interests to narrow down to one and there's always more – I always found it strange that people don't have hobbies, there's a list of things that if I had time, I would do too, but I don't know what I'll get the time to do!
Mentioning Weatherall and Hockney in the same breath really makes me think how kind of solid graft approach to life creates really surprising things by happenstance – like, I don't think either of them ever expressly set out to revolutionise anything but both of them made radical discoveries or inventions, by virtue of their constant working.
Exactly. That's what happens like when I started Classic Album Sundays. I had never heard of the little audiophile jazz pieces in Japan and I had lived there in 1989 as a radio DJ, you know! I never heard of anything similar – I just had an idea, like “Why hasn't anyone done this? Okay, I'll do it.” You know? That got this whole ball rolling of clubs and listening bars and all these kinds of things, but it was literally just a eureka moment. Like, I need to share this, you know, like, it must be done. I lost money. It wasn't even a commercial venture. I was like, my husband and I were loading up the Klipschorns7 on, the Quad Monoblocks8, and had a babysitter. And I think four people bought tickets for five pounds the first time – I lost money – but it was just more like: this has to happen. It has to happen. It wasn't like a long vision term plan, you know. These ideas are seeded... not as an object for commercial gain or starting a movement, it's because you just completely believe in it, that it has to happen. And that's it, you know?
So I'm guessing from that then that as a kid, or teenager, getting into music and being into creative pursuits, you didn't have a big vision of where it would lead you. Or did you?
I didn't. I never had an ultimate goal. And I still don't. Which is just crazy. My life has been like an evolution that just has kind of one things evolved into another. And I would look for immediate goals sometimes. You know, there might be like a short term goal. Like for instance: I want to get a job at a record shop, but I'm in high school – like that would be the goal. But nothing beyond that. I had a radio show on the, like, 10 Watt, high school radio station. So when it came time for university – I did well, scholastically, so I was able to get some help to go to university, none of my family had gone right after high school – when it came time for that, I went to the place of the best radio station! Which was NYU – with WNYU. And again, it was like It's like the more I carried on the more I drove myself to do these things like show up the first week at the radio station, I say “I'm here to do whatever,” you know, immediately became the Public Service Announcement director. Actually that was one time that in my head, I said to myself, “I want to be programme director one day,” – and I did I eventually became the first female programme director. But that was still like a short term goal, like, “I want to graduate from university” or whatever. It wasn't a life plan, put it that way.
But the thing is, is the harder you work, and the more you put yourself out there, the quote-unquote luckier you become. And it's always upset me when people say, “Oh, you're so lucky that you can do that.” And yeah, there's some advantage of being a white middle class woman that if I was grew up literally on the streets of India, truly poor, of course, they're not going to have the life that I have – or it's very rare. So there is some luck involved with all of us, you know. But in terms of creating these opportunities, you know, when I've lectured at UCL before about, you know, musical entrepreneurship I have always said whatever job you have, make yourself indispensable. Don't just do what you're told, do more. And then something else is offered, I think I have applied for like two jobs in my life. And they were mainly waiting tables, because I was also doing that in university. But all the music jobs I've had, I'm trying to think through all of them. I have been asked to do all of them. Even the record shop was a guy I met him at a gig and I'd seen so many gigs that week he said “You should come by the record shop, because I think you know a lot about music and we need some Christmas help!” This was when I was 16. So you know, there was always an intro, there was always someone bringing me in or the boss was asking me to audition or whatever it was never... I mean, the only time I looked through the Village Voice in New York for jobs was to wait tables. So that was that. But yeah, that's that's how that's how it goes. I say that to everybody. Just make yourself indispensable and you'll be surprised. You get ready to leave one job and someone's standing there waiting to offer you something else because your reputation precedes you,
That's very funny because just this morning for this same series9, I was interviewing David McAlmont and he said he's never asked to join a project. All his collaborators have found him because no-one else is David McAlmont.
Exactly. Dance Tracks10 asked me to work there. Mr. Bongo11, I moonlighted there for a little bit when I first moved over, Dave Buttle asked me. Like, every one, there's always someone who's asking me to do things. But again, it's because I put the work in – and I think the other thing too, which needs to be said, is that I don't really know of many female, women DJs of my generation who were able to support themselves right away by DJing. Maybe, I don't know who, there might have been some in the UK. I know Paulette12 wasn't: she was working at Talkin' Loud, she was writing – we all had a lot of things going on, because it wasn't also necessarily realistic, I never thought it was even a possibility that I could DJ professionally, it wasn't even a goal. I was surprised when I was asked to DJ outside New York. I mean, I was surprised when first starting to get asked to DJ anyways, it was an honour – but then getting to DJ out of state in America, like in Philadelphia for King Britt13's night, or down in Georgia, or Boston, or, you know, and then I started going a bit further and then to Canada, and then to Italy, and Japan and the UK. And I was surprised, I was really surprised. And it wasn't until I moved here that I became I was able to... I just jumped off, blindfolded myself and jumped off the cliff and thought, let me just try it. But even at that time, I started a record label and I was doing productions. So it wasn't just that, but it never had even occurred to me I could I could just support myself DJing you know.
What year was that?
I moved here '99. Yeah. So by that time, I had kind of DJed internationally, I think the last year I lived in the States I, or maybe six months, I lived in the States, I was just DJing, I wasn't working for anyone. And that was that. But when I moved over I had a manager, just the whole infrastructure was different. Plus, there's more opportunities in Europe for that as well, more than there wasn't America, because in America, I mean, even though so much of the music came out of their house music and stuff, it was still such an underground cult scene. Just, like, some people discovered house music from our radio station, from our radio show, because it was a terrestrial station. It was on 89.1, and they could just be in their car, not looking for itand just find it and up until then they had never heard house music, you know? Mid, late 90s and people in New York had not heard house. It was such an underground scene there. And I remember moving here and hearing Masters At Work on Radio One. And I had just had Louis on my radio show, he came up to my radio show on this incredibly small station comparatively to Radio One, just just two weeks ahead of that, you know, and, then suddenly, I was temping in an office for a couple of weeks just to get some money and, and on the radio in the office, I Masters At Work and India “To be in Love” on the radio – WHAAAAT? I couldn't believe it. You know, I just never heard something like this. There's very few underground radio stations playing house music in New York at the time, let alone some huge station.
