PhDJ is a fantastical NYC DJ writer photographer. He has spun at The F Word @ Rebel, Boysroom, Posh, Bamboo 52, Vlada, Lucky Cheng's, Eastern Bloc, The Ice Palace (on Cherry Grove), Arrow Bar, Porch, Uncle Charlie's LES, DTox, HK Lounge, and Heaven. Unless otherwise noted, all video and photography are by PhDJ. Follow him on Twitter here. For bookings, contact him at PhDJNYC (at) gmail.com.
Read Gerry Visco's review of the "dynamo known as PhDJ [who spins] some badass tunes" in NY Press here!
Next Magazine Pride Photo Contest 2011
This photograph of mine was a finalist in Next Magazine's Pride Photo Contest 2011!
"Anyone doing anything tonight," Kyle texted Monday night. (This is the Kyle that Geraldine Visco of the New York Press calls a "hunky club kid Kyle"). I say there's an open bar from 11:00-11:30 at Eastern Bloc (one of their stools is pictured above) for Sherry Vine's Big Sexyland party. We decide to meet there and then make our way to Barracuda for Peppermint's show and Miss-ter T-Boy DJ'ing. Kyle brought his friend Shane. The crowd at Eastern Bloc was dancing to Sherry's beats--she DJ's the night--and keeping the bartender busy. Between cuts, she came out to talk to Kyle and me. I told her again how much fun I'd had the night before at the Bar d'O reunion.
After a few rounds, we hopped in a cab. We didn't want to miss Peppermint (pictured above and below). We had plenty of time to make our way through all the people, grab our next round, and say hello to T-Boy. Peppermint's show was fantastical. She did her standards and danced up a storm. She even brought up a lesbian onstage for some play bondage (pictured below). Peppermint also showed some footage from her new video, "Excuse My Beauty" (a still from that footage is below). She looked amazing in it. Can't wait for it to premiere! After the show, T-Boy kept us dancing all night--even Peppermint. She rarely left the stage. Sometimes, when I'd look up past my cocktail, she was onstage with others. One guy played Omar to her Janet as Peppermint nailed the choreography for "If." Jonté came by to say hi to T-Boy. I told him again how much I liked his performance. Kyle (pictured below) and I had a few more rounds before he vanished off into the night. I knew he was leaving because he asked if he had his coat. Again, I managed to close out the bar. Peppermint, T-Boy, Jonté and I said our goodbyes outside.
People often ask me (pictured above, taken by Craig Seymour) if the tracks that I spin when I DJ are songs that I love. That depends. I play requests. The management has their own. Plus, I play things for the bar staff--and for the dancers. I watch the crowd, too. If people respond to a certain kind of song, I play more of that. Still, some of those songs people expect or want to hear when they're out, I do love. I also slip some songs into my set that people generally didn't know about but would bop along to given the proper context. The PhDJ's 2009 Top 40 list I've compiled below represents both of those groups of songs. The list doesn't exactly represent what you heard when I spun this year because it charts only those songs (or new mixes of old songs) that impacted (often via blog) this year. So, the vast majority of all the Michael Jackson I've been playing--including the six hours of Michael I played the night he died--is not here. Also not here are the staples and crowd favorites that I played a lot before January. Also not here are any of the hip hop songs I've played. To keep the list somewhat manageable, I decided to stick to tracks close to each other in BPM. The order is in part based on the quality of the smile the track gave me and on the sheer number of times I played it this year. Here's Brian Mills (pictured below, from a fantastical F Word party this summer), who's all ears in anticipation.
