20th Anniversary of my first record "Bits & Pieces 89"

This is the 20th anniversary of my first record, "Bits & Pieces 89" so I figured I would write a little about it.
I always listened to "Paco's Supermix" on 92 KTU (1978, 79 more on that later) so that's where I learned this Medley style of mixing. I started djing when i was 13 years old, around 1983. My grandfather used to take me to a great record store in the Bronx called Harmony Records. The owners were Nat and Lenny, turns out my grandfather knew them from years way back, so it was cool to go there and "Pop" could hang with Nat and Lenny. My first time there, I bought some great records, and 1 or 2 of the "Bits-and-Pieces" style of mix records, and I told Nat that one day he'd be selling my records...He just said "that's great, I hope so"

Fast forward to 1986. A great friend of mine, Eddie, he was older and a very established dj in ny, lent me his Pioneer Reel-to-Reel and taught me how to edit. Thats where it started. Now here's another layer...Eddie's good friend was a guy named Jeff (me and jeff still talk almost every day). Jeff, way way earlier worked at the Funhouse in NYC, and he was there before Jellybean, in-fact he was the dj that broke Jellybean into the Funhouse before he (jeff) left. We all know what Jellybean did after that...AND it turned out that Jeff used to do some of Paco's Supermixes for 92 KTU in the 70's, he did my favorite one "Keep on by D Train." So through all of that, I had 2 guys to really show me how to get this done. My first mix in 1986 was on WBLS in NY.

Fast Forward again to 1989. I now have an Akai Reel-to-Reel, couldn't afford the Legendary Technics 1500, but I have one now! So I start working on a mix. I have a few friends at a "Vinmymania" record store in NYC. They took a listen and gave me a phone number. I called it from the pay-phone on the corner of 7th ave and Carmine st. The guy shows up within 10 minutes in a completely restored 81 Toyota Corolla, no back seats because it was filled with the biggest sound system that I ever saw. He puts the cassette in and blasts my mix. My little cousin Mark was with me. So the guy then tells me that if I would sell him the master, or a good dupe, he would press it as "Bit's & Pieces 89!" That's all I needed to hear. I met him a couple of days later with the master, because I couldn't dupe it, and he gave me $150.

The best part of the story is that I got to go back to Harmony Records and buy MY mix record from Nat. He was so happy and remembered what I told him in 1983.

So, the whole Paco thing now...in 2005, I did a few mixes for 102.7 here in NY. Paco worked for the station. Later on I was the LIVE Dj for Paco's 102.7 Nightclub Parties. We did this from "Posh" in Long Island. Because of this I was able to tell him that about 28 years earlier he was the reason I started DJing, and his supermix guys were the ones who taught me. It was very cool........and it meant alot to him and he appreciated it.

More on the mix - it took about 12 hours to do, no samplers. 2-Technics 1200's, a Bozak Mixer, a razorblade, ampex 1/4" tape, Akai 7" reel, 15ips. The whole thing is about 12mins long.

www.VINMIX.com -> nightclub -> music You'll find it there.

Alot of stuff in one

I've been very busy lately so I'll catch up by putting most-of-april in this post.
I'll go back to thursday april 2. I was at Porkys and it was dead for some reason, but my old friend Angela came by at the end of the night with a friend because she was already in the city. It's always fun seeing old friends, and that was also the last time porkys was dead. Since then we've been packed on thursdays.
Fridays at Overlook have been packed as usual, and since the weather has been getting better, we're more packed because we have an outside on the roof.
On April 3rd, My wife Paula came by with her 2 friends Margo and Jenn and they had dinner and hung out at the bar afterwards, and my boys Kacper and Giorgio the bartenders kept them entertained and pretty much bombed. Harry also came by that night.
AND my boy Danny came by like a blast-from-the-past. I thought he was dead! I let him "DJ" a little while I hung out with my wife for a few minutes. He's not a dj and sucked so I threw him out, but it was great to see him anyway.
People Lounge has been paaacked and totally pumpin every saturday that I've been there.
I played Crazy Legs Skate Club this past wed the 15th and I gotta say that this is still one of my favorite parties to play.

Something cool came up. I recently hooked up with a new website awdio.com (my wife found it, she finds all the cool stuff for me) Im trying to get People Lounge as one of the clubs that they broadcast from, but I dont think they;re gonna go for it. The main site is in Paris and I've been talking to them. They're coming to NY soon and will definately check us out and see if we can broadcast through them.
Since this came up, I figured that I would try to do some type of live stream from People on my own which im looking into now.
Also-The Central Park Dance Skaters Assoc just started up again and I'll be there on Saturday May 2, 2-6pm. This is another extremely cool "gig" We sometimes get over 1000 people there and I love it.

3-28-09 Saturday PEOPLE LOUNGE

What can I say, It was PACKED as usual. I love it here. My boy Kacspar(I cant spell this) came by with a few friends, bought a bottle and later on he was pouring shots for anyone in the crowd. Hes a good dude and likes to have fun whereever and whenever.
Yeah that's it again the people wouldnt leave so I kept playing till just before 4am. There was another english guy there and he asked me if I had to play american music because I was playing deep afro house and tribal at that time, unfortunately he was the only one loving it besides me. I play this stuff from 10-11:30 while everyone gets drunk then I switch off to the american pop n rap.

