Try and imagine how many records there are in this world. Think of all the places they exist. Record shops, swap meets, thrift stores, yard sales, listening rooms, and living rooms. Boxes gathering dust in attics and water damage in basements, buried in the backs of closets and storage units—LPs in tote bags and 45s in hard cases, mailers traveling by air. Decades of pressed wax, resting and turning over, recorded, released, and collected everywhere.
Most of us will only ever see a small sliver of it all, hardly more than what our little corner of the world contains. We frequent our record shops and thrift stores, know who’s who of the local collectors, and stay up on what we know to look for online. Maybe we will even get to travel now and then and hit up shops in other cities or drive through other small towns. But in terms of what’s really out there, the sheer volume of what the world holds, we are left imagining.
Not so for the collectors, we’re bringing you today. Anya Karmanova and Julia Rodionova can speak with authority to the vastness of the records that exist in this world. Their digging adventures have taken them over oceans and across continents, and their love and passion for music and all things records fosters community everywhere they go. For them, it’s about more than the grooves cut into wax. This is about friendship and heart.
Here at Dust & Grooves, we have the good fortune of featuring some of the world’s most interesting record collectors, but rarely do we have the unique pleasure of spotlighting a partnership like this. These seasoned collectors, DJs, radio show hosts, and friends have stories to tell, and we are honored to be sitting down with them today.
Javybz finding records to play during the next All Styles All Smiles.
Tell us about where this partnership started and how you ended with the moniker Javybz.
Anya: We met for the first time at the age of 14 in 2000. This year, we can celebrate 20 years of friendship. We met that first time at our friend’s apartment; we were all there to prepare for a party like girls of this age do. I hardly remember this period, but I think we were both into music, which brought us together. Before becoming a lawyer, my father was a double bass and bass guitar player, so jazz was always in our home. I went to ballet school and contemporary dance school, and then I started listening to house and attending house dance classes.
But music, in the sense of how we perceive it, now came into our lives later with the Cult Club. We first went there in 2003 and stayed there till 2014. Cult Club was a very special place where we got lost in music. This is where we played our first records and met wonderful people worldwide; it changed our lives completely. I was studying law and was supposed to be a lawyer. Julia was studying economics, but we veered off track because of the music. I hung in there and worked as a lawyer for two years after graduating, but music won in the end.
Julia: We started going to the Cult Club, and I think records got into our orbit there. Even more than that, the whole new world of music opened up for us: artists, styles, genres, parties, the art of DJing, and music’s ability to connect and unite people—we didn’t really know much about any of this before Cult Club, and we bonded over discovering it all and eventually got into buying our own records.
It’s also where we had our first gig in 2006, and we had to give a name to a designer for a monthly Cult Club poster and book. Somehow, very quickly, we came up with Javybz—Julia and Anya’s vibes, changing the letters ‘es’ to ‘z’ so it looks a bit different when it’s written. Only later do we realize that it’s rather unpronounceable and makes people think we mainly play reggae music. We pronounce it as JAH-VIBES, but it is very dear to us, and we stick with it.
The Tony Williams Lifetime – Play Or Die, Ego. “We got the Ego copy by Tony Williams Lifetime at the Colony Records store on the final day before it closed its doors for good. Then Anya found another version of “There Comes A Time” on a later album of his.”
Do you remember the first record you bought together? What were some of your favorite records during this time?
A: I don’t remember my first record, but I remember what we loved and played when we were starting out, tracks like: Brian Auger’s “Beginning Again,” Idris Muhammad’s “Could Heaven Ever Be Like This,” Koushik’s “Be With,” Patsy Gallant’s “It’ll All Come Around,” Pamoja’s “Oooh Baby,” Sun Palace’s “Rude Movements,” Herbie Hancock’s “Stars in Your Eyes.”
We had our different periods and genres: disco, Africa, hip-hop, house, and many others. A lot of Stones Throw records. We were sharing records, books, and articles, always teaching each other.
Where did each of you grow up? Did your parents have records? What were some of the artists and albums that became the soundtracks to your childhoods? What were your inroads to music?
A: We both grew up in Moscow, and, as it turned out, in the early years of our childhood, we lived very close to each other in the same area, but Julia moved. We are both from happy and loving families, are very lucky with our parents, and are still very close to them. I used to have jazz records at home, but then cassettes replaced them. My father was traveling for work, and once, he brought home a crazy punk rock cassette from China. I’m trying to remember its name; it was the weirdest album I’ve ever heard in my life. I loved that crazy cassette so much that we pretended to be a punk rock duo, with my brother playing air guitar on a badminton racket, and I was singing on the mic, which was a hairbrush.
We had my dad’s jazz records at home and tons of cassettes that my older brother used to listen to, but I’ve never been a fan of any pop bands or artists. We grew up on MTV Russia, and the local MTV team was pretty good. I still love some music videos that I saw there for the first time, such as Kate Bush’s “Running Up The Hill” or Talking Heads’s “This Must Be The Place.”
