Closing in on three and one-half decades behind the decks, Brooklyn-born DJ/producer Danny Tenaglia remains as creatively progressive and professionally busy as ever. Refreshed after a much needed 2012 break from his work, Tenaglia releases the 25th edition of Australia's Balance mix series in America on September 16, featuring a heavy emphasis on his favored techno and tribal house and some classic favorites as well. As influenced by his legendary '90s sets at Twilo as they are by his current era work at places like Brooklyn's Output, as well as Berlin locales Berghain and Panorama Bar, it truly strikes a balance in Tenaglia's musical motivations.
This interview touches on this new mix, as well as thoughts on running his 6500 square foot Queens loft as a venue, his 2012 quasi-"retirement," and thoughts about modern era pop-dance issues including R&B flavored remixes, the onset of "deep house" in mainstream dance, and his thoughts on the current dance explosion in his native New York City. This one is as in-depth as it is intriguing, and is worth reading every word.
What sets the Balance compilation apart? It's been six year since you released a mix, what was the motivation behind this mix? What were you aiming to accomplish?
Most of my previous compilations were more reflective of my New York City residencies. I started Global Underground 1 and 2 (released in 1999 and 2000, respectively) while I was working at Twilo and Tunnel, while also traveling. I also ended up doing vinyl until 2004, so what came out of that was (2002's) "Back to Basics," (199's) "Back to Mine" and more of my written compositions like 1998's "Music Is The Answer" and a lot of remixes. This particular one is somewhat similar to Futurism, which I did on Tommy Boy in 2008. This new compilation was more reflective of me thinking about changes in electronic music, in techno, tech house, and minimal [too]. Although I still do Pacha in New York City, Cielo here and there, Output in Brooklyn, and the festivals, this compilation was more about my touring. I was thinking about spots like Berghain and Panorama Bar in Berlin. This CD focused on a lot of the classics I play at Panorama Bar, as well as at Output. People always say that they want to hear the new stuff from me, but they also say that they want to hear that old "classic Danny sound." It always gets into a more "old school" feeling at the end of the events. If I have a longer set–like four, six or eight hours–then they'll get much more of that from me. But the Balance CD is more about techno and tech house.
Being a proud native New Yorker, I'm certain that you probably have a few thoughts about dance music's seeming explosion in Brooklyn of late?
I'm so happy to say that New York has been blossoming in so many different ways over the past few years. It's gone from mega clubs to small environments, small lounges, and warehouses. A lot of it has [left Manhattan] and come over to this side of the bridge, in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. I wish I could speak more about this, but I don't get to attend a lot of these events because I'm traveling so much, but I get to hear about them. I'll hear things like "they're bringing Carl Craig [wherever]," and I hear how crowded the events were, so I know it's working. I see Seth Troxler and Cassie at Output, and they have Verboten around the corner, plus Sankeys is moving to this side of the bridge. It's good to see that New York is again welcoming DJs who are new, old and legendary, like Adam Beyer. It's good to see them get the recognition they deserve, and by that I mean playing better venues, getting better money and not just coming to America to play some lounge with a cheap sound system. I'm happy that the city is coming around for everyone. Not just for techno, but deep house as well.
One of the first big remixes of yours that I was a fan of was your work with Janet Jackson's "Pleasure Principle" in 1994. So, given the direction that indie dance is headed in these days, I wanted to ask you about R&B remixes and the '90s era. I feel like there's a renaissance now, so I wanted to get a sense of what motivated you - and others - back then?
I think a lot of things have to do with a time and a place. I think my career in the '90s–until about 2002 when I remixed Depeche Mode and Kings of Tomorrow–[involved a lot of remixes until] record stores started closing, everything was going digital, and the budget for remixes was going so downhill. [At that time] I was getting more known as a DJ and higher fees for DJing [than remixing] so it made sense for me to not live in a studio working on the same one song. In the early '90s, we were praising the likes of Masters at Work, Def Mix, and all of the DJs who would play that kind of stuff like Tony Humphries and Frankie Knuckles, and that was always my first love. When I got hired to do remixes for a Janet Jackson or an Oleta Adams, my first intention was to respect the artist, production, and original, and then [because] I was at a crossroads of not being successful with my own songs like "Look Ahead" featuring Carole Sylvan or "Baby Do You Feel Me" with Teena Marie, it was like, if I started doing tracks with a harder edge, then I was getting this welcome locally.
