Tony Humphries
Tony Humphries is the leader of the “Jersey sound” – a formative influence to a whole generation of artists, producers and DJs. His work behind the decks – whether it be at Newark nightclub Zanzibar, on KISS FM, or mixing some of dance music’s most beloved tracks – is undeniable.
In his 2014 Red Bull Music Academy lecture, Humphries reflected on his journey to worldwide fame, how he transitioned from DJing on the radio to DJing in the club, the incredible sound at Zanzibar and much more.
Hosted by Torsten Schmidt I guess it is a very easy win if you don’t have to say anything and you already get an applause. I guess you get an even bigger one once folks recognize that we have the pleasure to welcome the one and only Tony Humphries here. [applause] Tony Humphries Thank you. Torsten Schmidt In order to paint the picture, maybe it’s time to go back in a little bit and go to New York. Might have to... (music: El Gran Combo – “Mambo Cool”) Tony Humphries Wow. All I can say is wow. Torsten Schmidt What’s the wow factor in that record? Tony Humphries That’s my father. That’s my father’s band, and I haven’t heard it in ages, so... My father, his name was René Grand. He used to have a group called El Gran Combo. They had two different ones. They had El Gran Combo in New York, and again, that’s where I come from. That’s my father. He was the band leader, piano player. You shocked me with that one. [laughs] You got me. Torsten Schmidt Can you recall seeing them play? Do you have a first recollection of seeing the band play? Tony Humphries Well, no, I didn’t see them play, but obviously we had all the singles in the house. I was too young. He wasn’t going to let me go out back then. Torsten Schmidt There was no sneaking in through the back door? Tony Humphries No, no, no. Not in my house.[ laughs] Torsten Schmidt When you say, “Not in your house,” there was order there, right? Tony Humphries Pretty strict. Pretty strict. I was brought up sheltered, Catholic school all the way up to college, so no. Torsten Schmidt How does that go together, this really vivid mambo band and Catholic school? Tony Humphries Oh, my God. Well, basically like other immigrant families, my parents and grandparents are from South America. They’re from Columbia, South America and they migrated to the states and moved to California. Then they went to Harlem, and then they moved to Brooklyn. Basically, my father kept doing work in Manhattan while we were in Brooklyn. I guess my parents wanted to do the best they thought they could do for me, so my mother was a waitress, and she worked like 15 hours and she put me in Catholic school in grammar school and high school. After that, she was like, “That’s it. You’re on your own.” That’s my upbringing. Torsten Schmidt With the Catholic school, were you a quiet boy as well? Tony Humphries Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, everything until I got in trouble, but yeah. That’s why I like backgrounds so much. It was a way of keeping me off the streets, too. First it was Catholic school. Then there was a Baptist church that we used to go to when I was a teenager. Again, I was either playing sports or in the choir, so I was pretty sheltered. Torsten Schmidt To those of us that won’t really be able to grasp that, what’s the difference musically between a Catholic school and Baptist school? Tony Humphries Well, it’s sort of two extremes. Catholic choir, it’s very strict, and Baptist choir, it’s like crazy. It’s just crazy. Everyone just goes crazy and ad libs for days. One song can last 25 minutes. That’s a big difference, so I got to see both, experience both sides. Torsten Schmidt What does the world need to know about Burdell’s Record Shop? Tony Humphries Ha... Burdell’s. Well, Burdell’s was a place that I worked at as a kid. It was a gospel store in the neighborhood, an institution. This guy used to have me filing 45’s. He would never let me touch albums. He always liked to sell the albums. Actually, as a matter of fact, that’s how I stumbled onto a local choir, which was called The Celestial Choir. Torsten Schmidt Funny enough, we might just have that as an audio. Should we play that? Tony Humphries Sure. Sure. (music: The Joubert Singers – “Stand on the Word” / applause) Tony Humphries Interesting, because once I heard this, it’s only like four minutes and change. All I wanted to know was, “Who was the little voice? Who was the little girl, the little kid singing?” Because I was young and I wanted to know. I remember bringing it over to New Jersey and bringing two copies of the album. When I brought it over, some of our ending songs at the club would be these sort of songs, and it just took off. I remember Eddie O’Loughlin from Next Plateau called me up and says, “I want you to mix this record.” I said, “Are you sure? What can I do to it?” Picked me up. We went out to Long Island and did this mix. It’s pretty strange. It’s cleaner, and you can just hear all the instruments and everyone a little bit better than the original album. Gave it a little intro and a little break but kept it the same, so it ended up to be like 05:00, 05:30, something like that but it took off. It took off. Torsten Schmidt How did you go about that, because it was probably pretty hard to track down who that was and getting any tapes of it? Tony Humphries That wasn’t my job. [laughs] He found them. He probably spoke to Joe, because again, this choir was a choir that traveled to different churches, and sometimes they would change their name per church that they went to so you could see their variations, but this one was called “Celestial Choir.” Torsten Schmidt ...So you said you were working in that store. What would you do there? Tony Humphries Just filing 45’s. That was it. Torsten Schmidt But you were already working as a DJ? Tony Humphries Not so known. [laughs] Bedroom. Torsten Schmidt So those were the things you had in your back stock and that you brought out later? Tony Humphries Well, as I got the job over in New Jersey, and you have to play longer hours, I just tried to bring everything I had. Torsten Schmidt Between New Jersey and working in that store, there’s a couple of years in between, right? Tony Humphries Obviously. Yes. Yes, for sure. Torsten Schmidt What time were you working that store? Tony Humphries Oh, boy. Good recall now. It was probably after the first year of college, I remember, and I started working in the mailroom, I believe, with the New York Daily News. I think what happened was they went on strike. I was in the union, so obviously unions have situations. It was a strike, so that was my job. While I was on unemployment, I was working at Burdell’s and getting fifty bucks a month. That was the in between. Torsten Schmidt Who were these people named Mario Rosemont and... Tony Humphries Mario Rosemont and his brother. Lionel was his brother. That’s the make-up of LY, who did “Back 2 Zanzibar,” so LI is for Lionel. He lived in Flatbush and we met in college. That’s where we met. They used to have student hours on Thursdays where you could play music, like three hours for students. We used to bring our equipment and play. They had the equipment, and I had the records, so we used to combine it. Torsten Schmidt So it was like a school disco, basically? Tony Humphries Yeah, I would say so, but then we started doing our own independent things and being mobile and setting up everywhere, and a lot of places were empty and a lot of places weren’t. You know, the whole mobile life. Torsten Schmidt The mobile life then was a little different than I guess it’s now, just looking at this. You packed a little bit more then. Tony Humphries Oh, it was physical, yeah. To move a whole roomful of equipment, you can imagine, up and down a brownstone in the basement was very difficult. We wanted to do it. We wanted to play. We wanted to perform. We used to do it out in the park a lot. It was the thing back then. Torsten Schmidt So you brought the entire kit, like the speakers, the cables... Tony Humphries Oh, everything. Everything. Everything. Everything, everything, everything. [laughs] Torsten Schmidt I imagine that was a pretty lucrative operation, actually, because you got all the income. Tony Humphries Sometimes. Sometimes, because obviously, like any other business, you had to rent to get a van. You had to rent a huge