DJ Olive
"Williamsburg really had this alternate [reality where] you didn't know what day of the week it was. It had this feeling of permanent vacation that I've never experienced anywhere else."
I wrote a book about 60 years of New York City rock music scenes called This Must Be the Place: Music, Community, and Vanished Spaces in New York City (it comes out on July 11! Pre-order it here). Naturally, in the course of writing a book about New York City music scenes, I interviewed a lot of New York City musicians, deejays, club workers and owners, and scenesters —140, specifically, which, in retrospect, was probably too many interviews (whoops).
A lot of these interviews were deeply fascinating, went on for hours, and dove deeply into what it’s actually been like to live and create art in New York through the decades. But only a fraction of each interview ended up in the book. So, in the lead-up to the book’s release, I’ve decided to share some of my favorite full-length interviews. I’ll post a new one every week or so, for as long as they last.
My book comes out next week (holy shit!), and for those of you in NYC, we’re having two (very different) events to celebrate its release.
The first, on Monday June 10, is a reading and panel discussion at Greenlight Books in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The panelists are Death By Audio co-founder and documentarian Matt Conboy; Tier 3 booker Hilary Jaeger; musician, author, and Tonic booker Alan Licht; and Jim Smith, aka DJ Mojo, who worked the door at Hurrah, Max’s Kansas City, Pyramid Club, and Berlin (and who is the subject of an early Beastie Boys song). More info here.
And then on Thursday June 13, there’s a much more informal dance party and hang sesh at Baker Falls, a brand new club opening in the old Pyramid Club space in the East Village. Dany Johnson, a longtime Pyramid deejay (and Club 57, Mudd Club, Area, etc.), will be spinning records, and I’ll be signing books. There’s a $5 cover, just to make sure we keep the bozos out. More info here.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s transformation from bohemian paradise to douchebag cesspool. Maybe it’s because of last week’s interview with singer-songwriter Amy Rigby that touched on her many years in the neighborhood, or maybe it’s because of my nostalgia-filled appearance on the Culture Journalist podcast, or maybe it’s just that I live nearby, but I keep going back to my memories of ‘00s-‘10s Williamsburg, when I spent my twenties hanging out at venues like Monster Island, Death By Audio, and Northsix.
Like most people in their twenties, I was myopic and self-obsessed, so I couldn’t see the gentrification forest for the trees. It never occurred to me that those venues were part of a cycle that would inevitably end with a Chanel store plopping like a big, stinky turd onto North 6th Street. Nor did I realize that the cycle had actually begun over a decade earlier, when Williamsburg was a playground for artists like Gregor Asch, the turntablist and multi-media artist better known as DJ Olive.
I first became familiar with Asch’s music in the early ‘00s, thanks to his many collaborations with members of Sonic Youth. But in researching my book, I was surprised to learn that Asch had first established himself as part of a Williamsburg-based collective called Lalalandia Entertainment Research Corporation, who threw elaborate, immersive parties in the neighborhood’s vacant industrial spaces. So, in October 2021, I reached out to Asch - now living in a small town in British Columbia - to learn more about this under-documented but pivotal moment in the neighborhood’s development.
When did you first move to Brooklyn?
That was ‘90. I went to SUNY Purchase, just outside of the city, so the plan was to move to New York. I studied painting and photography, so I wanted to be able to make big paintings and all that shit. I spent a lot of time driving around trying to find the right neighborhood where I could possibly homestead a loft.
Back then, Greenpoint - especially the north end of it - was just a wasteland. I found a space there at the very end of Manhattan Avenue, in a giant building right up by the water. At the time, the people that owned it had defaulted and the city had taken it over. A bunch of Polish wood shops were running it month to month for the city, because the city can't be a landlord.
About a year [after moving in], I started going to this party called Keep Refrigerated, which was in an old meatpacking building [at 110] North 6th between Berry and White. Tom Schmidt, who ran Earwax Records, [ran it] with Mariano Airaldi. Mariano was one of the members of this collective that I started with him and four other people called Lalalandia Entertainment Research Corporation. Keep Refrigerated ran for a bunch of months, and then it was closed by the fire department. That’s when Lalalandia started, because we were the remnants.
Were the first Lalalandia parties in that same building?
Yeah, because Mariano still had the lease. Tom wasn't really interested anymore, because the police had kind of fingered it.
