i’ve recently stepped down to los angeles to work for the man and they were the calm crispy summer nights i remember.  trading one typical routine for another, i spent a little time ordering some vinyl and getting used to certain settings on the new camera.  expect to see some dope night shots and timelapse projects in the near future.  at the same time, i keep mentioning how i’m way overdue for a mix, so hopefully ordering the vinyl will get me in the mood to hit the record button.  stand by as i’m getting the page up and running and anticipate providing some good rewards to those paying attention.

peace

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Our friends in the asr family are doing a big night at the best disclosed location in SF. This guarantees early morning fun with some top talent coming in from NY as No Regular Play.  Teamed up with the Wolf and Lamb crew, this live set is bound to take you to a funky deepness.  Basically, this party’s a no-brainer and I don’t have much time to do any justice for this but Dave Aju and Christina Chatfield will be throwing down live sets as well, and I’ll just say Dave Aju is worth the party alone.  Rocking the microphone and manipulating his voice to a heavy, stepping techno groove is not to be missed as he’s rarely appearing in the local lineups.  Just have a look at the rest of the line-up and get your tix while you can.  Rich Korach, Sammy D, Moss Moss and Gold Code.  If I was in SF for the weekend, you’d spot me in the crowd, but duty calls down south.  Have fun peeps!!

in prime SF summer season, you will be able to check linkwood first hand with a very intimate family of heavy hitters:  linkwood, briski, jeno, conor & sammy d.  there will be exclusive content in the vj world from grimly i.  look to rebodysf.com for a limited supply of tix….

Having grown up in the suburbs of Dallas in the mid-90s, one would suspect this white boy to have missed the gap. Wrong! It is often overlooked, how the power of airwaves grasped so many in the Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex as we call it. While I was going through my awkward phase in puberty and my late-blooming ass was trying to find itself, I was to be transformed forever by sitting in the confines of my own bedroom. Let’s not forget I have two older brothers that steered me to the right station, but I must say (with confidence) the most underrated radio show in the world was blaring through the airwaves of 94.5 KDGE with a very selective and confident host, Jeff K. It was known as EdgeClub 94 because of the dial, not the year.

With Dallas having its club history based on the fact that it was the last place ecstasy was legal and available for sale on the bar countertops of the Starck club, DJs loved to come through this unsuspecting city blooming with transplants moving from the busiest urban cities in search of prosperity in a corporate urban sprawl. I was too young to get down to these parties, so it was left to another force in the movement of underground dance music.

I’ll just step foward and say it outright, because for me, radio was the shit. Every Saturday night on 94.5, Jeff K would host a late night guest mix that usually consisted of the out of town DJs. With promoters staying hip to the game and bringing in solid dj’s, you also had the steadfast Hazy Daze Collectif (Cle, Mike Constantino, Sean Holland, with JT Donaldson, Lance DeSardi, and DeMarkus Lewis as unofficials) doing their epic house parties to push the level of the other promoters in town. This brought in some damn good talent. These parties ran late, so at 1am, Jeff would host whoever the best was in town. There are two epic mixes that really grab me by the balls, however, and instill the motivation to keep alive and drive me to make music. (once again, in the confines of my bedroom) Josh Wink was a mix that was so good, Jeff jumps on the airwaves and tells him, “Go, Josh, Go!” That mix was too long to get the full length recording on both sides of the Maxell tape. (it might be a lost tape though) Damn! The most important mix, you’ll be able to download here, was definitely from Mr. Juan Atkins.

juan atkins on edgeclub94

He came on and laid a full set with Move D, Moodymann, Model 500 and others.  At the end, there is a full interview with the legend himself.  The playlist for each EdgeClub was always left at the store the next day, Bill’s records.  Bill’s was the largest sole independent record store in the country at the time and somebody better be doing a documentary on the damn place. They had heat and knew how to get it. This is a whole separate story in itself that should be touched upon later, but there were crews of us in search of the sweetest cuts from the night before. We were searching for the goods in the record bins just like the older generations of Detroit and Chicago. Bill had “everything” you could imagine for a record store, and I’ll leave it at that. About 8 years later, I had the fortune to play with Maetrik, and we started talking about how EdgeClub motivated so many of us in Dallas to push forward and do our next level of house or techno when he told me that he had almost every late-night mix between 94 and 95 converted from tape to minidisc. I still haven’t been able to get him to convert any of these to mp3s, but hmmmm, there’s got to be so many good sets on there. Not only did we have guests, but locals like A-1, and Red-Eye were on there playing heat that would keep the travellers on there toes as well as the deep bangers that drove us all into the future. Just listen to the juan mix and keep it going with the interview afterwards. That’s what’s up!

Later on, I took this radio influence with me to 88.1 KTXT in Lubbock (Texas Tech University) with the same premise of underground wax and guest dj’s to keep the spirit alive. Now, you’ll have to get me to revive my podcast. Shit, let me get offline and record now.