Mixtape: The White Shadow - Live @ The Sound Factory - New York (1992)

People often ask me what the best club I've ever played at is, and it is without a doubt the Sound Factory(pic above) in New York in it's original location on 27th. street.

Why the best?..well first of all a huge club..I'm not sure of the capacity, but probably held about 2000 people, maybe more, and even better the sound system. When the Paradise Garage closed down they moved some of the sound system there like the Levan bass horns into the Sound Factory, and if you don't know about the Paradise Garage you really need to go study right now...but for one that club had the best sound system in any club ever, designed by the great Richard Long (RIP), and it's hard to describe the system at the Sound Factory..imagine being able to actually feeling and touching the sound, and the bass just flowin' thru the whole room, and your body..that's about how powerful it was...and at the same time the sound was so clear you wouldn't have to yell at someone on the dancefloor but could nearly hold a conversation while the music was crazy loud.

Add to that meeting Larry Levan (RIP), and Frankie Knuckles (RIP) outside the booth before it was time to play, and nothing but the best equipment including three 1200's, and Keith Haring (RIP) artwork on the DJ booth wall for inspiration, and what you had was a DJ's dream come true. Where do you go from there?...well you don't..you just have to put that kinda experience behind you, and move on or it will drive you crazy knowing you'll never play on such a badass system ever again in your life! =) There's nothing to top that.

Still, I only played there for about 1-2 hours, and that was thanks to my man DJ Jazzy Nice who was kind enough to let me fill in for him during some of the early hours he was playing before Levan and Knuckles got on to do their thang into the after hours. You see, in New York at the time it was quite common to start playing at 5am in the morning, and sometimes keep goin' for days. Same in Chicago where legendary DJ's like Ron Hardy (RIP) would play for 72 hours straight, and some DJ's now got problems playing more than 2 hours..lol.

This is a very short mix..about 25 minutes cause that's all I managed to tape that night, and is all about Deep House music with some harder stuff towards the end of it. It's not as heavy on the mix as I usually played back then because the Sound Factory had a "No Scratching" policy so when we played there we had to go easy like that because it was not a Hiphop club, and they didn't want that in there...there is SOME scratchin' , and the blends are tight, but that's not the important thing..the music is. In later years I've learned new ways of playing by workin' the crowd musically in ways I knew nothing about when I thought that the best mixer was the best DJ, but trust me it's not so.

I won't spend too much time talkin' bout the Factory cause there's plenty of info online so I suggest you Google it or whatever, but in the early years Junior Vasquez and Frankie Knuckles were the resident DJ's there, and the crowd was probably the closest New York was to the Paradise Garage crowd after that legendary club closed. Factory did seem to attract a little more mainstream crowd during it's later years tho', and changed it's location also, so as far as I know the early years from 89 to about 94 were the best years to play there.

It's very funny cause I'm listening to a Levan mix right now from the Factory, and he just played a record that went "The Shadow Knows"...lol...so I'll take that as a hint to shut up, and let the music speak. It's an honor to have played at the legendary Sound Factory, and to share my performance there with you.

Tracks:

Dread Flimstone - From The Ghetto
Lucky Strike - Body To Body
The Rude Awakening - The Dip
Little Louie Vega - Ride On The Rhythm
Sabrina Johnston - Peace In The Valley
Incubus - The Spirit
Lisa Stansfield - People Hold On (Acapella)
? - Somebody Scream
Lidell Townsell - Nu Nu

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