Rhythmism.comQ&A with Alex Pearce | Dance.Here.Now. @ Cielo - Thursday, July 2nd
by rhythmism
Sunday, Jun 28th 2009, 12:03 PM
Alex Pearce may be the hardest working man in NY's house industry. In between his residency at Cielo, gigs in South America, and running his label Quarterlife Records, the New York native has his hands full these days. This Thursday, July 2nd he's celebrating the release of his new studio mix Kinky as F#%k at DANCE.HERE.NOW. at Cielo. We caught up with him to find out how a local hustler goes big time.
So what's your story? Where are you from and how'd you start DJing?
From NYC, born and raised on the UWS (what, what).
Before I discovered house music I was DJing fraternity and sorority parties in college. Seriously like hip hop and top 40 tunes, no jokes please.
Then my senior year I went to a massive, wild rave in Toronto. Around the millennium the party and music scene in Toronto was bananas (people often compare it to the glory days of the London rave scene). I was like “what is this?”. The music, the visuals, the whole feel and vibe of a party. I was in love at first sight. There was just this thing I connected to big time.
From there I bought my first Dance music record shortly after (Epic trance! :lol: ). And spent a whole heck of a lot of time teaching myself how to DJ, mix, program, etc. Its funny to think about cause that’s now 9, 10 years ago; it’s a long spanning evolution you have with an art form...
I hear you play "electro" now. Is that like Kraftwerk electro, Afrika Bambaataa electro, Larry Tee electro or what? Please describe your sound for us without using the word "electro".
Never define a word using that same word.
I actually play a lot more tech house and tech these days, even, dare I say it, techno. Dirtier, grimmy beats, a lot of stuff off of Cocoon, Definitive, Noir, Toolroom, Great Stuff, Viva Music. That’s a lot more of where my ear is creatively these days.
At Cielo for example, where I’ll play for 3 or 4 hours, there’s a lot I like to do in that time. I’ll start off with some tech, get into techno, techy prog, electro, cut that with some nasty break beat tracks, into some house records, etc. Move around as the night progresses.
But yeah I’ll bump some Electro peak hour, not the Beatport Top 10 crap that’s become basically like trance, or top 40 garbage, but the underground nasty shit. I’ll play some mstrkrft and stuff like that even, depending on how far that particular crowd is willing to go with it.
Do you have any residencies right now or will you just play any place that'll put your picture on the flier?
Yeah I’ve been doing the monthly at Cielo which has been amazing, Benny and Nicholas have been amazing to us there. Besides that Pacha, we’re doing twice in July and August, but that’s more of a sporadic thing. And then numerous other things across the city at different times.
Flyers actually don’t cut it anymore I’m forcing all promoters to now hand out 3D holographic images of me for all events I do.
What's your favorite color?
At the risk of sounding extremely gay, pink. But not that girly, bright pink. Like a strong pink color or a magenta.
Do you like ponies?
You’re a jackass.
What was the first club night you went to in New York?
Wow... we’re reaching way back man. I want to say the Tunnel or something. Back, back in the day. Tunnel could be fun depending on the night. Definitely the best memories of NYC clubbing for me were Twilo, nothing more needs to be said about that, it says itself. Arc was also a lot of fun in its day.
Party Promoters have a reputation somewhere between ambulance chaser and pickpocket; but there are a lot of good people in this industry. Who are your favorite promoters to work with?
Ahhhhhh yes, promoters. They are a special kind of breed. But yes, if you can sift through the rest there are some great people in the NY club scene. Rob Fernandez and Benny Soto are amazing both as promoters and as people. I’ve been working with them consistently over the past two years and it’s done so much for my career. And I’ve learned so much about the business from them! They’re like the older brothers I never had (or maybe more like the two extra fathers I never had, :eek: ).
Mike Bindra, Laura De Palma, Morgan and Ori over at Made Events are top top notch. Incredibly professional and they run an unbelievable operation which I love and respect. You can’t say enough about the things they do for the scene like the PVD parties in the park before and now the Electric Zoo festival. Its things like that that maintain and grow the scene.
