Jonty Skrufff's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘New York’

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.”
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Master H (click on the picture for more)

The New York Times warned that Paris’ once fabled nightlife is facing extinction this week, following up from a recent headline in French newspaper Le Monde which dubbed Paris the ‘European capital of boredom’.

“DJs and musicians have also been abandoning the French capital, forcing a startling conclusion upon the city’s night-life professionals: Paris may soon be dead at night,” the New York Times declared.

“Faced with mounting noise complaints, fines and closings, many Parisian bars and concert halls are struggling to stay afloat.”

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New York in the 80s; Lady Bunny, Michael Alig etc at the Pyramid (click on the pic)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zagmcR4_bgU&feature=player_embedded

New York’s nightlifge (way back in the day…..)

Ludlow street, Lower East Side

20 years ago, Jonty lived and almost died in New York City, suffering a horrific lift accident at seminal 80s club Danceteria (where he worked at the time). Crushed and literally dragged between the base of the lift and the wall of its shaft, he suffered six normally mortal injuries, receiving the Last Rites some 40 minutes later as he waited outside a hospital operating theatre for the anaesthetic to kick in . . .

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