markiegee

Mad love and respect to the Volume Productions crew. Will definitely spread the word on this gig and look forward to seeing RI represent. Emailed Venom earlier in the week and am looking to do some events with you cats in the future. Should be a good night for house music. ) Markie Gee

WOW!!! Last week Kashif approached me about writing a state of house music in hartford piece in a magazine he was starting. Without editorializing any further, this seems like a much better forum. It is ALWAYS better to be busy doing work than talking about how great you are or who you made or helped. Hartford has a long history of underappreciated talent from Lucien Grillo and David Shaw, to John Trienis and John McMann, to the djs from Sanctuary, Commercial Street, Dagny's, Riot, Comet, Club Car, Mission, Loft Chez Est and BWNN who lived house music in all of it's incarnations. Don't forget the college radio heads who put it down like Charles Henry and Mike Johnson and Mike Nyce. No one person deserves credit for Hartford's resurgent scene but we all share some responsibility in telling the truth about the scene and working together to make it better and stronger. For the record, Joe Ventura and Jeff Romanowski were the original residents at BWNN. I came after them and was there the longest; Dave Dresden was there with me when Radio 104 had a mixshow. Joe Ventura is a very successful mortgage broker in Beacon Falls and Jeff Romanowski works at one of casinos and is doing quite well. Kris Kono was never a BWNN resident but was a "1" resident. I did in fact book my friends Danny Tenaglia, Erick Morillo, DJ Camacho, Teri Bristol and Victor Calderone for True Faith Sundays at BWNN. A local hairdresser flamed me in print before the Danny Tenaglia show claiming I was homophobic so the show got boycotted. 226 people showed up to see Danny Tenaglia tear it up while 3 times that saw Dave Dresden and Jonathan Peters do their thing with Maa Bell. Life is strange... In any event, Lynn Collins wasn't totally right; it takes more than two to make the thing go right. House needs ALL the help it can get in Hartford. It needs to get more mature and more professional to grow. All this dissing and fussing is REALLY counterproductive. Let's try to make some shit happen. Hip hop people don't love all of their constituents but they tend to agree that they love the music. Let that be the focus. No disrespect to anyone but it has been a long time since a dj could carry a club in CT. It's not because the djs are not good enough, it's because we have allowed the rave-ification of the scene to compartmentalize house into discrete factions that don't cross over. The beauty of clubs like RIOT, and to a lesser extent Loft and BWNN, is that the dj determined the playlist. The internet wasn't dictating what was hot, and individuality was appreciated and cultivated. DJs could play C & C Music Factory, Green Velvet, DJ Dan and Barbara Tucker in the same set all night long. Try to name one club that successfully plays deep house, tribal, progressive, techno and latin house on a regular basis. That should be the norm and would guarantee that house not be relegated to "underground" or "specialist" status. House music is not for weirdos; Europe and Australia and Japan, etc have avid fans. We just have to do a better job of making sure house is presented properly and that we get a balanced diet of sounds. To much electronica is sure to spoil the broth; you gotta be soulful sometime! Mad love and respect to Bora Celik for helping put Hartford BACK on the map. DJ Joe Giucastro was attracting a healthy following from NYC and Boston for his programming and selection almost 20 years ago; we need to get back to Hartford resident djs being able to hold down a floor like djs in NYC, DC, Miami, Providence, etc. This market will not achieve it's potential until it can create it's own turntable superstars. We need to learn to support our own AND the hots djs out there who should be large in Hartford like DJ Disciple, Miguel Migs, Lord G, Doc Martin, Alton Miller, Todd Terry, Pete Moss, Tedd Patterson, Kerri Chandler, Dennis Ferrer, Masters At Work, David Morales, Pal Joey, Lenny Fontana, Steve Hurley, Jellybean Benitez, etc. I hope we can take all this negativity and direct it towards some positive activity in Hartford. Don't hate, just put people in check. Create something real and positive and let your motive for doing it be wanting to expose good music to good people. All this personality stuff gets boring. I just want to be able to go out and hear some djs play with passion and fire and intelligence who want to be good djs and are students of the dj game. I hear a lot of dj name dropping these days but I wonder how many folks actually go out of their way to see these djs play live. There are 100's of very good djs that most people have never heard of. Do yourself and Hartford a favor and go see them and bring them to Hartford or at least expose them to your friends. It's still early and there is time to make 2007 the year house returned to Hartford. I hope we put the egos in check and represent for the music and those who go to great trouble and personal expense to make this beautiful music available to Hartford. Make love and house music. Don't let shady promoters or unprofessional managers/owners dilute the scene. Stop bitching and start supporting Flipside and Sunday School and any other righteous house music event and bring 10 of your friends. Ain't no party like a house party!! Markie Gee

Robbie Rivera will be playing at SHINE 285 W. Broadway on Thursday July 25th, see www.theheavensocial.com as well as www.shinenyc.com The date with SUBLIMINAL is being rescheduled for a date most likely to take place in October. Robbie Rivera is not playing Centro-Fly on August 2nd, but has not closed the door on playing thereat a later date. You can also catch Robbie this Friday July 26th on The Hamptons at Brazil Nightclub; sponsored in part by Party 105 www.brazilnightclub.com This is the info straight from the guy who books ALL his dates. Markie Gee PUBLIC IMAGE booking