Jonty Skrufff's Blog

Tommie Sunshine (click on the picture for his Soundcloud page- loads of great music)

Legendary American DJ Tommie Sunshine was unceremoniously booted off the decks at a party in Brooklyn last weekend just moments after starting his set.

“2nd track of my set, the cops shut down the rave I just played in Brooklyn,” said Sunshine on a message he posted on Twitter, “The last thing this city (New York City) needs to worry about is kids dancing,” he added.

Chatting to Skrufff the flamboyantly bearded experimentalist (described on one site as ‘a man who’s making a run for sticking to the ZZ Top look longer than some actual ZZ Top members’) expanded on what happened.

“The party was in Red Hook which is off the radar in Brooklyn in what is normally a bar with a stage. There were hundreds of kids there and when I say kids, I mean kids: the only people there who were over 18, worked there,” said Tommie.

“I’d gone on just after Odi, a New York drum & bass legend who had the crowd foaming at the mouth, so I was taking the speed back down to 132bpm, which was a chore. I’d started playing Yolanda Be Cool – Afro Nuts, the Douster Remix, the kids were going mental and the next thing I know, a cop is standing in front of me yelling “TURN IT OFF!” he recalled.

Despite stopping the party abruptly, however, the cops were otherwise reasonable, he revealed.

“There was no sign of anything happening beforehand though if there was I would never have seen it as I get VERY lost in my music, but oddly they treated me fine,” said Tommie, “They let me walk out the front door.”

“They also treated the kids with respect which is more important. They are just trying to have fun and escape the reality of this awful time in this country.”

Long recognized for being one of dance culture’s most articulate, outspoken commentators, the Chicago legend was typically blunt in his assessment of why the raid happened.

“In this city they want money; No permit, they shut it down. In this country the government is afraid of everything they don’t understand,” he declared.

“We have hit a huge low right now and America is in the worst shape it has been for as long as I have been alive,” he continued.

“If something doesn’t change here and soon, there will never be an upswing. We will simply continue to keep sliding down into this pit of fake money,” he predicted, “Our government has turned its back on us as a nation; they do whatever they want with no concern for the vast majority of people who live here.”

He was equally pessimistic about the prospects of dance music crossing over in the States any time soon.

“Dance music in America will never happen: not real dance music, anyway,” Tommie predicted.

“In America there is a holy trinity of music; Rock, Country & Hip-Hop. There is NO room for dance music here. For dance music to work and flourish there have to be open minds. America is one of the most closed-minded countries in modern times and sadly it is rubbing off on the rest of the world.”

“I have been DJing in America now for 18 years and I have never expected dance music to break although I have always hoped that it would. The closest thing we have to dance music in America right now is Lady Gaga (who I fully support) Black Eyed Peas (who are senseless thieves) and Ke$ha (who is for 12 year-olds and house-wives),” he added.

http://perezhilton.com/?p=59716 (Black Eyed Peas accused of plagiarism)

http://soundcloud.com/tommiesunshine (Tommie Sunshine on Soundcloud)

http://twitter.com/TOMMIESUNSHINE (follow Tommie here)

http://bass-united.com/?p=468 (Tommie Sunshine back in the day . . .)

Jonty Skrufff (http://skrufff.com): Follow Jonty on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jontyskrufff

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