Downtown Everything’s Waiting For You

The above clip is from “Downtown Calling” a brand new film chronicling the pocket of time and creativity that has pretty much directly effected every facet of pop culture in the world in the 21st Century. Like everything. So basically everyone and everything else can sit the fuck down cause this is where it’s at. The film is so crazy good and that’s not colored by the fact that my longtime friend Ben Velez produced it and my other friend Shan Boogie directed it. But big up to my friends. Congratulations, dudes.

The New York premier is this Wednesday at the New York International Latino Film Festival. You need to see this movie for real, and I suggest that you purchase your tickets immediately. The screening is at 9PM at the SVA Theater, Screen 1 on 23rd St. @ 9th Ave.

Here’s some Youtube and WMD goodies to get you in the mood. First one is by Konk which actually was the band my homie Jonny Sender was in back in the day. Jonny and I used to DJ together at Den Of Thieves on Houston back in the early to mid 90s. Great dude, great DJ. Just don’t ask him about the night he cleared our dancefloor with a Kiss record. Quickest club mass-exodus ever…

Next up is the seminal group Liquid Liquid helmed by NY’s own Sal Principato. You can catch Sal still spinning around NY, most notably at subMercer (one of my favorite spots in NY, that just happens to have a new blog up.) Anyway, everyone knows “Cavern” which I posted because of the really cool animated video (the only one ever done by 99 Records) from 1983. But I wanted to post another song that doesn’t get as much love as it should. I chose “Bell Head” and I got my copy of this back in the day when my mom’s friend Phil dropped off a bunch of his old records to my crib cause he heard I was getting into DJing. Thanks Phil. Here’s the video, and the WMD because the video is a live “teaser” or something.

Liquid Liquid “Bell Head” (99 Records, 1981)

And of course history changed when “Uptown” came “Downtown” in the form of hip-hop music. So much has been waxed poetic about this over the years so I’m just going to leave you with this crazy footage of one of the greatest rap groups of all time, the almighty Cold Crush Brothers. I never saw this footage before but it’s pretty ill. Anyone who wants to doubt the genius of these dudes needs to fall back right now.

Shout out to DJ Charlie Chase. I really need to step my game up and start wearing fingerless leather spike-embedded gloves when I DJ. Cats these days got NO sense of style…