The DJs
Brian Blackout
Brian Blackout’s origins lie in the backwoods of West Virginia, where he spent many years ogling computers while listening to dance music in isolation. Then he discovered actual dancing, at teen raves in roller rinks. His early gigs involved getting the rock kids to dance, booking bands, (including a young Girl Talk before he was Saran-wrapping his laptop for his shows), and so. much. flyering. Now living in Brooklyn, Brian eschews the booking and flyering but keeps up the DJing and goes out dancing more than any human being probably should.
Brett Burton aka Dope Werewolf
In 1975 Brett Burton began his DJ career. In the beginning, his skills were so weak that no one, including himself, even knew he was a DJ. It would remain this way for almost twenty years. Fortunately, he never gave up and through the magic of marginal daytime employment, he was able to spend hours in monastic concentration, developing his music knowledge and honing his DJ technique. Rechristening himself “Dope Werewolf” he became awesome at mixing records, selecting excellent tunes and, as they say in the parlance of the vocation “rocking the party.” Today you can hear him spin house, techno, electro, hip-hop, indie, soul and new wave.
Spoolwork
Spoolwork still has the first tape he ever made with a boombox and a plastic microphone. It’s sixty minutes of jumpy pause-button edits, both sides crammed to the hiss-filled gills with jokes, weird ramblings, experiments in sound, and offhanded a cappella mutations of Kraftwerk and early rap tunes. He was nine. From there the music obsession kept on going, coasting through his teenage skatepunk years, down loose, creaky staircases into damp Midwestern indie basement scenes, and eventually resurfacing in Brooklyn. Now, if he’s not busy inventing cocktails or writing music for films, he’s probably cueing tracks in a DJ booth and making the dance floor bounce.
Lepaux
Back in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a series of unpretentious house parties left his apartment brandishing structural resemblance to The Money Pit. Pinned as “ultra cool vs. ultra cheesy”, it was not uncommon to hear Miss Kittin mixed into Ricky Martin, or a Justice track followed by Barry Manilow. Alongside his DJ partner João Severo came the duo Johnny Lepaux, whose mothership party Back to Back landed residencies in some of Rio’s best underground clubs – most notably Dama de Ferro (R.I.P) and Fosfobox. Splashing a touch of Rio’s indefatigable summer energy, Lepaux spins classics & novelties in the indie-disco-soul-house-synth vein with the YDH2S gang, throws irreverent off-season Carnival parties throughout the borough with a bunch of loud Brazilians, and writes and produces songs for his tropically infused synthpop band Fashions.
The Website
An updated list of the raddest dance parties in Brooklyn
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