thing to take this around and you had to have people help you. Normal business, so there’s overhead is the point. If no one shows up, what are you going to do? You still have to pay people. Torsten Schmidt What was the first time when someone actually hired you to play in an existing space? Tony Humphries An existing space, I would say... You mean a real paycheck? [laughs] There was this French restaurant near 52nd Street called the El Morocco. It was called the Zebra Club back then. The club was nothing but zebra stuff. Torsten Schmidt Where was that? Tony Humphries I mean the décor, the walls, I mean everything was zebra prints all over the place. They put me in the back by the kitchen, and I basically played dinner music until they ate for a couple of hours and then had them dance it off. That was sort of my first club, called me a discoti, whatever that means. Torsten Schmidt Was that one of those made-up French-sounding words? Tony Humphries Maybe. That’s what it said on the check. What can I tell you? On the stub, that’s what it said. Yeah, that was the first one. Torsten Schmidt How was DJing for people having food different than people dancing? Tony Humphries That was madness. It was madness, but you know what? I got into music like my idol, Quincy Jones. I used to open up all the time with “Tell Me a Bedtime Story,” which is one of my favorite songs that he’s done of all times, that whole album. I figured it had to be upscale, whatever I played. Expensive little restaurant. Did that for an hour-and-a-half to two hours. Torsten Schmidt Quincy got those upscale sounds. Tony Humphries Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. We could spend two days on him. No one can touch him as far as I’m concerned. Torsten Schmidt Recommend... Tony Humphries That’s the Q. Torsten Schmidt Recommended Q dinner listening?
Speaker: Tony Humphries Untouchable. Untouchable. Untouchable in my view. Torsten Schmidt What did you learn there about programming the night? As anyone that goes to bigger dinners knows, you get there, you might be kind of stressed, everyone kind of like, “Uh, who are these people?,” on the other side of the table. Then there’s an aperitif, then oh, the food. They get a little less stressed. There might be a drink or another one coming in, so I guess the mood kind of changes. How did you account for that when you programmed the night? Tony Humphries It was pretty simple. I played quality ballads, instrumentals if I could, soft music for like 40 minutes. Then after that, there was a beat to things, and they had to do something or leave. Something. Torsten Schmidt So there was dancing in the club as well? Tony Humphries Yes, there was. Yes, there was. Yes, yes, yes. Torsten Schmidt What were the clubs like that you went to after you went down there, after your shift has ended? Tony Humphries It was pretty much the mobile thing. You got to think eight million people, nine million people, and you’ve got five boroughs, so it’s pretty competitive trying to get a job in New York back then or now. Every project had four hundred DJs, so what are you going to do? This is why I feel so lucky in the position that I have now, because of a couple of people. I got a lucky break, so in terms of like the radio, I met up with Shep Pettibone, who everyone knows him from Madonna’s fame, and he gave me a break to be on the radio. Torsten Schmidt I take it you did not meet him at Madonna’s birthday party like... Tony Humphries No. No. [laughs] Well, OK, when you’re a mobile DJ back then, for you to get music when there was no net or whatever, that you had to prove to these companies that you were worthy of getting free material, so you had to come up with 12 or 13, 14 fliers to prove that these events were going to happen. If you consistently gave that to them, then they said, “OK. Let me know how the record works.” We would do this every week. They would have a mailing list and they would have where you would show up every week. Prelude, if anyone knows, they’re all labele, Prelude Records where François K worked and Larry Paterson. That got us in all these other folks. That was one of the stops that we made, and that’s where I met Shep Pettibone. I had cassettes back then. I don’t know if people remember what the hell cassettes are, but yeah, regular hustling DJ, I was like, “Hey, man. Here’s my cassette. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is what I do.” That was it. I went on for a week. All of a sudden, he calls me up and go, “Hey, this is fierce, man. I’m starting a new job. Someone stiffed me, so do you mind... Do you think you can get a couple of these together by tomorrow morning?” “Alright. Fine, I’ll do it.” I didn’t think it was any big deal, you know? Turned out to be a big deal. Torsten Schmidt Big deal in what way? Tony Humphries A new radio station was beginning, which was 98.7 KISS FM. Used to be a pop station, and they turned into the rival station. He was the manager, and he had to manage the whole week. He had a staff of seven or eight people, and he said, “Hey, man. I got stiffed. Can you help me out?” I did that, and that’s it. History. I believe it was June 16th, 1981. That’s it exactly. Torsten Schmidt So you were on the radio in New York City at what age then? Tony Humphries Oh, geez. Early. I would say 19, 18, 19, something like that. Yeah. Torsten Schmidt How shaky were your hands when you touched the needle? Tony Humphries Well, no. Basically, it was pre-recorded, so it wasn’t that bad. I just had to be on-time and have it on-time, but I was taught structure, and that’s what I always preach about with anyone who asks me now how I’ve lasted this long. There’s a programming structure balance that I was taught from radio. Torsten Schmidt What sort of structure was that, and how did you apply that later? Tony Humphries Well, I went to my boss and I said, “Look. I want to be on the radio.” I said, “I want to do a tribute to Philly,” because I was a Philly International fanatic. That’s my Bible, as far as I’m concerned. Any time I want to reset myself, I go and get a box that I have of Philly International stuff. He says, “Alright. Well, if you want to do this, OK, you have to do it the way I tell you,” which is radio, everyone knows, has A category, B category, C, D, recurrents, blah, blah, blah. I don’t want to be boring, but there is a structure to radio. He said to me, “You can do the same thing when you play at a club. All you do is switch around the records,” so you would make sure in A category... What should I say? Peoples’ attention span is like 15 minutes long, so the most popular thing that you have, you try to repeat it or reach that sort of a level every 15 minutes, and if you rotate it enough, you keep that section of the type of people you want to keep. What I would do is I would make sure that I would play a familiar song within 15-20 minutes. I would play a male song 15-20 minutes, a female song. I would play a track. The same way you would handle radio, I was doing it at Zanzibar. That was the way I kept them there for like seven, eight, nine hours. I wasn’t going to play all the hits in a row. That was basically the structure. Once you do, it becomes second nature, and psychologically, everyone feels like, “He’s going to play something I like sooner or later. He is. I was thinking about leaving, but I don’t want to miss something.” That’s basically me all these years. Torsten Schmidt Some of the Philly stuff that you used to reset yourself, do you have some of that on your USBs there? Tony Humphries Wow. That could be anything from their catalog. I mean, I just love the whole catalog, and there was really nothing really bad there. Torsten Schmidt What makes it so special in your way that you call it your Bible? Tony Humphries I mean I respect Motown obviously, but Philly had an equal amount of artists. It hit me one day. I was into tracks and stuff, into the instrumental grooves and used to buy all their stuff, but one day it hit me about lyrics and how powerful the lyrics was. After you put that together with the musicianship, I was like, “Oh, my God. This is crazy. This is too much.” Then I read up on them, and they had to go through four or five different departments before one song was released or done. That’s crazy. That standard, put it that way, is a serious high