Yeah – I absolutely took that for granted at the time. And it was only when I did a FACT magazine article on best of diva house records14, and I was looking for old YouTube clips that I found one of Barbara Tucker on Top of the Pops – you know, our Thursday night biggest national pop programme, and it was like it was Barbara Tucker singing “Beautiful People” – and I thought, how did that become our culture? How did that become part of what British music was?
Massive! Alison Limerick... Ultra Naté... You know, these stars! But I mean, I would see Ultra Naté perform free to a crowd of 200 people and that was busy in New York. And here she had hits. I think maybe this has always been the case with the Europeans embracing Black American music more than Americans anyways, that's part of the story. From jazz, you know, you think of all the people that moved over like Don Cherry, and think of the writers, James Baldwin, the dancers, Josephine Baker, But there was just so much – actually I shouldn't say just past tense: there was and still sadly is so much prejudice and racism. I think that's part of it, too. Look at bands like Sister Sledge still touring here. They talk here more. They have I have a bigger fan base in the festival season here than they do in America.
But then again, there's a bizarre there's a bizarre mirror image that a lot of the best Black British artists Loose Ends, Cymande, Soul II Soul, were bigger in the States. So there's this kind of bizarre interchange.
Well and, what was his name, Rod Temperton15... though he was white so maybe doesn't fit the bill...
No, but it was still disco music and he took it back to the States, it was very very bizarre.
I know really incredible and he did rather well with it?
You could say that.
You could say that, yeah [laughs]
So going back to when your tastes were forming when you were young... how did you regard musicians? I'm kind of asking this of everyone now because Jeremy Deller, when I spoke to him, really brought it home that when he first saw pop stars on the TV as a child, he didn't realise that these were human beings. They were like, gods that existed in another world to him. Did you have a sense of what musicians were? Did they seem alien to you?
Well it was more the radio because we didn't have those TV shows that I remember. me where there's like the Donny and Marie Show, Lawrence Welk Show16 that my parents watched. That's a very different things to Top Of The Pops! Soul Train, of course, there was Soul Train. But I was a radio obsessive... and I thought there were little people in the radio. I did! I remember this first hugely psychedelic – without drugs I should add – musical experience that I had aged six or seven. So, all my aunts and uncles are quite young – I come from a big Irish Catholic family, so my dad was the eldest of six, and so my aunts and uncles were, like, not much older than me, so there were teenagers when I was growing up, a lot of them. And I was in my Uncle John's room, it was early 1970s, and he had those like ultraviolet blue lights on with the glow in the dark, fuzzy posters. And he had a transistor radio, and I was in there alone. And I had all the lights on. And then David Essex “Rock On” came on. The radio is like, “dow-now-now-now WHOOO dow-now-now-now...” And it was just like, “What is this?” because it didn't sound like the other songs on the radio. You know, it was so different. It's kind of like when “When Doves Cry” came on Casey Kasem's top 40. You're like, “Well THIS doesn't sound like anything else,” right? You know, it was great. And I thought there were little people on the radio, you know, and then I got my my own radio soon after that and realised that probably there weren't.
But no, it really wasn't a visual thing, I wasn't looking at people playing. It was always mainly an audio thing. Also to get the same sense of discovery in America, we had to search harder than you did here, because, you know, basically because it's such a vast country. And because urban centres are much further apart than they are here where they're just kind of mashed together... pre internet, it took a long time for scenes to evolve and develop and to and to be known by other places in the country. I was quite lucky growing up outside Boston, because in Boston, we it was a bit more of a liberal state. And we had a great AOR radio station that was really edgy. I mean, I was born in 1968 and a completely revolutionary year. I'm very proud of the year that was born. And I believe it was the same year that WBCN was born. I think it was this classical station first and then and then turn to what I knew it as. And all the radio jocks in the late 60s and early 70s, they're experimenting with the FM band. They're playing stereo music because they can on FM, they're playing album cuts that aren't the top 40 singles – so it's called album oriented rock. And they started experimenting and playing longer things and more interesting things and then they'd have specialty shows.
And there was a specialty show I'd listened to called... uh... Nocturnal Emissions, which was hosted by Oedipus [above, looking more new wave than any other human ever has] on Sunday nights – I later worked with him actually, in my 20s. In any case, that's where I would hear all sorts: I remember hearing Brian Eno “Baby's on Fire” the first time – I would tape the show. And you know, even getting a Melody Maker or an NME was very difficult in a small New England town. I don't think Spin was even available yet, that was our edgy magazine that came in the 80s... But let me think... Bowie was my first visual love, I had a whole Bowie wall. And he's probably the first musician I.... well, Elton John was really on my radar. I wasn't as obsessed, but it was my first album, Elton John's Greatest Hits my aunt gave me but really Bowie was my first proper obsession. And, of course, visually, he knew he could control that medium very well. With how he looked how he dressed how he presented himself. So that's probably the first time that image became important to me.
And then, of course, there was the punk scene as well. Growing up in a small New England conservative town, people are preppy – it was normal to be preppy where I grew up. And I was one of the few people that wasn't, and of course, you wear these kind of badges of honour, you know, with your strange haircut, or your spray painted jacket, or your the boots that I bought in London, or whatever with all the buckles all over the place. So there were certain style indicators that started to appear more as a teenager, though I never cared as much about clothes as a lot of other people do. Sometimes I wish I had but whatever – it was more in my teenage years that kind of identifying with different tribes, perhaps, although I never fully identified was one because I was going to dance clubs and all sorts of stuff as well as to the hardcore punk matinee, you know, the all ages matinee and seeing like, Black Flag. So yeah, there wa, always like a lot of different things going on.