J: I think music really got into my life around the time we became friends and got into the Cult Club. And after that world opened up for me, there was no turning back. I did dance classes and other music activities as a kid and had some influences from school peers, cousins, and my parents. My mom loves to sing, and she used to be in different bands performing all over her hometown. Her mom, my grandma, was also a good singer, which unfortunately didn’t get passed down to me. My dad played guitar while at school, which I’m only learning about now. He is more into mathematics and physics so that greatly influenced me. However, when we travel or spend time together, I’m always asked to pick some music, and now I know that my dad really likes reggae. My mom’s been listening to all our shows since the first one on Deep Frequency.
“Our first Loft party was one of the main turning points for Javybz. We came back from that trip thinking about our first radio show, and it set us on the path we are still traveling 12 years later.”
Your show All Styles All Smiles has been a part of the NTS Radio family for some time now. When did your first show air? How did your show come together? Did you know Femi Adeyemi before he launched NTS Radio in 2011?
J: Our first show on NTS aired in November 2013 while we were still doing our show for Deep Frequency Radio. NTS and Deep Frequency families are the best. We have never met Femi. Hopefully, it will happen one day. We are more often in touch with Padraigh Perkins-Edge from the station, who’s been very supportive and patient with us throughout all these years. We still haven’t met in person, but hopefully, that will change sometime soon. As for joining the station, our friend Sam introduced us to NTS, and one of his conditions was for us to start talking on the show. I was living in Brooklyn at that time, and Anya was in Moscow, so we recorded the first show over the Atlantic using some handy internet services. We had been doing the same for our Deep Frequency shows for a few years at that point. My roommate Azu lent me her mic (she is the singer/mc known as Zuzuka Poderosa). It took forever to do those first voiceovers.
A: Back in 2009, when we started making the Deep Frequency Radio show, one book brought us to this “radio way”—Love Saves the Day by Tim Lawerence. After reading it, we visited London and attended our first Loft party with David Mancuso. We met Tim in person, and in this conversation, we were introduced to Guillaume Chottin, who was a member of the Lucky Cloud Family and the Deep Frequency Radio boss. Our first All Styles All Smiles on Deep Frequency was on Sept 14th, 2009, and I still remember every track and mixing moment because we re-recorded it approximately 100 times.
Ayizan – Dilijans. “It’s one of the more recent records I got, and the whole album is just beautiful. It is a combination of traditional Haitian rhythms (rare and compa, drumming “in the Vodou style”) with American jazz influences, led by the Haiti-born multi-instrumentalist Alix “Tit” Pascal. Originally released on his imprint, it was recently reissued by Super Fly Records.”
“I always had a feeling that our first Loft party was one of the main turning points for Javybz. We came back from that trip thinking about our first radio show, and it set us on the path we are still traveling 12 years later.”
It’s hard to overstate how special and important David Mancuso and the Loft parties are to the history and culture of the world you are immersed in. What do the Loft parties mean to you? Where do they stand today? Have they changed since Mancuso’s passing?
J: Our first Loft party in London happened around the same time we started learning about disco and that musical period. Love Saves the Day was given to us by our friend Alex Nikolaev as a New Years gift, and that’s where all this started. We were so amazed and fascinated by the Loft story and Mancuso’s vision for it, so we started researching if there was still a chance to experience it.
At the same time, we started doing our own party at the Cult Club and had an opportunity to invite our first guest, Cedric Woo. Long story short, things came together, and we ended up in London at the loft party organized by Lucky Cloud Sound System, where Tim and Cedric were members of the crew. All of these things were happening simultaneously—us reading the book, finding out about the party in London, deciding to invite Cedric to DJ at our party. It was all connected. It seemed so unbelievable back then.
The Loft family is very special. There, we met Guillaume Chottin, who invited us to try to do a show on Deep Frequency. We were lucky to experience firsthand all the preparations for a Loft party, from setting up the sound system meticulously to collectively putting up the balloons. And, of course, we met David Mancuso for the first time.
There are still parties in New York and London. This year, it was the 50th anniversary of the first Loft party on February 14, 1970. Since the passing of David in 2016, they’ve been run by people who share and continue David’s vision, by people he trusted and spent time passing on his philosophy. David actually started distancing himself from the musical host role for some years before that. Even though he never intended the Loft to be about him as the center of it all or centered on the turntables and the person behind them. He would come to the party and just observe, maybe gently guide here and there. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even be there.
In New York, the musical host now is Douglas Sherman, and I believe it is Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy in London. The Loft community is very inclusive—people of all ages and backgrounds are welcomed there. The Loft influenced and inspired so many people and parties, and I think it would be fair to say it defined the modern club culture; I hope that even more people would bring that spirit of love and togetherness with them into what they are doing. Responsibility and respect were David’s priorities for his guests.
A: I always had a feeling that our first Loft party was one of the main turning points for Javybz. We came back from that trip thinking about our first radio show, and it set us on the path we are still traveling 12 years later.
“Julia was living in New York, where she had unlimited access to the American soul, disco, house and Brasil records, and I was travelling through Europe, Near East and Asia, looking for new records.”