standard, high-quality standard for me. So even the songs you didn’t like was of a certain standard. To think that the session players or whatever got like a whole orchestra sitting in there doing all this dance music, they don’t know what’s happening with the music they’re doing. They’re just jamming for like ten minutes per song, whether it’s a ballad or an uptempo song. It was amazing to me. Amazing to me. These people playing cello and violin, and they don’t know what the hell is going on. That was amazing to me to know. It was a serious factory. The balance... I actually got a chance to go to Sigma Sound one time, a studio they had and Joe Tarsia and the whole setup. It was just magical to me. Torsten Schmidt What Philly lyrics are dear to your heart? Tony Humphries Hundreds of them. That’s too generic. Ask me another question. [laughs] That’s just crazy. Torsten Schmidt When you dive in, that’s exactly the feeling you have when you never really were in touch with something like that. You get in there. It’s like, “Fuck, there’s so much of it. Where do I start?” What’s the recommended path for you to go in? Someone who never heard anything, like where should they start? Tony Humphries Oh, wow. Where should they start? Well, if you want to be sort of commercial or simplistic, “Love Train.”. You know, “People all over the world, join hands on a love train." Read the lyrics, and it’s pretty deep. That’s a good place to start. I didn’t know the impact they had outside of the tri-state area, but it was pretty powerful to me. Pretty powerful. That’s what I go back to all the time, all these years. Torsten Schmidt Shall we have a little bit of a listen to some early radio and see how that’s played out? Tony Humphries I don’t know where you get these things from. [laughs] (music: early Tony Humphries radio set) Torsten Schmidt [over the music] Maybe it’s worth it to just jump a little bit in like five-minute jumps just to see the range? [applause] Torsten Schmidt That’s about four years later, right? Tony Humphries Yeah. Torsten Schmidt If it’s correct, that’s like the mid-’80s. Tony Humphries Yes, yes, yes. That’s mad. It’s just been a long time. Torsten Schmidt There’s a lot of different things in there that people would be surprised about to see your name attached playing stuff like that now. Tony Humphries Again, my job was... When I got the job on KISS, they were the premier hip-hop station. Only on the weekends was it playing stuff that we would play at Zanzibar, the garage or the loft or something like that. They did very well, and they tapped into the younger market, so that was what was playing at daytime. The beginning of a lot of my shows would start off like this. Like Whodini, I used to play a whole lot of different things and then try to mix in slower BPM things like “Hit and Run” by Loleatta Holloway. It sounds crazy, but playing Trans-Europe Express... What else would I play? Just slower BPM things but mix them all up. Torsten Schmidt So it was about having that opportunity of a job and this audience there and then just... Tony Humphries Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Listen. I’m forever grateful. A couple of times, I could have gotten canned, because I was trying to get everything in there, and it was like, “Listen, I don’t care what’s on there. Just make sure the tapes are on time.” It was a great opportunity for me, a great opportunity. Torsten Schmidt What was the equipment that you used to record those tapes? Tony Humphries Simple. 1500s. I had a Bozak and got into different things. Actually, I started with a Clubman Two & Two, which I gave to Timmy Regisford. That was his first mixer. Let’s see, what else? I had a Technic Reel, loop-to-loop, 1500, 1506. That was basically it. I think what happened was after the second strike at the New York Daily News, they basically said, “You have a choice. Either you take a little reduction in pay or you can take your severance pay and go.” I took my severance pay and bought my reel-to-reels from there. That’s where everything grew in radio. Torsten Schmidt And then you could concentrate fully on the radio? Tony Humphries Yeah, that was it. Torsten Schmidt Did you, through the radio, get more club work as well? Tony Humphries Not really, at first. Again, it was a new thing, these mix shows on the radio. It’s kind of boring now, but back then it was a big thing to hear anything other than the top ten stuff. We talked about early ’80s. That’s a long time ago. Torsten Schmidt You talked about record pools earlier. What do we need to know about this woman, Judith Weinstein? Tony Humphries Ooh. She’s the queen. She’s no joke. She had, if not the best record pool in New York, cream of the crop from all types. She’s the best. I can go on all day. Torsten Schmidt Let’s fit five minutes. [laughter] Tony Humphries I’m sorry. No, because it has me thinking about right before Deathmix happened when I first got there and meeting [David] Morales and meeting all the other star DJs there, very difficult to get in. I was actually in another record pool before then called Sure Record Pool in the Bronx, Bobby Davis, but it’s the tops. She’s the tops. Torsten Schmidt To understand better, what would a record pool be? And when you say... Tony Humphries Well, it was basically one stop. Basically, you went, and as I guess some stores do now. Basically, the labels would give all the free product to one place to get DJs’ feedback, and say it would be 75 or 100 records in a bin or a slot for you, so I was like slot number 74 or something. I would go every week and pick up these records, but you had to fill out the information. If you did not fill out what you thought with these records, then you would be in trouble. That was basically it. It was like a one-stop that you paid a monthly fee for, like 50 bucks or something. It was wonderful, actually. It was wonderful. Torsten Schmidt How important was that as a social spot where you met other people or... There’s a good chance that due to overlap, you might go pick up your records while someone else is there picking up their records as well. Tony Humphries Exactly, so there were two things, to reiterate again, that were going on at the time. You had the street thing where you went to the labels directly, and then you also had the record pool, so a lot of people used to say, “Tony has these records that no one else has.” I was just getting them from different sources. If I have the record pool, if I have the label in the mail, if I have two different stores. I had Moving Records in New Jersey. Larry Levan had Vinylmania in New York. I had records coming from all over the place, seven or eight different ways. I had to go through it and pick up the best stuff. Torsten Schmidt Who’s this Larry Levan guy that you talk about? Tony Humphries Larry Levan. God, God. I don’t know where to start. The way he handled a super club, I should call it, every week, it was just intriguing to me, how can this man play so long. You come in there at one in the morning and he’s still playing the next day. It’s like quarter-to-one, two o’clock, he’s still going. I was like, “Oh, my God. How does he do this?” That became sort of my thing. I wanted to be able to learn how to play for a long stretch of time. When I got to Zanzibar, I actually sort of gave them an ultimatum, because I was kind of backing them up, going there and doing my little bits here and there. I said, “Look, there are two of you guys here three nights. If you don’t let me try out a Wednesday, I’m not coming back.” Really bold, but I got lucky, and they gave me the Wednesday nights. Basically, the whole thing I learned from Larry Levan was to be able to play the equivalent of three sets. That’s why I like to play for a long time. That’s why they say, “The longer Tony plays, the better he sounds.” It’s just a habit that I’ve never been able to get rid of. Basically, I would come in after doing radio, one o’clock to three o’clock. OK, that would be one set, and then we would have a PA. Then after the PA, three-thirty or four o’clock, it would go to seven or eight in the morning. Then after seven or eight in the morning, then it was the last one, which was like the real one. You couldn’t play any B records, so no BS. I don’t want to curse. You had to play the real deal then. Torsten Schmidt What was the real