Were you nerdy or analytical at this stage, as in spotting what scene was related to what, or which musicians played with which?
Yeah, I guess when I started really seriously record collecting, which was when I was 15 – the year before I started working in a record shop. I got my first turntable when was about 12. But I was borrowing records. And I would sit and read the things, you know, but really when I was 15, as far as going out to Boston, going to the used record shops and just buying records of things I had heard about, an artist or the band sounded cool, I heard something about it. And there was a guy in my drama class, he was a senior, I was a freshman and he he's one of the people that really turned me on to a whole different world of music. And it was Lena Lovich. He put it on, he said, “What do you think of this?” and I was like, “Oh my gosh!” Then he played B52s and Elvis Costello, and then I just would go out to the shops and just buy anything like, oh, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds. I started making connections, Stiff Records, ah, okay, let me see what this label has to say – go by label, producer, collaborators. I might have just heard a song on WBCN and I was like, oh, Joy Division, New Order, Factory.... Okay!
I started putting all the things together, and then of course, realised there was a lot of different kinds of families of music. I was also big Prince fan as you would be in the in the early 80s – I mean, anyone should be anyways, number one! But number two, I was lucky, I saw the Purple Rain tour and I was just the perfect age when all that was happening. There was like The Family and all the things that he was doing. And also working in a record shop is probably where it really really came together for me because I had to talk about this stuff and sell it so I was like, “Oh Twin/Tone Records17, well OK...” like I would know what that kind of whole Midwest indie sound would sound like, and how to sell records by making these connections, basically. So, yeah, so I always loved that whole School of Rock thing. You know, he has like the board with all the bands – I always did that in my head. I still do it in Classic Album Sundays, and I do it in my radio shows too: I talk about the music as well, and I try to educate as well as aesthetically pleasing people, I suppose.
Did you have an interest in... I don't want to use the word gossip, but... I suppose, the human drama behind scenes and movements and bands?
I didn't really. I was really music led, and because I didn't have access to those magazines I'd be unaware... and the American press music press is different than the British when the British one is can be very ruthless. Often just to sell papers you know. Of course the Americans can be there too, but I found it more here, partly because also there's a great scathing British sense of humour to some it was quite funny and often it is, but it's at someone else's expense. Someone else is being sacrificed for that, you know. In any case no, I didn't know of any of that. I really didn't you know, I really was quite divorced from all of that it was always music-led learning stuff through the records, talking about it, reading the records and just making those connections and talking to a lot of people... but I didn't really have any sense of that.
What about local scene politics or politics within the music world which you were actually experiencing face to face?
I didn't feel that all the time I was in high school you know. We had a great scene, and great rock scene in Boston – especially a psychedelic pop scene, like we had like The Lyres and The Del Fuegos and The Three O'Clock and I was never really part of of those types of politics within all of that... luckily. I think I got to know more about that once I moved to New York and once I really started interviewing these artists, because like I said, I was on one of the biggest college radio stations in the country on WNYU and started to interview bounds a bit there. But it really took off with my first job after university: I was hosting, producing engineering – on tape – editing on tape, voicing, writing these half hour weekly syndicated shows that went out to a couple-hundred radio stations.
I was 21 or maybe just turned 22 So I was quite young, but the music... This is 1991 and music was really shifting, especially the indie scene that I had been part of. You have to remember college radio was the biggest thing in the 1980s to break bounds. We broke U2, we broke REM, we broke all these great bounds. And all of a sudden, we were playing Nirvana Bleach, we were playing all the Sub Pop stuff and championing this stuff. And then, of course, Sonic Youth signed to Geffen then so did Nirvana. And Nirvana was the turning point. We were all playing Nirvana on college radio, I went to see them, and I think this is round the time where I was starting to get a behind the scenes glimpse at what was really going on.
A bunch of us had the advance cassette for Nevermind, and we knew it was incredible. And we just knew how good this album was, and how accessible it was, as well, because there were great pop hooks. I mean, we didn't know how big it was going to be. But I saw the band at, I think it was at the Marquee in New York. And I interviewed them the week that it came out. So they came down to my studio, where I was working out of, and by that time Kurt was already there, he was on something. He was nodding off. Unhappy, pressured, I'm sure the expectations around them was phenomenal. I'm sure there was SO much pressure on him. And that's kind of when I started to have that behind the scenes look at what was really going on with people. It was right around that time when I started to really properly interview bands and I was interviewing a few a week, for many years, so that's when I really started to notice this stuff. I still never really paid much attention to gossip in magazines, though, or it's never really interested me very much.
This whole innocence and experience thing can affect your relationship with music, like sometimes it adds emotional weight knowing the fucked up background, but sometimes it can sour things right?
I remember my first interview, I'm not gonna say who it was. But it was a band that I really liked – and the guy dick. And, you know, it's a little bit of a letdown. It's like, oh my gosh – of course also maybe I was also not a good interviewer, I was only 21, 22. But I know I would have been nice. And people are really full of themselves. But generally, I'll be honest, I've always found the opposite. I have always kind of found overall. You know, there I find artists very easy to get along with if I'm not asking them gossipy questions,
Right but not just in terms of being horrible, but in terms of being in a state of degradation, you look, you listen to the Butthole Surfers, for example...
My favourite band!
...and, you know, on the one hand, pushing the boundaries of experience gives us this extraordinary music – but the self destruction was very real, obviously, and they were they were living in pretty sordid circumstances.