I decided to do some softer remixes and some harder-edged material for the newer techno audience that was hitting the clubs, including Twilo. I wanted to respect the original tracks, but I also wanted to make tracks for this new crowd because I respected both sounds. I think [that strategy] worked for me and against me. The Janet Jackson "Pleasure Priniple" remix is a perfect example. Had I stuck to the swinger, funkier side of things, I might've put all I had into that, and I would've made the "Twilo Pleasure Dub." [However], if I look back now, I think I favor that one the most. Ten to 15 years later, that one sounds like something you can still play today. If I listen to the more soulful version, then I want to revisit it and do it again. I don't have any regret for all of the stuff I did in the '90s that was soulful and R&B that didn't really hit, but I think I still made some sort of an impact, with DJs, journalists, and people who have a passion for the art of remixing, cool producing, additional overdubs, and keyboards. In some cases, that wasn't hitting successfully with the labels and the commercial market. My biggest problem was Billboard. It was a #1 track on the Billboard chart (which in that era, only tracked units bought by stores, but not sold by them), but not on the sales chart. I had number ones with remixes for Cher and the Pet Shop Boys, but on the sales charts, I was not healthy.
So, the shift from big hard electro to techno and deep house in top-40 radio is apparent. I wanted to get your thoughts about this evolution, especially given your full awareness of the history of America's last dance evolution?
Even back then [in the '90s], when you had guys who were so consistent, [like] David Morales and Frankie Knuckles, or even going back to C & C Music Factory when David Cole was alive and they were doing remixes instead of their artist work with Martha Wash, Masters at Work, and so on. Even though these guys, and guys like Junior Vasquez and Peter Rauhoffer, were heavier hitters and had bigger budgets than me at the time, even those remixes weren't making noise on the sales chart. It was always those pop versions that were the testament to what the release was. It was always, "let's do a dance mix," to satisfy that market, too. Today, I've gotta be honest and say that "deep house" [as compared to the '90s] has a whole new meaning today. Of course, to me, Basement Boys is "deep house," so when they tell me that [something modern and not by the Basement Boys] is "deep house," I go "alright..." because I have a trained ear and can tell the difference between a good piano player and one who's going down the scales and saying "oh let me hit a black key." I know the difference. At the end of the day, it's about church, and bringing in that gospel influence that is the difference between some disco that was soulful, like Salsoul and Loleatta Holloway, and disco that was full of strings and stuff was more applying a classical music thing. Just because a piano was there doesn't mean that it was "soulful."
[Deeper house] to me is soulful, because I was raised on funk, R&B, Motown, and Philly. I lived and breathed that stuff until I was a teenager and was old enough to become a DJ and I welcomed Giorgio Moroder, Cerrone, and Gino Soccio. So I really know the difference between pure "deep house" and "soulful" gospel garage house, the more sampling vibe of Chicago house–Steve "Silk" Hurley's "Jack Your Body" with a First Choice "Let No Man Put Asunder" bassline–which are a few examples. Today's deep house? Maybe I just don't get it. Maybe I'm not understanding fully what's happening. The first few songs on Balance could be considered deep, but I don't consider them deep. Maybe they're deep tech, but they're all electronic driven and not Afro, Hatian or Cuban rhythms, timbales and congos. Deep house? I can't really speak about it. A lot of DJs that they're saying are "deep" today, I don't get out to hear them much.
Switching things up, what are you listening to these days?
I have thousands of records here on the shelves, and as it's all made it's way into my computer. I have a laptop that has just about everything in there. So I might listen to Sly Stone, I might listen to Pink Floyd, I might listen to Loleatta Holloway, I just get these urges and I feel like hearing a roster of Salsoul or MFSB. I'll select MFSB, but just the instrumentals. Honestly, I'm stuck in a world of techno. This is what I do, this is what elevates the parties the most, and so when I'm not listening to that music at home, I'm listening to promos and digital downloads, "click click click click." So to say that I sit here and really listen to a song and get those goose bumps, it doesn't happen as much as it used to, as much as I'd like it to. Have you been to my loft before?
No, I haven't but I've heard incredible things.
I have these vinyl speakers in my loft, and I'll be in the center of this incredible soundsystem, but I never get to utilize it as well as I wanted when I installed it. I wanted to congregate people and have these loft-style David Mancuso-type parties. It didn't become about that because I became so busy with my travels, so the idea of bringing people up here for a good time and dancing became immature? Like, I live in Queens by the 59th Street Bridge, and the immature thing doesn't mean I'm disrespecting young people, it just means that they don't "get it," because they haven't lived it and don't know it. It's like, if David Mancuso threw a party in Manhattan and only Newark people showed up. He could play "Clouds" by Chaka Khan, and the people probably wouldn't know the words, because they haven't lived it.