deal? Tony Humphries The real deal was no trials. You had to play the best stuff you had, old or new. There wasn’t too many new things playing unless it was really hot, so those people were... The last set people were really serious. Torsten Schmidt Do you have any last set records on there? Tony Humphries Oh, tons. OK, let’s see. Here goes closing records, I guess. (music: Phalon – “Dance Floor of Life” / applause) Torsten Schmidt You said you played on a Wednesday night, and this was the first set, sort of, record? Tony Humphries No, actually this was last set, where the either commercial folks or the core people... This is what you played for the core people. They want a certain standard of whatever you were playing. This is what they expected, so if you played anything that was ho-hum, they sit down and say you got to go. Torsten Schmidt And that’s on... Tony Humphries Pretty pressure-ous, huh? Torsten Schmidt On a Thursday morning then? Tony Humphries Yeah, Thursday morning, so you can imagine those that got to go to work. It’s like “You got to play [some good stuff] before I walk out of here. Don’t play no...” Torsten Schmidt People would go straight back to work? Tony Humphries Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. Torsten Schmidt What is this place that you are playing there? It’s now in Jersey, right? Tony Humphries I’m sorry? Torsten Schmidt Now it moved to Jersey. Tony Humphries Yes, yes. Torsten Schmidt Jersey is a bit alien for someone from Brooklyn. Tony Humphries Yes, yes. Torsten Schmidt How so? Tony Humphries Well, it was shocking for me, but I tried to keep it quiet. [laughs] Torsten Schmidt Shocking in which way? Tony Humphries Because I wouldn’t believe there would be a club with a soundsystem that close to the Paradise Garage in New Jersey. I just didn’t expect it. Torsten Schmidt It’s only, by air distance, five miles at the most? Tony Humphries Yeah, you go through tunnels, but again, it’s a different state, and I wasn’t used to commuting to New Jersey. It was big enough. When I got there, I said, “I don’t believe this. Shit.” I was like, “Listen to this. Same set-up. Same speakers.” It was just a smaller place. I was like, “I wonder how many people know about this place?” I said, “I hope nobody finds out about this place.” [laughs] Since everyone wanted to play in the Paradise Garage, obviously, as big as it was. I said, “You know what? I’m not even going to try to play the Paradise Garage.” I never got a chance to play that. I said, “This is going to be my Paradise Garage right here,” and that’s what I tried to do. Torsten Schmidt What was so special about the sound set-up in both places? Tony Humphries Richard Long system, oh man, geez. Mid-bass. It was really clear, but mid-bass. Different stacks. I don’t want to get into technical stuff – Torsten Schmidt Please do. Tony Humphries – but the difference was you have sub, which you feel the vibration, of course, and you have full range, but in between the full range and the sub, there was a punch that you got from these soundsystems, serious punch. I mean, you felt it. That was the difference, the mid-bass... the EQ of the mid-bass. [shakes his head] I’m sorry. I’m reminiscing. Sorry. Very few soundsystems were like that. There’s some great soundsystems now, but in like the first few years of Ministry, there’s different... Let’s stay in Jersey. OK. Yeah, that Zanzibar system was... Well, imagine you’ve heard or read about the soundsystem in The Garage. Imagine that in a smaller room or a smaller area. That’s why it was that much more powerful. Torsten Schmidt You were rumored to have been a visitor at The Loft as well. Tony Humphries Yes. Torsten Schmidt How would that soundsystem differ? Tony Humphries The Loft was pristine. It was... Maybe the way for me to explain the loft was like when I first walked in there, it was like having headphones on. You just stood there and you just felt like you had headphones on, and you just stood in the middle of the floor and said, “Wow, this sounds great. This sounds great. Every record sounds great. I don’t believe every record sounds great no matter what it is. It wasn’t overpowering. It wasn’t a whole bunch of sub. It wasn’t a whole bunch of mid-bass. It wasn’t a whole bunch of anything. It was just clean, clean, clean, clean. Headphones. That’s my description for today. [laughs] Torsten Schmidt Yeah, I guess the guy that built it likes to use the word “terrific” a lot. Tony Humphries [inaudible] He had an amp for every set of speakers. That’s unheard of. An amp for every set of speakers. I was like, “Damn.” I used to go in and the meters would move didn’t even reach one. [laughs] I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this is really clean... Really clean.” Torsten Schmidt Is there something like a too-clean sound to you? Tony Humphries No. No. No. If you can play something at not a very loud volume and actually talk over it and it still sounds good, that’s pristine to me. That’s serious. It’s got me reminiscing here. Torsten Schmidt How did you adapt what you were playing to what you were doing on the radio, which has obviously very different sonics, compared to what you played at the club, especially with a powerful system like that? Tony Humphries I wore two different mental hats every week. In other words, I had to try to condense 30 or 40 records into an hour-and-a-half every time I was on the radio. It was almost like a medley, but when I got to the club, I had to stretch them out, so every day I had to go through this change. Half the day doing the show, getting this many records in, and then trying to play for three sets. It was an exercise, a mental exercise that drove me crazy for a little while. I almost lost it near the beginning of the ’90s after doing it so long, but I survived. [laughs] Torsten Schmidt Any survival tricks and tips for people that feel like it’s getting too much now and then? Tony Humphries No. [laughs] I’d be the wrong person to answer that question. Torsten Schmidt When you listen to a lot of the records that were big at that club, you always realize that there is a very particular way the bass is programmed and how it’s played, and there is a very different particular quality to it. How would you describe that? Tony Humphries I really don’t know how to answer that. Certain records sound great on certain soundsystems. Just about everything sounded good at Zanzibar. I know it sounds like he’s just patting himself on the back, but 9000 watts, low ceiling, Richard Long soundsystem. You could play “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” it will sound good. It doesn’t matter. Very fortunate for that. Torsten Schmidt Probably to get a bit of an idea of what music sounded around there, even though this is the radio, because that’s better documented, but I guess... Tony Humphries The radio also had compression on it. They spent three million on these compressors to make sure that... Which also helped a lot of the mixes that I did, because it will bring out the middle, so I had to learn a different style when I was doing mix shows on the radio. That was another thing I had to learn, which was shadowing or overlaying, which basically, of course, playing two records at the same time. Let’s say if you had a record and it was on ten. Then you didn’t want to reach seven or eight. It would sound horrible on the radio, so I had to learn how to play with the record I was bringing in at around four or five. With the mixer and the compression of radio, I learned how to keep it two-and-a-half numbers apart. That way you heard both records while it was happening. If you get any older mix shows or whatever of mine and you were able to hear them, the distance was a lot further than normal, because the compression would push out the mid-range and pull up the mid-range during the mixes and keep the bass and highs down. That was something I had to learn how to do. (music: Tony Humphries DJ set) Tony Humphries [over the music] Can we turn it down a little bit? This is a perfect example of what I was talking about, whereas I’m telling you I don’t remember exactly when I did this, what year it was, but I’m saying the overlay that you’re hearing, I’m telling you, in terms of numbers or positions on a mixer, they are three numbers, three positions apart. That’s the only way