OK right, like The Birthday Party, too – Nick Cave talked about that, what his life was like when I interviewed him to like when he was a solo artist. But yeah, they're living on the edge. You know, I remember I interviewed Paul Leary, and he was just mile a minute and so funny and all of that. I LOVED the Butthole Surfers, I saw them 13 times I think in two to three years around Locust Abortion Technician. They were really on a... really pushing boundaries with things The Shit Lady18 – I think Gibby had sex with her on stage once? I didn't see that one... that was pre Manumission19, right? [laughs]
Verrrry different! Actually it's in this book I've got right here20 – it's amazing Scatological Alchemy... [holds it up to camera]
Yeah! Oh wowwwwww... I need that! I often think, like, what's Gibby Haynes doing right now? Anyways... that pushing boundaries, doing something that was different than no one else was doing at the time – that's always something that is interested in me. Always, at least intellectually and many times aesthetically as well.
But you're not put off in any way by the understanding that it comes from, like, almost debasing themselves or damaging themselves in doing it?
I separate the art from the artist. And I had to learn to do that and it's taken me decades to get there. And for many reasons. Do I think it's healthy for them to do certain things? No, of course I don't think it's healthy for someone to become a heroin junkie. No of course I don't you know, I mean having said that, I'm not saying they couldn't do it without maybe they could make the same music without – who am I to say? I really don't know. But I do separate the art from the artist, and I think as a woman you have to probably.
You wouldn't have a very big record collection, yes. You find out what 70s rock stars got up to....
Yeah, he allegedly did this, away he goes, oh my god, you know, I mean, you'd have to hate everyone.
I mean, the hardest ones for me to get past have always been Al Green and John Martyn because they wrote the tenderest songs, the most beautiful love songs and yet they were these horrible people behind closed doors.
That's the thing, you know, and with hip hop there's all this, the hoes and the bitches and the homophobia and some of the lyrics and all that even though I love some of the artists and loved overall what they're doing as well. So that was all going on, right? When I was like, 20, 21 years old. This is all happening. very formative time of this stuff coming into the mainstream. I really had to like, gosh, but I do like some of those Dr. Dre songs. I do. Like, you know, even though some of the songs I can't like because of the lyrics, but there's some that I just DO. So do I just not listen to any Dr. Dre. Because at that time – well, he has since apologised over beating a woman up as well. And people can change – some people can change and, and you know, apologise for their past behaviour and we are all human and we are all flawed as well. So that needs to be said but yeah, I do divorce the two things because I think you have to.
I think the art... art is the greatest expression from a human. And you know, I don't know if we can all live up to those lofty ideals in our working everyday life every single minute. Of course, it's varying degrees about how bad someone is, as well, of course, yeah. And there's also there's different standards at different times on how these things were judged. We have to at least question how do we judge these people from now if people weren't judging them then – where do we draw the lines? And it's just difficult. Nowadays I think, well, if you have someone who is out there in the world creating harm now – don't buy their music, because you are empowering them through money. But people that aren't with us anymore, or if you're just listening to it, you're not buying it, there's no commercial transaction, then that's different.
You know, there's a hard line to draw and I can't say I have it all figured out. But you do separate the art and the artists in the moment as you're listening otherwise it can be very exhausting, like, you gotta be so watchful and get on your moral high horse about everything. Oh, that person did this. And that person did that. I'm not gonna listen to their music. It was the same with this whole thing was Morrissey coming out with his racist statements. I can understand the upset, so don't buy tickets to his concert. You know what I mean? But protest shops that stock his records? I don't know. That's the shops' decisions isn't it? I can understand if you don't want to empower him. Yes, he has a big platform or to say things that you don't agree with. But do I think it made The Smiths any less of a band? Well, no, I don't. The Smiths did great music and Morrissey some great music...
It's almost a kind of willfully self-harmful thing to do to tear your own memories apart as well: to go “Oh, it was all a lie” because you discover someone was bad. But those feelings you had were real and the experience with the music was real. I think there's a maybe perverse part of me that goes “I won't let you take that away from me!” Like, I want to own my relationship to the music, I want to take it away from the musician almost.
Part of the problem was us, as we're putting these artists on a pedestal and pretending they're gods and they're not – they're human. They're flawed. They suffer like we all do. We all suffer we're all human. We're all flawed, varying degrees maybe. But you know it's like no one always gets it right.
No, and the mass market created so many layers of illusion and hype and all the rest of it that it was it's only natural that that certain malevolent people would learn to hide behind that and manipulate the fact we don't know what's illusion.
Yeah, Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
But going back to your own developing tastes and understanding of the worlds of music as you put it. At that college radio stage, you mentioned indie rock and hip hop – were you taking in dance music and everything else?
Yeah, I mean, dance music was coming in a little bit later for me. Earlier in the 80s, I was going out to some things as I said: freestyle was big in the 80s on the East Coast, and I was going to funk shows, like the Gap Band or whoever – but club music that was a bit later, that was really after university. I was going out to some clubs, but it wasn't like the thing that was really driving me though, the biggest things were more of the alternative scene. But that's such a big word itself, because I had this three and a half hour radio show every week, we could play The Residents to Nick Cave to Nurse With Wound, there was all the Al Jourgensen stuff on Wax Trax and all that kind of industrial stuff happening and there's the Belgian stuff happening. So it's like a big show... There was Americana too – alternative Americana, Lucinda Williams. So there's a lot of different things I would play that would fall into this category, I guess it was just non commercial music because something you didn't hear on the commercial radio stations, which are so strictly formatted by the 80s. It wasn't as free wheeling as in the 1970s, it was more corporate, in the record labels and everything else. So it was was kind of all over the place. Sorry what was the question again?
Well I was just trying to get to how club music as such came into your world, really... like, was it part of the big picture of styles and genres you already had?
