Book pre-sale open! | New Interviews | DG Memberships | Extra Cuts | Me to You | (Almost) Party Party Party
Fiona here, welcome back to another update from the Dust & Grooves editorial desk as we head into September. We’ve just had the pre-sale launch of Dust & Grooves Volume 2: Further Adventures… and Portables, and it’s been crazy!
The release has been a bit of a wild ride, with a chaotic crash of the website wreaking some gentle havoc, but nothing we can’t handle—quickly making a great recovery. As someone in my early-twenties, you may not believe that I have never actually been involved with a book release, so this was quite a weekend! So, it’s equally as exciting as it is a relief to see October 15th get closer, when the books will be getting out to you. The time is here to start getting your hands on some books, people.
Books Update: Pre-sale Open!
We’re happy to say that in terms of books, there is huge progress from last month, almost as huge as the books themselves! We loved receiving the samples this Summer, they looked incredible and were exactly the kind of quality we were after. We now have all three of the books fully printed and on their way to our warehouses: Dust & Grooves Volume 2: Further Adventures; Dust & Grooves Volume 1 10th Anniversary Edition Boxset; and Portables ready to go! They are hefty boys, filled with goodness—so start making room on those shelves and coffee tables!
As mentioned, there was a cheeky crash on the website, but this is down to the high demand we were facing—we’re flattered! Eric Cohen even likened the launch to getting Taylor Swift tickets, haha. I’m a Brit, so I think this is more true of the Oasis ticket sale madness we all faced this weekend! But seriously, we were able to reach out to over 6,000 subscribers to launch the pre-sale, so getting this kind of hype and love is unreal. We’re back up again, so all of you can head over to the pre-sale to get copies of the books. Not to alarm anybody, but Volume 1 was sold out by the launch parties, so you’re gonna have to believe the hype!
Pre-sale Video Out:
Our pre-sale video is now live on Instagram, and it looks sick! It’s a minute-long round up of the DGV2 process, showing some familiar faces… We’d love it if you did some social magic to give us a boost. Repost to stories, post to your reels—tag us! Spread the DG magic, you know what to do.
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New Interviews:
We’ve been keeping our promise, and delivering some great interviews. Since Kristine Barilli, we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing three truly incredible collectors. Filmmaker and DJ Cole Evelev spoke to Deb Grant about how having a multiplicity of creative outlets is a great tool for keeping his love of music alive. He also humorously encapsulated the digger experience, “I feel like most record collectors either dream of going to Japan or can’t wait to tell you about buying records in Japan.” Miami-based DJ Caroline Cardenas spoke to Kaitlin Venneman about the capabilities records have to keep people grooving on the dancefloor, describing her DJing by saying “I want my set to be like a journey…that’s literally what music exploration is, it’s a journey and you can’t limit that journey, because music is constantly evolving,” which I think is beautiful. Our most recent interview is with Andre Torres, Wax Poetics founder. He spoke with Dan Epstein about his inspirations behind the legendary publication, a strong one being to tell stories of music and musicians that deserve to be told, and that hadn’t yet been told. “I think my desire to create Wax Poetics was partially born out of this feeling that I had missed out on something.” Be sure to check out the full interviews in our archive.
Azymuth – Rapid Transit. Brazilian band Azymuth were masters at utilizing different genres in their sound. Formed in 1973, the band still (2020) makes music with a jazz, funk, and samba sound. “I’ve been collecting Azymuth avidly, they’re amazing. They’re like jazz funk but they have a lot of synths in them…it’s funky, it’s groovy. There’s some cool shit that they have, so I like them because no matter what the set is, I could fit Azymuth in as an intro track. They’ve got so many different moods. I would love to have all their records, I have about four right now.”
Womack & Womack – MPB (Missin’ Persons Bureau). Frankie Knuckles’ Paradise Ballroom mix of this song is a classic. I first heard it on the way back from Sustain-Release, a techno festival in upstate NY. My then-partner played it on the car stereo, and I was hooked immediately. This was 2016, and the LP hadn’t been repressed yet, so it was pretty rare and went for over $150 online. I actually pressed a dubplate of it and gave it to my partner as a present. Funnily enough, just a few days after I gave her the gift, I found this copy at a record fair in a hotel lobby on 50th Street in Manhattan. I walked away with it for $15 and a chuckle at how mysterious the world is.