3-27-09 Friday, OVERLOOK

Tonite was a great nite - it was packed with a cool crowd, i was able to play better music then usual, thanks to my wife giving me a bunch of her indie-rock and alternative music, which i needed tonite.
Well, its official...IM A STAR! Let me back up. I was djing and a guy with an english accent, obviously on vacation in ny, asked me to watch his suitcase which I did, and when he came back after dinner he offered me a "tip" for helping him out which I wouldnt take, so in his very heavy english accent he called me a STAR (which probably means awesome dude or great guy)
Harry came by again which was cool and we hung out for a while. Later on around 9:30 we packed up even more and by 11 we had a very cool crowd and I was able to play alot of clubby house music which worked well.

3-21-09, Sat People

People was packed! as usual with a great crowd. I love playing here because I can really do my job right when I'm here. I usually Twitter all nite from here and post updates on facebook cuz i have a WIFI connection.
Tonite my boys Kacspar, bartender from overlook, and Corey, the new dj from overlook as well as the guy whos text autocorrect was calling me connie, came by literally with 20 people. I had my private section as well as a bottle of Ketel One and all the mixers ready for them, and when they showed it was great and very appreciated.
In the beginning of the night I always play House Music, and usually within 5 minutes someone always asks if this is all im playing for the night....thats so stupid and annoying. I let them get drunk then I change it up to rap n pop, and some house later in the night. Anyway, this night NOONE asked me to change the music, so i posted this on my facebook. As I was posting, a girl came up to me with that question....then gave me 10 minutes to change the music, then asked if I was half chinese. She turned out to be a cool person. Great nite after that, the owner didnt want me to shut down till 4, we usually back off around 3:15, and kill it around 3:30....tonite we didnt back off till 3:50, Pumpin night.
My boy Carlo, the other sat nite dj at people was there hanging out with me so I let him play for a while and I hung out with Kacspar and Corey.

3-20-09 Fri, Overlook

Tonite was crazy like "full-moon" crazy. We weren't extremely packed as usual when i first got there, but for some reason the people that were there, including the staff, including the owners, including me...were in a very hyper mood, kinda like wanting to break stuff. I dont know why, maybe it was a full moon but we were all CRAZY!
Tonite I saw something tonight that I thought wasn't possible, I can't even figure out how it was even thought of. Here's the scene. One of the owners, Mark....good guy, funny guy, seems tough like you wouldn't want to mess with him, likes older 90's music, Freestyle, stuff like that, thrown in during the night. He's at the front door with BIG JEFF the bouncer, who is literally the size of a doorway, or bigger. I played "Gonna make you sweat" BY C&C MUSIC FACTORY. All of a sudden Mark starts to "Up Rock" at the front door. He does this all the way passing the bar, up a step to the back area where I am, and then he Up Rocks to a BOWLING Move! like he was bowling! That was very funny and I really couldnt imagine it was possible.
Later on it got very crowded with our normal nite party, and a girl, who was very nice but speaking to her she seemed kinda nuts, asked me to play a song by Salt-N-Pepa from the 90's. She explained that her and her friends had a whole dance set-up back when this song was out and they were in high school because they wanted to perfom on "Lip Service" The dance included a move where one of the girls slide through this girls legs and I guess that was the big move of the dance....
So I play the song for her and now shes doing the dance that was made for the show (which is funny in itself) but when that part came up where the girl was supposed to slide through her legs, she yells out "Hey dj, this is that part you know with the girl...?" I'm pretty sure she was nuts.
They serve food here at Overlook, so they give us dinner around 10-10:30. I get a well-done burger and some fries. This nite Ben - the head chef, a cool young dude - made me a perfect burger, but only gave me like 5 fries. I was starving cuz i usually have a salad for lunch at 12:30, so by 10ish IM STARVING! Anyway, I ask Ben where the rest of the fries are and he told me that that was all I was getting because he didnt want to make anymore and all the workers wanted fries...they cut their own fries there...I said something like nice freakin job chef (we totally get along and joke around) he says "you want some more fries? HERE!" and throws the whole bowl of them at me! Well, near me, I guess it was just for effect, which worked because the whole kitchen, including me were laughing our asses off. (Was it a full moon??) A little while later he came out to see if "my burger was ok", I assumed he wanted to make sure I wasnt pissed, which I wasnt not even at all...then about 10 mins later he sent out a full order of fries for me, which I ate about half....he felt bad, good guy.
At the end of the night, Mark and Big Jeff wanted some real old school stuff like "Planet Rock" and "Play at Your Own Risk" they were going crazy. It seems like everyone had a good time.
The Bartenders, Kacspar and Giorgio...2 young, extremely cool, fun, "getting all the girls" guys were as usual keeping the place pumped up, pouring alot of drinks, and having fun with the crowd.

3-19-09 thurs, PORKYS

I had a great time last night. The place was packed with a younger after work crowd, and then around 10 we packed up even more. Peter the manager there is awesome at his job and did me a huge favor by getting a cup of coffee for me so i could stay awake.
QUESTION: what is beer pong? why are people throwing ping pong balls into half-full cups of beer then take a sip of their beer? I dont get it? Cant they just drink their own beer?
And can someone please tell the cashier there that that's her job? She keeps on telling me to lower the music. Last week i just shut it off for a few seconds, she didnt get the hint. Why do people think they can tell anybody anything? I dont tell her how to give change out! Oh yea, she does coat check too. I also found out that she was recently re-hired, turns out they fired her because of her bad attitude, i guess she didnt change.
I had a good time tho - but i had a headache most of the night, the coffee pumped me up and i woke up and the headache went away, and then the requests came in.
The requests were all opposite of what i was playing, thats annoying, and if their request isnt the next song, they come back. and most of these requests were songs that i wouldnt play at that time, or evn for the overall crowd, but if you dont. you get an earfull, if u do you get a crappy dancefloor, but i guess thats the job.