Dunkelziffer – “Don’t Ask Me.” “Krautrock band from Cologne formed out of the members of Phantom Band with the idea that all members had equal rights to composition and decision-making. The record was found at Do Do Beach in Berlin. The “Don’t Ask Me” track is a good wrong speeder and sounds better at 33 RPM.”
The title of your radio show—All Styles All Smiles—is self-aware and revealing. It describes your purpose and focus. All genres, all parts of the world, all eras. New, old, near and far. Yet, despite it being entirely open and free, there is a strong and consistent aesthetic. Every show is different, but they all have a dreamy, beautiful flow to them. Do you think you have a style or an aesthetic?
A: We definitely have our own way of making radio shows. It comes naturally; we don’t need to invent anything. I would say it’s just a feeling, pure happiness from digging, and the sincere impulse to share All Styles All Smiles philosophy with the rest of the world. Once, our friend Sam, Floating Points, called a record an “All Styles All Smiles kind of record,” since then, we have asked ourselves: “Is it an ASAS kind of record?” If yes, we will find the place for it in our playlist. We both feel each other and our radio show very well; it’s like a beloved kid to us; we have forgotten how to live without monthly shows since 2009.
The main idea is to play whatever is on our mind at the time without looking back at genres, styles, and BPM. We rarely play the same records twice in our radio shows, almost never. Every month, we need 30 new records or tracks, and they can’t be something that we will be ashamed of two years from now. We don’t try to fit our best tracks in one show. Usually, it’s guided by the mood and intuition. Even if the track is amazing, we can keep it for later. We have a whole life full of radio shows. Sometimes, we imagine ourselves making a radio show at the age of 90.
J: The aesthetics of the show happened naturally. It’s simply the reflection of what we are up to at the moment—records, artists, mood, the amount of time, and two sets of ears. We start with a selection of tunes we happen to be listening to, and then there’s the process of finding that flow that will allow the two hours to make sense. Sometimes, records don’t make the cut into that particular show but find their way into the next one or even into one month/year later. Sometimes, just one record can set the mood for the whole show. Guest selections take us on interesting trips and searchings. Recording and working on shows after trips to other countries are also super fun.
Louisa Miller – “Share The Love Around,” Simone – “Mabsouta.” “Two killer reissues on Thank You and Miss You, two Sound Metaphors sub-labels run by Castro Moore & Nemo Ripoll. I found the Sounds Metaphors record store in Berlin this past October, and I fell in love with its vibe, selection, and sub-labels with the straightforward and cool names: Thank You, Miss You, Bless You, Have A Nice Day.”
Do you send tracks back and forth until things start to fall into place?
A: We are always sharing our new music with each other and putting it all together in one playlist. Depending on the situation, we can meet at mine or Ju’s place to record the radio show, find the first track to set the mood, and go from there. We usually have guests on our radio shows, and we listen to our guest’s mix first and improvise on a theme inspired by our guests. For example, in our episode with Leroy Burgess, the whole show was 100% about him; our part was a retrospective of his works from the early ’70s to his latest releases. We often make radio shows featuring our friends’ music—young musicians and composers from Moscow, artists like Dima Ustinov, Maria Teriaeva, or Lipelis.
J: Some shows happen easily and quickly; others can be rather painful in terms of the amount of time we spend and the music we have. Working on shows motivates us always to keep our ears open and actively look for music. It’s a diary of our lives, too. That is the main framework. Living in different parts of the world changed how we work on shows. Early on, when we had just started on Deep Frequency, we would always get together and record the show side by side. Later, we created a routine of exchanging music over the internet (thus adding an extra step of ripping records to be able to share them with each other). There is always some sort of flexible division of labor.
A: Living in different countries didn’t stop us; in some ways, it even helped by giving us access to a broader music and record universe. Julia was living in New York, where she had unlimited access to American soul, disco, house, and Brazilian records. I was traveling through Europe, the Near East, and Asia, looking for new records. Our Australian friends showed us a lot of local artists and labels. This worldwide approach and endless research gave us a big picture of the music universe. Every music exchange before an episode of the radio show is like unwrapping a Christmas gift.
You’ve had many guest hosts over the years, and you’ve done different collaborative work with other DJs and record collectors. Sam Shepherd, known as Floating Points, is a close friend and a frequent name popping up in conjunction with Javybz. How did the two of you initially get connected with him? Where have some of your adventures together taken you? Any notable digging moments with him?
J: We met Sam in Brooklyn around 2010, I think when Anya came to visit me. We had a new radio show episode coming up, and one of the songs we played in it was by Floating Points. It was the track “Argonaut” off one of his earlier releases. After recording the episode, we realized that he was playing at the Mister Saturday Night party at the Mercer Hotel in Brooklyn that night and decided to go. The next day was the Loft 45th Anniversary Party, which also happened to be Anya’s birthday. We went there to celebrate and meet him again.
Floating Points – Elaenia. “Solo debut album by Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points, and a very special record for us featuring the Marmishes theme.”
“Sam built a three-pendulum harmonograph connected by fiber-optic cables to light sources that respond to the music to create the album artwork and this insert.”
