Oneman and I have been running parallel lives on some One-man degree of separation shit for quite some time, but for some reason we never crossed paths until relatively recently. I was spinning Love Fixation one crowded night during the weekend of the WFMU record fair, and tons of heads were in town and stopped by the jam, and it was awesome. I was having a go on the decks, when I noticed some dude was looming over me, and shouting some shit in my face. I had no clue who the guy was, and couldn't tell if he wanted to punch me or compliment me. After one more series of undecipherable words were slung at me, in fear that some drunk random customer may attack me, I asked McBoingBoing if anyone knew who that guy was. He was laughing like, "Dude that's Oneman! You don't know Oneman??? He's awesome!" After chatting him up that night and bumping into him a few more times around town, as well as watching him do his thang on the turntables, I must agree, ONEMAN over at Names You Can Trust is pretty awesome!
Besides being a talented DJ/Musician, he is a pretty entertaining guy, so I asked him to snap some photos of his "thang" and write up some juicy tales of cassette porn for us. Time to dim those lights diggers, let's get to talkin' dirty:
"NYCTrust really started with Mix Tapes on cassette. First off, I used to take recording of the Underground Railroad radio show back to the west coast where E's E and I would study Monk-One's artistry after he took the reigns from DJ Spinna. That really started us DJing and fueled the search for breaks and junk.
After college, I moved back to NYC and started diggin while E took off for slanted and enchanted adventures in the Far East. I couldn't send him cheese; but I sent him a series of mixes entitled "All American Breaks" over his two year stint. The name says it all - think World of Beats / On Track.
The Look & Listen tape was my last unsuccessful attempt at being noticed. I think Jared from TSL almost liked it and allowed me to leave some on the curb outside the store for the taking. It was a good idea and flexed my knowledge of sample-lore; but a failed format of back and forth btwn beat and original.
My next mix got me noticed and on the radio (URR - 99.5fm) and a few years later my who-sampled-it-based mix would lead to a phone call from Dr. Dre and Eminem searching for sources (also through Jared's good graces.)
I have dozens of tapes from the Underground Railroad and some of them are absolute gems. My favorite was DJ Jock Max who really blew my mind with his 45 collection. Monk-One's puerto rican day parade new york salsa showcase was a huge hit. It was bumpin in the car all summer long and pretty much planted the seed for the Greenwood Rhythm Coalition. Obviously all of Emskee's mixes were class-in-session. (Did you know he also did Rap Drops for the Wendy Williams Show?... And grew up a few blocks from me?) And Tomcat only made a few appearances just to let everyone know who's our daddy.
There's one in there called live@swim. That was our first regular gig in NYC on Orchard Street. We were horrible as DJs but amazing at smoking blunts in the staircase behind the turntables."
"Mixed Bag"
BTW You can hear Oneman every third Thursday at Sycamore in BK doing his thang with his homies.
Thanks ONEMAN!
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1 comment:
Amazing collection!
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