So, I’m starting a Substack.
I’m also going to completely skip over the bigger picture, background story of who I am and just dive into things, so I’m hoping that either a) you already know who I am if you’re willingly reading this, or b) if you don’t know who I am but keep reading on, you’ll eventually piece enough context together to learn. Either way, here goes nothing!
DJ Express
So I’ve often been thinking lately about new ways to promote the gigs I’ve been playing, while also finding a way to talk about some of the music that compels me to still do this DJ thing. I’ve arrived at an interesting point in life in that I’ve been doing this for a damn long time now, having DJ’d for going on 20 years while also working in nearly all facets of everything nightlife culture related. Long enough to say it’s been a long time, surely. And the thing that excites me the most about this is that I have 2 decades of accumulating music and experiences that allows me to treat DJing as an act of meaningful storytelling. It felt like being a seasoned vet used to be the most valued trait in this vocation (perhaps not so much anymore as access to DJing has democratized on every level, which is a totally different topic), but I still adhere to the idea there’s value in sharing knowledge and experience. I’m hoping my foray into this platform works hand in hand with that idea. I’ve had a few false starts (often due to my busy life schedule), but to be honest mostly because I’ve been repeatedly discouraged by the never-ending black hole of toxicity that is social media. And in recent years, I’ve found myself withdrawing further away from the “social” aspect of platforms like Instagram, opting to not share much about my personal thoughts or feelings about damn near anything there.
Regarding social media -
I know we all love to hate it and hate to love it, yet still find ourselves mindlessly scrolling on it anyway (and always finding ways to complain about doing so). Apart from the habit of just opening Instagram or Reddit (my two favourite mind-numbing platforms), it’s one of the things I despise most about being a “promoter” (and yes, that’s also what I am). I often find it justifiable to constantly open up social media to ensure I’m not missing out on whatever cool new thing people are talking about that I need to repackage and sell back to the masses. Sadly, I think one of the greatest ironies about being a time-constrained music industry professional is that often times I find myself losing touch with what drew me to the music industry to begin with: the dang music itself. The process of putting these thoughts to paper is my attempt to reclaim a bit of that identity.
In March of last year, I went on a little musical R&D trip to New York City with a young musician I work with named Sophia Stel (technically, I’m one of her managers). About 2 days or so into the trip she ended up losing her iPhone. Being the guy tasked with looking out for her, and also being at the mercy of my own phone for anything navigation related in my life, I was sure it would have been a total nonstarter for any sort of semblance of a good trip. But something miraculous ended up happening instead. Not only did she survive & thrive in NYC without it, but she has lived without it ever since, making the move back to a good old fashioned flip phone. And to be honest, I’ve witnessed her flourishing in a myriad of ways ever since. I’ve been both encouraged and inspired by her journey in untethering herself from our collective Stockholm Syndrome of mindless doom scrolling, and especially so much so as a so-called “Gen Z” - the lot of whom are often characterized as being raised by & hopelessly addicted to smart devices and social media.
Which brings me to Substack.
For the last few years now, since about mid-pandemic times, I’ve been a casual subscriber of a few writers here touching on a variety of topics I’m interested in - men’s fashion, quitting social media (yah I literally read about it), music journalism (where it still thrives), recipes, etc. But as my disinterest in other platforms grows, I now find myself using this platform daily. A few months ago (ironically while browsing Reddit) in tandem to this, I stumbled across an iPhone app called BePresent. Basically it’s one of the many sort of apps out there that are meant to keep you off your phone by locking away access to all the apps that constantly draw you in, mindlessly upping your daily screen time usage (that shameful, shameful number). But I consider myself one of those realistic people that makes compromises instead of the “all or nothing” approach. Instead of banning access to my phone completely, I thought to myself, “instead of looking at Instagram and Reddit, why don’t I ban access to those, and at least distract myself with some long format content platforms like Everand, The New Yorker & Substack? Surely reading something more than 15 seconds is at least better for me, right?”