A: Since then, we have taken several road trips with Sam. We are always happy to see each other, and we’re always thinking about trips we would like to do together. We adore road trips, and one of our favorites was in August 2013 when we traveled through the States, digging every day in a new city. Sam played new records on his portable turntable while we were driving. Sam is now a good driver, so it’s his turn to take the wheel and let us play the records.
Dag Vag – 7 Lyckliga Elefanter. “I got this in Stockholm with the help of Tom from Mount Liberation Unlimited on our record-digging trip to one of his spots in town while looking for something local. At the same time, I got an ethnographic recording of the traditional Swedish instrument Spilapipa (Shepherd’s pipe) and a story from the store owner with it.”
Savant – “Stationary Dance / Sensible Music.” “This is one of the two records ever made by Savant, a band created by electronic music pioneer Kerry Leimer and multi-instrumentalist Marc Barreca. In “Stationary Dance,” you can hear the loop made from David Tudor’s storytelling from John Cage Assisted By David Tudor’s Variations IV Volume II.”
You have been involved with his reissue label, Melodies International, and have brought some hard-to-find albums and singles back into the hands of listeners. What are some standout reissues you are proud of with Melodies International?
J: All Melodies International releases are very special to us. The earlier reissues bring back memories of all the road trips we did together and of that period when we were discovering those sounds, hearing them for the first time on portable turntables or at parties. The first one by Aged In Harmony gave the name to the label and the parties. Sam, Mafalda, Richie (Love On The Run), Darren (Red Greg), Layla and Elliot are all instrumental to the label and actually the ones who make things happen. I personally worked on the Jack Jacobs 45 story. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn much about that particular 45, but we talked to his son and friends, and they shared their memories of Jack. Most of the Melodies releases come with Melozine! There, you can read the story of the original 45 copies that inspired the reissue.
Jack Jacobs – “I Believe It’s Alright.” “Sam found the original 45 by Jack Jacobs during one of our digging trips to Philly. While returning to New York, we listened to our finds on the portable turntable connected to the car audio system. I liked it the most, so he gave it to me. That copy then made quite a journey, told in full in the Melozine, which accompanies this excellent reissue on Melodies International.
“It was one of those magical moments. Other sellers saw him coming and they had to stop me, and when I turned my head and saw this gentleman from the jazz section running toward me with a copy of Steve Kuhn in his hands…it was like a slow-motion scene in a movie. We hugged and everyone around us started to applaud.”
What about other friends and collaborators? Who are some of your favorite people to work with? Who would you really love to work with or have on the show?
A: We love collaborating with musicians and DJs whose music we love and listen to. It doesn’t matter how prominent and well-known the artist is; if we love and support their work, we would love for them to be our guest on the show. Our favorites include Dima Ustinov, Maria Teriaeva, Lipelis, Odopt, and record collectors Timur Omar and Artem Krapivin. We have made three radio shows with Gigi Massin, which looks like that will become a tradition.
I love our guest mixes; they are so different and unpredictable. Arturs Liepins (Domenique Dumont) gave us a very special episode. Also, I love and will be happy to repeat episodes with Floating Points and Hunee, Georgian producer Gacha Bakradze, Esa, Andras, Leroy Burgess, and Ariel Kalma…there are so many. Our latest collaboration with Laraaji for NTS was something new and special. It was the first time we had an hour-long interview via Zoom with an artist from another corner of the Earth.
It’s hard to choose your favorite shows. It’s easier to look ahead and dream about who we’d love to make a show with. Larry Heard, Patrick Adams, Vladimir Ivcovic, Dam Funk, David Byrne, Dima Pantyushin, Nosedrip, Dazion, Ryuichi Sakamoto & Eduard Artemiev, Bullion, Jamie Tiller, Paddy Mcaloon, Ariel Rosenberg, Geoffrey Landers, Antal, Pharoah Sanders, Tim Lawerence…some names sound surreal, but I never forbid myself to dream.
J: I would love to add Richie (Love On the Run), Mafalda, and the Melodies crew. And then there’s Yuki & Kamui—sharing music and collaborating with them is always excellent.
Maria Teriaeva – Focus. “Solo debut LP from a Moscow-based composer and musician Maria Teriaeva, who uses the Buchla synthesizer as a framework for her music, combining it with acoustic instruments and voice. I got the record first from a friend who pressed it at his record plant in Latvia. Later, Maria gave me the missing part, its cover, reproduced by RR Gems Records from Estonia.”
Mikhail Chekalin – A Bathroom For Esthete. “This is a 2019 compilation of Soviet Grail records. We found this one at the Biit Me record store in Riga last year. Only one copy was available, so we had to flip a coin. Mikhail Chekalin is a Russian experimental musician and composer. There are great retrospectives of his work on the Russian label Gost-Zvuk.”
“International Record Store Day by Dima Pantyushin for the vinyl market organized by Enthusiast Records at the Enthusiast Cafe in Moscow. Music Archeology for the listening sessions project under the same name in Stockholm.”
