This is a transcript of the Beyond the Decks Podcast 008 with Johnny D De Mairo. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links that take you directly to that point in the main video. Please note that the transcript is machine generated, and may have errors. Here are some useful links:
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Table of Contents
00:00:00 – Introduction to the Podcast
00:02:51 – Johnny’s Early DJ Experience
00:04:27 – Influence of Studio 54
00:11:46 – Discovering Vinyl Mania
00:16:17 – Working at Atlantic Records
00:20:26 – A Life-Changing Decision
00:26:20 – Parallel Journey with Henry Street
00:29:05 – The Birth of Henry Street Music
00:36:32 – Collaboration with Nicky P
00:42:08 – Creating Hits with Kenny
00:48:14 – Impact of “The Bomb”
01:05:10 – Challenges in Record Labels
01:08:16 – Transition to Digital
01:15:51 – The Demise of Traditional Music Business
01:21:17 – Future Plans and Autobiography
Introduction
(00:00:00)
Robert Simoes
Welcome, everybody to the Beyond the Decks podcast, your guide to mastering the art and business of the deejaying, dance, and electronic music industry. I’m your host, Robert Simmons here with learningtodj.com and today we are really blessed to be speaking to an individual who has had a lasting impact and contribution to the world of house music. Based in New York, he worked at Atlantic Records from 1994 until 2008, where he performed A&R and remix coordination duties, playing a major role in heavy hits like Everything but the Girls, Missing and Tori Amos Professional Widow in 1993.
(00:01:13)
Robert Simoes
He and his partner Tommy Musto set up Henry Street Music, an iconic house music label focused on the grittier, sample heavy disco house sounds of house music. Celebrating its 30th year anniversary this year. Wow, 30 years with talents such as heavy, which touches Kenny Dope, Louie Vega, Terry Hunter, Todd Terry, Armand Van Helden, DJ Sneak, the list continues, all contributing to this label with huge underground tracks and heavy hits like a Funk Phenomenon, Show Me The Way, The Bomb. This label has contributed and shaped and grown house music in profound ways. His first release. If my information is correct and we’re going to have them correct. Correct me here was Jim Jams Volume 1 in 1992. An outspoken, self-proclaimed disco fanatic and host of the Johnny D Experience radio show, author of two books with, I think, a third forthcoming, His Name is Johnny D De Mairo, and he is the founder of Henry Street Music. So, Johnny, welcome to the show.
(00:02:26)
Johnny De Mairo
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
(00:02:28)
Johnny De Mairo
That introduction was good. There were a couple of issues, but I’m sure we’ll, we’ll we’ll straighten them all out as the as the conversation goes.
(00:02:35)
Robert Simoes
I love it. Definitely. I want to know I want to know what the what the what the real truth is. So Johnny, if, if, if my understanding is correctly here, I want to go back to where you first encountered DJ, which was that you started DJing at 11 or 12 years old.
Johnny’s Early DJ Experience
(00:02:51)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah, I’m actually I was ten when I started when I first touched turntables, but I got my first equipment at, 11, and, I’m sorry, 11. You’re right, 11 years is 79, but 80 was when I got my first chance, my first equipment. But a friend of mine down the block and my friend around the corner, Peter and Frank, they had one turntable each, and Peter had a mixer. And Frank would bring his turntable over to Peter’s house, and we would go over and they were just, you know, putting records together.
(00:03:23)
Johnny De Mairo
And Frank got it. Peter had no idea what he was doing, and I knew that the pitch, I knew that there was a lot more to it than just putting two records on and just going from left to right. So I was immediately, I mean, I always was a music fanatic. So the fact that you can actually go from one to another without a commercial break or a DJ, something I thought that was fascinating to this day, mixers, the actual mixer, which I have probably over 100. I am fascinated with the guy I care about two Bams or McIntosh or speakers. I can give two shits mixers to me. It’s like a magical invention. So I’ve always had this thing in my head about having that segue. And the funny thing is, it’s just two volume controls. It’s on, off, on, off. And but if you do it right, it’s just it’s magical. So, that was yeah, it all started at that point, 1979. Absolutely.
(00:04:20)
Robert Simoes
And then I think at 14 you started going to studio 54 or.
(00:04:26)
Robert Simoes
Yes.
Influence of Studio 54
(00:04:27)
Johnny De Mairo
Yes. And 14. I was at the same time of studio 54. There was that’s one of the biggest influences in my, in my life. And, I was 14 and obviously the time the drinking age was 19. So we used to go to this place called Playland in Manhattan, Times Square and get a fake ID, and back then the bouncers at the door, there was no digital shit. It was just like, oh, wow, this thing says the proper year. Great. You can get in, because all they needed to do was to have proof that this person showed me something to get in. They weren’t acting as the police, so we’d go to Playland for $7 or whatever, get this fake ID, and, I get in and I started going, you had to get dressed up, which I hated to do, but I had to get into this club, and, people from my neighborhood were going in, and what was happening at the time was they would there were these passes that were out.
(00:05:18)
Johnny De Mairo
So to get in studio 54 at the time was $18 to get in, which is a lot of money back then. But the pass, it was 12, so I was saving people $6. So people from the neighborhood used to hand them out to other people and whoever would get into the club, they put their initial on the pass, they’d get a dollar per pass that would come in, which was a significant amount of money if, you know, you hustle. So I was doing it, and I noticed that a lot of people in the neighborhood were all just giving it to the same people. So I was like, I’m never going to, you know, and I was doing okay with it. And I realized if I get to the club early, I could just hit the line because the line used to go from 54th Street all the way around to 53rd, which was the back of the Roseland. So I would just go there and I would give out almost all my passes just on that line.
(00:06:02)
Johnny De Mairo
So it was very successful, and after a while I just told the guy, so listen, I don’t really care about the money. I just want to be able to come here, walk in with whoever I’m with, no problems. And for a four year period, I walked in and that place truly changed my life. Absolutely.
(00:06:19)
Robert Simoes
Can you tell us about the first time you you got into studio 54? I mean, I’ve only heard legends.
(00:06:24)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah. I mean, when you look back at studio 54 stuff, most of them covered the 77 to 80 era, which was the celebrities, which was great. And but I really feel that I’m glad I wasn’t there for that because that would have been so distracted. Oh, there’s Mick Jagger, there’s so-and-so. I wouldn’t have been experiencing studio 54 when I went in 82. That had gone, but there was still 50. There was still 4 or 5000 people there on Saturday. It was the music, the lights, everything about that club. To me, it was the perfect club.
(00:06:53)
Johnny De Mairo
You’d walk in, you’d walk up this kind of. It wasn’t a real ramp, but a little incline. And when you made that left, there was a bar and just it was dark. And you see the DJ booth to the left and the dance floor and the stairs and I just, I couldn’t I just couldn’t believe I was there and I was just absorbing everything I wasn’t. Hi, I was literally just the music and the lights and the videos and I was just blown away. And I guess coming off of the, you know, the smoke of what, the studio 54 now, it was like, okay, this is studio 54, but this is me experiencing it. And, I was just actually talking to my son yesterday, talking about the sound system of how I could be at the bar right here, and then take one step into the dance floor and the music, the way the acoustics were, was so perfect. You and I could have this conversation can take a step onto the dance floor, have this birth of baseball and hitting you, and then go back.