So let’s not get it twisted - Substack is still a social media platform too - albeit at least one that functions in a much different way than the aforementioned ones, but I definitely don’t believe it’s fair to pretend it isn’t. Despite some of the functions of the platform like “Notes” (which is meant to be their answer to Twitter after it mutated into X), it’s ultimately still a long format-driven platform (which you can clearly see if you’ve gotten this far into my screed). Apart from that, I’ve never considered myself to be a particularly good writer either. But I find myself drawn to it as a platform and community I want to be a part of, and I think more than anything, I’m just looking for any novel way to challenge myself. I want the challenge of writing and getting better at it. I want the challenge of putting myself out there & sharing a piece of me with the world. And ultimately, I want to experience once again the challenge of setting intention to do something simply for the sake of doing it.
OK, let’s talk music.
Yes… now on to the real reason why we’re all here! The music stuff I was rambling on about up there. So I’ve got a gig coming up just around the corner with an artist that has jolted a ton of excitement back into DJing and dance music for me in the last couple years, and that’s a fellow from Miami who goes by the name Nick León.
On Nick Leon & “Global Club Music”
A member of the now-famed TraTraTrax crew out of Miami, Nick’s dance floor-destroying 2022 club hit “Xtasis” was largely lauded for being the track that signaled a tidal shift in the order of dance music. Latin rhythms & vocals, snappy percussion and faster tempos were the sonic palette finally being given recognition, and the source material this music was drawing upon was decidedly not European - but from Middle, Central and South America (also touching on various other global diasporas of related club music strains). Most notably, this record and its accompanying b-side, were referencing styles of club music I honestly really hadn’t given much consideration for inclusion in my sets in recent years. Genres like Dutch Bubbling and Tribal Guarachero, two regional club genres that sort of had their heyday a decade earlier, were all of a sudden being presented as fresh and new again.
The reason this struck such a chord with me in particular is because a decade-plus earlier I was part of a small group of DJs & producers connected over a few DJ forums, mailing lists & on Soundcloud trading in the currency of a catch-all genre tag we hesitantly used to call “Global Bass”. Of course, I’m not completely glossing over the decade-plus of other DJs, artists, collectives, labels, etc since then that have continued celebrating and innovating these sounds. I, admittedly, lost touch with a lot of this sort of club music all on my own. But back then, I DJ’d and produced under a different moniker called Expendable Youth (I’ll save digging into that further for another post), and I was absolutely obsessed with the idea that one day people might appreciate my penchant for the far-reaching corners of the global club music diaspora. Although the small, worldwide community was well connected online over fanboying these sounds, in my experience, it often didn’t translate that well to the actual dance floor in a world where raucous Brostep was the dominant oeuvre.
But that never stopped us from digging voraciously into the various file transfer (4shared, Mediafire, Zippyshare & the like) servers that most of the DJs and underground scene heroes of Dutch Bubbling, Tribal Guarachero/3ball and other locales were using to swap tunes. And luckily for us, most of this music was just hanging out on the internet, free for the taking. You just had to know where to look & dig deep enough. And I’m certainly glad I did, because I reckon a lot of that music has been lost to the void of the internet’s vastness, drifting further & further away into obscurity as time has elapsed. If you were there and lucky enough to get your hands on some of it, I reckon there’s likely only a few people on earth who have hard drives with some of this music still on it (yes, I would consider myself one of those people).
OK.. no more rambling
This leads us to the end of my rant & on to the good stuff. Yes, this is a long-winded and convoluted way of me saying I’m going to be digging into my archives and playing a lot of the music I’ve touched on here that’s brought me to this full-circle moment of getting to book & play with Nick León. As I get warmed up for this weekend’s gig, here’s some offerings for getting this far into my epic, longwinded DJ diary entry:
Hilary Duff - Come Clean (Nick León Bubbling mix)
Damn the big payoff is a Hilary Duff edit? Trust me, listen to it. For those of us out there that are Laguna Beach pilled, it hits that perfect bridge between Millennial and Gen Z nostalgia and is a proper dance floor destroyer.