Let’s get back to crate digging. Give us your stories. Your most significant finds, the ones that got away, the unlikely, the memorable. What are some of the stories you keep coming back to? The ones you still can’t believe?
J: For me, the most memorable stories are adventures with friends—the road trips and other travels we did together while looking for records. The most significant find is always the record that opens your mind musically or the one that you can’t stop listening to.
I remember finding the original J. R. Bailey’s Just Me ‘N You in Seattle. It was my first dollar bin find. Then, there was a record store in Virginia. The owner just got a 45 collection from some record distributor from the ’70s, and he had all these unsorted boxes. He let me through them first, picking anything I wanted for a dollar apiece. That was very exciting! There were some nice mint 45s.
Another memorable moment was when I got to exchange a Skrillex LP for a rare private modern soul EP from Delaware. Thanks to Eilon, who negotiated and suggested the deal. This was on the Dust & Grooves trip in 2013. The modern soul EP was on the wall and of no particular interest to the owners, while we had some records to giveaway (including the Skrillex LP that we were not sure how to go about). So it ended up being a win-win situation, and in my first ‘serious’ record swap, one of my friends started joking that I had reached “a new level of record collecting.”
Some stories are not as good. Once, my friend and I got a tip about a record dealer in Philly. It was pretty late when we arrived at his house, and after ten minutes or so at his place, we realized that he didn’t have anything we were looking for, which felt quite embarrassing. We were left with just one 45 record by Peter Brown for $2.
When I did a road trip across the country, I made friends daily through music and records. That was so unexpected and welcomed. Meeting all these fantastic collectors, music people, and store owners who would share knowledge and very unique sounds. That was an important educational and mind-opening moment for me. I learned so much. There are so many music scenes and genres. I remember meeting people who were very much into documenting their local music history, and they would share one-of-a-kind recordings and stories, sometimes magazines, posters, video footage, and other unique ephemera.
Roland Und Die »Dadadogs« – Self-tilted. “Big Piece – Big Peace‘ on this record is one of my favorite tracks ever. Roland Schaeffer, a member of Guru Guru, wrote it. As with almost all of my Krautrock records, it was found at the Utrecht Record Fair, which we try to visit every year.”
A: The most memorable stories have happened on our road trips and travels. I believe that “my” record will always find me, and it has proven true many, many times—one of the most bright examples involved Steve Kuhn. We were lucky to meet him in person, but it was easier to find him than his 1971 self-titled LP. Finally, after years of searching, I found a copy at the Utrecht record fair. After asking every seller about it for two solid days, just when I was ready to leave with only five minutes left before the closing of the fair, a jazz seller tracked me down amidst this huge hangar packed with people, and he had a copy with a handwritten note by Steve on a sleeve. It was one of those magical moments. Other sellers saw him coming, and they had to stop me. When I turned my head, I saw this gentleman from the jazz section running toward me with a copy of Steve Kuhn in his hands. It was like a slow-motion scene in a movie. We hugged, and everyone around us started to applaud.
J: In hindsight, we’re pretty sure the seller was Mr. Archer, who, some years later, recommended that I get “Peace Piece” by Bill Evans. He is the kindest and nicest gentleman you can ever meet. If he ever sees this, I would like to send him a hug and a big thank you! Hope he is well.
Steve Kuhn –Steve Kuhn. “Includes two of our all time favorite compositions, ‘The Meaning Of Love’ and ‘Time To Go.’ It was easier to meet Steve Kuhn in New York in person than to find this record. But this copy was waiting for us at the Utrecht Record fair (including the note, written by the artist in 1973).”
Bill Evans – Peace Piece and Other Pieces. “I met a wonderful jazz enthusiast and dealer at the Utrecht Record Fair last spring, Mr Archer! While he didn’t have a copy himself, he told me to look for the Peace Piece by Bill Evans, then added he would bring a copy to the next fair just in case. He touched my heart. I did find this compilation album at the final hour of the fair.”
Julia, let’s go back to the 2013 Dust & Grooves road trip. I was there for the middle leg of it—Minnesota through the Pacific Northwest and down to LA. One stop that stands out to me was with Mickey MacGowan outside of San Francisco, but we had interesting stops nearly every day. What were some highlights for you?
J: There were so many. Dante Carfagna in Chicago, Andy Noble in Milwaukee, Ira Pandos in New Orleans, the Southern Soul Spinners from LA (Ruben Molina and Arlene Sepulveda), our days off in Indiana were very inspiring and interesting, also visiting the estate sale for the first and only time, which felt kind of uneasy.
Then there was this legend Bob Mays in Detroit. This was my second time at his place. Anya, Sam, and I had visited him earlier that same year. Bob Mays used to have a record shop around the 8th Mile for many years, and after being forced to close it in the early 2000s, he moved the records to his home in Hazel Park. He still has visitors from all over the world. He usually sits in his armchair in the living room chain smoking and letting you do your thing, and if you are lucky, he can share some of his poems.