(00:07:53)
Johnny De Mairo
And it was, you know, you didn’t leave with your ears ringing. It was clean. The lights, the visual, everything about that place was pure. And I’ve been to a lot of clubs around the world. Nothing has ever hit me the way that did. And I was at clubs before that, and that place was just truly magical.
(00:08:11)
Robert Simoes
Did you have a I just have to ask this, like when you came in, did you have like a track that you heard and you still remember it to this day at all?
(00:08:19)
Johnny De Mairo
You know what’s so funny? That, like, I have this incredible memory I can recall, like when I was three years old, but I don’t remember the first song. I just, I remember I could tell you a bunch of songs. I do remember being on the dance floor by the bar. I don’t remember the first song. I think when I walked in, I, I literally had one of those out-of-body experiences of like, why me? You, you think of you walking up, are they going to come and tell me your ID is fake? Whatever.
(00:08:44)
Johnny De Mairo
You know, get out of here. We you know, you’re full of shit. Like, you know, you don’t know where it’s going to go. So when you finally get in there and I was with friends and we, I, I just, I, you know, I mean, I’m it was memorable for all of my friends, I’m sure. But it hit me in a, in a different way.
(00:08:59)
Robert Simoes
So you were going to the studio for going around doing this club and you’re starting to hustle kind of in the, I guess, the New York club scene. When did you start mixing around the city where you already doing that at 12 or so.
(00:09:12)
Johnny De Mairo
So what happened? You know, because I wrote graffiti at a very young age and graffiti, put me in a lot of places that I shouldn’t have been. And I would kill my son if he would have been in that age doing those things. But I was on the trains, in the tracks, in the city, in sketchy areas, you know, this late 70s, early 80s.
(00:09:36)
Johnny De Mairo
New York was not Disneyland. I mean, now it’s a disaster again. But for a long time we had this influx of, you know, when I grew up, it was the prostitutes on the corner, You know, the, porno. Every other movie house was a porno house. But there was there was a vibe to New York then, even though it was dirty, it was, you know, you had an abandoned building, you had an art gallery and a record stores everywhere. So I personally love that New York. But looking back, obviously it was, you know, it’s a little crazy, but yeah, I mean, I was and I started going to school in 82 as well. At the same time I was going to studio 54. So I was in the city, I was going from Brooklyn to Manhattan. So I did have that, you know, I was always fascinated by New York. I mean, I loved living in Brooklyn, but I live close enough.
(00:10:22)
Johnny De Mairo
Well, I’m a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan, so I love to say I could be in Manhattan, whether it’s through music or graffiti or whatever. But when I go to bed, I go back to Brooklyn, which is a little bit more peaceful. So, yeah. So yeah, Manhattan has always had a very special place in my heart.
(00:10:38)
Robert Simoes
And so when in that journey. So you’re in these kind of places doing graffiti and stuff like that. And then how did you find, I guess, your first kind of club gigs?
(00:10:46)
Johnny De Mairo
well, you know, I will rewind and say in, 1981, I was always looking for record stores, and my whole life everything has been about records. When I was very young, you would get records, you know, you can go to the corner locksmith and you’d walk into the, you know, and you’d walk in and have every kind of whatever tools and stuff. And to the left it’d be 100 cubbies and there’d be 100 slots with the top 100 records, and he’d have a sheet in front of you from 1 to 100 and, okay, I want number six, $0.45 a piece.
(00:11:17)
Johnny De Mairo
And so it was like everybody was selling records. So, you know, you go to a department store that was a clothing, whatever it was. I was always fascinated. But at that time I was young. They were I wasn’t personally at a lot of specialty record shops that were purely record shops. There was a place, the first album I ever bought, I think I was like six years old, like, well, My money was a Four Seasons album in the Brooklyn Heights, but in Manhattan, once I got there and I would walk around, I was like, oh my God. Like they were all over the place. But the one place that really was also a life changer for me was Vinyl Mania. I was on the corner, in my neighborhood, one of my closest friends, this guy Sal Bernardo, and there were a lot of DJs in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, and we were having a conversation. It was like a misty Sunday night. I’ll never forget it. And this guy Russell was an older guy.
Discovering Vinyl Mania
(00:12:07)
Johnny De Mairo
I mean, we were we were 11 at the time. Yeah. It was like, yeah, it was like 11 years old. And this guy was probably 18. And he’s like, yeah, this is a place called Vinyl Mania on Carmine Street. So nobody was that kind of pay attention. And I was like in my that was tattooed to my brain. I went home the next day. I said, I have to go. I have to figure out where to come. Because, you know, at that time there was no Google, there were no cell phones, and I don’t know how to read a map. So for me to actually navigate by train to, I don’t even know. I never heard of Carmine Street. And I figured out how to get off on West fourth Street on the train. It was eight stops from my house. I got off the train. Before I get to Carmine Street. There’s a triangle right in the right off of Sixth Avenue where Bleecker, Sixth Avenue and Carmine meet.
(00:12:52)
Johnny De Mairo
There’s a triangle and there’s this guy selling records. There are records all around the triangle. So I’m like, what is this? So. And I’m like, this, is this what this guy was talking about? Because this isn’t a store. This is very odd. So I looked around. I only had $20 in my pocket, so I really couldn’t go too crazy. And I realized, okay, wait a second, there’s Carmine Street, let me just walk. And I don’t think I was 20 steps in right there, 30 carmine vinyl mania. And there were two stores, one to the left, one to the right. The left one was a rock store. I walk into the I walk and I see, you know, this guy in there. I mean, I’m looking around. I don’t really see a lot of stuff I’m familiar with. I go into the other one, and I literally had one of those out-of-body experiences. I’m like, and at that moment I said, I’ll never be a junkie because I will never have money for drugs.
(00:13:43)
Johnny De Mairo
Ever. All my friends, whatever I said, I know for the rest of my life I will never have money for anything else but these things. I had $20 in my pocket and I had a lawyer. We’d have like the more expensive, crazier rare promos and stuff. I had three records. My first two records I got, there was a bank promo, a Martin circus, and a destination move on up purple vinyl album, which I didn’t even know existed. And I went home and I was like, so happy and happy. And then so almost winded, like looking at a mountain like, I’m going to have to climb this like I, I knew my personality that wasn’t going to be a one in and out. This is going to become my house. And over the years, it’s funny. I spoke to Charlie. Yet. Charlie, you still want to make some friends? We became very close over the years. And, Vinyl Mania was a tremendous part of everything. I mean, look behind me and Movado mania was so I just, you know, just was building and building the collection.
(00:14:49)
Johnny De Mairo
And Manhattan was so rich with records, you can walk around any part. If you went down by the Brooklyn Bridge, by Nassau Street, every other store where you go to like on J Street in Brooklyn, they were like these, these Jewish, these Russian Jewish guys. They used to own every it was like one family that owned the entire street, but you didn’t know you’d walk in and they’d be selling jewelry and radios and then back they’d be a little rack of records. And you go in there. Do you have that guy picks up the phone, I’ll go see my cousin down the block. It was the craziest shit. But there were records everywhere, so, you know, and me, I was working at the time. I started working at 12 years old. I was making $2 an hour at the time of 12, which was $3 hour and a half to one record. I remember at the end of the week I’d go and and my father stop by and record. You’re wasting all your money.