John Dematteo and Brian with Area Events are awesome guys. I’ve been working with them for a couple of years now and they are stand up for sure. Plus some of the big events they’ve been doing at Roseland, Harrah’s and in Vegas have been huge.
The DJ Alex Pearce brand is blowing up; you're headlining now instead of being the "local opener". New Yorkers usually don't care about DJs from New York until they play somewhere else; so that's pretty cool for you. How did you make that transition?
A lot of hard work, a lot of working with the right people, a lot of being organized about my business and a lot of playing great tunez ; )
Who's the team behind the DJ Alex Pearce brand and what are their roles?
DJ Tiesto has 28 full time employees working for him. 28 full time employees! A lot of what people like Rob Fernandez have taught me is that it’s not just about one person. Any big artist you see out there, big record label, successful club, its not just about one person it’s about a number of people’s efforts behind the scene.
That being said team is bad word, its more of a group of awesome individual professionals who do different things.
Paul Norcia, one of my best friends and someone who’s been working with me for years is my promotions manager, he handles everything relating to events in New York. Melissa Rose is my manager, she handles the bigger picture career management, contract, legal stuff, etc.
John Dills, also one of my best friends is a phenomenally talented graphic designer/designer of everything, lol. He’s done a ton of work for Subliminal Records, Ultra Records, Avalon (Boston and NY), Mansion, Flawless, anyone big in the industry. He’s like a designing/branding consultant for me. Anything flyer, photo, website, anything visual, anything at all he has final say over. What I do with my music is the audio representation of the club scene through my eyes. For me the visual representation of the scene is just as important. That’s why what John does is incredibly important and no one does it better.
Mike and Gene from Nightreveler.com do the video, photo and audio recording work at a lot of our live shows. They are awesome and there website is awesome, check out Nightreveler.com.
And D.J Waletzky handles all of my IT and web design work. He’s the techie supreme.
Jessica Fernandez does all my myspace page design and social networking marketing. She’s top notch at what she does.
Oh yeah and we have these two guys Brian and Dave. They’re the official fluffers at our live shows.
Where's your favorite place outside New York to play? Besides the Hamptons & The Shore.
:lol: Anywhere in South America. They have such a love for the music down there, and the scene is a lot newer there so the energy is a lot more fresh and electric. In a lot of clubs down there, literally everyone dances. Awesome.
Tell us a bit about your label - Quarterlife Records - you founded with DJ EBar. What's the creative philosophy behind your A&R?
Just to make great Electro House and Tech House tunes. To put out great music that represents our specific brand. Eric and Shaun O’Farrell handle a lot more of the day to day operations of the label now.
You have any good electro releases coming up?
Yeah man I’ve been spending the vast majority of my time in the studio over the past 12 months. I had two tracks come out on Quarterlife early in the year (one original Electro bomb called “Dat Sound” and the other a Tech House remix of one of Royal Sapien’s tracks). My latest release “Double Hit (you’re a star now) just got signed by a techno label out of Italy. I’m currently in the studio working on a remix for a friend of mines band out in Brooklyn, it is also going to be a big Electro stomper.
I see you have a CD Release Party coming up at Cielo? Tell us about “Kinky As F#%k 3”
Kinky as F#%k is a series of Studio Mixes I’ve put out over the past 2 years that encapsulates the Tech House/Electro sound I’ve been pushing. They are just really dirty, nasty mixes, the title Kinky as F#%k really captures that me thinks. Your readers can go to my website to download the last one if they like (www.djalexpearce.com/site/music/).
Yeah at the party Thurs, July 2nd at Cielo we’re going to be giving away free copies of Kinky as F#%k 3 to the first 100 people in attendance. Word up.
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Robpromotions.com & Benny Soto proudly present
DANCE.HERE.NOW.