it would be clear enough for you to hear the sample. In other words, if you had the music, then you had the female in the back. Oh, well, I’m telling you where that record is while they’re both playing at least three numbers part would sound horrible on the radio. That’s a good example and that’s why I had to do that. Again, when I try to teach certain people... When you’re bringing in another record, once you feel the two kick drums volume-wise are starting to match each other, that’s when you stop. You stay right before... You do not try to match them volume-wise. You just stay right underneath so it sounds like one all the time. It was better for radio and it sounds cleaner that way. It’s not like today where everyone takes off the bass and you’re left with one. Everything was up back then. Again, the technique was two-and-a-half to three numbers apart and keeping the oncoming kick just a hair lower than the one it’s on. That’s what you hear. Torsten Schmidt How would you do the curves, changing them? Tony Humphries Basically, what happens, if you put it in measure... Actually, when I actually did a mix was really short. It was the last minute and a half where they would happen by themself anyway. As one was emptying out, the other one would be filling up with tracks and I just held it there. As it got empty, all I do is [moves one hand up and the other hand down] But you had to have the balance. I’m staying in this position all this time for three, four minutes and just letting it ride by itself. (music continues) Torsten Schmidt [inaudible] Tony Humphries [over music] I know. I was like out of habit. (music continues) Tony Humphries Wow... Memories. It reminds me of... God, God, memories. Anyway, another thing I learned, too, was the slower you played things on radio, the better it sounded to keep the BPMs slow. The faster it was, it just didn’t come out right, so they used to call me the “118 Man.” [laughs] I used to bring everything down to 120 or 118 and just ride things. It turned out good for radio. Torsten Schmidt Which is considerably slow, but at the same time, there’s still a very thriving energy in it. How can you achieve that thriving energy, because I guess that’s what a lot of people struggling in their productions are still getting... Feel that no matter how slow it is, it still pushes you forward. Tony Humphries All the energy, whether it was made at 125 or 127, is... Listen, I remember playing... I used to do crazy things like breaking “Plastic Dreams.” You know how fast that was, and I was playing it at 118, and people were losing their mind. I was like, “Hey, it’s about the organ solo, man. I don’t care about all this other stuff. It’s about the organ solo.” You know, church boy, so I hear a solo, I’m playing it. Solo fanatic. Torsten Schmidt Do you got it on there somewhere? Tony Humphries No, no. I don’t want to play “Plastic Dreams” now. [laughs] I think everyone’s tired of that song, but that was the whole thing about tempo. Whatever I had, I would try to slow it down, slow it down, minus two, minus two, minus three. That’s habit from back then. It just sounded better on radio to me. Torsten Schmidt With the slowing down and the tracks being kind of long as well, patience is a virtue. Tony Humphries Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Again, they like the long mixes, because you never know what could happen. Torsten Schmidt How far out do you plan your playing? It’s a bit like playing chess, I guess. Do you know, “Oh, this is the next one I’m playing,” or do you know, “Oh, those are the three and this where I want to be – Tony Humphries How I had it was I would have a local stack of records. I would have a stack of records set with tracks or instrumentals. My theory was always to use a track to play a vocal song, and that’s how I started utilizing all the Chicago stuff in the first place. When I started getting Virgo and all the stuff on the Trax label and DJ International stuff. They were like bridge records to me. I would go from, I don’t know, anything from Stevie [Wonder] or Aretha [Franklin] to a track, and then I would play another song, then another track, then another song. By the end of the night, it’s like 50/50, and you got them all in. There was room for new things, and it was easy to overlay that way. It was a lot easier, especially when you had to try to play the live stuff. It was easier to use Trax. That’s how I got them in. I’m afraid of this. [laughs] OK, I see that. Go ahead. Go ahead. Torsten Schmidt Can we get some video? Tony Humphries Oh, no. Torsten Schmidt Yeah, because we’ve been talking a bit, but sorry this is really bad resolution, but it... Tony Humphries It’s not my resolution. OK, good. It’s from that video, I think, with Abby in it. Yeah. Torsten Schmidt How’s that? Sorry for the bad YouTube DJing. Back to this. Tony Humphries [referencing video] Wow. That’s at 11:00 in the morning. [applause] What a flashback. Oh, my God. I’m scared. Torsten Schmidt There’s a ton of stuff in there. Tony Humphries Wow. Whew! Torsten Schmidt What’s the first thing that is... Tony Humphries Comes back to my mind? I’m thinking, “The lights are on, it’s 11:30 in the morning, and these people won’t go home.” I’m like, “I got a show to do.” [laughs] Oh, man, but it was fun times. It was fun times. Torsten Schmidt Also, it was a nucleus for other people to come out. You hear of how [inaudible] people dance in there. You hear Roger S.’s Underground Solution, “Love Dancing” in there and stuff... I mean, the place – Tony Humphries Well, think about it. I was a New Yorker. They went over to New Jersey, and I knew that they would rather have somebody from New Jersey playing there. My whole thing was to take care of all the artists in New Jersey that I could take care of. You know what I mean? Sort of keep it down. I did my best. Whatever came across that was decent enough, I tried to take care of the Jersey cliques. There were like seven or eight of them. Smack. Blaze. We can go down the line, all of them. I did my best to showcase them all. As we had that seminar at one time, I think it was Jersey Jams. I figured I’d keep down the animosity if I took care of the home folks. I did my best with that. Torsten Schmidt A lot of those home folks had some global success as well as you. Then all of a sudden these English people got interested. Can you recall playing in England for the first time? Tony Humphries Oh, man. That was culture shock to me. Torsten Schmidt In which way? Tony Humphries Because, reiterating what I said about the style, playing 118, 120 radio soulful stuff from New Jersey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I went over to England and it was another level altogether. They were up here. [lifts hand above his head] We started up there and they stayed up there, and they did not want to come down. If you came down, you knew within one record. So I had to learn how to peak all the time. That was strange for me. I would peak maybe three or four times a night. If you had three sets, you would peak three times and then be over, but to start off at 130 and stay up there was a new thing for me. I was like, “Shit, shit, shit.” I was like, “Whew! OK. I’ve got to find some other records here.” There was no room for... They didn’t like Sleaze Records or slower BPM stuff. They weren’t having it. Torsten Schmidt How were the scenes at the club like High on Hope or Shoom different in regard to... Tony Humphries Well, OK... difference. Again, I did Shoom and I basically played like I played in Zanzibar, and I was shocked that they were receptive. I was really shocked about that. Again, you’re coming from a club you do every week three times a week. It’s predominantly black, Puerto Rican, gay or whatever, and then you walk in, and here’s this big audience, more mixed, more other folks, and they were just as energetic as Zanzibar. It was almost like, “Oh, my God. Is this what the rest of the world’s like?” I went back to the core people. I said, “You all have no idea what’s going on outside this place.” They said, “Ah, you just talking because you got a chance to travel. You talking shit.” I said, “OK,” so I asked Danny Rampling and Jenny, I said, “Look. I don’t want to get paid. I want to show these folks what I experienced,” and I took like ten, 11, 12 people from the club and