The Underground Is Massive

How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America: Out April 28, 2015 from Dey Street Books/HarperCollins. Preorder direct here: http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062271785/the-underground-is-massive#

[ddzzaaii]

[ddzzaaii]

[steroge]

French composer and synthesizer pioneer Éliane Radigue, Paris, 1971; Photo by Yves Arman

Mothers of invention

[ohyeahpop]

Deee-lite by Jeff Goode, 1991

[theundergroundismassive]

Precious metal: Saying farewell to Solid Steel's weekly transmissions

Listen to five stone-cold killer mixes from the legendary show's final run of weekly sessions

My newest DJ-mixes column for Mixmag is now up--five killer sessions from the end of the Solid Steel Radio Show. Enjoy!

[88to94]

[theundergroundismassive]

Groove Mag (Germany), June-July 1998; via Terminal 313 (Twitter)

[theundergroundismassive]

I first heard about you back in 92 through your Junk Hardcore series. You produced this very distinctive and long running collection of mix tapes that are known for their graffiti covers and for featuring white label obscurities along side some of the bigger tracks from the time. Can you tell us about these tapes? How did you record and distribute them? The Junk tapes kind of started by accident, in 1991 I was buying rave records quite a lot and mixing them up on the decks. I made a tape, ran off some copies and gave them to the local record shop to sell… not really expecting them to. A few weeks later I bumped into the shop owner who said that all the tapes had sold and could he have more. This was a surprise so I gave him more and they kept selling. I looked for other shops to sell them through and built it up into a business, by 1992 the tapes were everywhere on the South Coast, in loads of shops from Bridport and Bristol all the way through to Brighton and Romford. I had other people doing the tape runs as well as myself, it was a full on operation. I would drive or get the train to the shops, pick up the money for the ones that had sold and re-stock. They sold loads until the big rave tape packs came out but I was before these. The money I made would go towards buying more tunes, I’d then make more volumes and buy more tape decks to copy them with, it was all done at home. I also sold the tapes outside raves at the end of the night. I got my tunes at the same time as travelling doing the tapes. I would go to London every Saturday selling tapes in Oxford Street and Carnaby Street dodging the police then afterwards I’d go record shopping. I would get loads of underground white labels.

“DJ JUNK INTERVIEW AND JUNK HARDCORE 10 STREAM” (Two Hungry Ghosts)

[silkelectrics-deactivated202109]

Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder

[theundergroundismassive]

Frankie Knuckles playlist, Details, October 1991

[surra-de-bunda]

Donna Summer (1978)

[theseagazer]

I feel love.

[tommiesunshine]

#tbt in February 2017 when @amsterdamdanceevent brought me to India for #ADEMumbai‼️🕉 (at Mumbai, India)

[theundergroundismassive]

Divinity on the Dance Floor

Robert Hood, the d.j. known as Floorplan, who is an ordained minister, brings his spiritual mission to clubs.

I wrote about Robert Hood for The New Yorker.

[vintagewoc]

Donna Summer by Harry Langdon (1976)

[trmw]

My friend Thor invited me to guest on his BFF radio show over the weekend, and it was super fun! The episode aired Sunday night and is available to stream here.

I brought along the above pictured relic, purchased on a high school road trip to San Francisco at the old Frequency 8 record store on Haight, across the street from Amoeba, in 1999. For the non-ravers out there, Frequency 8 was the big trance label in SF in the mid-90s to early aughts. I used to rock their trance mixtapes in my Jetta and even made it to a couple of their raves in the city (wish I knew where those spaces were now). I remember thinking the image of Sutro Tower on this record looked so futuristic and sci-fi, and now I see it every day, wherever I am in the city. My teenage dream of SF will always live inside my adult existence here, and I love that.

So this is the last track on the show, and I also played a bunch of newer mostly electronic music I’m liking right now, including Photay, Kilchhofer, Nils Frahm, Four Tet, Nilüfer Yanya, A.R.T. Wilson, SW., Ex-Terrestrial, and an old Plaid side project (side note: a lot of the newer melodic ambient electronic stuff I’m liking sounds a lot like old Plaid to me and I’m super into it).

So yeah, check it out, music is awesome, and thanks again for having me, Thor!

[tvneon]

[tommiesunshine]

#WMC #wintermusicconference #ultra #ultra2018 #UMF #UMF2018 #ultramusicfestival #ultramusicfestival2018 (at South Beach, Miami)