Night People: Mark Ronson on DJing & 90s New York

Welcome to the Service 95 book club with me, Dua Lipa. Honestly, reading has been an anchor through every phase of my life, and this book club is a way of sharing that joy. Every month, I'll spotlight a book I've loved and sit down with the author for an open and honest conversation about the themes, the characters, and the world they've created. And because I've had the pleasure of speaking with so many brilliant writers already, I'll be opening the archive and bringing back one gem each month. So pour a glass, grab your book, and let's get into it. I know this isn't a therapy session. It always turns into a... I feel like we need to talk about our parents. Yeah. And really, my first memory is of Robin Williams actually coming into my bedroom, because my mother must have dragged him back from the club. Robin, my son loves Mork and Mindy. You must come back, you know? At school in New York, you were called a commie. Yeah. While back in London, you were teased for sounding like a yank already. And this kind of dual identity, I guess, is something that I feel very familiar with, you know, growing up both between the UK and Kosovo. For someone who grew up amid chaos and uncertainty, the DJ booth was the perfect refuge. A one-man command center where every fader and dial bent the world to my will. I love the Service 95 book club so much. And occasionally I get to interview one of my really good friends. So will you guys please join me in giving a very warm welcome to DJ, producer, songwriter, and now author, Mark Ronson. Thank you. And I also love Service 95 Book Clubs, so thank you for having me on here. It's my pleasure, and Mark is here tonight to join us to talk about his incredible memoir, Night People, How to Be a DJ in 90s New York City, which is my January monthly read. and we're going to get into the book shortly but firstly I want to say thank you so much to the Chelsea Hotel for hosting us here tonight when Mark and I first started discussing the idea for the event we thought maybe we'd do one of Mark's old haunts and how fun that would be but then we realized that Buddha Bar is now a paint store Shelter is now a kitchen showroom and Tilt is a Dunkin Donuts So, thank God for the Chelsea Hotel. I've always been very obsessed with this place. It's such a massive part of the history of the art scene in New York City, and, I don't know, a shelter and a mecca for creatives. And, Mark, you are firmly a part of the artistic legacy of this city, so I just couldn't think of a better place for us to do this conversation. So, Night People. Yes. I loved this book and I don't know if you remember but you gave me an early copy and I took it with me I went to Jamaica for my birthday and I was so obsessed with it I kept reading parts out aloud to Callum my fiance and so it just ended up we ended up reading the whole book together all the way through we were like obsessed with it we couldn't he couldn't wait for me to finish so we just we just did it together but we were just so completely immersed in the journey. And I was kind of nervous to read it because I know how much time and effort you put into it. I feel like when we were in the studio, you were just so focused on the book and it was, it's something that I felt like really consumed you and you took a lot of time with it. And I don't know, from the second I started it, it was just such a ride. And I just feel like you accomplished exactly what you set out to do. Which is write a book. And do it really well. It was really impressive. I was so nervous to give you the book because I think it's so amazing what you've done with Service 95. And I know you're such a voracious reader and I know you're fucking smart as hell and you're such a literate person. So I was like, I can't give Dua Lipa like my book that I just read about DJing. And also because you're so lovely and we're friends that, you know, when you give somebody something and you've just made it, whether it's like sending someone a song you just made or a track i didn't hear back from you because guess what you're a fairly busy person and and i didn't hear back for like a week and then maybe it was two weeks maybe it was three weeks and i was like she hates the book it's so bad she like read the first three pages she was like i can't read this because i don't know how to tell it what you know just all those thoughts that like go through your head and then i saw you post a picture from holiday about it was like reading it and i was like yeah so i was so it meant so much to me when you had the reaction you did to the book because I had all the things I wanted to cover in this music passion and and New York and certain things and knowing you're a critical reader was it meant so much when you said you liked it yeah no well I I loved it and I want to start um I want to start at the beginning okay um and I want to talk about your early childhood in London and um I know this isn't a therapy session um i feel like we need to talk about our parents yeah um you've said what's the i've made you say it before but your amazing joke on snl when you did the monologue and you said about your parents because this rings true for me too yeah well i said um it was it was something along the lines of um going to a nightclub here in new york actually and bumping into my parents and And the joke was that there's nothing worse than being high and drunk at two o'clock in the morning and bumping into your daughter. So, yeah. Let's talk about our parents a little bit. You've said that you knew that grown-ups were more fun at night. And you describe your parents, Anne and Lawrence, as night people. And as we've just figured out, this is very relatable to me. so for the benefit of those in the audience who have very normal parents please tell us how you define night people well um my parents were you know when you're a kid you don't know any other lifestyle so at the time obviously i didn't know it was crazy that my parents they were this young couple my dad worked in music he had money he didn't they were this cool couple they went to party they were friends with rock stars they like to do drugs um and and so they would there was this nightclub in london at the time that was called tramp which was like the spot so it was like keith moon and the queen it was like you know a kind of crazy maybe not the queen but like a duchess or something and um and they would all come back to our house which is on this street in london called circus road which was obviously a fitting name for a house that