(00:15:36)
Johnny De Mairo
I used to have to hide the record bags in the back of the hall because he’s like, what are you doing with your money? And you know. And then little by little, I have a cradle records, five crates of records. Oh, I have a war. And then all of a sudden, I got up to over 120,000 records at one point, and, it’s it’s been my life. I mean, there’s no other. and I’m very specific about my records. I’m not. There are a lot of. I’m not going to mention names. There are a lot of big collectors with a lot of garbage collections. And they show you, oh, look at my warehouse. You don’t have a hundred thousand records. Yeah, but you have a lot of garbage. I have a very fat free collection. My collection is very tight.
(00:16:13)
Robert Simoes
And so when did you start it? Atlantic, then? because you mentioned studio.
Working at Atlantic Records
(00:16:17)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah. I mean, so. So what happened? Was he.
(00:16:19)
Johnny De Mairo
So I was deejaying, you know, and 79, 80, I got my first equipment. I was I’ll get back to 82 because at the same time of studio 54, I was going to Plaza Suite. We’ll get to Danny. I started Atlantic Records in 95, but I worked at a place called sin before that in 1992, which was the Street Information that work a promotion company. And it was there where I learned the business of music. And at that time, even before that, I was very good friends with Rich Christina, who was interning at Atlantic Records in the late 80s, where I met him. So the whole Atlantic kind of comes full circle because he was interning and he went to a full time job. His boss got blown out, he stayed new guy took over, who’s still today the chairman of the company. He wanted to move to A&R from promotion. He called me up and he was like, we got this job. And I remember I like Craig Coleman, who stole the chairman.
(00:17:11)
Johnny De Mairo
he was just getting settled in, as you know, he was the head of it all the time. But he now he’s he’s been the big guy for a long time. And I go to a meeting and I had no intention on taking the jobs. I was doing promotion. And I was literally going to phones 24 hours just like an animal. And it was at the time, Funkmaster Flex was like the biggest guy in hip hop. I was there twice a week. John Robinson on was the number one house guy in New York. Kenny and Louis. I was in the studio almost every night of the week with them. C.J. McIntosh in the UK. I was my networking. Looking back, I get dizzy. I don’t know how I did it, but it was it was pretty intense. And Craig, you know, in the middle, you know, three years into me being interesting, where I was the number one promotion person, hands down, going from hip hop, because I was one of the few guys that could speak to the ghetto hip hop guy, the gay guy that I just, I, I’m a music guy.
(00:18:03)
Johnny De Mairo
So you talk to me, you realize I know what I’m talking about. I’m not faking the funk of, oh, you’re talking about Tribe Called Quest. I can talk deep about tribe, and I can talk deep about, you know, the gay Sasha and Digweed record. So it was I was able to get the respect from other DJs and stuff. So my job as a promotion person, although the most frustrating job in the world because I have to check my ego and what I know to talk to some DJ who’s spinning for 60 people in Ohio on a Wednesday night, because I need his head on a Billboard chart or a mixture of play in some bullshit mixture in a, you know, some horrible area. But my job is my job, so you need to get records played and spread the word. So, Craig called me in and I walk into his office and he had this little bullshit room, and he was just getting. He’s unpacking and he goes, this was how the interview went.
(00:18:59)
Johnny De Mairo
when are you starting? That was that was the interview. So I says, what do you mean? I’m like, I because I says, I’m not. I’m not even thinking about taking this job because at the time I was working. So people say, where do you see yourself in five years? I couldn’t tell you why. I saw myself in five minutes. All I knew was work, work, work, work, breaking my ass. And the guy I worked for was this guy Vince, who was a promotion guy. And, you know, who’s making a fortune of money because that was this guy could sell. He was the best salesman on the planet. But I was sick, I hated promotion, I, I really over the years it became a thing. It really gutted my stomach, like I hated.
(00:19:33)
Robert Simoes
Because you had that perspective of what you felt was Johnny.
(00:19:36)
Johnny De Mairo
I mean, I think that there’s there’s the bullshit part where I don’t I’m not a hype guy. I’m not going to tell you this is the hottest record.
(00:19:44)
Johnny De Mairo
If I really think the record sucks, it’s hard for me to do that. So I was working a lot of records that was subpar, so I had to use my relationships to kind of do what I had to do. I also speak my mind. Some of the record label guys maybe don’t like that. Who the fuck is this guy? Just a promotion guy with pain. Who is he to say blah blah blah? There were a lot of things where it’s kind of like, we’re going to let you work, but you gotta follow. And I really don’t like, you know, like, I know what I’m talking about. This interview I’m great with, if you ask me about plumbing, I know nothing about plumbing, so I’m not going to tell a plumbing. So anyway, getting back to Craig, so he goes, you know, when are you starting? This is. What do you mean? So he says, Craig, I don’t know. You know, I was very close to the owner of sin at the time.
A Life-Changing Decision
(00:20:26)
Johnny De Mairo
This guy Vince And Craig said, well, what do you want to be the next Vince Pellegrino? And it was that sentence that changed my life. I said, I don’t I don’t want to do promotion anymore. I hate asking people for money. And as an owner of promotion company, every meeting you have, hey, we want let us promote your record. Let us put it on the cassette, let us put it in the newsletter. And it’s like every part of the conversation is a different invoice I’m going to send you. And I hated being in that position. And that three block walk back from Atlantic Records, which was 75 rock at the time, back to my office on 1674 Broadway was the longest three blocks because I realized I had to take this job. You know, Craig, don’t you want to be a record guy? Don’t you want to be, you know, don’t you want to make records? And I had the bucket heads at the time, which was blowing up worldwide, but I.
(00:21:21)
Johnny De Mairo
I wasn’t even thinking about the real future I could have as a record executive, because I just came off of this three year run as a big promotion person. So in my head I would still have, even though I was having success as any and all person, I still kind of consider myself a promotion person, but I consider myself a fortunate person to say I can make the record and I can promote a record. Most people can’t do that. I don’t know how many people in the business can actually say, I made the head the idea, I made it, I promoted it. It’s it’s it’s a very unique situation. So I went back to my boss and I said, you know, I got this opportunity to R&D. There is he tried he blocked me from four different people. Mercury wanted me, RCA wanted me, but they all loved him, saying they feared him, that they would pull me over and say, we want you to come here, but we know we’re going to piss him off.
(00:22:13)
Johnny De Mairo
And we just, you know what? We can’t afford to be out of business with Vince and Sin. So you know we love you. But you know, we until and even for us to bring it up to him, it’s probably going to jolt our friendship. So I understood that. But he had nothing in Atlantic Records at the time. And that was, you know, the people that I met with. So when I went to him and I said, listen, I got an opportunity. And he just looked at me and it was it was emotional for me because he was a very close person to me. He had just lost his mother. So we had a lot of, you know, we we actually had moved his office next to me. We put a window between us. We would give each other a finger. I mean, we we had a very father, son, big brother. We had a very good relationship. Never had one fight argument ever. Three years. One of the most intense people in the music business.