Then we got a little restaurant [called Comfortzone Banquet] in a storefront on Grand Street, over by Roebling. We opened once a week, sometimes twice. We would invite a chef, somebody we knew, and they would cook a meal. We'd have just this one long table where we could usually fit like 27 people. You'd have to call to book a place at the table, and it was nine courses for $9.99. The kitchen was on a little stage, and we had mic’d everything up - the chopping blocks and all that. It started at 11:11[p.m.] and was like over by like 4:00 in the morning.
At that time, there was nothing [in Williamsburg]. You could not get a coffee [anywhere] except for the worst Greek diner right off Bedford. You couldn’t get your nails done or anything like that. Everything was closed, especially north of Metropolitan - it would just be shut down at night. It would get dangerous on the south side for us artists - you know, the gentrifiers.
When the gentrification first started happening, it was really bad for the local community - not so much the Polish community, because they owned property, but all the different Latino communities that were bumped right up against each other. Whole families lived in those communities, and one by one, they got pushed out, because the apartment rents went [up].
But at the same time, we had this one space [at 141-155] South 5th Street by the bridge. It was 8,000 square feet for $800 a month. It was just raw, two giant rooms. We did [a monthly party there that] we called an “Omni-Sensorial Sweep-Out.” It was [stimulating] all the senses, with fire and fountains, and we had painted the entire space silver. There were all kinds of performers mixed into [crowd], so you didn't know really if they were performers or just weirdos. The whole idea was to have a science fiction, futuristic effect, where everybody coming in is a foreigner in terms of ambience. You'd have the guy from New Jersey talking to the Polish guy talking to the artist, because they'd all be like, “What the fuck is happening here?”
Were people just finding their way to it, or were you promoting it to all these different types of people?
There'd be a flyer with a phone number. You’d call that number, and someone would grill you a little, make sure you weren't with Giuliani's Social Club Task Force.
We did our party once a month, and then Carlos Soul Slinger from [the clothing store] Liquid Sky came to one of our parties. He was [deejaying] at NASA, which was a massive rave party in the city. He [said,] “Once a month I want to do an after-hours party in you guys’ fucking crazy space.” So we alternated: every two weeks, we had a party, and we could build this crazy environment in between. Deee-Lite came and played at the first one, which was awesome.
NASA was in that building where Area used to be [57 Hudson Street], right?
I think that's right. We went there with Chloe Sevigny, she worked for Carlos at Liquid Sky.
Christina Applegate was in a rave movie [Vibrations (1996, dir. Michael Paseornek)] that they were filming [at 60-90] Metropolitan, where the mustard factory was. They wanted us to help build a crazy space [to make it] look like a rave, so we worked on that for a week. Then we were at some party for everybody [involved in the movie], and [Applegate] came in. We were like, “We're going down to the NASA party if you guys want to come,” so her and the [other] star [Twin Peaks’ James Marshall] were like, “Yeah, let's go.”
We go down there, and Chloe’s on the door. She let us in, because we were Lalalandia, and then she cuts off Christina Applegate. She [started doing] her part from Married…With Children, and [Chloe] was like, “Oh my god, come in!” I saw [Applegate] hours later, she was off her face with her co-star and dancing on the floor, probably on E or something. I was like, “Yes!!!”
Were there other similar parties or spaces in Williamsburg at that time?
Oh, yeah. You could get a space for really cheap, so people would [get one and] open it like once a month or maybe once a week. There were a bunch of bigger underground parties that would happen. Probably one of the most telling moments I saw was - right around the Keep Refrigerated days, it might have been ’90 – there were two big parties called Cat's Head, done by a couple [Terry Dineen and Jean-Francois Pottiez] from some Eastern European [country] [Dineen was from Ireland, Pottiez was from Belgium – ed.].
Cat’s Head was kind of a free-for-all - everybody joins in and somehow makes something. This party was on one of the old piers, probably around North 7th Street. There was a room with like 500 gas tanks and these sticks, so everyone could bang on these tanks, and there was performance art going on. It was just a whole different experience from Manhattan.
There were lots of people there, maybe 400. And then the police come, and they’re just walking around trying to figure out what to do. In Manhattan, that [party] would be squashed, but this is such early days [in Williamsburg] that it was just kind of weird. [Dineen and Pottiez] were talking to the main cop. They get on the phone, some phone calls are made, and all the while the party was on pause for like 45 minutes. Then a couple giant limos pull up. [Dineen, Pottiez, and the cops] all jump in a limo, drive around for half an hour, and come back – party’s back on!