With
ALEX PEARCE
Niki McNally
Tim O' Connell
Kinky as F#%k Release Party
Hosted by Anthony Lamont
Lights by Ariel
Cielo
18 Little West 12th Street
Door 10pm-4am
Alex Pearce Upcoming Dates:
7/2 Cielo
7/10 Pacha
7/25 Rm Fi5ty5
8/22 Love
9/1 Cielo
djalexpearce.com/site/music/
danceherenownyc.com
So what's your story? Where are you from and how'd you start DJing?
From NYC, born and raised on the UWS (what, what).
Before I discovered house music I was DJing fraternity and sorority parties in college. Seriously like hip hop and top 40 tunes, no jokes please.
Then my senior year I went to a massive, wild rave in Toronto. Around the millennium the party and music scene in Toronto was bananas (people often compare it to the glory days of the London rave scene). I was like “what is this?”. The music, the visuals, the whole feel and vibe of a party. I was in love at first sight. There was just this thing I connected to big time.
From there I bought my first Dance music record shortly after (Epic trance! :lol: ). And spent a whole heck of a lot of time teaching myself how to DJ, mix, program, etc. Its funny to think about cause that’s now 9, 10 years ago; it’s a long spanning evolution you have with an art form...
I hear you play "electro" now. Is that like Kraftwerk electro, Afrika Bambaataa electro, Larry Tee electro or what? Please describe your sound for us without using the word "electro".
Never define a word using that same word.
I actually play a lot more tech house and tech these days, even, dare I say it, techno. Dirtier, grimmy beats, a lot of stuff off of Cocoon, Definitive, Noir, Toolroom, Great Stuff, Viva Music. That’s a lot more of where my ear is creatively these days.
At Cielo for example, where I’ll play for 3 or 4 hours, there’s a lot I like to do in that time. I’ll start off with some tech, get into techno, techy prog, electro, cut that with some nasty break beat tracks, into some house records, etc. Move around as the night progresses.
But yeah I’ll bump some Electro peak hour, not the Beatport Top 10 crap that’s become basically like trance, or top 40 garbage, but the underground nasty shit. I’ll play some mstrkrft and stuff like that even, depending on how far that particular crowd is willing to go with it.
Do you have any residencies right now or will you just play any place that'll put your picture on the flier?
Yeah I’ve been doing the monthly at Cielo which has been amazing, Benny and Nicholas have been amazing to us there. Besides that Pacha, we’re doing twice in July and August, but that’s more of a sporadic thing. And then numerous other things across the city at different times.
Flyers actually don’t cut it anymore I’m forcing all promoters to now hand out 3D holographic images of me for all events I do.
What's your favorite color?
At the risk of sounding extremely gay, pink. But not that girly, bright pink. Like a strong pink color or a magenta.
Do you like ponies?
You’re a jackass.
What was the first club night you went to in New York?
Wow... we’re reaching way back man. I want to say the Tunnel or something. Back, back in the day. Tunnel could be fun depending on the night. Definitely the best memories of NYC clubbing for me were Twilo, nothing more needs to be said about that, it says itself. Arc was also a lot of fun in its day.
Party Promoters have a reputation somewhere between ambulance chaser and pickpocket; but there are a lot of good people in this industry. Who are your favorite promoters to work with?
Ahhhhhh yes, promoters. They are a special kind of breed. But yes, if you can sift through the rest there are some great people in the NY club scene. Rob Fernandez and Benny Soto are amazing both as promoters and as people. I’ve been working with them consistently over the past two years and it’s done so much for my career. And I’ve learned so much about the business from them! They’re like the older brothers I never had (or maybe more like the two extra fathers I never had, :eek: ).
Mike Bindra, Laura De Palma, Morgan and Ori over at Made Events are top top notch. Incredibly professional and they run an unbelievable operation which I love and respect. You can’t say enough about the things they do for the scene like the PVD parties in the park before and now the Electric Zoo festival. Its things like that that maintain and grow the scene.
John Dematteo and Brian with Area Events are awesome guys. I’ve been working with them for a couple of years now and they are stand up for sure. Plus some of the big events they’ve been doing at Roseland, Harrah’s and in Vegas have been huge.