Okay, so it wasn't part of a big picture, I would say the only kind of big picture I had at the time, is, I knew I was going to be in radio. Because I had studied radio and sound, and I had also lived in Japan for a few months as a radio DJ, when I was 20, 21, which was a hugely formative experience, because I had hardly really travelled, I think I'd left the country once before that. Being American, you didn't travel with my family, you went to Cape Cod For for your holidays, or Maine [laughs] you didn't get on a plane. So, in any case, I thought radio was always a common denominator, I hadn't really thought about clubs at that point.
After I graduated and travelled a bit, and I was living back in New York – that's when I really started going out to clubs – doing this other syndicated show in the daytime then going out to clubs at night, and then really starting to collect that music. I've rarely had an over... I don't even have one now – an overarching vision. I really don't. I'm like in the work. And I will have certain goals that I'm getting towards. And then sometimes I have to re-realise those goals. And that's kind of where I'm actually am at in my life right now actually is re-realising like, I'm middle aged and I have t... I feel like maybe I should be planning more. [cackles] Yeah, it was never, never an overarching thing. I always knew I was going to be in subcultures.
I had been asked to work at major labels and you know, people said, a long time ago, 30 years ago, “You should go audition for MTV,” but it just always left me cold. And it's the same with big commercial clubs. I always knew I was never going to be one of those big famous techno DJs... which is fine, I have nothing against any of them either. Good on 'em. I'm just saying, I always knew that was not me. And I admire people like that, too. I know the CEO of Atlantic Records. Craig21. He's a great guy. I really admire him. I admire Julie22 who he works with, but it's like it's just not my life. And one thing I've always liked to think I have is a pretty good ear. And there's just certain things I could never associate myself with. If I don't like.... I'm pretty pure about it – and I like commercial music too, like if you listen to Balearic Breakfast, you will hear some songs that were hits. I am not a snob about it either. And I find that whole like, “I only play songs that no one knows” thing, I find that really fucking irritating, if that's all there is – I do like a balance. You know, I like a balance of bringing people in with things they know and then educating them as well as things they don't but but so it's not necessarily that I get sniffy about artists being commercially successful because there's so many great artists that have enjoyed that. Whether it's... well, sadly not the Butthole Surfers, but definitely Nirvana. Definitely David Bowie, Kate Bush, I mean, there's some great ones so obviously, I'm glad, I'm happy for them...
Well that's the Balearic aesthetic as well. For the second time today I find myself quoting Terry Farley's description of Balearic music as “pop music that sounds good on E,” but you know....
[Laughs] There are some things like that though. That is true. But then I hear some of them and I just think gosh, I just aesthetically don't like that song. So I'm not gonna play it. And it eventually lands on you know, OK, If there's something I'm putting my name to, whether it's a DJ set, a radio show, my own mix, promoting something – like I did some independent marketing for about a year in New York. And they gave me all the bands that no one knew anything about to us. So I marketed Mezzanine by Massive Attack, Dmitri From Paris, Morcheeba – because in America, they didn't know what to do with these artists. But I was kind of known as the one who would market the weird stuff. I also did some work with Janet Jackson, independent marketing, but I like her! And Randy Crawford. But yeah, I've always, always been like that, like, I cannot play record I'm not into. And that's why, yeah, that's why when I've only probably teach at a few weddings. [laughs long and loud] Well, I have but they're good people. No, I shouldn't say good people. People that enjoy the same music as me.
Yeah. But it's really interesting that you said “that's not my life.” Like, it was it's a life choice not to be part of that, rather than taste. Because subculture is a life choice, and club subcultures tenfold.
Yeah, I think to me, The Loft wasn't a club. It was a different thing. It was a community that did go over into the club world, there was definitely overlap. And it was quite nice for me, because I grew up in a mainly white town, in New England and I moved to New York City and then being involved in club culture was a lot different, you know, Latino and Black, basically – African American. And at The Shelter23, and Payday24 and a bunch of different clubs, I just loved that melting pot of ethnicities, and it made me feel part of something bigger. And we were all, even though we all came from different walks of life, it was this... I mean, house music was revolutionary here in the UK, but it also was for me. The community aspect. I was listening to an old radio show that I interviewed Romanthony25 on – it's on my Mixcloud26. But you can hear us both talking about house music – this is like 1995 or something – and the community and it was just so fresh.
And [inhales deeply] you know, it was... it was... definitely you were part of something bigger than yourself, I felt that with the punk movement too, although I never fully only identifed with one tribe. And I was always very careful not to, because I have too many interests, but some I have identified more with and then definitely, club culture in New York in the 1990s was definitely a big one, a very big one. I was very devoted to it, because it became a big part, eventually kind of consumed my life in the sense that, you know, I stopped producing those other radio shows, and I had two other radio shows that I was doing weekly, live Soul School and Club 89, and I was working at Dance Tracks, and I was like, you know, working with David Mancuso, and so I was in a lot of different things happening, it was kind of became my world.... whereas in the 80s, was college radio kind of music was really my world, you know.
Again, did you did you map this out in a scholarly way? Were you interested in the history of how disco had become house, how the Chicago scene had developed, any of that kind of stuff?
Well, only through, basically, I was writing record reviews, I was interning at a trade mag called Rockpool in the 1980s. And I was writing some record reviews and taking in the charts from local DJs. And then in the early 90s, when I started, I guess having a bit of a name, because of the radio show, whatever, I was asked to write for some magazines, and I start with record reviews.... and I realised I hated record reviews, I hated writing them, and I stopped reading them as well. I don't really care what someone else thinks. [laughs, remembering she’s talking to a record reviewer] I hate to say it, I mean, if it's someone's taste I admire then great, but I just stopped reading them. And I stopped writing them. And I just wanted to interview the artists. And that has always been my thing is like, I want to hear the artist's story.