was basically a circus and I would wake up in the middle of the night and come down and there would be 50 people in my house and loud music playing and it was all this and it was fun I loved music I loved the reverie of it and you know this kid pat you on the head as you're walking around the room that grown up smoking cigarettes and you know sniffing god knows what off the piano and um and uh and and that was very exciting to me because my parents were also they did get married too young and with going out and partying we knows what goes out must come down and the days were a very fraught unpleasant place to be in my household you know a lot of fighting shouting and and just like i just remember walking on eggshells for like my entire zero to years five in the daytime but nighttime was fucking fun as hell right so so it's kind of set this tone i think in in yeah of the way that i looked at the evening and really my first memory is of the night and uh robin williams actually coming into my bedroom to wake me up because my mother must have dragged him back from the club. And Robin, my son loves Mork and Mindy. You must come back, you know? And Mork and Mindy was literally the biggest thing in the world at that time, of course. And yeah, I remember him waking up and Robin Williams is over me, tucking me into bed. And yeah, it was obviously surreal. Yeah, your mom's really fabulous. I remember the first time I met her was actually not through you at all, was I met Mark's mom on a night out. And I was in London, I was at Chilton Firehouse, and I was hanging out, and she's a fabulous lady comes up to me, and she's like adorned with all these amazing jewelry. And she comes up and she introduces herself as Mark's mom. She goes, I'm Anne Dexter Jones, I'm Mark's mother. I was like, well, it was so nice to meet you. I was like, let's have a drink. She comes, she sits down. I was like, I love your jewelry. And she had this one piece, I'll just never forget it, ever, ever, ever. And this is, I think it's such a testament to night people because she has had this amazing, what looked like a watch. It was like this, yeah, it was a watch, bracelet, jewelry thing. And I said, what is that? And she said, oh, it's my watch, but it's a midnight watch. I was like, what do you mean? And I'm looking at it and there's just one hand on it. And it's permanently on midnight. Yeah. So you'll never know if it gets any later than that. It's always midnight. And it was just the best thing. She loves you. I was a bad son tonight, and I only let her know this was happening like three hours beforehand. No. And she sent me back. She's like, well, I'm sad to say I've just made a plan, and I'm really sad because I love Dua. So sweet. But yeah, I think night people, it makes perfect sense for that and that to kind of be such an inspiration also So just throughout and, you know, with music trickling into your life, that being inspiring and that being one of the things that you want to like dive into. Yeah, yeah. And then and then, of course, I mean, not till later in the book, but the dark side of that and the sort of like thread of some addiction and things like that. Oops, that ran through. But it was it was definitely the night was like from an early age. It's like, that's what I want to do. That's what I want to do, yeah. This book, for me, kind of completes a trilogy of sorts. I talked to Patti Smith about Just Kids, her incredible memoir set in 1970s New York, and then I spoke to Jennifer Clement, who's here tonight, about her book Widow Basquiat, which is another memoir which is set in 1980s New York. And now we have Night People from you about DJing in New York City in the 90s. and I didn't really know how much we needed this third act until I read your book, and like Patty and Jennifer, you kind of really described this artistic scene that, I don't know, it feels very poignant for a very particular time, and I feel like it's really in conversation with these two books. Have you read either of those books, and were you conscious of that? Jennifer's book is on my list. I've only seen the most incredible things. Obviously, all of Paddy's books are just like, you know, some of the greatest books of the last 50 years. So I feel very honored to be in that company. So now I'm going to go home and read The Widow Basquiat. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah. But just to be put in that company. Maybe Jennifer's got a coffee for you tonight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to take a moment for a reading as there's a passage that I think really sets the tone for the whole book, and your love affair with DJing. And it's when you talk about the thrill of having control of the room and the absolute joy on the dance floor. Okay. Yeah. Okay, I'll read. Okay. I'm usually in the booth and Dua Lipa's on the mic and I'm hitting record. This is a new thing. Okay. So this is sort of early in the book. You're in the club. The DJ is holding it down steady. The blends are clean, if predictable, is seven out of ten. But you're with your crew, and you know the one song that would spark a pretty pandemonium. You make your move, weaving through the crowd, navigating slosh drinks, wobbly heels, and an elbow to the ribs until you're at the booth. You tap the DJ on the shoulder. She turns, her face equal parts, curiosity and dread. No DJ is ever pumped to see a random approaching. Yeah, she says. Hey, it's my friend's birthday, and we were wondering if you could play My Neck, My Back by Kia. It's a lie, of course. But the DJ excels, relieved you're not the fifth person to request don't stop believing that night. Got you, she says, fingers flying already across the laptop, queuing it up. You head back to your table. And then, two tracks later, the opening bars hit. All you ladies pop your pussy like this. The first 808 snare jump pierces the air. The whole place knows Kia's filthy sing-along better than their own social security numbers. From the windows to the wall around every bankette and booth, everyone is up on their feet. By the time the beat drops and the hook lands, the walls shake like they might come down. You're in the center of it all, hands on knees and catch your breath for a moment. You stand there, drunk on power. And Grey Goose, but mostly power. The first time you feel this sensation, nothing compares. You think to yourself, this isn't like sex. It's like sex with 300 people at once. A high fueled by our strongest instincts. connection belonging sharing and compassion Yes compassion You giving the room a feeling they didn