PhDJ's 2009 Top 40 (mix name)
Lady Gaga, "LoveGame" (Space Cowboy remix/Chew Fu refix feat. Marilyn Manson)
Beyoncé, "Diva" (Whatever Whatever remix)
Lady Gaga, "Bad Romance" (Hercules and Love Affair remix/Chew Fu refix/PhDJ's revision)
Madonna, "Celebration" (Benny Benassi remix)
Whitney Houston, "Million Dollar Bill" (Frankie Knuckles Directors club & dub)
Beyoncé, "Broken-Hearted Girl" (Alan Braxe dub)
Ralph Falcon, "Whateva" (Peter Rauhofer remix)
Solange, "Would Have Been the One" (Red Top extended)
Beyoncé, "Ego" (OK DAC remix)
Britney Spears, "Circus" (Diplo remix)
Beyoncé, "Control"
Miami Horror, "Make You Mine"
Kings of Leon, "Use Somebody" (Dolby Anol remix)
David Guetta feat. Julie McKnight, "How Soon Is Now" (extended)
"It's important to get your balls in every shot," I advised Demanda Dahling once I saw the extra Christmas cheer in her look. She chuckled, agreed, adjusted her wardrobe malfunction in the hallway mirrors by the bathrooms at Vandam. I didn't notice her, um, balls when I first saw her upstairs. I must have overlooked them due to my sensory overload. I was also trying to dance but not fall off of the glass table I was on. Kenny Kenny (pictured above, with DivaSteve in the foreground above right) was cutting a rug before Jonté (pictured below) showed everyone how it's done. Celso and Jordan Fox (pictured with Celso and alone below) were giving good face.
And I was sweating up a storm downstairs well into the night morning, wishing the DJ would play more than the short vocal samples from Franklin Fuentes' "Tyler Moore Mary" and from Sweet P*ssy Pauline's notorious a cappella that he was featuring. I wanted to flit to some Queen's English like José and Luis tell it, tell it, tell it.
It was getting late so my crew and I headed over to Arrow Bar to see Drew Zailen. We wanted to close out the night East Village style, with cheap drinks in a cozy dive bar. Of course, we couldn't go home until we chased those drinks with a 5:00 a.m. diner meal, something to help absorb the night. I had the veggie burger deluxe.
"If I didn't grab a promoter," Scott Anthony (pictured below right) told me once I pulled him up onto the table I was standing on, surveying the sea of people, "I wasn't sure I was going to get in." I'd seen Vandam's line when I peeked outside earlier. Now, I wasn't moving off this table because I wanted a good vantage of the back area where Jonté (pictured above) was soon to perform. I'd popped down briefly to greet my de la Blanca sister Celso (pictured above left). It took me quite a while to squeeze my way back. Despite everyone's relative immobility, the crowd was happily grooving to DJ Johnny Dynell's set. Dirty Martini (pictured below) was not only shaking her money maker; she was shaking her money, too. Kenny Kenny (pictured below) perched himself above the fray, near the DJ booth, to give everyone a gander of the fantasy he was serving that night. But the entrée that night was Jonté. There was no room for dessert. His fantastical set showcased tracks from his upcoming CD that he was just promoting in Japan. Vandam doesn't have a proper stage; and Jonté is petite, even when sporting pumps. Still, amidst the hundreds of people and the wave of cell phones and cameras held above them recording the moment, Jonté popped. Most of us couldn't see his legwork--except when he broke into his standing splits, with his legs in a straight line perpendicular to the floor--but you could feel it. He moved so quickly and cleanly that I could barely get a shot in focus. Vocally, he was giving me Jamie Principle. Choreographically, I wanted an extended break with verses and background dancers to the side so that Jonté could rule the stage alone. The seemingly effortless poise he has deserves to be admired apart. Nevertheless, he had me gagging when he did a a little of a spaced-out version of Vanity 6's "Make Up." For the rest of the night, Jonté had me singing his cuts "Ya! Who?" and "B*tch You Betta" no matter what was actually playing up or downstairs.
I wasn't the only one left inspired. After the show, I made my way over to get some shots of the always c*ntational Jordan Fox (pictured below), who was working the hell out of her powdered wig look. Jordan said that tonight was a preview of the coming year, which she's going to amp up: "2010 isn't about hosting parties. It's about performing, like Jonté." I can't wait.