The DJ Alex Pearce brand is blowing up; you're headlining now instead of being the "local opener". New Yorkers usually don't care about DJs from New York until they play somewhere else; so that's pretty cool for you. How did you make that transition?
A lot of hard work, a lot of working with the right people, a lot of being organized about my business and a lot of playing great tunez ; )
Who's the team behind the DJ Alex Pearce brand and what are their roles?
DJ Tiesto has 28 full time employees working for him. 28 full time employees! A lot of what people like Rob Fernandez have taught me is that it’s not just about one person. Any big artist you see out there, big record label, successful club, its not just about one person it’s about a number of people’s efforts behind the scene.
That being said team is bad word, its more of a group of awesome individual professionals who do different things.
Paul Norcia, one of my best friends and someone who’s been working with me for years is my promotions manager, he handles everything relating to events in New York. Melissa Rose is my manager, she handles the bigger picture career management, contract, legal stuff, etc.
John Dills, also one of my best friends is a phenomenally talented graphic designer/designer of everything, lol. He’s done a ton of work for Subliminal Records, Ultra Records, Avalon (Boston and NY), Mansion, Flawless, anyone big in the industry. He’s like a designing/branding consultant for me. Anything flyer, photo, website, anything visual, anything at all he has final say over. What I do with my music is the audio representation of the club scene through my eyes. For me the visual representation of the scene is just as important. That’s why what John does is incredibly important and no one does it better.
Mike and Gene from Nightreveler.com do the video, photo and audio recording work at a lot of our live shows. They are awesome and there website is awesome, check out Nightreveler.com.
And D.J Waletzky handles all of my IT and web design work. He’s the techie supreme.
Jessica Fernandez does all my myspace page design and social networking marketing. She’s top notch at what she does.
Oh yeah and we have these two guys Brian and Dave. They’re the official fluffers at our live shows.
Where's your favorite place outside New York to play? Besides the Hamptons & The Shore.
:lol: Anywhere in South America. They have such a love for the music down there, and the scene is a lot newer there so the energy is a lot more fresh and electric. In a lot of clubs down there, literally everyone dances. Awesome.
Tell us a bit about your label - Quarterlife Records - you founded with DJ EBar. What's the creative philosophy behind your A&R?
Just to make great Electro House and Tech House tunes. To put out great music that represents our specific brand. Eric and Shaun O’Farrell handle a lot more of the day to day operations of the label now.
You have any good electro releases coming up?
Yeah man I’ve been spending the vast majority of my time in the studio over the past 12 months. I had two tracks come out on Quarterlife early in the year (one original Electro bomb called “Dat Sound” and the other a Tech House remix of one of Royal Sapien’s tracks). My latest release “Double Hit (you’re a star now) just got signed by a techno label out of Italy. I’m currently in the studio working on a remix for a friend of mines band out in Brooklyn, it is also going to be a big Electro stomper.
I see you have a CD Release Party coming up at Cielo? Tell us about “Kinky As F#%k 3”
Kinky as F#%k is a series of Studio Mixes I’ve put out over the past 2 years that encapsulates the Tech House/Electro sound I’ve been pushing. They are just really dirty, nasty mixes, the title Kinky as F#%k really captures that me thinks. Your readers can go to my website to download the last one if they like (www.djalexpearce.com/site/music/).
Yeah at the party Thurs, July 2nd at Cielo we’re going to be giving away free copies of Kinky as F#%k 3 to the first 100 people in attendance. Word up.
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Robpromotions.com & Benny Soto proudly present
DANCE.HERE.NOW.
With
ALEX PEARCE
Niki McNally
Tim O' Connell
Kinky as F#%k Release Party
Hosted by Anthony Lamont
Lights by Ariel
Cielo
18 Little West 12th Street
Door 10pm-4am
Alex Pearce Upcoming Dates:
7/2 Cielo
7/10 Pacha
7/25 Rm Fi5ty5
8/22 Love
9/1 Cielo
djalexpearce.com/site/music/
danceherenownyc.com