(00:23:07)
Johnny De Mairo
I don’t know anybody that could say that. Who knew this guy for three years and didn’t have one. I mean, we fuck with each other all day. We had a great time. We were mutual music nuts. He was a guy who worked at Columbia Records early, had acetates, you know, as an acetate lunatic. So you bring me in some crazy things. It was we. We shared that, and. And I told them I have a job. And he said, well, I’m not giving you two weeks. You’ll leave when I when I want you to leave. So I’m like, I don’t know what that means. I go back and I called Craig. I said, listen, I’m taking the job, but I have no idea when the fuck I’m going to start. So he goes, oh, I don’t care. Rich is the one who’s going to get screwed because he can’t move into an orphanage. But you come in. So six weeks broke my ass. Nobody else would do that.
(00:23:48)
Johnny De Mairo
I actually worked for six weeks till like 8:00 at night on the Friday, and he walked me down to my car. I remember I had like, paper towels and. Fantastic. So you’ve been taking the paper towels because I was like, you know, I was a clean fanatic. I figured the next place I want to clean the phone and stuff like that. So he walked me to the car and I went to Atlantic, and, I was really fortunate to. I worked with hundreds of artists, and, the stories are great. Like you said, I do have two books. I have a third book coming. I’m in the process of doing the edit. I wish I could find somebody to. I worked with a couple of people. I just, I have all of this stuff that was done. I wrote so much, I want to do the edit, but I want it to be chronologically correct. And when I get to the Atlantic years, it’s it’s overwhelming to, you know, I mean, from the Tori Amos is everything with the girl, but, you know, Bruce Bruce Roberts, you know, who wrote, you know, No More tears.
(00:24:44)
Johnny De Mairo
And the main event for Barbra Streisand, big guy, Bebe Winans, the I mean, you know, Linda Eder, I look back at how many Bette Midler they were, just so many people I worked with. And their stories are great, even though some of them are great for me or the band member, that they’re just great stories. So, Atlantic was a great thing. And at the same time I was at Atlantic, I was working for Rhino. Rhino was the part of the one. So Warner Music Group with Warner, Elektra, Atlantic Atlantic Rhino was the is the label the part of the company that handles all the catalog. So because I’m really a classic lunatic, that’s really where my heart was. I was also doing best for Stacy Ladislaw. the Best of Change. I did a Larry Levant compilation, The Best Larry Levant on the market called journey into Paradise. Tommy Boy Story, KC and the Sunshine Band. I did the Roberta Flack. I did the definitive old Dirty Bastard.
(00:25:41)
Johnny De Mairo
I also was instrumental in breaking Wu-Tang clan. That was one of my first platinum albums. I just did. I did so much, Roberta Ashford and Simpson, we did their last album, which when I went, I got close with Valerie and Nick before Nick passed, and I went over the house one time and a vocal, I mean, they did a million records. The only CV they had on their wall was the one I did, which I thought was phenomenal. I was like, wow, I was in the way. The house, they have a townhouse in Manhattan and it’s like different levels. And when Nick had his Cologne and stuff, the CD was sitting there. I was like, I thought that was like such a cool thing. Think of all the stuff that they’ve done.
Parallel Journey with Henry Street
(00:26:20)
Robert Simoes
Hang on, Johnny, just before we go to the Atlantic, because you also brought up this other side of it as well, which was you. You had this other kind of parallel world with Henry Street.
(00:26:29)
Robert Simoes
You had already set up Henry. You mentioned you had the bomb at the time. So can we can we rewind a little bit? Yeah. Yeah.
(00:26:34)
Johnny De Mairo
I’m. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
(00:26:35)
Robert Simoes
No, it’s it’s there’s so much.
(00:26:37)
Johnny De Mairo
That’s that’s how my brain works. I guess for anybody who’s as crazy as I am, they’re going to get this. So what happened was, so to correct you, in 1993, I started making records. I was very close with Kenny Dope at the time. And Kenny Kent, the first Ruddock I actually did before. Well, you know what Jim’s jams might have been, but I think before Jim’s jams I did a record with Kenny called The Listener on the Kenny Dope album. Okay, I was credited, co-produced, Johnny D, whatever. Then I did Jim’s jams in 93, which were basically loopy things that there was just some ridiculous ideas I had in my head. And I said, I think it’s I, they actually make me laugh. I always try to find some comedy in almost everything I do.
(00:27:21)
Johnny De Mairo
So I take things seriously to a point. But I think that everything we do is kind of funny. There’s some comedy there, a lot of ego, there’s a lot of weird parts of this whole scene. I think house music, if you really break it down, is pretty comical. A lot of the players, the fact that somebody could be in their bedroom doing something and it could turn into an international hit, I think it’s hysterical. It’s one of the few places where, you know, anybody could just come into it and, you know, on on a Monday, people laughing at, I’m on a Wednesday, the guy has $1 million house. Very crazy. so in 1992. So Kenny is like, you gotta start making records. So I’m watching Kenny do stuff at the time. Nicky Palermo, Nicky P, and I, you know, my best friend. We were doing a lot of stuff, so I said, Nick, we gotta go out. We gotta buy equipment. Kenny said to buy an SB 1200 and 1209 50.
(00:28:15)
Johnny De Mairo
We got to go to this place. We went to this place called rogue, which is still there in Manhattan. We bought the equipment Kenny taught me. I sit there taking notes and stuff. I taught Nicky, Nicky. And then over the years, what was happening was my desire to make records. Kind of left because I loved making mixtapes. I’ve been a mixtape. Like I say to myself, I gotta make a tape a week. As the DJ from inception, I always wanted at least one day a week, be in my room and say, I’m going to. And I wasn’t one of those guys that planned to tape, oh, let me, I don’t practice. I was like, I hit record, I fucked up, I’m in a bad mood the rest of the week. Like that’s how it went. And, we started doing the records and then Henry Street came about because I was with, Tom, Tommy Musto and I also got very close, and he would come to the office a lot.
The Birth of Henry Street Music
(00:29:05)
Johnny De Mairo
We’d hang out. So if I wasn’t with Kenny, I was with Tommy, I was it was literally when I say a 20 hour day, it was literally a try. I’d go home for hours 2 to 6 in the morning, wake up, take a shower, do it all over again. And I kept I was listening to the labels that were coming out and I said to myself, as a record collector, I’m on everybody. So I got to a point where I’m on everybody’s mailing list, I’m in all these record pools for free because I’m at sin and I’m this guy, so people are sending me shit. Now I’m in a room. Actually achieving the dream was my dream to have fucking records. Now you wall, you can’t walk into my office. I have records everywhere and I don’t want to take them home. So I’m like, there’s something wrong for me. Because space was always an issue. Space is always going to be an issue for me. So I said, if I don’t want to take these records home, they’re doing something wrong.