So that was how I was joining those dots. We didn't have the internet. I had one book called The Trouser Press27, which was about all these alternative indie bands, it was kind of like an encyclopaedia. But a lot of it was your own knowledge and what you would hear about – so I was started hearing about David's story, even though I I never talked to David about his story, for instance... Mancuso, this is... but I'd hear about his story. Oh, he was really the first guy to be throwing these parties. And that's where Larry Lavon went, and Larry called it his home, and I would just hear these things kind of piecemeal. But I was always very interested in the now like, “How can I help David now?” you know, and also I got accepted to graduate school to study anthropology at Columbia. And I ended up turning it down.
So history and things like that interests me. But my whole pitch to Colombia was I want to do living anthropology. And making media documentaries, because I had a media background, making television and radio talks, because I had that background in media. That was all about living anthropology. And I remember sitting there, I had this great job, interviewing all these great bands every week, it didn't pay a lot but I didn't care about money. I had enough to get by. That's all it matters. You had enough to get by. I was never money driven. And then it was like “Hey, take another loan out for university, for graduate school!” And then I just also realised, even though it's Columbia and an Ivy League school, huge honour to be accepted to their master's programme. I realised: do I want to be on the outside of culture, looking in... or do I want to be the inside, being part of it and making it? And that was my decision. Now, I read and watch loads of books and documentaries about music and musicians, but also about people in general. Whether it's Drive to Survive, and the Formula One drivers, or... I even watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger Netflix series.
I am fascinated by people and their stories, no matter who they are. I really am. but it wasn't as important to me to map out David's history and where he stood as it was to, like... “You know what, David, the world needs to know about what you're doing NOW. You should do some compilations, and you need some money.” And it was more important for me to help make something happen than just sit around talking about it, and that's kind of the way I am, it was the same with when I started Classic Album Sundays. I always get, like, “Oh, I always thought of doing that.” Like, really? And it's always a guy. Sorry. It just was always was. And they're like, “Oh, yeah, I thought of doing that.” And I said, “But you didn't.” Yeah. A great idea, but nothing unless you execute it. I mean, I do intellectualise things. And I can stand back and put pieces together. And I do that with some of my shows and Classic Album Sundays. But yeah, I think it wasn't as important to like, think about the history of disco in New York, rather than like, hey, let's be part of it. Let's make things happen now. Yeah, absolutely.
Ha well I can appreciate that. Less the stuff about doing, because I'm a shit organiser, but the thing about the culture existing in the now. The unofficial slogan for Bass, Mids, Tops became “bass culture is folk culture.” And that was really about not just recording a history through micro details and not claiming any canonical take, but trying to show that it was a living swarming social mass. And it still is....
Yeah. History is subjective. And we're just hearing stories from other, you know, other genders and other people that are finally coming out after all these years. You know, I've been gaslighted several times by people still now about my involvement and things in the 90s. So you know how history is subjective. It is so... just... it's ever evolving.
Absolutely. I mean, you know, I've written something about discovering how underrepresented Joni Mitchell was as an artist28 next to comparable artists of the time. Same with Nina Simone – it just completely upended everything I'd ever read in those canonical histories.
Yeah, Rolling Stone wrote about her about all the people that she had slept with. [stony faced] Yeah. Exactly. And look at all the other rock guys and how many people they slept with. It was shocking. And I do understand, when people say, oh, she's still grumbling that she's better than Dylan, dah dah dah – she was grumbling because she wasn't given the credit due. I've always said this, and I'm a huge Joni Mitchell fan, but she changed... and Dylan did too Dylan helped change the course of pop music – which Joni Mitchell always said and she said it changed her writing. “Oh, you could write about anything?” You know, it's what she said. “I didn't realise!” But what she did with her guitar tunings, her melodies, her lyrics, she helped change the course of pop music as well. And she wasn't... she's given more credit now. But it was decades before that happened, so you can understand maybe why she's a bit grumpy. And so what if she is! Dylan's one of my favourite artists as well. He's a grumpy old man. But I love him too.
I worked out you could very objectively measure the injustice. You just look on Goodreads and see how many pages of books have been published about each artist. And it was like, alright, OK, there's more about Bob Dylan. He's huge, fine. But then, Leonard Cohen versus Joni? They're kind of comparable. They're both Canadian. Both poets... And it was like five times as many books, five times as many pages published about Leonard Cohen....
And Leonard Cohen isn't as popular as Joni Mitchell. Quite honestly, as an American, I can tell you that...
Right. But there's a direct, objective, measure of how much more seriously he was and is taken.
Totally. And you know, we know Neil Young could be grumpy, but that didn't seem to hurt. Yeah, a woman is not allowed to be grumpy or angry. It's still like that.
Absolutely. Was there a moment when you felt like your involvement with the music scene had reached critical mass? You were like, oh, fuck, I've done this.... I mean, outside of radio where obviously, you know, you were doing what you wanted to be doing and enjoying it. But was there a compilation or a DJ set or something where it was a real, “Oh yes, this is it!” moment?
I feel this all the time. I feel this all the time. So you know, when I first became programme director and I'll be sitting there interviewing Brian Eno 30 years ago when I sat there interviewing Ryuichi Sakamoto when I when I was living in Japan, like when David asked me to play records at The Loft... just, just SO many. There's not one. I am grateful. Like, you know, I still host this radio show Balearic Breakfast even though it's a radio show without radios. In any case, it's the number one in the Balearic charts on Mixcloud every week or close, to that, and the fact that people are still tuning in is great. Not that I'm getting paid for it. Or, well, I just started subscription model, like two weeks ago, it only took me three years [laughs].