That was the beginning of gentrification in Williamsburg. That was where it was decided that, from 1990 to 1995, just leave the shit alone, because it’s going to raise the property value. There’s this grace period where it's just a free-for-all. We were basically ignored until the mayor started his social club task force - at that point, they started to really ratchet up. By ’98, they had resurrected that “no dancing” cabaret law, and it got really out of hand to where you could have your turntables confiscated. But that really didn't [start] until ’94-‘95.
There was some separation between what was going on in Williamsburg and what was going on in Manhattan at that point, but I think of a place like the Cooler as being part of this orbit, or the Gas Station. Did it feel like it was all in that same milieu, or was there a distinct separation between the places in Manhattan and the places in Brooklyn?
A massive separation. And the Cooler was a little later - that's ’94-‘95. A lot of stuff got closed down in Williamsburg by ‘95.
When we made those parties on South 5th, we had no deejays - it was all interactive, weird, fucked up sound. [At one party,] I made a booth with a whole bunch of beat-up turntables hanging on the wall. On the turntables, I [had] antenna wire taped down or twisted down, so it would turn the tonearm into a sampler by making it skip. I would have four 45s going at 16 [rpm], skipping, so they'd all be making one or two noises. And then I put all these [turntables’] speakers together in a big array, like eight speakers. I had two microphones that went to two guitar amps, with [effects] pedals on the way to the guitar amps, and by moving the mics around to the different speakers, I could mix the records. And then in the corner, I had a toaster with Wonder Bread and Kraft cheese slices, so I could make you a grilled cheese too.
That’s how Soul Slinger found me - he came back there, and I was skipping “Mahna Mahna,” that Sesame Street song. He was like, “What the fuck is this?! This is great! You have to come play my party, Egg,” which was at Nell’s. He would do this techno party in the basement there, and upstairs he would have guest deejays. He wanted me to play upstairs.
We’re riding to the club in a taxi, and he's like, “You're gonna play [on Technics] 1200s [turntables] here, so you can't break them, you gotta just play records. You’ve got your headphones, right?”
I'm like, “Headphones? What do you use headphones for?”
He's like, “Have you ever used a deejay mixer?”
I’m like, “I don't know what you're talking about.”
So we got there early, and he [came over to my deejay booth with] a pair of headphones. He puts them on, puts two records on, and shows me the cueing and stuff. My fucking brain detonated. I was like, “What the fuck? You’ve got to be joking. This is the coolest shit!” I never looked back.
This guy Josh Lorr, who made the first Yak Pak designs, was there that night. I knew him from some of the raves, and he would come to the Lalalandia parties. We were going to ride back to Brooklyn [together]. At that point, I was like a junkie - like, “Where can I find some turntables? I need some 1200s!”
He's like, “Let's go to my buddy's bar. It's late, we’ll have one drink on the way home.”
So we go to the S.T. Bar [at 632 East 11th Street] between B and C. It was just a little bar with four tables and a small, short bar for 10-12 people, but [it] had a nook in the back with two 1200s. We go in there and [I] get introduced [to the owner].
He's like, “I don't want a party in here. This is my bar for me and my friends.”
I’m like, “That's fine. I just want to use the [turntables]. You don't even have to pay me; I'll do your shittiest night.”
He's like, “Okay, you can do Sunday. I'll give you $40 and drinks.” That's where it began for me as a deejay.
[At the same time,] the electronic scene was beginning to mingle with musician scene at places like the Cooler [416 West 14th Street] and the Knitting Factory [74 Leonard Street], so I started to get invited to play with musicians. Giant Step was happening, and people were playing with deejays, but it was in a very formulaic way - like, “I'm going to play some hip-hop instrumentals and you solo.” I tried to use the turntable more [for] sounds and weird scratching and atmospherics, and that got me booked [to sit in] with other bands.
Was there a particular venue where you were doing that?
The Cooler. Jedi, the owner of the Cooler, used to be Jaco Pastorius’ roommate, so he had an understanding of musicians’ kind of crazy personalities - what they go through, how broke the most popular musician is in that kind of scene. So, he was very supportive.
I had this band called We™, and we got booked at the Cooler through Matt E. Silver, who did a couple of small parties down there early on. [After that], Jedi called me back to deejay between bands. It started being like a regular thing where he'd be like, “Okay, it's free jazz tonight, so don't bring any free jazz.”