But honestly, we got to meet so many amazing people and see so many amazing places on that trip. I could go on and on. I wouldn’t imagine some of them exist; there is so much history and knowledge, and at the same, so much heart in it. Eddie’s 3 Way in New Orleans and Aikei Pro’s in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Both are institutions and incredible. My music world expanded enormously during those weeks. I have heard all the regional music styles and scenes I had never heard of, as well as so many personal stories. Thanks, Eilon! And thank you, Josiah, for joining us on that trip and sharing that experience.
It’s tea time at Mickey’s place.
Bob Mayes is studying my ‘wishlist’ for that trip.
Tell us more about Eddie’s 3 Way and Aikei Pro’s. What makes them so iconic and special?
When Eddie Sr. opened Eddie’s 3 Way in the ’60s, the shop sold records, newspapers, and shoe shine. That’s how it got its name, Eddie’s 3 Way. Later on, they started distributing some NOLA labels and artists; you could still find copies of Eddie Bo’s stock. Eddie Sr. had a brief Soul Train-style TV show called “The Outer Limits” on a local station and a radio show. His son Eddie Jr, in charge of the store in later years, was hit in the neck by a stray bullet, making it harder to take care of business. Then, the shop was hit by the Katrina and Rita hurricanes. Eventually, all the records were moved to the attic, and visits were only by appointment. To get there, we had to climb the scary extension ladder bravely. And when we got inside, we had to walk on top of the records. It was weird initially, but there was no other way to be up there.
You would need to move something out of the way to look for something, and there was no light. Luckily, I had a headlamp that my friend Javier wisely gave to me before the trip (he is an amazing collector who digs all over South America). I recently read that one of the grandsons planned to re-open the old record shop as a community music center.
Julia digging at Eddie’s 3 Way.
Eddie Jr. standing outside the shop.
Julia holding two loose 45s among the thousands inside the shop.
Aikei Pro’s and its owner, Mr. Caldwell, are other local legends. Located in Holly Springs, the town is known, among other things, for its so-called Hill Country Blues. The originators of the style, R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, were friends with Mr. Caldwell, who played us some of their records and, of course, shared stories. Opened in the ’60s in the old car garage, the shop would have a lot of things on sale, including records, which eventually became the main focus/inventory. Walking inside, you see records everywhere, mixed with old electronics and parts, film cartridges, posters, etc.
Meeting Mr. Caldwell was inspiring. He was born in 1927 and moved to Holly Springs after serving in Germany and Japan in WWII. He was involved in the local Civil Rights movement and championed black-owned businesses; to this day, he keeps looking after the community and cooks at the local church. Aikei Pro’s acts as a sort of gathering place. Mr. Caldwell is very much loved and respected by everyone; people of all ages come to hang out and get advice, some to buy loosies that Mr. Caldwell would sell for 50 cents apiece. International and out-of-town guests are frequent, too. When we arrived, Mr. Caldwell was very welcoming and generous with his time, and in the end, he invited us for dinner at his local spot, Huddle House. Beautiful ending to that day, and it happened to be Eilon’s birthday.
Julia and Mr. Caldwell exchange notes.
“I have some rules for how I organize my records. It’s like a diary, every section represents a period of life, or special places and people. I have my New York period, Utrecht Record fair trips, records released by my friends, records I bought in Tropicalia in Furs or during my trips to Asia, and so on.”
As friends, as Javybz, you wear many hats, including DJing. Tell us about your histories and experiences as DJs. Have there been any “pinch me” moments behind the decks? Any memorable dancefloors?
A: We started to DJ in 2006 and have always played together. Our first gig was at Cult Club. Shortly after that, we were hosting our parties called All Styles All Smiles. 2008 was the first time we played abroad. It was at a Friends and Family party in London with Black Milk from Slum Village. Those firsts at Cult Club and abroad were stressful and unbelievable; we will never forget them.
Then Julia left for NYC, and we couldn’t DJ that often for those five or six years. We sometimes play apart now when one of us can’t be at a gig, but for a long time, we play together or not at all.
When we first learned, we had a very strange way of counting BPMs. One of us would count the beats for the record playing while the other counted beats for the record being mixed in. We would see whose count—or hand motion—was faster or slower, and we would try to match the speed of the incoming record accordingly. Then, we also learned that you could count beats for 15 seconds and multiply it by four to get the number of beats per minute.
One of my favorite memories was from the most recent Love Potion party in Sweden, where we played for a big audience for the first time after a long pause and in the good company of Esa and Dea. I love our gigs at Enthusiast in Moscow; it’s a good place for experiments and new records.
J: There are so many moments to remember. Our parties at the Cult Club were very special. The joy of sharing and learning together, of counting BPMs for each other, and of playing and listening to records side by side is magical.
That being said, DJing is complicated for me, and I wouldn’t identify as a DJ now. This was a bit of an issue between us in later years. After we started doing radio shows, having been apart and not playing for some years, I realized that sharing music via radio shows rather than playing at parties is more interesting and fulfilling for me. The radio show is what I want to invest my energy in going forward.
A: There is no separation between our friendship and Javybz. It was mixed into one thing in 2006 and has remained one ever since.