Legendary New York City nightlife never dies. Bars may shutter their doors. Parties can be indifferently shuffled around, or off some place's weekly schedule altogether. But whether they're stuffed with people who can barely make their way to the bar for another round or whether they're filled with the enthusiasm of a chosen handful, those nights echo far beyond the last call that forces everyone to at least finish their drinks and amble outside. Sometimes that echo is so strong, it reunites those who started it. That's what happened last night at Indochine, when the original legendary cast of Bar d'O took the stage--well, a box in the middle of the restaurant--for their fifth annual reunion since Bar d'O closed to remind everyone why that club had lines around the block to get in. Mistress of Ceremonies Raven O (pictured above, at top and in triplicate) led the packed, enthusiastic crowd into the show with sophisticated and salacious wit. Her introductions were as poised as her singing. Raven ripped through both Etta James' "At Last" and the crowd between her own and her sisters' numbers. She thanked the Jewish table just behind me. She thanked the gays seated on the floor (me included) because we were so comfortable there. She told us that she was happy to see everyone last night because it was a family show. Her husband was there. Her son. Her boyfriend. Her girlfriend. Her lover. Her dealer. Her future boyfriends. It was indeed a special night. There was a star-studded audience, including Michael Musto, Project Runway's Austin Scarlett, and Amanda Lepore, whose seat by the stage put her in some of my pictures, like those of Raven above. Of course, as Raven explained, no matter who was in the audience, the only stars in the room were those onstage. Before Raven passed the mic to Sherry Vine (pictured above and below), she explained that Miss Sherry was Queen of the Jews as well as her much younger-ish drag daughter whom she taught everything she knows. Later, she praised Sherry for choosing to work in NYC bars over more tony venues. Raven joked that when she'd call Sherry with job offers, she'd reply, "Why do Broadway when you can do Barracuda?" Between numbers, Sherry confessed that she looked forward to this reunion show each year because, finally, she is the young one. She rested her drink at the table to her right and flirted with one of the women seated there, a burlesque dancer (wonderfully) named Pandora. "Without the box," Pandora confirmed. When the Jewish table laughed a bit too knowingly after Sherry offered, "Ah, burlesque, I remember that," Sherry gently scolded, "Settle." After all, as she always tells us, Sherry is the nice drag queen. She praised the fantastical Amanda Lepore seated before her: "Looking at you makes me want to stop." When Raven took the stage again, though, she lovingly joked: "Amanda reminds me of Tupperware. Perfect in every way. Just don't put her in the microwave. She'll melt." Raven wanted the white people in the audience to know once and for all that the next Bar d'O starlet to take the stage was not the star of Precious. She was Sade Pendavis (pictured above), who nailed John Waite's "Missing You." (Sade was in another movie, though; she roars through the Patti Labelle number at the end of Paris Is Burning).
Raven's last introduction of the night was her best. She asked everyone seated at the tables to blow out their candles. The lights were dimmed. The mic's echo was turned up. She set the scene with the catcalls from ancient times. She reminisced about vicious, hungry creatures--dinosaurs--who roamed the Earth before meteors killed them all. But one. Who lives now in Manhattan, roaming the West Side Highway for prey: young, uncut Puerto Rican boys. In the darkness, Raven welcomed Joey Arias (pictured above and below) to the stage. The track started; she downed a tall shot of cognac; and Billie Holiday joined us. To say that Joey nailed her first number, "You've Changed," would not capture the sublime pleasure of hearing, watching, and experiencing her. She's far more than the Lady Night to Billie's Lady Day, as Raven indicated. The opener was ironic, since I was struck by just how much Joey had not changed. I joked to Sherry after the show that it was incredible to see Joey still so wonderful after all these weeks, which were clearly, as Sherry quipped, my way of conveying drag dog years. For a taste of Joey, watch this clip of "You've Changed" taken on another night below:
Joey asked for another shot of cognac to deliver "All of Me" and duet with Raven O for "G-d Bless the Child" (pictured below center). Joey thanked all her fellow Bar d'O'ers, the crowd. I thanked all of them. I couldn't have asked for a better start to my Sunday night, which ended well after 6:00 a.m. into Monday morning, as a good Sunday night should. More on that soon.
