Internationally renowned deejay/producer/overall music impresario Stretch Armstrong has enjoyed a nearly two-decade career that has remained as diverse, eclectic and inspired as his home city New York. As a native New Yorker who grew up on the edge of Spanish Harlem, he began absorbing all of the underground sounds of the city – from early hip-hop to freestyle, disco, reggae and everything else – straight from his home streets at a very early age.
While already an established figure in the New York City underground dance circuit, Stretch’s true bridge to international notoriety came in 1990 via a humble college radio show that he began on WKCR 89.1 FM when the stale state of hip-hop radio led him to develop his own twist on the mix shows he was weaned on. Anchored by the voice and humor of friend Bobbito Garcia, THE STRETCH ARMSTRONG SHOW W/ BOBBITO THE BARBER quickly became the cornerstone for the burgeoning world of hip-hop, and was named the “Best Hip-Hop Show of All Time” by The Source magazine.
While much has changed since his early days, Stretch listens, works and loves with the same ears that drew him to hip-hop in the eighties, and remains focused on evoking passionate responses from live audiences. He plays a continually evolving, eclectic mix of club music, favoring the sounds that are most whimsical and violating of traditional genre boundaries to club goers both here and abroad.
Stretch is the co-owner of New York-based Plant Music, which is home to such talents as Clubfeet, Tittsworth, Eli Escobar, Will Eastman, The Glass, Dillon Francis, Kap10 Kurt, NROTB, Loose Shus, Smalltown Romeo and others. Catch him every Monday night on East Village Radio along with Eli Escobar for The Delancey Music Service.
DJ Fabiana is a DC native who stepped onto the club circuit in 2009. Her sets reflect her eclectic taste ranging from electro, disco, house, & hip hop. She currently holds a monthly residency at the Garutachi party at Rock and Roll Hotel, and has performed alongside major acts at the 2009 and 2010 Winter Music Conference in Miami.
Party throwers and music blog Blisspop.com’s quarterly rager, BLISSPOP, returns with hometown heroes Tittsworth, Nadastrom, Will Eastman, Dmerit, special guest Le Castle Vania. Blisspop is a force to be reckoned with as it not only provokes it’s patrons to get intoxicated, in trouble and in love, it adds a fourth element: insanity. Blisspop showcases the best of D.C. electronic dance music, with the occasional addition of one or more international guests, guaranteeing a night of the most skillful of DJ sets alongside an insurmountable experience of peak energy and excitement.
Continually pushing capacity at U Street Music Hall, Will Eastman’s forward-looking dance party, Bliss, returns on Saturday, July 24th with special guest DJs Dominique Keegan and Andrew Jaye. For nearly a decade, Bliss has ignited a fire among its patrons with a no attitude, just fun and “insane dancing” agenda. Its mission statement is to get its patrons in trouble, intoxicated and in love. This time, with fellow Plant Music label mate Dominique Keegan and local DJ Andrew Jaye, Bliss is set to reach a new peak of uninhibited stark raving dancefloor madness.
I’ve recently traded e-mails with John Davis, formerly of DC darlings Q And Not U and Georgie James, and now doing solo work under the stage name Title Tracks. I was able to get his take on the DC music scene among other things; you can check it all out below. John recently released his debut solo album It Was Easy to the joy of fans and critics alike. Davis’s repertoire and new album is full of straight-up, uber-catchy, grooving rock ‘n’ roll tunes. He struts his stuff most effectively when he let’s the former-drummer inside him drive the songs, packing a pulsing punch of energy into powerpop songs like “Every Little Bit Hurts” and “Steady Love.” John brings his melodic energy and scientific-like song craftsmanship to U Street Music Hall on Sunday @ 9PM, with DC up and comers The Points opening. Should be one hell of a show! See you there.
Brooks: Have you played U Street Music Hall before? If so, what did you like? If not, what are you expecting/excited/worried about?
J: No, this will be my first time playing there. I’ve been by before, though, so I know what the place is like and am really looking forward to the show. I have a lot of respect for the venue and its ethos, so hopefully it’ll be somewhere that bands will play frequently in the future.
Brooks: What was the most enjoyable non-DC crowd you’ve played for in the last couple years? Favorite non-DC venue?
J: D.C. is my favorite place to play but there are plenty of good spots elsewhere, too, of course. On the tours that we did this spring, I liked Gallery 5 in Richmond, Bottom Lounge in Chicago, Vera in Seattle and Golden West Cafe in Baltimore, among other spots.