went a second time and let them experience what England was about. After they came back, they didn’t bother me anymore. [laughter] They were like, “You can play whatever you want, man.” It was a great experience. It really was. Again, doing places like Ministry or whatever, which is Garage basically to me, energy, and you had to play the same long hours. I was lucky. I was lucky. Torsten Schmidt You did more of those cultural exchange programs, and you also took up in Rimini, I suppose, right? How was that? Tony Humphries Rimini was on the way home. Rimini was another by-chance sort of thing. I had finished my stint at Ministry and I was ready to go home. They started this night in Italy, which was for the workers of the other clubs, which was kind of different and strange. There usually isn’t a night club where all the employees go hang out, so they started this Monday night thing. They said, “Do you want to do it?” I was like, “No, man. I want to go home.” He’s like, “No, man. It’s on a Monday, man. Don’t worry about it.” “Oh.” “Please try it,” so I went there on a Monday. Turned out to be cool. After the second week, I flew in from New Jersey for ten weeks in a row every Sunday and did the Monday and came back home. That place, called Echoes, in [inaudible] Used to call it Magic Mondays or something like that. Torsten Schmidt Were you getting away with the same kind of stuff that you played at the other venues? Tony Humphries I was playing whatever I wanted, because I assumed I was playing for adults, or not even adults, but for employees. I didn’t really have to cater to any particular sort of genre or something. Torsten Schmidt In this little clip, there was also mentioned that you had held down three key positions: the radio, the club, and the remixing. Tony Humphries Yes. Yes, yes. That’s why a lot of people said, “How come you weren’t remixing anymore? You were just doing the radio thing,” or I did the label thing. I said to myself after ‘92 I wasn’t going to do that anymore. It was just too much. I was just about burned out. I remember coming here, as a matter of fact. I forgot.. What was it that we did? I don’t know. It wasn’t Gold. Maybe it was Yellow or something, but I remember I came here with Sable... It was Gold. Gold was a bad club. Oh, man. Talk about soundsystem. Sorry. I’m reminiscing. The stacks they had. The bass was so powerful in that place. I don’t mean to change the subject, but they had slides, and the slides kept moving by themself all the way down. I was like, “Oh, my God.” I couldn’t play with the bass fully. It was always at three or four, and it just kept moving by itself. I was like, “Man.” They had stacks on the back wall, just like stacks. I was like, “Shit.” It’s not the Garage or Zanzibar, but it was serious punch. Anyway, they made me play until like 11:00 the next morning. I won’t forget that. I was like, “Back pain, back pain.” Loved it, though. Loved it, though. At that time, to do radio studio and night club and be in a relationship was a bit much for me. I just promised myself I’d never do it again. It was too much for me. Maybe somebody else can do it, but it was too much. Torsten Schmidt Even though you have retired from the game, maybe there’s some valuable lessons you can teach to folks who are still remixing and the way you approach something. Tony Humphries Oh, there’s just got to be a balance to things, I would say, and don’t let the business force you into something you don’t want to do. Go with your own pace, man. That’s the best advice I can give you or you’d be sucked up easily. “When’s the next record? When’s the next show? Come do my club, blah, blah, blah.” Forget it, and then they’ll be on to the next person. There’s got to be a balance, man. Torsten Schmidt Do you keep set breaks that you set at the beginning of the year and go, “OK, this part of the year, I’m not going to go and travel,” or how do you make sure you still... Tony Humphries No, no, no. I just do less. That’s all. I do less. My motto is if it’s a good show, they’ll remember you. That’s the whole thing. You could do 20 shows and they think you suck. That money comes and it goes. Just do a good show. I’d rather plan for that show and make sure it’s executed and I play the most soulful stuff I had on me for that particular gig and I’m happy. I’m happy. Torsten Schmidt It’s a good place to be. When you took your folks – around the time you took your people from the club over to England instead of getting paid, maybe around that time you were still remixing, and maybe we could use that a little bit to showcase your approach to how you were going about that. (music: The Beloved – “The Sun Rising (Zanzibar Has Risen Mix)”) Tony Humphries [comments over music] I haven’t heard these things in years, man. Wow. That’s so church, man. It’s like church. Torsten Schmidt It’s [inaudible]. Tony Humphries It’s Catholic church, though. Torsten Schmidt That’s not Catholic. Tony Humphries Well, that’s true... Feels that way. [applause] Torsten Schmidt You’re basically using a band of English ravers and take them from the sample that they used, which was a 12th-century church song over to Baptist church and then over to [inaudible] and all on the house beat. Tony Humphries Yes, yes. “The Sun Rising,” The Beloved. My... That’s some time ago. Wow. That’s great. That’s great. Memories. You’re pulling them out, man. I don’t know what you pulling them from, but you’re getting them. Geez. [laughs] Torsten Schmidt Would you mind sharing some of them? Tony Humphries What’s next? Torsten Schmidt Well, we got some, but maybe there’s a memory here that you’d like to share. Tony Humphries No, I mean I was just really happy to do that group. They were... I just loved them back then. You saw DJ Tony Varnado to do a lot of the programming stuff. My cousin, Andre Lassalle is a guitarist. He’s a Hendrix fanatic. Always trying to get him to play like Ernie Isley from the Isley Brothers. Just wanted to be a little different and fit them in. Thank you for playing that one. It’s been a long time. [laughs] Torsten Schmidt It’s a pleasure to have you here. Tony Humphries I don’t remember what year that was. Torsten Schmidt ’91. Tony Humphries ’90. Torsten Schmidt ’90, ’91, somewhere there. Tony Humphries Wow. Torsten Schmidt The mix is called “Zanzibar Has Risen.” Obviously it’s a reference to the club, but what we haven’t talked about is... Tony Humphries Well, the sun’s rising, so that’s why I said, “Zanzibar Has Risen,” but go ahead. Torsten Schmidt The name, “Zanzibar,” as such is not exactly Brick City. Tony Humphries Right. Yeah, yeah, well... Torsten Schmidt We saw some Afrocentricity symbols in the video clip as well. It was a thing at the time to think, “Hang on here in an urban environment, like, where’s our African heritage...” Tony Humphries Oh, the theme that they started with? Well, this was before me. The whole theme that they had with the tigers and everything, this is late ’70s before I got there. Again, I’m coming from Brooklyn after the fact, so I can’t really speak on that. All I wanted to do was make sure I carried on what the guys before me had done, because they were great. I learned a lot from those guys. I wasn’t supposed to have the job. Torsten Schmidt Who were those guys, actually, because that’s stories in itself? Tony Humphries Yeah, you know, when you’re in New York City, you travel. You go to different clubs, blah, blah, blah. Better Days to see Tee Scott. He was great with the delays. He was a great overlayer. He was the first one I saw that would use a reel-to-reel. Used to call it a slab in the studio... For vocals. He was great at that. He also... I learned from him not to be a snob about radio tunes, because when you’re... Back in the day, people would say, “I wouldn’t play that, because it’s on the radio. It’s too commercial, blah, blah, blah. Stay away from that.” You know what I mean. “Oh, man. Commercial. You’re supposed to stay underground.” Well, I went to listen to Tee Scott at Better Days, and he was playing commercial stuff and other stuff. I was like, “If this man can do this, then I can do it.” Of course, you can get away with it on a Saturday night, but I learned to be able to infuse a couple of commercial things, and I thought in my head if you section off people that you’re trying to entertain, there are