know they needed when they stepped out their doors and the joy is reciprocal Passing back and forth like an endless feedback loop of human happiness. Or some shit like that. It's hard to articulate you're a little tipsy. And then there's the control. Oh, how I loved the control. For someone who grew up amid chaos and uncertainty, the DJ booth was the perfect refuge. A one-man command center where every fader and dial bent the world to my will. Validation, belonging, my years DJing in 90s New York City blessed me with an endless abundance of those. And then there was the music itself, Gangstar, Tribe Called Quest, The Meter's public enemy Stevie Wonder. At 17, I knew I'd never be able to rhyme like Q-Tip or bang out beats as raw as Pete Rock's, but I could play their music and shaped something out of my devotion using two techniques, 1200s and a mixer. Those tools were my first love, and this is a story about that love, the thing that's informed everything I've done since. It's a tale of 90s New York, a time when DJing wasn't about being a Spotify lord, punching play on your biggest tunes in Vegas for 200 stacks. Rather, it was the domain of faceless maestros who knew a disco classic like Players Association turned the music up, as well as they knew Junior Mafia's play as Anthem, and we played both in the Lower East Side for $150 a night. Alongside my fellow DJs, I worked batshit hours, dealt with lunatic club owners, and carted hundreds of pounds of vinyl up five flights of stairs four times a week in order to spend most nights in a tiny booth all alone. My eardrums emerged battered, and there were other costs too. But it was all worth it for that feeling. I was 10 years old when I got my first hit of it. In 1985, after several years together, my mother Anne and stepfather Mick decided to get married. There was no band, no DJ. Even though my stepdad Mick was the lead guitarist in the rock band Foreigner, the music at his own wedding seemed an afterthought. Some tapes played through a couple large speakers in the garden, and then as the sun began to set, the music stopped entirely. Mick turned to me. Mark, go put something on. This was the most profound responsibility that I could have been given. I was obsessed with audio equipment. My happiest times with Mick were in his home studio. I'd sit quietly for hours as he recorded demos, watching his hands turn dials and flip switches. When I was there, I was untouched by the worries and unease of the outside world. So when Mick handed me this task, I felt the fate of the party in my hands. I bolted into the house where a messy pile of cassettes lay scattered on the floor. I dove into them, tossing aside Taj Mahal, Robert Cray, too bluesy, too niche. I needed something universal, something perfect. Timepieces, the best of Eric Clapton. I flipped it over, scanned the track listing, and there it was, Wonderful Tonight. My mother loved that song. Even at 10, I knew the lyrics were a fit. I jammed the cassette into the player and pressed play, and the first notes of Clapton's guitar drifted from the speakers. and I felt the rush of knowing I'd chosen this song. Mick reached for my mother. She looked almost luminescent, her white dress glowing under the rising moon. He pulled her into a slow dance as Clapton bent the notes to make his guitar sing. For the first time in my life, I knew I'd done something right. I love that. That kind of, that feeling of getting something right getting the mood going that it's almost like um like the nod of i don't like a pride thing yeah it's it's i mean for so there's so many djs and for so many different reasons like you love music you want to be celebrated you need the validation and belonging of like like some cool older guy in the club nodding to you when you play the right song and yeah and then i used it as a drug as well I love the idea of working a group of people in front of me into a fever pitch and watching them get more and more high off the music. So it was like I was actually having a conversation with my therapist. He's kind of like a tough love therapist. And he was like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm writing this book about DJing. Oh, yeah, what's it about? Connection. He goes, connection? You? Maybe more compulsion. And I was like, yeah, fair point. Like, you know, just that idea of like wanting to like just, yeah, I got high off getting people excited. Yeah. And so you moved to New York when your mom met your stepfather, Mick, who from your reading, you also said incidentally was a famous rock star with the band Foreigner at the time. And you talk about not really feeling like you fit in. At school in New York, you were called a commie. While back in London, you were teased for sounding like a yank already. And this kind of dual identity, I guess, is something that I feel very familiar with, you know, growing up both between the UK and Kosovo. And I guess, yeah, that sense of validation, I wonder if you can identify ways in which you feel like maybe that feeling of wanting to fit in also shaped you wanting to chase this... Yeah. ...the music, really, wanting to become a DJ and have that feeling of validation, having done something right. Yeah, I definitely did, because I played guitar in this high school band, and we were decent for high school band. We played wetlands and gigs around it. I was easily the least technically talented person in my band. Everybody was like a shredder. But I would print up all the flyers at Kinko's and produce our demos, and like i had the hustle ambition but i i knew that there was this thing that i loved in music but i'd never had anything say like you might be good at this like i had there was no revelatory moment where it was like i should be doing this it was like oh yeah oh here comes my guitar solo again i hope i don't up and then djing was this thing that i fell in love with the music but then it was the first time i was in a room and and got that sense like oh i could be good at this or like and just that little nod from like some cool hip-hop teen in an Ava Rex jacket because I played the Wu-Tang song and he just like gave me a look and I was like and I just I I love that I I don't want to take away from how much I love the music but I really did I I did love the the validation of it yeah and I think also like just to push through and to have that resilience takes quite a lot you know you can have a passion and you can have a dream and you can have something that you love, but just being able to really go for that takes a lot, I think, sometimes. So you have to