But in any case, I feel honoured. It's like, there's a lot of eureka moments in the studio... you'll, you'll have this remix, I just did. I still love. I did this remix with Jacob Gurevitsch for Music For Dreams29 and I still love listening to this. That's the kind of eureka moment for me, like, wow, you know, so it can be finishing something in the studio that you're just super happy with. It could be the end of the set. I was really happy with my set at We Out Here and our Love Dancin' tent this year, and those moments, I get those moments... Well, I feel that a lot. I mean, I don't know if it is a lot or not, I don't know if that would count as a lot for anybody else. So I don't know, but I think I feel lucky that I've had a lot of those moments in my life. I do feel quite blessed. I'm also my own worst critic. So I also played another old record of mine recently, I was like, “God, that sounds like shit. [laughs] I'm not playing that, again.”
So this gets back to something that I was trying to articulate right at the beginning, when we were talking about work ethic and life missions and so on. And there is something about people who put in that work to pursue the most magical experiences, holy grail records, spaces with good vibes and so on, that then prevents you from classic, bog-standard ambition, in the sense of a life plan or acquisition or overarching goal or whatever. Because once you've played in the most beautiful villa party in the world, or you found the most beautiful spiritual jazz record, you know, those are relatively small, ephemeral experiences, but nothing gets better than that... but then there’s knowing that there can be others like that.
But I'd hate to think I've already experienced the best that life has to offer! I am an open hearted optimist.
But what I mean is that there are a lot of “greatest things” which you can experience throughout life. And so you're chasing more of those, knowing they exist, rather than some cumulative, abstract goal.
Chasing. Exactly. Yeah that's what defines a good life for me. Rather than accumulation. You know, you do need some stable things, like, you know, we have a house and car – not that I've always had a car, but I'm just saying, I'm not like completely like, completely off the grid. That's not me either. I respect people who are I totally do. But yeah, my life has never been measured or success has never been measured in monetary terms for me. And it's made it very difficult in some some periods of my life. I think, you know, now that I'm in my 50s – and I'm thankful for getting here, you know – it's the easiest part of my life now as an adult, financially. But, you know, I've lived off of nothing or very little, and, but it was never, it was never a reason of unhappiness. I was always able to pay my bills. And I was always my thing. I wouldn't have a big credit card didn't even have a credit card for most of those years. So it was like, I rent was $300 this was that I could live off of food $30 a week, I knew I couldn't go out and take taxis, I knew I couldn't do those things there, there weren't splurges, I didn't buy expensive clothes, it never, it was never part of my life.
And I was really happy, it didn't matter. You know, it was never motivated that way and I'm still not. You want to be comfortable in middle age, and you have a family, of course, there's concerns, but it's never been like, I need it's never been how do you more “I want more, more,” it's never been like that for me. It has been more experience led, I'm much more about that, One of the my other majors at NYU was comparative religions. And I got into, and I still do go to the Buddhist Centre, and I've been interested in many different religions and spiritualities rather than organised religion as well. And those types of spiritual quests have always been a big part of my life, too. Although I admire people becoming the CEO of this, or a major recording artists like Beyoncé – I have a lot of admiration for her. I have a lot of admiration for people who make it financial, it's not like I'm saying I'm better than them because they have a basement. That's not it's not a judgement call at all. I'm just saying. It's just not me. Never has been. Sometimes I wish it had been and maybe I'd have a swimming pool!
Right. I was brought up very anti-materialistic, and it took me a long while to appreciate that, much as the bullshit artists, the Elon Musks, are hyper-visible, some “high achievers” can have incredible skill and judgement and that can be fascinating and impressive to watch.
Drive is admirable. That's why I watched that Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary. I'd actually probably only seen Terminator. I haven't even seen him in many movies. It's just he's a figure that's been around in my life. And then he was in politics... I just found this trajectory interesting. It was just interesting. “I'm gonna be the most famous bodybuilder I'm gonna be a huge Hollywood actor. I'm gonna be a politician.” Yeah, and the confidence and the drive that make that happen. And he was very interesting. He said, you know, “My father used to wake me and was like, 'Let's get moving!'” And that's his attitude. Yes. Like, I admire him on that side. Just, wow, it's quite something. You don't have to agree with everything he stands for or does to be impressed by that.
Well he's extremely articulate in setting out his world view too...
He is. And there's going to be a conversation with him at the Royal Albert Hall. Wow. Wow. Interesting. I was just there the other night for Jon Hopkins, we were invited because I work with the Royal Albert Hall so we were invited to their their box and all that, it was nice... so I had a look see what else is coming up. “We have a conversation with Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Oh, wow. I can't believe it! Anyway. Interesting. People really do fascinate me.
Do you have any lingering ambitions or is it really follow the opportunities that arise?
I want to make the perfect song! Chasing that perfect beat. I want to make something I'm eternally happy with. Then Classic Album Sundays is probably the thing that I look at as a platform that I feel could be... could be more. And I don't know if I'm the person to do it, which has been a recent realisation. It's something I started out as a passion project, and it took off. And now I kind of feel like it needs there's so much potential. And I feel that there's have ambitions for that, in terms of making it bigger, because I think it is an important platform. I don't know if I'm the one to do it, though. And that's the interesting thing to face. I don't know if I have what it takes. On that side, I have great vision and ideas. And I'm a music person. And I'm an... okay, I'm a probably better businesswoman than many other, or than some people in our sphere, but definitely not as good as many others. And I just feel it is something that's been in the back of my mind recently, like: I need to do something with this. And it might require somebody else. And that's okay. Because I do feel like I have my fingers on a lot of different pots right now. And, and to keep it all going, well, you know, we might need to say, you know, someone might be better for that job.