Brooks: What new DC bands have we/I/your audience not heard about yet, but are going to make some press in 2010?
J: Hard to say if people know about them or not, but some of the D.C. bands that I like best are The Points, True Womanhood, Foul Swoops, The Cheniers, Edie Sedgwick, Imperial China, Casper Bangs and Roofwalkers, among others.
Brooks: What DC band have you particularly enjoyed sharing the stage with?
J: We played with Authorization back in May, which was the second show we’d done with them. I like them a lot. They’re pretty different than we are, musically, but I like shows like that.
Brooks: With your acclaimed solo-work as of late, do you see yourself to continue forging into new musical ground alone, or are you eager to collaborate more in the coming year?
J: I’m writing a new record right now and I’m doing it the same way as the last one, where I write all of the parts myself. I do definitely think I’ll collaborate with people again in the future, though. I always like working with other writers and seeing what comes out of it. I figure that I’ll just go back and forth on that in the future, depending on the project and what I’m up for.
Brooks: Do you get the sense that DC is no longer going to be known for it’s hardcore scene, or are you leading a power-pop revival, or is its reputation slowly becoming more of an alt-folk / indie-avant-folk-rock / americana kind of town? Or is the scene too eclectic to pigeon hole it like many try to do?
J: I don’t think the current D.C. scene has a national reputation right now but there are a number of good new bands in town and hopefully they’ll get out there and tour and get known. The various scenes from the past will continue to cast a long shadow but I’m sure bands will continue to emerge from D.C. and make themselves known.
Brooks: Where do DC artists go to get a beer and get away from the stage? Do DC bands hang out together a lot at some super secret club where you come up with evil plots of musical anarchy?
J: Well, I’m not especially social, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask about this. I’m sure there are some bands that hang together but I’m not sure where. I’m friends with people from all aspects of the local music scene — bands, DJs, promoters, writers, etc. — but I only really tend to see most of those people out at shows.
Brooks: And finally a random one, do you have a favorite lawn sport? I love lawn sports, so this is more for me. Any good lawn sport stories (horse shoes, corn hole, bocce, etc)?
J: If I had to choose one, I’d pick horseshoes, but I don’t think I really have a lawn sport of choice. I love playing sports but none of them really take place on the lawn. Tennis, hockey, baseball, etc
Continually pushing capacity at U Street Music Hall, Will Eastman’s forward-looking dance party, Bliss, returns on Saturday, June 26th with special guest DJs Stereo Faith and vAnniety Kills. For nearly a decade, Bliss has ignited a fire among its patrons with a no attitude, just fun and “insane dancing” agenda. It’s mission statement is to get it’s patrons in trouble, intoxicated and in love. This time, with local DJ and Black Cat resident Stereo Faith (known for his high energy monthly dance parties, “Sorted”) and vAnniety Kills, Bliss is set to reach a new peak of uninhibited stark raving dancefloor madness with a pumping selection of house, indie dance, electropop, techno, club and punk music. Eastman’s debut single, “Feelin’” has consistently been Plant Music’s top seller on Beatport in 2010.
Be sure to arrive early.
Hope to see you there!
BLISS dance party
Saturday, June 26th
U STREET MUSIC HALL
1115 U Street NW (look for the canopy halfway between 11th & 12th St.)
10:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.
18+ $10
Recently I had the pleasure of chatting via cell phone with DJ Steven Hawley of Codebreaker. I knew midwesterners were generally down to earth, but I didn’t know they were so friendly and easy to talk to. I also assumed they were more or less rigid and stoic in their snow blanketed tundras, using most of their free time to film the sequel to Fargo and play ice hockey, and maybe doing the occasional robot when they feel like letting loose a bit. But Steven and Sage Schwarm’s Milwaukee-based outfit Codebreaker proves that guys and gals in the frozen Heartland can get down, dirty, and funky with the best of ‘em. Codebreaker have a new project due out in late July called The Space Chase (Blisspop will be sure to get you more details pending its release). While it may end up self-released on their own label Disco Demolition Records, there is a chance a bigger company will pick it up. Let’s hope so; Codebreaker certainly has the musical chops worthy of a large, legitimate, and well-executed distribution effort. Steven described the album as a more dance-floor-centric, linear effort of extended tracks aimed specifically at booty-shakers with an open mind and broad palette. He also used the words “housier” (I like that word) and “atmospheric” when describing the record. Sounds good. According to Steven, these two dudes have been hard at work, spending anywhere from seven to fifteen hours locked in their basement studios hammering this beauty out. I hope they had some minions or some special lady friends to bring them food and beer. Maybe all that time in close quarters is why Steven is taking a little break to do a mini solo tour. Just kidding. U Street Music Hall opens the door of their DJ booth to Steven this Friday the 11th @ 10PM . For the sake of space and format I won’t transcribe our entire conversation here word for word. But below are some of Steven’s finer paraphrased talking points. Make sure to get your ass on the dance floor to check out his skills this Friday.