really, really want it. And whether that's the validation or the love of music or both of those combined at the same time, I know for me, at least in some ways to want to fit in or be seen felt like, okay, I need to be on the stage and I need to get up and sing every time my parents had someone over. I was like, it's showtime. I've seen the videos. Whatever that was, I think they kind of go hand in hand. It's kind of all the things that shape us and make us who we are, that give us that kind of driving force to push through and actually live our dreams. I can't wait any longer. Let's get into these clubs. Let's talk about the clubs. You started seriously getting the DJ bug around the early 90s when you were in your late teens. Yeah. And you were hanging out in some really legendary hip-hop clubs like Limelight and Tunnel and Club USA and you were kind of snapping at the heels of your hero, DJ Stretch Armstrong. Yeah. Tell us about that scene. Like, tell us, like, what got you hooked? I mean, it was so many things. I guess New York was sort of this juxtaposition of these giant super clubs, like the tail end of that. So the clubs that you mentioned, Tunnel, Limelight, USA, which were all owned by the same guy, this guy Peter Gation, who was like the king of clubs who Giuliani made it him public enemy number one when he came in as mayor to take this guy down and he did. Giuliani was, and it kind of comes up in the book was such a big part of closing down and changing and making New York shitty. But at that time you had these amazing hole in the wall basement clubs that might be like 100 or 200 people like the underground, like the grimy spots around like the Lower East Side and and then you had um the super clubs and then like a lot of the parties that that I went to to see my friend uh my friend Bill Spector promoter I mean he wasn't my friend at the time but where Stretch Armstrong DJ they would be like one week it would move around one week it would be in like a unused Con Edison substation and then And like the next week it would be like in the space underneath Indosheen. There would always be these incredible giant, you know, warehouses or things that you would, nobody, everybody wanted to do something different, which was like kind of the opposite of what happened when everything became so conformist. So I was just going to all these places. Like I wasn't even old enough to get in. I didn't know half of the people. So people would, you know, I was 18 and I looked like 14. So, you know, I was getting snuck in sometimes or just like ingratiating myself. And then by the time I was 19, 20, I was DJing in some of these clubs. Yeah, I love how in depth and in detail you go into all these experiences. And sometimes I can't even remember what I had for breakfast. And so I know that you write in your acknowledgments that you interviewed hundreds of people for this book. And it really does read the history of a scene and also like a collective memory, I guess, from all this exhaustive research that you did. what was the process of writing this book like for you yeah um i did i i must have called like i spoke to 100 150 people from you know from that time and i i got like very like i i get the feeling you're a bit like this because i know how you plan your day like down to the minute like shower 11 to 11 05 but um i had like this crazy hundreds and hundreds of note cards all over the room with over different like almost storyboarding it out and I knew that the chapters were going to each chapter was going to be like a different club and it was going to go chronologically and I would just call the people that I needed for that chapter because if I started to get ahead of myself you know there was so many people to call and then I think of people and then very sadly some people that I were going to call that I'll call them next month like two or three people passed away like this book has so many people that are not here anymore as well and and even a couple of the past since the book's been out so not to get too sad but it I did want to celebrate a lot of people um but yeah and I would just start to call them and then you know there's people you haven't called in 25 years you can't be like do you remember any funny stories about me like you know like it's and and and nightclubs are like there's no tenure you know like people have had a lot of people haven't made it out on the other pretty side of this scene and it's like earning people's trust and you know talking them a few times before we started talking about um asking questions and stories about the book and stuff but yeah i wanted to um paint the scene as much even though i was writing first person memoir not an oral history like you know one of the nights i remember always hearing about was when i was djing at this club new music cafe and biggie rolled up to the door with 50 people and you know i know this story forever but i never actually went and asked all the security guys and the door guy like what happened which is like what i needed to paint the thing so and then also i'd you know i did a lot of damage to my brain cells since then i needed i needed to ask people questions to and it was also beautiful reconnecting with people as well um and one of the nicest things about this book how it's been out because it's it's it talks a lot about an unsung scene it's not the story of studio 54 where everybody knows bianca jagger came in on a white horse you know these are like people who made new york what it is now who might not be household names to everybody so the nicest thing has been people being like yeah you told our story or like yeah you did the era proud or whatever it is so yeah no i love that i mean i've been in the studio with you so many times and i've seen how you work and it just really seems like you added that same level of discipline to the way that you um you know the same way that you do your producing you seem to do your writing as well and i was just wondering if you had anyone like encouraging you and supporting you throughout the the way or like a mentor of some kind that you would always go to to i don't know get some feedback yeah someone who would read all your um stuff well my my amazing editor colin dickerman who I think is here. Yeah, so Colin was definitely... And I say this in the acknowledgements, but when I read back the stuff that I was sending him the first year I was like how did he not just tear all this up and be like I thrown all this money away this is garbage and he was like i had faith you would find it um and uh and then also