Puncture – “Massage Massage.” “Comedians formed the debut album by the Puncture band from a popular ’80s Israeli radio show. The track is a killer cover of Desireless’s ‘Voyage Voyage‘ song. Found in Tel Aviv by our close friend, Ilya Simonov. It belongs to Ilya, but it’s stuck at my place.”
Do you have favorite labels? Producers? Years? What have been some of your favorite moments in recorded music?
A: Our favorite time frame starts in the ‘70s and runs into the present day. We love all kinds of genres, producers, and labels. It’s hard to name a favorite because we don’t limit ourselves. We love new small independent labels; they have only two releases but are perfect. Some examples would be Fri Form, Groovedge, and Sound Metaphors, which have been reissued on four sublabels: Miss You, Bless You, Thank You, and Have a Nice Day. We would highlight Music From Memory, run by Jamie Tiller—music choice, storytelling, artists he works with, and the main idea of the label, which is perfect.—Also, there is Stroom, which Nosedrip runs. And as Julia said earlier, all Melodies International releases are special to BS.
J: There are many influential major and medium-sized record labels with big productions and artists from the ‘60s-90s. Then, there are self-released records and independent labels. This honest, sometimes naive effort—a bit obscure or outsider music—interests me a lot. Many are also very inventive or present interesting take on something popular then. These days, so many suitable labels put out new music and excellent reissues, too. As for the reissues, I like it when they are accompanied by storytelling or put into context. Numero Group is excellent at that, including Melodies, Music from Memory, Seance Center, and Analog Africa, to name a few. It is also essential that those labels do it officially and find artists if they are lucky or relatives. Some of those releases bring the deserved attention to the music and musicians that were not recognized then and even start a new artistic journey for some.
A: I like to watch projects in development and perceive the concept of a particular label with its artists, design, and attitude—to look beyond particular releases. For people who are listening to our show, it’s pretty clear that we never stop exploring disco, jazz, soul, reggae, and krautrock heritage of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Still, we are also deep into new productions, music made by young contemporary producers who are creating music here and now.
Evans Pyramid – Evans Pyramid. “The Evans Pyramid anthology on Cultures of Soul & the original “Never Gonna Leave You” single on Funk Records.”
As Javybz looks to the future, what is on the horizon? What would each of you like to see happen?
A: We joke that we will be making All Styles All Smiles till the age of 90 if we still have our hearing. It will be cool to improve our radio shows more and more: more interesting guests, stories and beautiful records. I would love to play together at festivals in different corners of the world. We are thinking about a Javybz Japanese tour or an Australian tour. We will see!
J: All Styles, All Smiles when we’re 90+ would be great. We recently tried a new format in our show, which was a wonderful experience and very new to us. The show’s first hour featured our conversation with Beautiful Laraaji, while in the second hour, we played a selection of his music. Shaping one hour of an interview out of a few hours and trying to make it a compelling story was challenging but something we’re looking forward to. This first time, we were extremely lucky with our guest, who was so very generous with his time and presence and is a brilliant storyteller.
Boban Petrović – Žur, Oliver Mandić – Probaj Me, More – More, KIM Band – Ne, Zaista Žurim. “These all came from the Yugovinyl store at different times.”
Oliver Mandić – Probaj Me. “The record was found at the Yugovinyl during a three-hour short connection between flights in Belgrade. Our friend Nenad Markovic was waiting for us at the airport, one of fast digging and some favorite Yugoslavian records were found. Oliver Mandić was among them.”
“I try not to make impulsive purchases. The choice is easy for me: if I love the record, I need it. And even if the whole world tells me that I need to have this or that record, I’ll skip it if I don’t feel it.”
Tell us about your record collections. What kinds of rules do you have for yourselves as collectors? How are they organized?
J: My record collection, for the most part, is still in storage in New York, waiting to be shipped to Moscow. I don’t think I have rules as a collector; just enjoy the journey. Records are the best for discovery, especially for earlier music. There are a lot of records that got into my collection by way of research of a new artist or music period, by the look of the cover or label. I like giving records a chance, and sometimes, you must be guided by visual clues or familiar names. I guess it somewhat reflects that life and music adventure I’ve been lucky to take part in.
A: I have some rules for how I organize my records. It’s like a diary; every section represents a period of life or special places and people. I have my New York period, Utrecht Record fair trips, records released by my friends, records I bought in Tropicalia in Furs or during my trips to Asia, and so on. When my friends, who are also collectors, come to my place and try to understand the logic, I see the perplexity on their faces: why the krautrock record next to jazz or new age with Yugoslavian disco? But it doesn’t work for me any other way. If I changed the logic, I would be searching for a record for ages.
I try not to make impulsive purchases. The choice is easy for me: if I love the record, I need it. And even if the whole world tells me that I need to have this or that record, I’ll skip it if I don’t feel it. A while ago, I started living a very minimalistic lifestyle. I prefer to have less and keep the best, which goes for my records, too. I’ve just opened a record store with my friends in Moscow called Enthusiast Records and some of my records have been moved there.