going to be a section of people who want to hear something familiar that’s from the radio, so what’s five minutes of your time to make them happy? That’s something that I learned from him, because before then, I was like if it wasn’t underground, it had to be unknown. If it was known, I wouldn’t play it. He changed my mind about that. The other person was Larry Patterson, which people know about. He gave me my shot, and what I learned from him was... he used to beat in my head all the time, “If you’re going to play the song, play a song with good lyrics that means something to someone. Don’t play any BS lyrics. Don’t mess with peoples’ intelligence like that. You’re in a powerful position. Play something that would mean something to somebody or don’t play it at all.” I kind of stuck to that. Torsten Schmidt Apparently that stuck with other people, and here is someone that mentioned you a bit. (music: Romanthony – “Falling from Grace (Tony Humphries’ Main Mix)”) Tony Humphries [comments over music] Religious again. [applause] Alright. Wow. My life. My life. What’s next, man? [laughs] Torsten Schmidt I think first you need to tell us a little bit about the young cat that is actually on that record. Tony Humphries Who? Romanthony? Torsten Schmidt Yeah. Tony Humphries Oh, Anthony, he was great. He was really great. I used to sort of say he was a Prince clone in a great sort of way. You know what I mean? The feel that he had and his musicianship. He can really play a lot of the rock guitar stuff that he had. He got into the church stuff a lot with me, which is, again, a strange combination, but that’s what you hear. It’s a shame he’s gone, but he was a special person for sure. Kind of miss that Prince-ish sort of vocals and edge that he had. Alright, Roman. Torsten Schmidt Again, that record was almost a DJ set of ten minutes. Inside one track, there were like four sections in it. Especially the last section kind of gave birth to an entire new genre as well, like kids in the UK that were going, “Oh, we kind of like the harshness of those beats,” sped them up a little bit, and we’re like, “Well, because it was fast, I call it speed garage then.” Tony Humphries Ah, OK. Torsten Schmidt Other things that you played as well, like – Tony Humphries Then again, it’s underneath, sort of gospel-y sort of thing, fall from Grace, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah again. It ties into religious stuff. I didn’t realize it, but I’m realizing it now. All these songs you’re playing, they’ve got sort of that feel to it. I’m being exposed. Oh, God. Alright. But it’s cool, though. That’s where I come from. I can’t shed that. Torsten Schmidt There were rumors that when that happened, when they started speeding the records up, you stopped playing the actual records that were music. Tony Humphries Oh, God. Oh... You have to bring that up, man. Do you really have to bring that up? OK. Well, alright, alright. Let me get it over with. Basically, when speed garage was beginning, I didn’t realize that it was a British revolt against the garage stuff coming from the U.S. and they basically wanted to do their own thing. They basically started using the effect that Todd Edwards from New Jersey was doing tweaking vocals. Once they started tweaking vocals, like a major artist, like Chaka or somebody like that, I said to myself, “I can’t play these sort of tunes, because I actually see these people.” Chaka Khan performed at my club. Loleatta performed in my club. I see them. I’ve been in dressing room with them. There’s a sort of relationship, so I was thinking, “What would they say if they said, ‘Tony, what are you doing playing this sort of stuff? Are you kidding me?’“ It’s sort of a gimmick sort of thing. When I first went over, not knowing how big this phenomenon was, I actually went on, I think it was KISS 100 or something like that and I actually said, “I don’t really think I can support this sort of genre,” and after that, I was on the front page of all these magazines saying, “Tony unreasonable... Will not play any of this sort of stuff.” That’s what happened, but that was my whole thing. I felt I had to face some of these artists again, and I didn’t want to face them and have them question me as to why would I play stuff of theirs like that, so that’s the gist of the whole thing. Torsten Schmidt Maybe it was never intended as a revolt in the first place. Maybe it was more an homage and they were just aggy young kids that just wanted the stuff a little faster. Tony Humphries I really don’t know. That’s what I was told later on. I was told that enough of this U.S. garage stuff. We’re going to do our own. Nothing wrong with that. Torsten Schmidt A lot of the folks in there would be like the deepest aficionados for the music you guys were doing, so I don’t think it was ever intended as a revolt. Tony Humphries Well, good. I’m glad, but maybe I heard wrong, but that’s... Well, good. I stand corrected. No problem. No problem. Peace. [laughs] Torsten Schmidt Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. Tony Humphries Religious, man. Yeah, I don’t want no problems. Torsten Schmidt No, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t think there ever was a fight. I think it was a lot of the home genre was born out of the love for what you guys were doing. Maybe it’s good to be able to set the record straight. Tony Humphries OK, good. It’s out. Torsten Schmidt I guess we want to take some questions here as well, so seeing that the battery is not working, though, anymore, there’s one little thing that a bunch of nerds, always we’re wondering about, but the battery might be dead so we can’t play you and ask you. We’ll have to do that another time. You had a question? Is there a mic somewhere? OK, here it is. Tony Humphries Yeah. Take mine. Audience Member Hi. Tony Humphries Hi. Audience Member Is it on? Can you hear me? Hi. Thanks for coming and talking to us. I was wondering... You touched on this a little bit, but if you could talk a little bit about the relationship between the Jersey sound and the Chicago sound, maybe even in the context of the British sound being influenced by New Jersey. Over the years, was there sort of cross-influencing going on between Chicago and New Jersey? Was it wider than that? Were you guys talking? Were these cliques related? Tony Humphries It’s funny. I was playing a lot of their music, and I knew their names from the records. I really didn’t know them personally. It wasn’t until a small group of them got booked at Zanzibar; for instance, that’s when I met Ten City, which is Myron and everybody else breaking down. That was cool. Then we had acts that came in from all over the place. Again, every Friday we had to have an act at the club or it wasn’t going to survive. Whatever I played, we tried to get that act in. Then also The Garage would have them on the same weekend, so they would be at the Paradise Garage on Saturday, Zanzibar Friday, and we would just intertwine a lot of things, whether it was a major act or a smaller act. They had Grace Jones. We would have Grace Jones. We were like the little step-child. In terms of Chicago, man, I don’t think I’ve ever had a section of my library sectioned off like theirs. It was that huge. Even in the club in Zanzibar, when you see some of the pictures, I had a section that was maybe 300 of everything that came out from Chicago. Again, as I was playing songs, I’d pull a track from Chicago and then another one. So they got a good 40% of my program. We bonded that way. The only time I would really meet those guys was in Florida when we had a music conference, and all of a sudden, it was like, “Oh, that’s you?” “Yeah, man! Yeah, that’s cool!” We bonded then, but it was once a year. Loved their stuff, man. Loved their stuff. For me, it started with Virgo tracks. Virgo tracks I used to play a lot, because Earl Young is my, again, Philly... My favorite drummer, and I tried to push those sort of patterns. Virgo was like the electronic version of a piece of Earl Young, so I used to play that a lot, make everything feel that way by keeping it underneath. Yeah. Loved the guys from Chicago. Torsten Schmidt More questions, please. Right there. Audience Member Two questions. Do you think traditional media, in particular FM radio, is still as influential as it was when you were