(00:29:57)
Johnny De Mairo
I was giving a lot of them away. Charlie. Funny how you you know, time goes by now I’m in a point where I’m sending Charlie records. My assistant at Atlantic Records used to have 10 to 20 labels ready to go at all times. Send this box to Charlie 60 coming. He was getting records. He was getting boxes of records for me constantly. Stuff would come in every genre if I didn’t want it, send it to Charlie. So I was with Tommy one night. Went to get in with The Sad Factory, born on Wednesday, which was Louise. That was like the only club I cared about realistically, which was I should have cared a lot more about every club in Manhattan. But Louis on a Wednesday night, that was everything to me. And, Tommy and I were there and we were having dinner, and we went to the club after, and I was like, yo, these labels are putting out so much garbage, these keyboard synthy things. I mean, who’s gonna who can I care about this record in six months? It’s there’s a quick burn and he goes, why don’t you start your own label? And he goes, you know, I have pressing and distribution.
(00:30:56)
Johnny De Mairo
Silvio Tancredi, who passed away, rest in peace. And Tommy had Northcom productions. They had their label Suburban and Fourth Floor and other labels. Then they were distributing for the guys who did track source and so many other people. So I said, all right. He goes, you know, just put it. So I my vision was I was a disco person. If I took a disco loop from 20 years ago, I’d get 20 more years out of it. Not about robbing people, it was more about paying a tribute to records that a lot of people just it got by them, or they just forgot about it. And, at the time, like I said, with Kenny, you know, being as close as I was, I knew having a name to, you know, I’m going to come out into a field where there were a whole bunch of labels that exists already. How am I going to be special? So Kenny blessed me, gave me the first release, and it gave me an instant recognition.
(00:31:44)
Johnny De Mairo
And from there, the momentum just, you know, I had a lot of good relationships going on at the same time. So it came a little easier for me to get things. Plus, I think that my credibility, you know, not that I want to blow myself, but I mean, I know what I’m talking about and people kind of dig at me. So they’re like, you know what? This guy is the real deal. Whatever it was. And I was straight up with everybody. And, the momentum, I mean, I literally, you know, you in the intro, you were talking about some of the names, but I really did have the who’s who of house music and anybody who is relevant. I was blessed enough to have as part of the the family. And I do consider it a family. And, it was a, it was a great time, you know, Atlantic in the day or SIN in the day and then Henry Street, it was it was wild.
(00:32:33)
Johnny De Mairo
Like I said, looking back, I it doesn’t seem possible, but, it was great. It was a great time.
(00:32:40)
Robert Simoes
And I think the thing that’s fascinating is you stress this point for your own record collection as well as Henry Street in the past, is like, it’s it’s fat free is what you say. And going through the catalog like I had, I was going through Henry Street 100 and I was like, wow. Like it’s it’s.
(00:32:55)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah. I mean, it’s like, you know, I say I come off like I’m being egotistical, but, you know, I look when you look at any of the other labels, you know, I mean, not that I want to rep strictly a poet, but if you look at strictly rhythm, you know. Yeah, there are definite I mean, I only probably kept five records of all of them. But if you look at strictly as a whole now, Mark Finkelstein was genius because there were two things I loved about Mark and Mark, one of distributing Henry Street and a lot of parts.
(00:33:22)
Johnny De Mairo
So I love Mark, and this isn’t a decent mark, but more kind of philosophy. Two things I loved about them. Sign everything. Throw it to the wall. See what sticks. That’s a major label mentality. This guy, Doug Morris, who was the head of Atlantic and Warner, then became the head of universal. That was his mentality. Sign it all. Throw it to the wall. Whatever sticks you go after. There was the now I don’t I don’t personally subscribe to that, especially as a label owner. But I get it. The other thing about Mark was he told me in the meeting, I don’t know music. I am the legal guy, I am the finance guy. And that was so important for me. The reason why I wanted to work with him because unfortunately, the business, the business has turned a lot of people who shouldn’t be in it to not only, you know, giving them an existence, but, oh, I have good taste. Oh, I think I know what it is.
(00:34:16)
Johnny De Mairo
Oh, I, I knew that record was going to be hit. Everybody thinks they’re a fucking A&R person. You put a person at radio, they think they could do A&R and and all person thinks they could do radio. And it’s, you know, I have my own radio station experience and it’s another thing you listen to that you go to live. 365 the experience, if you listen to that station from one hour, one hour, if you don’t come back to me and you’re blown away and I don’t know what to tell you. And this isn’t me, you know, giving myself praise. This is legitimately the music I’m playing, the way it’s programmed, the genres. You’ll hear a country record, you’ll hear hip hop, you’ll hear LED Zeppelin going to a John Nick track. It’s it really is an experience. And there are very few people that I look to that can actually turn me onto music or turn me onto any part of the business, because I find holes when I go into a meeting and I meet somebody.
(00:35:13)
Johnny De Mairo
I don’t necessarily look at their strengths. I’ll look at them and say, what is this person doing that I don’t want to do? What are they doing to turn me off? Because I want to make sure I don’t do that to the next person. And I’ve always entered any relationship that way. I could see right through people real fucking quick. My ex-wife gave me very few compliments. That’s one of the compliments she gave me. You can fucking read people. I’m really good. So, I want to get back to where we were with the, Henry Street. So we were talking about the label and,
(00:35:49)
Robert Simoes
Specifically, like, the filtering, you know, I find it. Oh, yeah.
(00:35:53)
Johnny De Mairo
I’m sorry. Getting back to the music. So. Yeah. And it’s funny you say that because, I mean, I’m just hitting the 30th anniversary, but at the 25th anniversary, I went back and I was Reintroducing myself. And I said, I gotta tell you, these records sound great.
(00:36:06)
Johnny De Mairo
I think the worst record on the label is that they’re the third record I did. The first record I did, which was the third release. It was called BQE Brooklyn, Queens Express. Me, Nicki and Ray Rock and mustard did a mix. It’s called music, probably the worst record in the entire catalog, but it’s my record, so I could rip it. But I can honestly say after that everything sounds good. I don’t have any dated shit. I’m very proud. I think the I think the records sound great.
Collaboration with Nicky P
(00:36:32)
Robert Simoes
And, and you mentioned like earlier on that you and Nicky P you know formed this collaboration. Johnick. Right? Can you tell us, can we go a little bit deeper into that story. And also you mentioned you like Kenny had been teaching you at the time, where did your and Kenny relationship come from.
(00:36:48)
Johnny De Mairo
So Kenny and I met there was a guy named George Lamond. he’s a freestyle artist. I don’t know how big in Toronto freestyle is, but, I was a I was crazy into freestyle.
(00:36:59)
Johnny De Mairo
I was, I was there at the peak like Louie Vega, and I was there. I was spending three nights a week like I loved freestyle and house was happening at the same time, but I was a freestyle like I was in, but they were good freestyle. Freestyle. Chris Barbosa, who just passed away last week, which is a horrible blow. He and I had gotten very close. I was in a record pool called PBC, which was initially Idk by any Rivera, any Rivera. One of the most powerful people in the disco movement from the 70s all the way through, especially in New York. He passed away a couple of years ago as well. I was in this pool. It was predominantly Puerto Ricans, and I was that Italian guy that was just kind of like, yeah, whatever, fuck this guy. And but I was there. I knew there was a reason I had to be at this pool. I knew that there were connections, and I was going to meet people and things were going to happen for me.