Right. And there is there is still, I've felt for a long time, this kind of gap where music TV used to be, something where curators can really be kind of in the centre of culture – because Boiler Room almost got there, Red Bull Music Academy got there for a bit, and there's dozens of other streaming channels and interesting music YouTubers that have almost got there. And yet, nothing's quite fully inhabited its niche, as it were, I feel like there's an evolutionary niche waiting for great music broadcasting of some sort, for great music hosting, and conversations about music. But how that happens... Who knows? Obviously, a lot of people are working very hard to try and find that thing, or those things – and no doubt Classic Album Sundays, because it's such a simple, clear, adaptable idea, really does have potential there.
Exactly. Yes. I feel that that do have ambition with that. But it can't be just me. I think it's just beginning to realise where it fits in everything you know. But it's something I think is really important. And obviously Britain thinks it's important because I do stuff with Royal Albert Hall, the V&A, British Library – huge institutions. Done stuff for the BBC. So there's value. And I think I'm a probably a better curator, and interviewer and a visionary rather than a nuts and bolts person. So how can we do this and make this... get it to the next level? I think that's somebody else's talent. So you know, if anyone let me know!
Damn, we're all looking for those enlightened investors and managers out there...
There has to be! It's funny, because when I first started Classic Album Sundays, I had a few of them calling me, but I needed to build it myself first. I was like, I didn't really want someone else's vision right away, because I wanted to see what would happen. And it was also, I wasn't doing as much at that time, I wasn't DJing as much I had just come out of being the primary carer of our child. I wasn't working full time anyways. And that was like the next big project. And I thought that was gonna be it. And I didn't really know how I was gonna really DJ again. So, yeah, everything was kind of focused on that it was going quite well. And it's still going great. But it's just I feel like it's ready for the next level. And I think it could, like be somebody else.
Cool. Good luck! And then you're still chasing that perfect DJ gig too.
I'm really lucky. I basically play in such great places. Overall, I really do and have a great following...? Listeners, dancers community which I don't take for granted. Same as with Classic Album Sundays I come I come out events I'm on a high, you know, so I feel like I've had so many great ones – and Classic Album Sundays events too, like they had been transcendental, some of them, like literally people crying and everyone feeling different than when they first came into the room. Same with the DJ gigs, same with hopefully the radio shows as well. So I feel like I have been lucky to experience so many great ones. And yeah, I guess just building upon that, you know, I'm ready to kind of travel some more because our daughter's 18 and a half. So we're gonna go to have a gig in Australia, we're gonna go to Australia and New Zealand for the first time. So that's a goal. A lot of my goals are kind of experience led as I said, you know, one day I might want to do the same thing with David did, and get a place to have parties in my own home as I get older. That's another idea. That's always been there for a very long time. So like, there's certain things like that, you know, but in general, it's just keep working, keep doing the things I love and see what presents itself [laughs] – I mean that's how it's worked. You know,
I love that idea of rebuild The Loft or build a new Loft. It's kind of almost biblical. Somehow. It's like, you know, we will will rebuild the temple...
Yeah, well, I don't believe in copying: it'd be inspired by and using the same principles that David taught me, and the sound system probably would be pretty close. So how he set it up and everything, but I don't even know if I would call it The Loft. I mean, I would just be a place inspired by.... you know. It's just something that interests me just because I think that the more you have control over certain things.... or not a sense of control but the less outside factors that there are – so you know, with clubs, you have all all sorts of hoops you have to jump through and commercial demands and I don't know if I want to be tied to a commercial venue myself, you know, I think it'd be too much. But you know, having a great space, a self soundproofed place with a sound system, do parties when you feel like it, and the system's all set up and ready. Sounds great, right? Not even necessarily me just being on playing records either. But in general just sounds like a lot of fun, and not having to worry about, like, the bar and just, going back to... really the roots of the whole thing.
By some reckonings, the founder of DJ culture: at the very least his Love Saves the Day / The Loft private parties, starting in 1969, were crucial in the birth of what became disco and thus all that followed. To get the full story, Love Saves the Day by Tim Lawrence - who has worked closely with Cosmo and Mancuso - is a must, a really great book even aside from the crucial history therein.
Also instrumental in keeping the legacy of foundational Jamaican label Trojan alive via the UK based Trojan Soundsystem.
Lazer Guided Melodies!
Tango in the Night!
A fantastic bluesy, dubby affair from 2014 which is near impossible to get hold of now.
Coming next in a fortnight!
NYC Record Store founded in the late 80s then bought by spiritual house mastermind Joaquin “Joe” Clausell as a base for his activities from 1992.
London store founded in 1989, of the landmarks of the Soho record shop scene, still functioning online and as a brilliant record label.
Mancunian legend and sometime Hacienda resident. Still found demolishing clubs with her house and disco sets.
Mind-bogglingly prolific, one of the greatest polymaths and educators to come out of electronic music, and on a promise to be interviewed for this Substack next time he’s in the UK.
Cleethorpes’s greatest and most unlikely success story, who founded Heatwave and ended up writing some of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits.
Original home of The Replacements and Soul Asylum and keystone of the 80s US indie scene.
Don’t ask.
Peak superstar DJ culture decadence Ibiza club night which around the turn of the millennium regularly featured sex shows including ones featuring the couple who promoted the night.
OK if you really need to know about The Shit Lady - it actually is an excellent book.
Craig Kallman, a former DJ himself and founder of hip hop imprint Big Beat - which was then acquired by Atlantic, for whom he signed the likes of Aaliyah and Timbland before rising through the ranks to CEO.
Former Def Jam executive Julie Greenwald.
Co-founded by the legendary NYC house forefather Timmy Regisford, beloved for its outstanding soundsystem, and considered by some a successor to the Paradise Garage.
Known as an “outlaw party” shifting between venues.
Late and sadly missed maverick singer / producer, best known in the mainstream as voice of Daft Punk’s “One More Time”.
More specifically The Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records which came in multiple editions editions through the mid-late 80 and into the 90s.
Music For Dreams is the long running label of Danish Balearic veteran Kenneth Bager, and the record is lovely.