Louie Ramirez and His Conjunto Chango – Vibes Galore. Known as “the Quincy Jones of salsa,” NYC percussionist and vibraphonist Louie Ramirez recorded numerous salsa, boogaloo, and Latin jazz albums with his own bands, as well with such Latin luminaries as Charlie Palmieri, Joe Cuba, and Willie Colón. Vibes Galore, his second LP as a bandleader, was produced by Alegre Records founder and Puerto Rican music legend Al Santiago. “This came from my grandfather’s collection. From what I understand, he and Ramirez were from the same area of Puerto Rico. The vibraphone is my favorite instrument; it’s always had a sweet spot in my heart, I heard a lot of this music growing up. This record is on Alegre, which was later folded into the Fania umbrella—and after working on the Fania catalog and digging around in their vaults, this is a record that brings me full circle. It’s like, ‘This is literally where I started, and where I’m coming back to.’ Even with all the insanity that I deal with in this industry, it reminds me exactly why I’m still committed to this shit.”
More exciting news about interviews—I had my first ever selector interview for Dust & Grooves with the amazing Mafalda Daniel! She was a great one to start with; she’s super cool and has an extremely warm vibe. I was jealous that Mafalda was in beautiful Lisbon and I was looking out of my Dutch window to masses of rain, but that didn’t stop me from getting totally immersed in her stories of Melodies Records, her blossoming friendship with Archie Shepp, and, of course, the great Mac Miller. Keep your eyes peeled for a great conversation with Mafalda and me coming to the website in due course…
Memberships and Support:
By now, I’m sure you can see how much love goes into Dust & Grooves. It’s a pure passion project, and Eilon has worked super hard to keep it an independent endeavor—always completely ad-free. This has been going for over a decade, and in that time Dust & Grooves has seen the building of a genuinely great community that celebrates record collecting, and one that has a huge love of music. We absolutely love to see it, and it means a lot to us. We’re going to kindly ask that you consider to continue this support by looking at becoming a paid member, or make a one-time donation. There are some real groovy benefits to this, like exclusive tracklists of collector mixtapes, and discounts on a range of merch, lovely! There are different tiers to the membership, and we accommodate for everybody; your support means we can preserve the culture we all cherish.
Introducing: Extra Cuts
You may have heard on the grapevine of another exciting announcement that has come out this month: Extra Cuts. We have connected with our friends over at Wax Poetics to bring this new exciting collaboration out, isn’t that cool?? Never seen before photos from the Dust & Grooves archives exclusively shared with Wax Poetics in their newsletter will give extra insight and a behind-the-scenes look into the interviews featured in DGV2. That’s some VIP shit! We’ve been friendly with Wax Poetics for quite some time now, and they’re one of our biggest influences, so we’re thrilled that this is happening and can’t wait to get lots of Extra Cuts out. The first edition is a pretty big deal—only the founder of Wax Poetics himself, Andre Torres. The photos are great, and you’ll get an extra bit of Andre magic with a quote for each photo! All you need to do is subscribe to their newsletter, and you can do so here. Easy!
Me to You
This month has also seen the launch of our new column: Me to You. It’s a fun, new feature in which I go back into the DG archives to curate a list of top record recommendations from our collector interview archives. As an extra treat, a super-hot playlist has been created from favorite tracks off these records. This is such a fun project to be working on, I get to read super cool interviews and make playlists, a big side-quest of mine in my own time. If I’m allowed to pick favorites, then so far it has to be Kevin Foakes (DJ Food), who also happens to be the most recent feature! We really hope you’re enjoying it as much as we are.
Another exciting part about this is that we collaborating with collage artist Morgan Jesse Lappin, who is creating very cool artwork for the column. The best part of this is that you can buy your own copies of the art to have for yourself. Keep physical art alive and check the prints out here.
Launch Parties: Let’s Get It Started
All of this talk about DGV2 and new projects is exciting, but also a reminder of just how hard everyone has worked to make it happen. Work hard = party harder. That’s right, it’s almost launch party time, people! This means good people, good music, good dancing, and a damn good time. We would love to come to a city near you, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you would like to host us—it’ll be fun.
Our Brooklyn event has been locked in, with Public Records hosting us upstairs on Saturday October 26th, 2024. Join us in the afternoon and roll into the evening; for the launch of Volume 1, we had over 20 of our selectors from the book to spin some records, so you can expect plenty more of that.
The end of August has been busy meeting with, and talking to potential sponsors across the globe to make sure that our launch parties for DGV2 across all locations will be amazing events. If we land these sponsors, be prepared to see Eilon roll up in a marked limousine and champagne. If we don’t quite land this in time, Eilon could well be rolling up in his slightly less chic van and a crate of Bud Light. Glam or guerilla, it’ll be the grooviest time. Watch out for announcements for an event near you…can’t wait to see you there!
Till next time folks, keep spinnin’
Fiona, Eilon, and the Dust & Grooves team.