working the club scene and the radio scene, and have you ever been to Zanzibar, the physical country, the place? Tony Humphries No. Oh, wow. Great. I wish. No. No. I believe that radio isn’t like when I was on there because of freedom. I believe... I’ve heard this from a lot of other people at mix shows across the country when I went to seminars in Florida. He says, “Man, we don’t have it like you, man. We got mix shows, but we got to play whatever’s being programmed, and we only allowed to play two or three songs that were not on the playlist. You’re lucky. You can play anything you want. I would assume it’s just as tight now. I don’t really know of anyone who has the freedom to absolutely play anything they want. Maybe Louie and Kevin does on BLS in New York, but other than that, I don’t know anyone else who has that freedom, so I would say it’s not the same as back then, and no, I haven’t been to the real Zanzibar. Wish they would invite me. [laughs] It would be really cool. Audience Member I see a National Geographic program coming up. Audience Member Hi. Tony Humphries Hi. Audience Member Thanks so much for being here. That was really inspiring to hear all that music. I was in Newark, I guess four months ago. I live in New York. I was driving around, and there was house music coming out of a barbecue. I drove past, and it was a bunch of 50 and 60-year-old ladies, totally giving it up, singing all the lyrics. I was maybe expecting it to be 25-year-olds or something, but it was a block party full of older people, grandmas, parents, aunties, all dancing to house music. I feel like Zanzibar and these clubs are talked about, as they were so underground. This is two parts. One, can you describe what that atmosphere was like at Zanzibar, what kind of people went? If people were staying up until 10 AM and then going to work, was it druggy, was it spiritual? There was obviously a lot of well-known artists coming through. Second of all, as I understand the house scene in Jersey, I don’t want to call it mainstream, but there was a ton of people into house music. It wasn’t quite this thing you had to underground discover. House music seems like it was around during that time. Anyway, can you just talk about that? Tony Humphries OK. In terms of who went there, again, I was in my 20s, and one of the things that I remember that was sort of shocking to me when I got to New Jersey was how much they were into dance music or underground music. We used to have these high school parties, believe it or not, on a Sunday. This is the time with LL Cool J and all these other hip-hop artists that were out. I would be playing this stuff for them and they would knock on the door. “Hey, hey, hey, hey! When are you going to play ‘Where Were You When the Lights Went Out’?” I was like, “What did you ask me for?” Asking me for the tracks, you know, and say, “When are you going to play ‘Born This Way’?” I was like, “What do you know about ‘Born This Way’? You wasn’t even born when “Born This Way” by Carl Bean came out.” They were asking me about all these club songs. I was like, “Little peons.” It was shocking to me that the culture was already there already. These little kids wanted to hear 50/50. They wanted to hear house songs and hip-hop songs, which didn’t happen in New York as far as I’m concerned. Didn’t happen in Brooklyn or whatever. That was inspiring, really, to be able to have the freedom to play 50/50 like that as they were growing up, so it was already instilled when I got there. I’m trying to remember what the second question was that you said. Audience Member I was saying what was the atmosphere at the actual club like? Tony Humphries Oh, the atmosphere. Well... Audience Member What kind of people went? How was the arc of what happened during the night? Tony Humphries Basically you would go into the place at 10 PM and it would be like any other after-hours, after-work sort of situation, and you would have, I guess, commercial people who would be there until around 12:30 AM when they would open up a gate to the second floor. You weren’t allowed on the top floor. As 12:30, 1 AM happened and you walked up the stairway, you walked into this huge ballroom. Those commercial people would probably stay there until a PA or a show happened. I’m showing you sort of the evolution. Most of the people who were underground would not come in until really around 2, 3, or 4 AM. First they would tape the radio show. Then after the radio show, they would get ready and come to the club. There was that transition in my second set where I could play a couple of commercial things but a little bit of underground things. Then by the third set, the commercial people went home. They’d been out partying since 10 PM. They had enough. They drank enough. They saw a show. That’s why by third set I had to play real stuff, core stuff now. I couldn’t play anything that was on the radio with something like that at that time. Again, so it was a mixture, which was really odd. You had people with suits on, and then you had people that had underground stuff on and dancing on baby powder, had different... It was crazy. You had different sections. We had little bleachers on each side and a stage on another side. You had little cliques of people, and you had the dancers, the modern dancers, who were doing the circle dance, as we call it. They were doing their thing. That’s sort of what taught me to try to be diverse all the time within every 15, 20 minutes, because I imagine being in the ceiling of the club, if it had a glass ceiling, and looking down at all these different groups of people and saying, “OK, now how am I going to make them happy? How am I going to make them happy?” There’s five, six groups of people. I need to play something for each one of them so they wouldn’t go home. That’s why I tried to be diverse through it as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to really zone in on one particular one until 7 or 8 AM. That’s when I had to be on the stick with one sort of style of music. Again, the radio lessons helped me with being able to keep hitting different ones in a certain amount of time. It was a great mixture. I could imagine the second set, or let’s say from 12 to 2 or 3 AM with suited people with hats on and then people with normal underground gear must have been... There was never any fights. There was never any threats or anything. Again, it was different for Jersey for me. You wouldn’t find that in New York. It was either one way or the other. That’s kind of why I liked it. It was unique, and the youth, the youth also was into not-so-radio hits. Torsten Schmidt Sir, I think we can’t let you go without picking a last song for us, like a classic last song last song. While you do that, I guess... Tony Humphries Are there questions? I don’t know – Torsten Schmidt ...Might like to join me. Tony Humphries I don’t know. There’s so much stuff to play. Wow. Torsten Schmidt You’ll be playing tonight as well, right? Tony Humphries That’s true. It doesn’t matter. [laughs] Torsten Schmidt We will be getting a lot of that as well, but for those who won’t be able to hear the last track tomorrow morning, I’d like you all to join me and give thanks to Mr. Tony Humphries. [applause] Tony Humphries Thank you. Thank you. I’ll try again. (music: A Guy Called Gerald – “Voodoo Ray”) Tony Humphries Unbelievable. Torsten Schmidt It sounds like we got one more. Tony Humphries Let’s see. Do you want to hold this? [hands mic to Torsten] Torsten Schmidt Sure. Tony Humphries There are so many of then. Here’s another 11 AM record. (music: Peter Godwin – “Emotional Disguise (Instrumental)” / applause) Tony Humphries I’m going to try to set this up. Basically, there was a little discrepancy that I sort of regret now. When I decided to leave Zanzibar – there was sort of a management issue thing [and I] don’t want to go into detail. Basically, the last night I decided to leave, the owner was there and heard me ranting and raving over the mic. I usually don't speak over the mic. He said that we could stay as long as we wanted to. So, you can imagine from 1 AM the previous night to about four-thirty or five o’clock the next day I just kept playing music. This is the last song that I played. You can imagine what happened. (music: Archie Bell & The Drells – “Where Will You Go When the Party’s Over”)