These kids are hungry for it, don't get me wrong. But given the way DJs play today with the DJ's face in front, there's a strangeness about it. It's not a social space. If I don't have people in front of me who know the songs, then I don't want people facing me. I'd rather you vogue, hustle, or whatever. Every so often you get a (Brooklyn DJ/producer Danny Krivit thrown) "718 Sessions" or a (legendary NYC DJ trio Francois Kevorkian, Danny Krivitt and Joe Claussell thrown) "Body and Soul Party," but in 2014, we're getting older. I'm 53, so even if I wasn't a DJ traveling so much, it's hard for me to go because I'm in New York, on a weekend, maybe with the day off, and I may not always want to go to a club. It's hard to get the Shelter (Timmy Regisford's post-Paradise Garage era club/dance party) and (Newark, NJ's influential '90s house spot) Zanzibar crowd to come out together.
It's not profitable [to run his loft as a party space]. It's nothing short of opening up a nightclub. You need a staff to help prepare, clean up and all of that. I don't want to charge money to get in here. Even if I did, it wouldn't cover what it cost me [to open], because there's a roof as well, and you need security because the stairs are steep [and so forth]. Also, ultimately, I'm liable for this space. If anybody messes up, or gets high, like, a little "sneaky sneaky" in the stall of a bathroom, I'm responsible. It kills me that somebody might get hurt, overdose on ketamine, I mean, who the hell knows?
So, I wanted to ask about your 2012 "resignation" from DJing, and what exactly brought back your passion for the music?
I like clearing up this situation with people who may not understand what drove me to get on Facebook and say, in a poor word choice, "resigning" or retiring...
Was it burnout?
It was borderline that. I'd been traveling a lot. [What happened to me] could happen to anyone. Things get lost in translation. Croatia, Istanbul, Italy–I'm Italian and don't speak Italian–so there's always translators involved. You can only take so much of that, you're helping them, they're helping you have conversations. Ibiza, a lot of Spain, and what ultimately happened is that I was getting tired of the jetlag, of the re-adjusting back to New York, having to go here and there, going to the west coast and being nine hours behind sometimes. [Being a DJ] is not as easy as people think. It might be luxurious, and hey, you might get first class every now and then. Once the plane lands, you're into the reality of someone in customs saying "Why [are] you here?!?!" They see your passport may be stamped Tel Aviv, and they think you might be a spy.
I was in Montreal, and I was on my way back to Miami, where I live part-time, and my assistant was coming back to New York. I didn't write about this on Facebook, but when I came back to Miami, I realized my laptop was missing, and I lost it. Everything was in there, and I'm so private about my tracks, acapellas and masters–my work. I ran back to the airport, and it was basically closed. It was midnight, and they let me through to sit at the gate for six hours until they re-opened. There I was, watching CNN and praying that [my laptop] was there. Sure enough, it wasn't there, and I had to file a missing report at 6AM when the airport re-opened. I ended up being at the airport for seven hours, and lo and behold, I never got back the computer. I was in Miami, in this headspace, because things were not going well back at the loft, [too]. It's really expensive to run this place, and I keep thinking that "I've been here 11 years, and that one day I'm going to meet someone that's going to help me pay the rent here." I wanted the loft to maybe be an educational facility of sorts, something like what Dubspot does, just something mature...maybe a radio station, I wasn't sure. I have 6500 square feet including the roof, it faces Manhattan, and still, years keep passing by and I'm paying thousands of dollars of rent a month, and I'm not here to enjoy it.
I was about to merge with someone, and then that fell apart around that time. So, when I got the news that [the merger] wasn't going to happen, it was three days into my laptop being lost, and I decided I needed a break. [So], I blurted it out, and what I did was basically take off from traveling overseas, but I stayed committed to gigs I was doing at Detroit, Chicago, Vegas, and whatever I had locally. It was wrong [to say that I was "resigning"]. I ended up in the New York Post, and I wondered, "am I really this popular?" I know the reality [of my life], but I don't Google myself or watch myself on YouTube. I just try to be as regular as anybody else. It hurt me to say the words I did, but it was anger that made me say all of that.
Exactly.
But, you know what they say about how tragedy can often bring triumph? Well, let's say that it was tragic for me to have lost that computer. But, during the time that I took off, it made me lose myself in my work again. I took the time to finally learn the art of utilizing Traktor as a digital way of doing things, as opposed to CDs and digital downloads. So I did that, and it gave me this whole new excitement for doing things live that I'd never be able to do if I was using CD decks. That sparked my interest in getting out there better than ever, traveling more–even if it meant less money. This is what I do, I don't know what else I would do, and [so], I'm back on the road.
It's taken a toll on me again, but I just finished overseas touring, and I'll probably hit the road again during the holidays and New Year's, but for now I'm just going to stay in New York City. Over the next four weekends, I'm working Friday and Saturday, in Chicago, Vancouver, Atlanta, San Francisco–a lot of places. But, at least I can easily fly back to my own bed.