(00:37:54)
Johnny De Mairo
So I was like, check my ego at the door. Even though I’m playing three nights a week, they’re not giving me any love in the newsletter, because my name doesn’t end with a Z or some other, you know, Puerto Rican fucking whatever their name is. So I knew I wasn’t going to get that, but I said, I’m going to just use this place to my benefit. And I met Chris Barbosa at one of the nights, and Chris and I just clicked, and Chris was responsible for sharing and let the music play. Zino. On the upside, yo little brother Nolan Thomas, a million hits, Jimmy tunnel, U-turn. Let the music play just gazillion records. Give me the night Danny had done. He started the Ghost of Records and from the Ghost of Records he you know he was doing the. He had this girl Monet, which was incredible. This guy Matt worked for him. He was a rapper from this group, hostile, who went on to make pop records.
(00:38:48)
Johnny De Mairo
And he and I got very, very close. And Chris and I would always keep in touch. So George Lemon was originally his name was George Garcia. And then some idiot at Columbia turned to Lamont because they thought it was going to be some kind of weird shit with the Puerto Rican name or whatever. So it becomes George Lamond, but he was originally loose touch on legacy. So in 87, it’s Lose Touch. 1990 get signed to Columbia Records. Chris is like, we’re going to have a record release party. You gotta come. So I’m like, yeah. So Chris and I actually were together and, that day, something I don’t talk about, but was real memorable to me. That day, I went to the studio with Chris and Herb Powers, the most legendary engineer of all time, was cutting the acetate for the band of the hot 1990 remix. At the time, they were the gold acetates that were refrigerated, and he took it out and and it was the first time I met her powers, which I was blown away.
(00:39:40)
Johnny De Mairo
And he said to me, here, look at this. And it had like this thing. It was like, you look through it kind of like binoculars. And he was showing me as he was cutting the acetate, I was seeing the fact grooves of the base I actually have. The acetate gave it to me, which was great. that was the same day that with Polly was. So I go with Chris to the party, and Todd Terry’s at the party now. Todd. Terry, I always say I’m the UN guy putting everybody together. Todd. Terry literally is the guy who puts everybody together. I mean, everybody threw Todd. Todd was that guy that just. Everybody knows. Todd. So I’m at the party and Todd had his record out on Warlock, which was distributing Lugosi. So I was very tied into the whole Warlock thing. And there was a record called Finger Trip that I was thanked on the back of it. If you look at the if you look at if you look that record up, you look at the back.
(00:40:28)
Johnny De Mairo
Thank you. Fingertips. Todd. Terry, look at the names on that. It’s a pretty crazy list of people. Every time I look back that it blows my mind. and I was fortunate enough to be on that list, but I go up to Todd, I says, I see this record on your label, on this, on the EP by this guy Kenny Dope. Shit’s banging. Who is it? He goes, go ask him. He standing right there and all it all. And I had never heard of him. And I said, yo, what’s up on Johnny? D goes, yo, can he dope? And he lived ten minutes away from me. He worked at a record shop at the time on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn in Sunset Park. I’m from Carroll Gardens, which is a predominantly Italian neighborhood. He was from Sunset Park, which is predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood, and we exchanged numbers. I went to see him at the record store and he and I just got instantly close.
(00:41:18)
Johnny De Mairo
Now, the thing the good thing about this interview, because I had never really talked about this, was we had nothing. I was in court, stenography school. He was at a fucking record store. So people have this, oh, Johnny D, you know, because he was in Atlantic. No, no, no, I wasn’t in Atlantic for five years. Kenny and I met each other. I got him his first credit card. We had nothing. He had just linked up with Louis. They were just in the early stages of forming masters at work. But math is at work. The name was actually Todd and Mike Delgado’s name from years before that. So Kenny and Louis were We’re just starting to do their thing. Kenny and I got close, and we were spending a lot of time together. I was at his house, and, you know, I’d go to his house, and I just couldn’t believe how he was making records, because I’ve worked with a lot of people at different levels.
Creating Hits with Kenny
(00:42:08)
Johnny De Mairo
And to this day, there’s nothing like when you make a what Kenny and I together. I mean, listen, I haven’t spoken to Kenny in a minute. This, you know, whatever. But Kenny and I, together, we’d make more hits. I, I am, I am convinced of that. Kenny is his talent is, It’s just deeper than a lot. There’s a lot. Listen, Todd and you, there are a lot of talented people in the game. Kenny has a a magic when it comes to making records. His brain goes in different places. His. He’s working three steps Ahead. I don’t necessarily love him with a beautiful set of equipment. I don’t like combining SSL boys. I like him in some ghetto fucking the old studio we had in Brooklyn where he was literally. I used to joke with him and say, he can get sound out of a toaster oven. You know, that’s, you know, that was Kenny to me and not me. When I stopped making records with him, I was making records with Nicky.
(00:43:16)
Johnny De Mairo
I lost interest because Kenny was so fast. Kenny was able. I find that over the years when I was in studio, people to go from here to tape was two. Oh, we’re at the mercy of the computer. It’s freezing up. This machine’s not working. Whatever. Where? Kenny? I’d go from here to there. Two seconds. Bam, bam. Get this idea? Yeah. He called me up at 2:00 in the morning. There was a record called DB that we did. I put it out on Mugsy Records, which is another label in the Henry Street, but he originally put it out on threes and I called me up. At the time I was living in Bay Ridge on 92nd Street. So 92nd Street, he’s on 50th. I used to be on Henry. He was directly right in the middle of my two by two houses and calls me up. 2:00 yo, come over, I got I got something go over. I said, this is like a Tuesday night.
(00:44:08)
Johnny De Mairo
Okay? I got work the next days for the one of the best guys in the world and all the rest. The rest of the piece call us sleeping underneath us with them. I don’t know how he got away with this. Kenny had speakers in his house that were probably the equivalent to studio 54, and I walk in and he leaves the doors open for me, and he’s blessed when I say blasting and I and I don’t really play loud like, you know, bone shattering and said, yo, check this out. and I’m listen, I’m like, yo, this shit’s incredible, but I can’t get my mind off the fact that he’s shaking his mother and father and his sister below us, and it’s not affecting them. My father would have came up and throw me out the fucking window. And I’m. I don’t understand how we’re getting away with this. He’s like, yo, what do you think? So I’m like, oh, let’s try this. I start throwing them samples. We do that, let’s do this.
(00:44:58)
Johnny De Mairo
So we wound up putting this record together by 6:00. We were done. and that one not being a great memory, but, Yeah, Kenny and I, there’s a magic there, and he he truly, he he just has a different way of doing it. It’s like I worked with a lot of people. He has a very. It’s just different and it’s tough. And if he doesn’t know, he actually backdoors into another scenario like, oh, I don’t know what’s supposed to do this, but let me try this. And like he’ll do a mistake and that’ll work out. So yes I just, I just, I just gave Kenny Dope a commercial for ten minutes. He can send me a check.
(00:45:40)
Robert Simoes
so okay so, so you had the Kenny connection. Obviously Kenny was a huge influence on on continuing Henry Street even with, for example, like the bomb, right?