DJ Bigga - Boeke Anthem [Bubbling]
Yup, what he said. I have a bunch of other DJ Bigga material, but this track sticks out like a sore thumb among his material & is a sort of Rosetta Stone of Bubbling. It’s a foundational track of the genre & it’s also the kind of club tool that can sonically lift anything else mixed with it and is prime for blending into other tracks to make edits. I always wondered what the story was behind this track.
Download - DJ Bigga “Boeke Anthem”
As far as I know, quite literally the only file version of this track that has ever existed out there is this 192 kbps version, but it still packs quite the punch regardless. It’s always kinda been out there floating around since around 2007/2008, and has never been available for purchase anywhere, so I think it’s fair game to give away?
My old partner in Expendable Youth and I were so inspired by the formula of this track we made our own version of it by interpolating it into Chris Brown’s biggest hit at the time “Look At Me Now” (fuck, I’m sorry, I know you’re not supposed to promote Chris Brown):
Download - Expendable Youth “Loeke At Me Now (Bubbling Edit)”
Expendable Youth - La Musica Trival Vol. 1
I’d be amiss to not include one of my OG mentors in this game, and really the ear who put me on to a ton of this wild music to begin with, Paul Devro.
He originally put me on to Tribal Guarachero aka 3ball aka Trival through this mix he did for Mad Decent Radio back in 2009.
Well we become somewhat mad about the genre and were inspired to create a mix of our own. It came out on a now defunct blog called Generation Bass, so here it is in all its glory:
Download - Expendable Youth - La Musica Trival Vol. 1
Expendable Youth - "Heyo (Javier Estrada Remix)"
Hinojosa & Zambrano ft. David Quijada- "Macumba (Sheeqo Beat Extended Remix)"
French Fries - "Laquisha (feat. Taiwan)"
DJ Ch@r@l Mix - "Tik Tak Bubbling"
DJ p0o0o0o0ny - "Tik Tak Style Tribal"
DJ Parra - "La Zaucenita"
Shaun-D - "Spanish Fly (Kingdom remix) (Canblaster Tribal Edit) (Expendable Youth Edit)"
DJ Clap Pina & DJ Skay - "A Mover La Cadera"
DJ Tork - "This Way Tribal"
Roska - "Jackpot (LOL Boys VIP)"
DJ Otto - "Soy El Diablo"
DJ Palis - "Viva Mexico"
DJ Clap Pina & 3kOo DJ - "Zirambinha"
DJ Hernan Mix - "Elecktriball!"
French Fries - "Senta (VIP)"
Julius Sylvest - "Phil Collins"
DJ Dracke & Danny Producer - "Heart Broken (Expendable Youth Remix)"
DJ Erick Rincon & DJ Tetris - "I Wanna Dance"
Gucci Vump - "Shashtilism (Erick Rincon Remix)"
DJ Clap Pina - "Ema Cohema (Edit)"
DJ Esteban Valdez - "Silvando Mi Ritmo (Tribal vs Perreo)"
DJ Thobe - "Muevete (Tribal vs Perreo)"
DJ Cobra - "Back Fot (Expendable Youth Tribal vs. Perreo edit)" <- FREE DOWNLOAD HERE: Expendableyouth – Dj-cobra-back-fot-expendable
DJ Alan Rosales - "Cachete (The Launch) (Tribal Mix)"
Roska - "Squark (French Fries Guarachero Mix)"
Uproot Andy - "Botellon (Toy Selectah 3ball Remix)"
Untold - "Anaconda (Dubbel Dutch VIP)"
Imperial Tiger Orchestra - "Djemeregne (Canblaster Tribal)"
This mix is a frantic 37 minute, rip roaring journey through the genre and is chock full of exclusives and custom made edits, some of which I’m sharing for download here:
Download - DJ Cobra “BACK FOT (Expendable Youth Perreo Refix)”
Download - DJ Dracke & Danny Producer “Heart Broken (Expendable Youth Edit)”
That’s it, that’s all for now! Thanks for reading & make sure to get tickets to see Nick León & yours truly at Paradise on Saturday, March 16th. Vámonos!