On executing a live dance act … We’ve recently added more live keyboards, and more live synths. Having a live act is difficult but worth the effort. It gives us a cleaner more effective sound, and its generally a better and more fun experience for us as musicians and the audience. We’ve been reformatting and fine tuning the process. The Juan McLean is definitely one of the best in the business, and I’ve been lucky enough to have a solid rapport with him to seek his advice. You basically look at someone who does it well like Juan and you say what about his act can we replicate for our band and have it be applicable to our sound and our own circumstances.
On collaboration and remixes … Collaboration is something I’ve always been comfortable doing and tried to do fairly often. One of the songs on our new album is called “Sous l’ choc” featuring Marc Gauvin. I had been digging his stuff for a while, and so I got in touch with him in order to pay my respects. Turns out the feeling was mutual, so we got together and collaborated on this track. That is how it works more often than not. As long as you have the musical chops, young artists are usually open and more than willing to work together. Same thing happened with my friend and fellow artist Miami Horror. I realized I had been really grooving to his remix of Stardust’s “Music Sounds Better With You” on my iPod running mix. And so I looked him up, we got in touch, and did some really cool work together. Collaboration often brings out the best in you as an artist, because it forces you to take a look at a project through a new pair of eyes, and offers multiple perspectives on the various aspects of a song. Even doing remixes of artists or songs that normally might not be my cup of tea, I can usually appreciate various aspects of their song or style that forces me to reinterpret and reconsider my approach to music. I never take an absolutist approach to a song, looking at it as entirely good or bad; the quality of a song is almost always a grey area as opposed to black and white. Even the more reprehensible dance music out there, there are usually specific facets that I can pick out, appreciate, and use to my benefit and growth as an artist.
On DJ’ing at a strip club … It was an interesting experience. Certainly not the best place for an open-eared audience tolerant of your experimentation and eclectic musical selections. The people aren’t really there to see or hear a DJ. There were always music requests, but they were rarely good ones. The place was called Solid Gold in my hometown of Milwaukee, and it was a good bill-paying experience. I’ll say that much. I could certainly tell some stories, but we’ll keep this P.C.
And finally a hidden funk gem for you kids to find at your local record store … I have had this old jazz-funk record spinning a lot lately. It is a self titled joint from an Akron, Ohio-based duo called McNeil and Niles. Its a warm, dusted sounding disco-funk, that might be what you would hear if ESG were a little more Kool and the Gang. Check it out.
I will. And you should to. But in the meantime check out some of Codebreaker’s bass-driven disco-funk tracks bellow. They hit you hard with the bass wobble while saving plenty of room on the dance floor for some titillating synths, sparkly atmospheric effects, and sexy vocals.
LA’s Classixx have been tearing it up for some time now, and this Saturday they will hit the decks with Will Eastman, Micah Vellian, Ed Dudes at U Street Music Hall. Cop their ballin’ XM Mixtape 1 below for a preview.
This Saturday, May 22nd Will Eastman’s forward-looking dance party, BLISS, returns after setting a record attendance for U Street Music Hall last month. Eastman’s remix for Reni Lane’s “Place For Us” peaked at number two among Hype Machine charts in March, and his remix of the Pipettes’ “Stop The Music” was released three weeks ago as an iTunes exclusive. He is currently wrapping up a new single set to be released this summer through legendary Chicago house label, Trax.
Guest DJs vs Wild of the Audio Ammo crew (Richmond) and Phil Real (Nuh Uh!) join in the fun!
Director Bahman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses, Turtles can Fly), sheds lights on the Iran’s repressed underground music scene in his latest film No One Knows About Persian Cats (winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the Cannes film festival). Both Hypernova and Yellow Dogs, two of the film’s featured bands, will be performing live this Friday at U Street Music Hall.
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