When Old Heads Collab

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November 12 2021

Like most service jobs, nightclub work is a bonding experience. The entire staff are your brothers and sisters in arms, and the patrons are a wild, unpredictable, drunken, drugged-up hot mess that you collectively try to herd and wrangle and coral into having the best night of their lives, despite their best efforts to fuck that up. DJs keep them dancing. Bar staff keeps them drinking. Promoters sweat the details and keep everyone feeling like an honored guest. Door/security staff manage the crowd inside and out, check IDs, keep the peace, dodge bullets and box cutters and Beckys, and carefully curate a balanced ratio of knuckleheads and douchebags VS cool people. Those who have inhabited these weird, dark spaces with me over the last 30-40 years are my family. If you’re one of these folks, you’re cool people. And Ben Vazquez is one such people. I'm quite certain we both qualify as "old heads" at this stage.

We met somewhere around 1991 or so. I was bartending at a party called Soul Kitchen, and he was working the door with a bunch of take-no-shit guys I still count as friends. We continued to cross paths at underground parties like Giant Step and Red Rum and spots all over downtown Manhattan throughout the 90s. In the 2000s it was Bang The Party and Soulgasm. When he messaged me with a request for a custom mix and a list of his favorite songs, the tracks kinda caught me off guard. Elvin Bishop? Fleetwood Mac? Check. Empty Pages? LOVE that song. Bee Gees? Haven’t played that track in years. And a bunch of certified NY club classics we all know and love. I filled in some gaps here and there to keep it moving. It was fun as hell to make, and if you dig this mix, you’re cool people too. Peace brother Ben. Sorry about the wait.

Al Green - Can’t Get Next To You