my my wife grace here she's she's like you she's such a voracious reader and she's so literate like i didn't want to show her anything in the first few years because i was just like but every now and then she would walk down because i read in the stephen king but like to i mean this is so embarrassing but when i decided i was going to write this book i went into mcnally jackson i was like oh where are the books if you want to write a book and they were like that way so i went in the back and i picked up mary carr's the art of memoir and steven king's yeah and steven king's on on writing i took very to heart the steven king like lock yourself in a basement you know five hours a day um so i locked myself in our basement and every now and then i grace would come down and I'd be like typing away talking to myself and I'd jump as she came down and I'd be but I'd be dictating like and the label said you know and she like what are you doing down there it's still our inside joke to this day like if she'll just cut me off in the middle of talking and being like and the label said like that's um so that was the process yeah um like I mentioned we've worked so many times, several times together. And the first time was when we did Electricity together, which was about eight years ago. And we keep going back into the studio. And I guess the most recent thing that we've made that's come out was the Barbie song, Dance the Night. Yeah. And I'm sure you remember how many times we went back and forth on that. I think I've got PTSD for that actually a little bit. Yeah. It was just so much rewriting. I think we both just felt like the song could have done with so many different little tweaks. and it paid off in the end, but I love writing with you and I feel like you really push every single artist to go that little bit further. I think that's what makes you really special and you get the best out of the people that you work with. But I don't know, I think your knowledge of music and how you're able to blend genres, I think all of that really comes down to all your early experiences and going and playing and DJing in clubs and knowing how to mix and, you know, what vinyls go and carrying all the crates up and down the stairs, you know, all those things, I think they kind of bring in the hardiness and the talent and, like, your ability to be able to create something really unique every time. But what I was wondering was, did you always have kind of the vision that DJing was going to lead to songwriting and producing? no actually so like i said i started out in my school band and this high school band and then i kind of realized you know in some kind of crude realization awakening that is it crude no it's a rude awakenings um i should go back and get some more books from mcnally jackson um that that um i was never going to be like slash or the shreddy guitar player john for shanti or somebody And then I found this thing that was DJing that was this other thing that was still music and I was so passionate about. But it got to the point where like five, six or seven years in that then I did kind of think to myself like, oh fuck, I've lost that thing about making music. I don't make music anymore. anymore. You know, you DJ five nights a week until five in the morning, and you come home, and you stay out partying. You wake up at three in the afternoon. The last thing you're really feeling like doing is like firing up the drum machine to make some music, you know? So it took me a while, and actually in this very roundabout way, but that's how life happens. DJing is what brought me back to making music, because this incredible A&R music impresario, Dominic Chernier, who's also no longer with us but he managed d'angelo and this artist nika costa and he used to come to see me dj in the clubs in the late 90s and i was known at that time now this was like six or seven years and i've kind of become a well-known and also for mixing rock and roll and the white stripes and acdc with biggie and rufus and shaka khan and this is before like mashups and that was like such a common thing and uh and he was like he had this amazing voice like he'd been gargling razor blades since he was six and he was like yo like i got this you know he'd dance over while he was he was always like sweaty but like a really good dancer he was like i got this white chick signed in my label and you know i don't know what an album should sound like but it should feel like one of your dj sets you know like biggie tbmd acdc all that shit and i was like yeah cool like bring her by the house And it was this artist, Nika Costa, and that was the first record that I'd produced and sort of like, you know, kind of made my name with that. Let's talk a little bit more about the clubs because there's one night in particular I want to talk about, and that's a night called Juicy. Yeah. Which was on Sunday nights at the Buddha Bar, and it was a party thrown by Belinda Becker and also Lisa Cooper. Yeah. And what I loved while I was reading about this was they had very, very strict entry rules. It was three women admitted to every man because they believed that parties were better with fewer men around. Yeah, which is true. And you described it as a white hot party. And I was just like, all right, I'm trying to be there. I'm trying to get in that. So just tell me what that was like. Well, Buddha Bar was just amazing. And I say this only from hearsay because I never got in. But there was this rule, and I think it was at three. If you were a guy, you had to come with three women or four women? Three. And I just imagined in my brain this incredible, and Belinda DJing and probably Lenny Kravitz somehow got in, I'm sure, because when he walked into a room, four women just materialized out of thin air. And so me and my friend, but part of the thing when you're 19 or 20, you don't care. So part of what's so fun on a night is like standing outside, not getting in. You know what I mean? And also. So part of the experience. Yeah. And saying like, oh, we're on the, Lenny must have put us on. No. And then also like, you know, rejection and denial are two of New York's most renewable resources. We know that. So you would just stand outside, not get in or imagine how great it was. But Budapar is one of those places really that was it. Was it as magical as I imagined it to be? Yeah, yeah. I DJed at Buddha Bar on other nights, but never on Sunday. Not on Juicy. I was wondering what was the club scene like for women, and particularly for women DJs, and do you think it's evolved much now? It's hard for me to say