(00:45:49)
Johnny De Mairo
Yes. Of course. Yes. And the bomb came about was that’s another great story. The bomb came about, more because the next.
(00:45:57)
Johnny De Mairo
So I put out the first bucket heads and I put out syncopation about my boy Anthony Menino. The third record was the BQE piece of shit that I did. The fourth record was in Armand record, and it was called Old School Junkies. There was a workman, goddamn it. But there was a record he did called Hey Baby. To this day, probably my top three heaviest. I mean, I love this record. Did that, and when I got it from all my mods and other guy talent beyond, I’ve done an almond and I have a marriage. He also doesn’t talk about it for some reason, but funk phenomenon Tori Amos You Don’t Know Me, which was a John Nick record. I mean, we have a lot of a lot of shit together. he gives me this record and I can’t stop listening to it. I have a cassette. Hey, baby. I just I just just caught it. So I’m in the car, going home on the Brooklyn Bridge. Me, Tommy Musto and Kenny.
(00:46:51)
Johnny De Mairo
Kenny’s in the front. I’m in the back seat, I said, Tommy, put the cassette on for the night. I want to hit Kenny to hit next Armand. Put it in. I’m flipping Kenny. That shit sucks right away. It was almost like, you know, the the girlfriend, you know, it was almost like the jealousy, weirdness. Whatever literally goes home, makes the bomb, comes to my house the next day, pulls up in front of his green BMW, pulls up, is you all come down? I come down sitting in the car, puts the cassette in, and I hear this man barreling at five minutes. Now you’re in a call for five minutes. Is that answer? You don’t know what the fuck is going on. Then all of a sudden, back there, I’m looking straight ahead. We didn’t say a word for 14 minutes in my 53 seconds. I believe it is. So he goes, yeah, because you know that that shit’s incredible. It’s fucking crazy.
(00:47:39)
Johnny De Mairo
I don’t know who’s going to understand, but it’s fucking incredible. So I know it’s saying street sound swirl, but I don’t think the world is going to be small enough. So I rename it to these. Sounds full. I just think it has a better flow. I put it out and it starts to buzz right away, like people are starting. It’s like I had put five records out at that point. Well, that was the fifth release. Which five is my favorite number, which on some spiritual shit. That’s crazy. And it’s it started to happen. Like I think.
(00:48:11)
Robert Simoes
About that record really, really well.
Impact of “The Bomb”
(00:48:14)
Johnny De Mairo
I attribute I attribute a couple of things. One of the main things I attribute to success is it was it was a game changer. And all of my successes come from that to say Tori Amos and Armand in the same sentence, that would never happen. That was the magic. you know, it’s like mixing everything went together at the time before you became a house or a jungle, did you? Was a fucking folk singer with Todd Terry.
(00:48:38)
Johnny De Mairo
That was just. You don’t do that. You don’t mix My success came from the weird neck funk phenomena swing house, hip hop. Like, what is that? That’s all I know. One of my favorite records I did was Jordan Hill For the Love of You. I think it sold six copies. Nobody gave a shit to me. One of my favorite, but the public dictates. And, I think the different. You have to have that groundbreaking. And with Kenny, another thing I always say about the bucket heads is I knew street play. He didn’t necessarily know street play. I grew up with Chicago. My sister turned me on to Chicago in the early age. I would have never heard that the way he did. That’s the beauty of him taking a disco record. That’s why I loved saying, Kenny, this, this is a phenomenal disco record. Do you think because he and I. If me and Nicky, you’re going to rip a disco record apart and Kingsland, it’s that’s two different records.
(00:49:34)
Johnny De Mairo
We’re coming from I love this song. He’s coming from I don’t know, this song, but I gotta beat the shit out of it. So you have two different. That’s two different takes on a record. You give me the street play parts, a John Nick street play, and the kind of street play that’s two different records.
(00:49:52)
Robert Simoes
Do you think again kind of moving with the Henry Street story. Right. Like you’re very opinionated both with how you collect records with how you deejay and do you, how do you think about that opinionated nature informing and, and as a role with A&R. Because I mean I’ve never been in the A&R role and I feel like maybe some of the people who are listening to this are just DJs. And I’m just curious how you see those two relating.
(00:50:20)
Johnny De Mairo
well, listen, it’s this is not a business for the faint of heart, let me tell you. You know, and for me to be at the independent label and the major label at the same time, and being a DJ and a producer and a songwriter and all these things, I don’t know anybody who’s been able to do that and, you know, juggle the genres, the hip hop.
(00:50:40)
Johnny De Mairo
You know, like I said, you look at my goal records, they go from Robin s Show Me Love to Jay-Z’s first record, Dead Presidents. You know, ain’t no. You know you know it’s you’re not going to really see that diversity. But as far as an inner person, listen, their inner people, I would say 95% of the A&R people, as I say 90%, 95% of the DJs shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing most and all people jump on the bandwagon. Who’s hot right now? This guy is hot. Let’s get him. That’s where they go. Frankie Knuckles is hot. Boom! Let’s go to. I’ve never been that. I used to get a record. Who should do this record? I mean, I have my usual suspects. I love going to E Smooth and, Lenny Beef on pop stuff, but then again. Okay, Army Wawa should go to matches that work. The whole Latin thing. Gipsy Kings, whatever. Bebe Winans I didn’t just get them to remix the record, I had them produced the album version.
(00:51:39)
Johnny De Mairo
A lot of people don’t know that I had them produce. Jody Watley album version of I Don’t Want You Back, which is the Roberta Ramona Brooks cover. now, realistically at the time, Kenny is my best friend, man. I work with remixing every record on Atlantic. They were, if you look at what they did, it was Bebe the Braxton’s Jody Gypsy. They had Tommy Musto, another one of my best friends. He didn’t do everything. Christian Falk, Linda Eder, you know, Robyn, like I was. It was a hard job being friendly with people because there are people that you kind of miss. So you’re like, oh, shit. I you know, I could have given this one, but I think I my thought process per record was probably tighter than any other person in the world. And I mean that and I’m not being egotistical. I really do believe that I didn’t just, oh, give this to so-and-so. And then more times when I sold out, Why did Donna Summer The Power of One, which was for the Pokemon movie? You know, Donna Summer, I grew up and she’s the queen.
(00:52:40)
Johnny De Mairo
I was, you know, blown away her husband, Bruce Donna was part of Brooklyn Dreams. Tying guy from Brooklyn. Like, I was just, oh, my God. I’m working with Donna Summer. I give Tommy Musto to do his thing. And Tommy destroyed the record. And then I go to Jonathan Peters, who was hot at the moment, like Jonathan Peters. Records to me, is like somebody getting their nails on a fucking chalkboard. It’s the more I, I can’t listen to that shit. It’s fucking absolutely noise. I, you know, you go to his clubs. It was all these kids drugged up on ecstasy, whatever. But on the drum fills that went on for like, you know, from 2:00 in the morning to four. I just didn’t understand it. But that was my sellout moment. And I remember this. This was my A&R direction to him. I said, Jonathan, and this is a guy who I actually helped get in the business when he was just deejaying sweet 16 parties.