Joao Donato – Quem E Quem, Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges – Clube Da Esquina, Jorge Ben – Bem Vinda Amizande. We got some of the great Brazilian records from Tropicalia In Furs.
Carlos Fire Aguasvivas – Eclipse Of The City, The Mercury Band – I Can’t Stop My Love, Stroer – Stroer, The Rationals – The Rationals, William S. Fischer – Circles. “A selection of records from the several Utrecht Record Fair trips.”
Epo – Compact-Club, Ryuichi Sakamoto – Ongaku Zukan (Music Encyclopedia). “Tibetan Dance‘ is an original 1984 version by Ryuichi Sakamoto and a version by Epo. Got both of them in Japan, probably at the Revelation Time record store in Osaka. Great shop.”
Ryuichi Sakamoto “Steppin’ Into Asia.” “I Just love this 7-inch with young Ryuichi’s pic. Vocals on this record are by Akiko Yano, a Japanese pop and jazz singer always compared to Kate Bush, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s wife for more than 20 years and the mother of Miu Sakamoto.”
Where are you buying records these days? Are you still digging? Do you have favorite shops? Discogs? eBay?
J: Most of the digging now is happening when we’re traveling. We always try to check the record shops and meet new people wherever we go. We still go to record fairs like Utrecht, the biggest one in Europe. Bandcamp is also an amazing place to discover music.
A: Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of record stores in Moscow, but everywhere we go for work or vacation, we always find time to dig, and sometimes, it takes up all our time. If I had to pick a favorite record store, it would have to be Red Light Records in Amsterdam. I also find a lot of good records at the Utrecht Record Fair.
What are your deep-down favorite records of all time? Is there one that you just can’t help but love a little more than all the rest?
A: I don’t have a favorite record, or I have too many favorites. A few of the most played records in my life would be Steve Kuhn, John Martyn’s Sunday’s Child, Takashi Kokubo’s A Dream Sails Out To Sea, Roland Und Die »Dadadogs«, Robert Ashley’s Private Parts, Mark Lockett/Janet Sherbourne’s Slower Than Molasses, The Reels’ Beautiful.
J: Same here. There are too many great and special records; picking just one—or a select few—feels impossible. But if I had to try, I would say that Sonya Spence’s Sings Love is a very special record for me. I heard the track “Let Love Flow On” for the first time in a mix I got on a CD. This was many years ago. Richie made the mix called “Love On The Run.” There was no tracklist, so I found Richie on MySpace and asked him about this one. He was very kind and excited to share some facts about the record. Then, I moved to New York, and we met. We are friends forever now.
Steve Kuhn’s self-titled album with “The Meaning of Love‘‘ and “Time to Go.” Pharoah Sanders’s track “Harvest Time” on Pharoah. Arthur Verocai’s 1972 album and some other recordings he worked on, as well as Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges, Steve Reich, Gill Scott-Heron, Larry Heard, Patrick Adams, countless soul 45s, and independent artists who made just one or two recordings. There are so many; the list could go on and on.
Takashi Kokubo – A Dream Sails Out To Sea (Get At The Wave). “Japanese ambient, intended to promote a luxury air conditioner line from Japanese electronic giant Sanyo. The album was meant to transport the consumer into a paradise from the heat. Takashi Kokubo is a musician whose music touched all Japanese people because he composed nationwide phone alerts to warn of upcoming earthquakes.”
Luzmila Carpio – Canción Española, Lucio Battisti – Songs. “We love almost all records we have in the Javybz collection, no matter who found what, but these two could probably fall into the ‘most hated’ category: Anya doesn’t love Luzmila, Julia can’t listen to Lucio.”
What record have you been searching for forever but still haven’t been able to secure a copy of? What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a record?
A: I think about the price only when I buy it, and the day after, I can completely forget its price. Money was gone; a record is here. That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than €200. Maybe they cost more on Discogs now, but I have my internal limiter. It’s more important to know than to possess.
J: I do have a wishlist, but it’s more of a reminder to look for them when I’m out in the world. I agree with Anya that it is not about possession; it’s rather about knowing that music is important for both of us. My spending range is about the same. I can see exceptions, though, such as when you work on a project and do need that copy or if it is a gift for a friend that would make them happy. It could also be some unique record you feel you might never see again, and it is important to ensure it is preserved. I really appreciate the effort of people who are documenting music from their local communities and areas or particular cultural scenes and traditions. It is important knowledge that we all benefit from, and it helps to tell stories that are otherwise untold.
Lani Hall – Sun Down Lady. A record so strong they both wanted to hold it up.
Javybz is the deep-digging-experienced duo of Anya Karmanova & Julia Rodionova. Anya and Julia host a monthly radio show, All Styles All Smiles, on NTS; listen to their 10-year Anniversary Show now.
Interview edited by Sam Cohen.
3 Comments
15gramzbhmg
Boban my dude and KIM..black dude from the hood listening to Yugoslavian funk!!!lololol Awesome interview
15gramzbhmg
P.s....they know Mickey's place awesome always wanted to go there!!