because I'm not in the clubs as much as I was, but Belinda was one of the great DJs in New York at that time, and there was DJ Kiori. There weren't as many as there were male DJs. it was but belinda and her partner bonnie also uh through the best hip-hop party in all of new york which was cheetah on a monday night and that was that was the craziest night and they charged there it was it wasn't like you didn't have to be come with four women but it was five dollars for um women and fifty dollars for men so so because she knew she could get away with it because everyone wanted to go there so i remember there's this one time that jay-z rolled up and and he's like sort of at the cash register is probably grumbling about the amount and bonnie who's like this you know southern charmer like it's just there and she looks at him she's like i'm pretty sure you're going to be like richer than i could ever imagine in all of my life and jay-z just looked at it and was like yup and handed over 450 dollars and they were both right um so but yeah no it was uh the parties that they did were were incredible and i got to occasionally play at uh a cheat on a monday night and it's it's still one of my favorite memories of of any time of it at that time yeah and you and you eventually um got your own gig at buddha bar which i guess didn't quite go as planned because first of all you sacked off another venue yeah to play there which kind of goes against um like it's like a real it's like a real breach of dj code yeah um and like some form of bad karma you kind of describe uh in your book how there's another dj playing when you first arrive called jeff brown and he says to you i'm sick of all you white boy djs coming around and taking all the gigs yeah um which was a fair gripe as well because you know like in this scene where there were all hip-hop clubs and the club the clubs while they might be like diverse on the dance floor they were mostly in white neighborhoods some club owners were you know kind of like honestly straight up racist others were just like if you're a white dj maybe they you know they felt more comfortable with you too so that time seeing jeff was like was a wake-up call and then we became very good friends and played that night together but yeah i just felt like when when i was reading it it felt like what Jeff said really kind of stuck with you yeah and so I was wondering how aware were you of of that at the time um I I was I was definitely aware of it you know Stretch Armstrong um myself Jules you know a lot of the DJs were white that meanwhile like you know a lot of the promoters were black and you know we all kind of played for each other there wasn't a lot of tension in the scene at all but it was it was when Jeff said that even though it was kind of like shook me because I like I would just go up to his car like hey I think I'm supposed to be playing here tonight and he was like no I'm Jeff Brown who the fuck are you and I was like well what he was like slam the headphones down I'm sick of all you fucking people come around taking the gigs yeah and and it was it was a good um yeah it was a good wake up call as well but it yeah it was and it was something that I wanted to you had to talk about in the book yeah yeah no I I love how candid you are just throughout the book and about the compromises and the missteps and all the things that you did while you were starting out I felt like there was just such an honesty and a realness and a rawness to everything that you were saying and I guess a lot of that is growing pains and learning and understanding your craft and understanding the industry and understanding what that's like and I don't know for me I was just like you know even things like with your friend Sean Lennon um I I just feel I sold out my best friend to get us a gig and like at the new music seminar it was so bad and I don't know if I'd even told him this story and then I finished the book I was like I better just send Sean this chapter you know um yeah I but I I thought it was I don't know it just took quite a lot of courage to to share them like I how like what did that feel like when you were putting it in the book I think I just realized as I started to write it I didn't intend to write an extremely personal book or about taking drugs in the kind of like lows and things like that but I realized as I started to I was like this book will be better if I do these things and and I noticed also like when we're in the studio working on a song and you're like oh if we just put that one extra hook in it like it might be that much better it might be more of a chance of being a hit or whatever we'd say and i realized like each time i was really raw and honest like the book was going to get better even if it was more exposing it was gonna it was gonna be a better book that might resonate more with people so that that was it and then also like writing about my mom you know when i was like 19 and my mom was like showing up to these hip-hop clubs like mom like you know like it was like i was like this snotty kid and then I probably also was you know had this hang up like coming from this rock and roll privileged family uptown trying to make my way in these hip-hop clubs and and uh um as I was writing the book I was like oh my mother's like the funniest person in this book like I need more of her in here you know like and just as I was starting to feel the book form yeah I mean that was something that I loved of course like all the music history because I know you I know how passionate you are about that that was also so exciting for me to see such a I don't know a through line throughout your whole journey but I think the honesty and the rawness really brought your heart and soul to every single moment and you're right sometimes the things that do feel like the most honest are sometimes the most daunting things to talk about but it's what makes it's like the yeah the heart and soul of it so I just I really loved it and and something that I really noticed in the book is there's like there's no gossip in the book there's like yes there's michael jackson throwing soggies out the window yeah um while he was staying at sean lennon's apartment and yeah and yeah i guess you guys know what soggies are they're just like tightly mound wet balls of toilet paper and if you throw them out of a high enough window they will make a It's a devastating sound. And then once you did get told off by Prince for playing sexy motherfucker. Yes. But mostly... I got told off by Prince a lot. I only wrote about one of them in the book But mostly