Djnyc Funk n' Soul, nyc dj

Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Mayfield-We Gotta Have Peace - One of my early inspirations. My favorite all time record by him is Live! at the Bitter End in 1972. For now here's a video of him completely "in the pocket" as they say. I believe and I'm not sure if this is still true or not but he was the only male ever to be inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, once as a solo artist and once with The Impressions.

Mixtape revisions

I was looking for a program to easily put together playlists and shows so that I can start creating podcasts of my shows and for now am going with mixmeister.  You load all the tracks into a playlist and it automatically syncs them up in a timeline for you. Be sure to change the beat matching settings as you can tell below for my first mixtape the bpm is out of wack near or on the transistions for the first few songs.  It seems like you really don't want to increase the bpm more than 8 or 10 otherwise it becomes too in the way of the mix.  Hope you enjoy the mixtape and send me your comments! What did you like or not like?  I'm not sure how frequently I'll post them for now I'm thinking once a week but that may be too much down the line since it takes at  least two hours to compile. 

Djnyc Mixtape July 2007

1.  Everybody Wants Some  - Galactic
2.  Function At The Junction  - Ramsey Lewis
3.  Why Did You Do It  - Stretch 
4.  Open The Door To Your Heart -  Darrell Banks
5.  Who's Making Love  - Johnnie Taylor
6.  Zambezi  - Fun Company
7.  High Up on the Hook  - Alice Russell
8.  Real Compared To What  - Eddie Harris & Les McCann
9.  Exciters Theme - Exciters
10. Oni Suru  - Orlando Julius and His Modern Aces
11. Independent Jamaica - Lord Creator
12. Bobo! Do That Thing - Willie Bobo
13. Goin' Down - Allen Toussaint
14. Johnny Too Bad - The Slickers 

Download it here! (66mb, pardon some of the choppy transitions in the beginning, getting used to some new software)

Willie Bobo - Do That Thing

This is a great classic latin soul album from Willie Bobo. He recorded it several years before he moved over to the Verve Record label. It is mostly instrumental and does not have many covers like his later albums.

Willie Bobo is most famous for Spanish Grease which was transformed by Santana but there are gems on this album as well.

The standout tracks are 1) Bobo! Do that Thing which I think is arguably one of the best latin soul songs of all time, 3)He's that way which is solid uptempo latin jazz and 9) Rigor Mortis. You can listen to sample tracks here!

Torq Xponent

DJ Zerman purchased the Torq Xponent MP3 Mixer with software so we were working out the bugs last night at South Street Seaport. Initial thoughts, one of the best things about it is the cumulative effect of having playlists stored so you can always go back to them in a jam.  It also forces you to go through and organize those 40000 mp3s you have sitting all over the place so they can be imported into the Torq database.  In my slow switch away from CDs I've tried Traktor, Virtual Dj and now Torq. Traktor's interface is overloaded with controls you don't need and occasionally crashes, Virtual DJ I don't have an opinion yet, and Torq seems to be the simplest. It will take a while for me to incorporate computers fully into djing as I think under the gun I'll still use CDs, but it is time for the change without a doubt.  Probably one it's best features is the integration with Itunes, your playlists automatically load into the Torq interface so you can manage your music in Itunes prior to events and  I think it resyncs with Itunes.  The downside of course is simply having too much music, and forcing yourself to dump all the songs you're never going to play under the gun, or  create a separate library which has all your music and a smaller one with just the essential songs.

The funky blog of the New York DJ djnyc

In trying to figure out the direction of this blog since there are so many out there the only thing to do of course is to post my mixes, or songs at least.  I love the Stepfather of Soul's blog where he posts one song per day and has a week archive of those tracks available, and all of his mixes as well.  It seems efficient.  This blog probably won't be as regimented simply because I like so much different music and always want to share it.  It will be a combination of djnyc remixes of tracks, podcasts and the occasion song.  If you have a music blog as well say hello, would love to hear from you!

New York City Record Stores

Gridskipper has posted a brief list of some recommended record stores in New York City. It's funny when I first started collecting records back in 2nd grade when I bought two Kiss records, can't remember which album, but they had these tattoos inside that you could apply with water, and all the way through to the days of djing in L.A., half the fun of going to stores was finding those gems at amazing prices,  Willie Bobo's Do That Thing I found for $5.    Of course finding that gem takes quite a bit of time that I no longer have and in all honesty the record stores in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn are usually expensive and so picked clean you're rarely ever going to find a deal.  What I would love to see is a list of record stores in the Bronx or Yonkers or Staten Island that was less picked over by the trustafarians that has all those Tico and Tuff Gong gems minus the prices.

What to look for when hiring a dj

I've been blessed to be able to share my passion for music over the years both in Los Angeles and New York City at different events ranging from private parties in clubs to corporate events to movie premieres.  One of the most essential tasks a dj must accomplish is taking music that the guests really love and turning it into something  unique and popular for everyone attending.  There are so many connections and cross influences in music. 

For instance if a client tells you they love motown (and their guests will too), to be able to turn that into a soul, funk, rock steady, roots reggae, blues, rockabilly, doo wop set that people will love and dance to, really in a nutshell is why you hire a dj.  Or if another person loves salsa, where can you go from there? How old is everyone? Will they want more merengue, bachata, reggaeton or cumbia? How can you put together a latin dance set that most everyone will like? Anybody can play the hit songs, we all know what they are, but a decent dj can take you beyond that.

In addition to experience it's important to take chances too, like any other performance type of situation (although those that take chances and can actually sing or play an instrument are much more honorable!), because that's when the most interesting things happen. Taking an 80s hip hop song like white lines and working in a country line dance with the same tempo, etc. 

It's amazing to dj in New York City because of the diversity and open mindedness people have when it comes to music.  Often times I find I'm able to spin music literally from all over the world, from Nigeria to Haiti to Cuba to Detroit to France to Japan.  In that respect it will be hard to leave and do it anywhere else in the U.S., maybe the next stop is London! Although I'm not sure I could deal with the weather or expense of living there.

Island Records - Ska's The Limit Volume I (1959-1964)

This album has been in my rotation a long time, one of the Island Records compilations. I remember being in an old antique store in San Juan Puerto Rico and I saw some old records stashed next to various (useless) trinkets. I started talking to the owner and he said oh I have a few more records upstairs. So we went into the attic and there were about 25000 records all disorganized and jumbled together, the sun was going down and there were no lights in the attic. A record collector's nightmare, ahhh!   It turns out he was the owner of Downtown Records in Manhattan.  One of the gems I found was a dusty EP by Lord Creator called Independent Jamaica, a classic Calypso song about Jamaica which became an anthem for Jamaicans when they became independent from British rule in 1962. The other track is a classic ska/ rock steady song by Justin Hinds and The Dominoes called Carry, Go, Bring, Home. Tracks 5 and 16 on this compilation.

Panama Calypso - Latin, Calypso and Funk 1965-1975

This album is great, stand out tracks are :
1) Panama esta bueno y…- if you like Cuban son mixed with classic salsa and soul
2) Exiters Theme - spacy jazz with some congas, very nice
9) The New Bag - similar feel as number 2 although more uptempo
12) Let Me Do My Thing - funky soul with some horns, would be good alongside funky Nassau 15) Mambologia - Nice classic 60s era Tito Puente feeling song

Funk and soul hits

Gladys Knight and The Pips - Got Myself A Good Man (Soul)
Leonard Kaigler - I Can't Get You Off My Mind (Major)