STS-120
Minimal Techno with a bit of texture...

This was my first mix after I moved back (home) to AR from NC, after having worked residencies at several clubs there while under a two-year apprenticeship with Mark "The Hitmann" Pezzella, who ran Quality Disc Jockeys and HittMix Studios, which were both subsidiaries of Quality Sound and Video - which had the entertainment contract for these clubs that I mentioned...  

A good portion of this time and under this arrangement, I worked as a direct understudy for Karson Douglas "Chuck" Tager - radio, studio, club, mobile - he'd done and was doing it all at that time, and I was very fortunate to have worked and roomed with him during a time when I was trying to figure out how to wrap my head around the damned thing as a whole, in a highly competitive club environment...

I'd moved to NC from Austin, TX, where I'd gotten involved with DJing and heavily involved with breakbeat... Texas Breaks, rather...

In Texas, having been tremendously inspired by DJs Scot Gray, and Michelangelo, and having the good fortune of being befriended by Mike C, who was a mentor and a prime force in helping me get my feet off the ground as a DJ, which has led to so many other good things...

I left Texas with a sound imprinted in my head, but was never able to re-create (or even rediscover) that Texas Breaks sound anywhere else I've ever traveled...  They not only do it different in Texas........

It's much Bigger and much Better in TEXAS...  That's no joke...  Now why is that?  It's not a rhetorical question...  Well other things too, but I'm talking about breakbeat...  with breaks, i don't have to mince words, I have a clue and it escapes me here...

It's the fucking groove and track...  Tracky ass breaks!!!

After I left Texas, I never could find anything I Really liked, like i liked texas breaks...  Sorry rest of my friends, rest of the world...

That's the fucking breaks... and you can find them in TX.

Possibly because of the records I was finding on the East Coast - mainly Satellite Records in NYC, from Justin Johnson, who has become one of my very best friends over the years, and was kind enough to be my Best Man at my wedding in LV (between gigs) - and also from Kimmee "DJ Storm" Drakontitis from West Palm Beach, who's a cool mofo, and I appreciate him hooking me up w/ some badass shit back in the day...  Won't forget it...

But I just never could get back to Texas with the music, or find anything like it elsewhere... 

So, this mix is that Texas feeling I had inside me, but with only one record purchased in Austin from Alien, and it was an import. ??

While I wasn't trying to represent or re-create, necessarily, a certain sound, the feelings that forced this mix into existence were the lingering effects of a high that was gained from spending 93 to 95 in the Austin area.

It was a very special time there, and none of the above work would exist if it weren't for the incredible talent and presence of Scot and Mike, Mike C.  and all that came before...  and my pure, dumb luck... To all the people I've mentioned: Thanks All!!!


I put this mix out originally around July '97 or thereabouts. It has a gap in the middle from having a cassete tape as a a master, but I don't think it hurts it that much...

This mix is pure breakbeat, electro-funk, acidic mayhem, D&B at 33, some other shit I don't know what to call, and some Nu-Skool sounding tracks, however, Rennie Pilgrem hadn't put out the Kickin' samplers yet....  and wouldn't for almost a year-and-a-half and some change...

Some people around me called the stuff I was playing at the time (in Little Rock, mind you...) "Experimental Breaks", but not to my face, and of course they were not "experimental", they were just grungy and not from California or Florida... CA and FLA are well represented throughout in this compilation however...

BTW, this mix never had any original artwork, so I've substituted a photo of my Mindwarp (Too) sleeve from Stress Records, a record that was given to me by Mike C. has been greatly appreciated, and kindly signed by John Debo...  Thanks for understanding...

Fun times...

Enjoy!!!

BR