I feel like I don know you rather be like nerding out on the thickness of slip mats Yes that true And where to buy like the best turntable cartridges than who said what to who kind of thing. I think so. And I think that I was also really inspired by Kitchen Confidential, which everybody knows is such an incredible book. and Anthony Bourdain, just the way he writes and the speed and excitement of which he writes about New York at night in a certain profession. But I remember getting to chapter two and it was like suddenly I'm in his life and then suddenly there's a whole chapter about knives. I'm like, I don't give a fuck about knives, but I did at the end of that chapter. I was like, so I think, listen, okay, maybe turntable styluses are not quite as universal needs as knives are, but I thought if I can write about that with the same passion that maybe there's a place also for the craft because I wanted of course I want people to like the book but I was like if I don't get the DJs first like the other DJs then I've really failed like because nobody maybe has written that super nerdy DJ book either so it was important to have that stuff in there's just kind of this really defining moment I feel like in the book where you've just got all these years of hard graft and then it's also about you mastering your craft and I think that's a very very poignant thing to also get into the detailing of what it is to to be a DJ not just about the part but maybe the more technical things as well that are that are important and you know I feel like after after many years you kind of you hold you hold your own in the as a DJ in the scene and it's like there's like this fork in the road it's either you kind of stay on the safe ground and enjoy the success and um you know you keep djing and you're doing that thing that you love or you kind of take this big risk and you and you do something um that will either kill your career in that moment or you pull it off and it sends you stratospheric and there's this this part um in the book because you take take this risk when you're performing oh it's at belinda's club at cheetah on a monday yeah okay i love i love this i love this part would you would you please read that passage in the book for absolutely at this point i've kind of yeah i have i've been djing for five for six years and you know and now i've made my way up this scene that i've been trying to like you know get a foothold in um and i've been playing you know what we all played downtown which was funk soul hip-hop reggae um and then one night i went to this club called spy bar um which was like the first sort of ultra trendy lounge you could argue it was the best place ever the beginning of the end for new york city like the kind of place where it'd be like i mean i remember seeing king at the door turn away donald trump like you would have got in no problem but it was like you know leo kate moss this thing and this huge like chandeliers and this big actually the reason that the room was so crazy that the dimensions of it was because it was a former parking depot for sanitation trucks So you're like, you guys are all partying in a garbage dump, you know? But that was the other thing about New York. You're like, how are these triple height ceilings in the middle of Soho? Okay. So this is this little, just to give a little context. So I'm at Spy Bar one night. And one night, the DJ threw on ACDC's Back in Black, a song I hadn't thought about since I was 13. But hearing it now, I was floored. The sonic clarity, the guitars slicing through the room like a chainsaw. And what was more, it made all these inebriated white people lose their minds, dancing on furniture like they were reenacting the fall of Rome. Spy didn't have a cabaret license, which is what you needed to dance in that time, or Giuliani would try and shut you down. But that didn't stop anyone. Couches, chairs, tables, nothing was off limits. Eventually, Kelly, the owner, hired an antique specialist to work around the clock in the basement, fixing the damage, like a battlefield medic patching up velvet casualties. As I watched this wild scene, a thought crept in. I wonder if I could play this for my crowd. It quickly turned into, I have to play this on Monday, a cheetah. The idea was absurd. Borderline career suicidal, back in black, a cheetah, the hottest hip-hop party on the East Coast. No one, no one played anything like it remotely in their sets. But the seed had been planted. So I spent the rest of the week practicing, obsessing, devising the most bulletproof routine to drop it without ending my career. We'll see. I rode to Cheetah that night charged with nervous energy. This was the pinnacle of Monday nights. Janet Jackson, Prince, Missy, they all rolled up. Cheetah's challenge wasn't just the crowd, it was the setup. The club had a Yuri 1620 mixer, one of the first DJ mixers ever made. It predated hip-hop entirely before Flash even workshopped his first scratch. A rotary mixer, it had big round knobs for each channel, but no crossfader. A nightmare for hip-hop DJs. Picture yourself at a stove, each hand on a knob controlling a flame. Now imagine raising one flame while lowering the other, having to keep the overall temperature exactly the same. That's what playing on the Yuri feels like. When bringing in a new record, you must fade out the current one in perfect sync to maintain constant volume and vibe. At the same time, your hands are darting to the pitch slider to keep the tempos locked in, a delicate balancing act that leaves no room for error. The Yuri forced me to focus on tight blends, though, and that night I was in a zone. Even the Supreme kids, who usually stood sullen on the dance floor waiting for rap, broke their standoff. Classics gave way to old school and then the new shit. As the last available inches of the dance floor filled up, but as the energy built, so did the weight in my chest. This is it. It's the thing I've been preparing for all week, time to put my battle plan into motion. I launch the assault with It's All About the Benjamins by Puff, the Locks, Little Kim, and Biggie. The room erupted as Barry White's ominous one-note guitar riffed and slowed down disco hi-hats ignited the crowd. The front line was secure, morale was high. As the locks trade verses, I prepare my next move, All About the Benjamins, the Shock Caller remix. A corny hard rock remix redeemed only by Dave Grohl's thundering drums. I aligned it with the current beat. In my headphones, Lil' Kim's rapping over tinny processed metal guitars. And panic crept in. This maneuver