[One night,] I was hanging out in the back, and Jedi was arguing with this guy. He's like, “Well, why don't you play with DJ Olive?”
The guy’s like, “Who the fuck are you?”
I'm like, “Well, who the fuck are you?”
He's like, “Alright, I'll play with you.”
It was [Suicide singer] Alan Vega, and we had the best fucking time. It was 4:00 in the morning at a benefit for Simeon [Coxe] from Silver Apples, because he had been in a car accident. [Suicide were supposed to play, but Vega’s bandmate] Martin Rev didn't show up, and it got later and later, and Jedi was trying to figure something out. That kind of thing happened so much.
How do the Abstrakt Wave parties fit into this?
That party I did at S.T. Bar was called “Wave,” and that was really my party, because I got the turntables. But I invited Firehorse, DJ Spooky, and Del Mar, who went on to become a drum-and-bass deejay.
[The night of the final Wave party,] Cibo Matto played – I think that was their first gig ever – and this guy Tim Sweet, [aka] Dr. Decent, was also playing. We were all out in the street after the gig, and [Sweet] said, “Well, let's go around to my house, maybe we can host the party there [from now on].” He had this really cool storefront [called the RV] on 6th Street, right off Avenue B. We did so many good parties there.1
Those [Abstrakt Wave parties at the RV] were really a deejay thing, with some visualists. Because once I started to [deejay]…you can't really make an omni-sensorial space in a club. At that space on South 5th Street, we spent more than half a year building the original Omni-Sensorial Sweep Out. You can't really do that in a club. You're suddenly forced back into this world where there's a stage and there's an audience, so it really did feel like a step down to go retreat into Manhattan.
But by ’95, rents [in Williamsburg] had tripled, and it was no longer viable at that point. As soon as you're paying a third of your income on rent, you’ve got to work. The galleries were left, but most of the [DIY] spaces shut down. That was sad, but I was like, fuck it - I'm gonna deejay, this is really fun. I didn't really think much would come of it, I just was really into the music and using multiple turntables to make crazy stuff. Then I really wanted to produce, so we got into the studio and started doing the We™ stuff. That kind of blew up, and then all of a sudden, we were opening up for the Orb at Hammerstein Ballroom. That was an amazing time, but it was no longer that omni-sensorial thing.
I did do a bunch of installation art, but it was always restrained by the budget, the space, and the timeframe. It wasn't like those early days where we just lived on packets of ramen noodles and peanut-butter-and-jelly and worked eighteen hours making shit. You need a space to be able to do that, and New York doesn't offer that anymore. You'd have to go to Detroit or something. Or maybe far out in New York, like Brownsville or something.
Is there a point in your mind where the subculture increasingly starts to become a Brooklyn thing, as opposed to a Manhattan thing?
It was that gentrification wave which pushed [the first wave of artists] out. Most of the cool people moved - a lot of people went to Berlin, or to Budapest, or Prague. What came after was very trendy, like eggs Benedict on every fucking corner. There were still some clubs, but they were back to the generic format of a club. To be fair, [those clubs] needed to meet all the regulations, with wheelchair access and sprinkler systems, and we didn't need any of that. You just found a space, it didn't even need a toilet. It was really renegade.
Giuliani put an end to that, and the rents put an end to that. Everything was being developed. It just depressed me. It felt unstoppable, and to tell you the truth, I felt…not responsible but, definitely like a cog in making it happen with all the parties that we did. There's a kind of regret, but at the same time, those were the best times of my life.
With September 11, though, there was kind of a reset. It's not like everything changed, but it felt like the city was different. It coincided with the insane rents. You had people yelling at you out the window to be quiet. You couldn’t dress up weird [because] everyone's looking at you like you're fucking mad, whereas before, you could wear whatever you wanted. The whole [vibe] shifted.
Manhattan is not like a neighborhood, it's just relentless. It’s almost like looking at a Disney ride of itself, and it always felt like that. But for a minute, Williamsburg really had this alternate [reality where] you didn't know what day of the week it was. It had this feeling of permanent vacation that I've never experienced anywhere else. That slipped away in increments, and now we're at a whole different place.
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Learn more about DJ Olive here
Pre-order my book This Must Be the Place here
The RV had previously been the longtime home of Swans front man Michael Gira, who had dubbed it “the Bunker.” Both Swans and Sonic Youth had used it as a practice space.
Very cool. Looking forward to the book.