feels reckless, but retreat was not an option. With a calculated flick of both wrists, I executed the switch to the rock remix at the top of Biggie's verse. Miraculously, the crowd remained locked in, rapping along in unison. whether they noticed the beat change or not the line held i survived to fight the next phase my hand hovered over acdc doubt crept in is this brilliance or madness i put the record on the turntable running it back a few times to ensure precision the tempos were locked biggie barreled toward the end of his verse squeeze off till i'm empty don't tempt me only to hell i'll send thee all about the benjis and then i struck the greatest riff in the history of rock and roll The room detonated. Never heard a more precise sound blasted through these speakers. The three-chord monster intro electrified every corner of the club. For a split second, puzzled looks flashed across a couple of hundred faces on the floor, but the groove was so heavy, so undeniable, there was no chance but to go with it. By the time the riffs circled back, confusion had melted into delight. One guy's face said it all. yo, I can't believe dude is playing this shit and I'm actually fucking with it. I love that. Thank you. I love that. I can feel the adrenaline as I'm reading it. It gave me such chills. It's, I don't know, it's such a paradigm shift. It's almost like Dylan going electric or something. Wow, that's okay for sure. um let's um let's fast forward from the 1990s new york city to today because you're you're still in new york you're firmly at the heart of it um but things are quite different now yeah you're a family man yeah um and small children don't really make any any compromises for the lifestyle habits of night people no um and your girls are very young um and i was wondering how important is it to you that they know and understand that you love what you do, and are they able to share this with you somehow? It's funny, because when I ended this book, and the only time that the book comes out of the 90s is just the epilogue, and it's a day with, at the time, our oldest daughter, Ruthie, who was 18 months, strapped to me in a BabyBjorn while I'm walking around Soho and sort of, you know, seeing all these buildings that you know froyos that were a club and whatever the hell it is and and seeing like what happens to me all the time when i walk around soho like someone will pass me on the on the on a crosswalk and i i know that i know them but i haven't seen them in 25 years and like i'm so ready to say hi i'm like wait is that just somebody that was a stranger that i saw in the dance for every night do i even know this person was at the kochek was it the drug dealer and you just kind of let these people pass, thinking what maybe you left on the table. But yeah, when I wrote it and I kind of mentioned it in the epilogue, I did think, because I had sort of come off DJing a bit, and I thought that Ruthie probably would never see me at my prime when I was doing the thing that I loved, because one of the things about this era that made it so great was that no one had phones. There was the absence of surveillance. it was this feeling of um you're in the moment but you know the other side of that is that i have no cool videos to show like look at that rocking it with buster rhymes like or whatever um and and then um and then something funny happened when i finished this book a friend of mine read it and he was like you know i really like the book it just it sounds like you really just missed teaching with vinyl again i think you should go back to it and i was like oh man having to refine all those records and but he's a smart guy and i was just like you know i'll try it so i really got back into djing and playing around clubs again just playing vinyl so i played at 10 a.m the other day because i did something for diplo's run club yeah so it was the first time ruthie ever came and saw me dj and um it was kind of fun i think she was just part of it's like what the hell is going on why is that daddy playing people in running gear um dancing and singing but that's That's so cool. But she loves records too. I so don't want to put all my shit on her and pass it to her or to our youngest, but there's something that she's seen the way I look at records when I put it on. She has her little Fisher Price record player and she just saves her for hours playing La Bamba or Bomb Bomb by Sister Nancy or Joni Mitchell or whatever. So it's, I love, I mean, yeah, I don't want to force her into a career as a DJ, but I do love that she loves it so much. Yeah. No, it's beautiful to be able to share those moments. Yeah. I think it makes it even more meaningful. I think so. It's kind of my favorite part is the epilogue because it feels so personal. It's so fresh to now. But yeah. All right. Well, I think that's a great place to finish. You definitely have the cool dad credentials. Okay, cool. Mark, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. It's been so much fun to have this conversation with you. And, you know, when Mark's DJing, I feel like I just look like a drowned rat because I'm always just like dancing and singing and screaming and all my makeup's like running down my face. And so trust me, he really knows how to throw a party. And it's a joy, Mark, to read Night People and to know that, yes, you throw the best parties, but you also write an amazing book as well. Thank you so much. And I can't wait for whatever you choose to do next. So, so grateful for you putting me on here, and thank you, everybody, for being here this evening. Amazing. Thank you to everyone here, and for those that are listening at home. You really have to visit service95.com and all our socials because we have lots of treats in store for you. You'll find Mark's playlist and reading list, as well as some very special social content from Mark and his friends, exclusive to Service 95. You can sign up for free to the Service 95 Book Club newsletter to hear about my next monthly read. And if you want more book recommendations and author interviews, follow us on Instagram at Service 95 Book Club. Mark, thank you so, so, so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Along with my new monthly reads, I'll also be sharing a conversation from the archive, some of my favorite chats with the world's best writers over the past couple of years trust me you won't want to miss them make sure you're following the service 95 book club podcast so you never miss an episode and if you love this one why not leave us a review thanks so much for listening and see you next time