(00:53:26)
Johnny De Mairo
I was the guy who actually helped him get in. Never heard him mention me, by the way. And, I told him, this is how I want you to handle this. I want you to do one mix that I’m going to absolutely hate, which is your shit. Then do a mix with just drums. So at least I could say it’s just a drum with a vocal drama palette. Even if the drums or whatever, it’s not that bad. And that’s exactly what I got back. I got back this. You know, Jonathan Peters mix has nothing to do with the song, and the key is crazy or whatever. And you got to be on some other. Whatever hallucination, hallucinogenic, whatever you’re doing to experience it. But and our process is, I think like the DJ world has just been decimated over the years. A lot of people just jump on the band, but but the major labels were doing that on a bigger level. You know, the ones signing records that they felt in their heart.
(00:54:24)
Johnny De Mairo
Or there’s a buzz on this guy, let’s sign it. Oh, that guy’s got that one hit. They don’t even care about the rest of the album. Not realizing signing it based on one record. The guys doesn’t have a second record. You’re ruining his career. You’re not doing anything for your catalog. The 90s destroyed a lot of careers. Absolutely.
(00:54:44)
Robert Simoes
And, you know, going to that point, even saying, like, signing something from the heart, you’ve mentioned that, you know, you kind of have this like spiritual relationship with music. Can you can you talk a little bit more about that? Like, like disco, for example, you said you’re a disco fanatic. What is it about disco that.
(00:54:59)
Johnny De Mairo
Well, I’ll leave it. I’ll go a step further. I did an interview the other day and I and I brought this point up. I remember as I was very young and Diana Ross, you know, Touch Me in the morning was out. And that record, I don’t know what it is about that.
(00:55:15)
Johnny De Mairo
I mean, I got a million records. There’s something about that particular record that when it’s, I don’t know, the slow intro. I mean, I’m also a Diana Ross fanatic, but something about that record that literally it It hits every emotion in my body. I don’t know what it is and where I really knew that it was special was I was, you know, at the time growing up, you know, you had the color television in the living room and in my parents room. There’s a little bullshit, like eight, ten inch black and white that you can barely get on. And Diana Ross was singing live somewhere doing it. And I remember even watching the live version, the most live versions of garbage, the live version, like me, the hair on my arm stand up like almost was like teary eyed. And I’m like, I don’t understand this. And that’s magic. I don’t know any other artform that can actually do something to overcome your senses, to be like, oh shit.
(00:56:11)
Johnny De Mairo
Like I got, like, I got a chest thing on the hair in my arms, or I’m almost like, am I cry? Like, am I cheering? Like, how is that possible? And it’s just that’s the power of music. And I from an early age, I felt that I was just like, this is an incredible, you know, piece of plastic to put a needle down and to get that, that just blows my mind. Every invention. I think this invention. Hands down the whole face time thing I think is amazing. I say it all the time. People rarely give respect to how incredible this is. I mean, think about 20 years ago, we have to do this on the phone. Like it’s just crazy. This is I was in England ten years ago with my iPad, talking to my kids. I’m like, that’s amazing. So, yeah, music. Music has that power.
(00:57:01)
Robert Simoes
And then, you know, stepping into that, you know, role as a DJ and then then a label owner.
(00:57:05)
Robert Simoes
I mean, do you view kind of your, your work? I always say this with, with, you know, some of the courses and some of the interviews is like, I think DJing is about musical evangelism, right? It’s like evangelizing for that music, although there’s a lot of things that come around with that. But even looking at your story and how you build stuff like it’s it is just that constant push, even with the Johnny D experience like you mentioned, is like pushing that music out. Is that how you think about, you know, your role?
(00:57:34)
Johnny De Mairo
I think I’m on this planet to turn people on to music. I really do feel that way, and I, I love to be that person, to do it. I don’t like the back end of that, where I’m deejaying at a spot and there’s ten DJs in the corner, Shazam and all my shit. Then I go see the gig and and they’re playing my shit and they’re getting props for it that I don’t like.
(00:57:56)
Johnny De Mairo
But unfortunately, that’s kind of, you know what’s funny? I my station started. I wanted to do my station a long time ago. Then it took a back a back seat. Then Spotify came out. So I reached out to the owner of Spotify. When he first first launched, he had a place in Manhattan. Guy didn’t respond to me. Friend of mine was like, you gotta do Spotify playlists. You do these lists and move and people start following you. So I, I looked around and I’m seeing all these, like, people who are not qualified making, you know, record executives who think it’s cool. Oh, here’s my summer playlist or here’s my yacht Rock. All these fucking people that have no right to tell anybody about music. And they’re like, oh, this is, you know, the best disco records ever made. And I said, you know what? I’m going to give it a shot. I picked 20. This is a true story. I’m not exaggerating.
(00:58:50)
Johnny De Mairo
And I picked 20 songs and I got to do my first Johnny D playlist. I picked 20 songs. 12 of them were there, eight weren’t there. So I called my friend back. I said, Spotify blows because what do you mean? I said, they’re wack. I said, they don’t even fucking. I wasn’t even going like deep album because I was going, but a cup call in and I wasn’t even going crazy. I was trying to make a nice flow. Marvin Gaye into, you know, Prince Markie Dee. I was going, you know, like groove kind of a thing. Basically. I was doing one of my mixes that I had done. I broke down one of the mixers. So let me just see of this mix how much stuff was there? So there were about 60% maybe. So then I was looking at what he was doing, and he would put up this playlist and he had like ten followers. But then I look at the people that were following him, they had 50 000 followers.
(00:59:40)
Johnny De Mairo
So I said, keep looking. If you’re the guy, if you’re the source with this information, I could follow you, take all your shit, put it on my playlist. I have 20,000 followers. You have three, and every week I’ll follow you. I’ll make my playlist. After I see your playlist, I’m like, why would I do that? I’m giving away all. Let me start my own radio station. And literally that was me giving it the second shot. Start your own radio station and that’s it. And I’ve been it’s been going on I think it’s five years already. It’s going on, I believe six years with the experience. And I’m telling you, like if you listen to the station, you’re going to hear Gilbert O’Sullivan to Wu-Tang clan. It’s you’re going to. And it’s great. It’s great shit, man. It’s just I think that if I will pat myself on the back, I think I know music pretty and I’m and I think I’m good at turning people on to stuff that they don’t know.
(01:00:38)
Johnny De Mairo
You know, I think that that’s one of my strengths. So yeah, I hope you. Well, check it out. Yeah.
(01:00:44)
Robert Simoes
I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna put it on especially and I think that’s, I find it really fascinating because on one hand the DJ has this dual role where they are the person like you are listening to music all the time. All the time. Right? And you’re that filter because you’re like, you get, I don’t know, 10,000 songs and you got to filter that down to like ten. Yes. and that filtering process takes time. And yet we’re also in a world to where if you want a DJ, you have to kind of go with this, like tension. I always say between the authenticity, that may be what you want to play and then maybe what the crowd wants to hear. Yes.
(01:01:24)
Johnny De Mairo
Very true. It’s a juggling act. It’s for sure. It’s. It’s always been the case. I mean, lately I’ve been doing a lot of weird gigs where the people aren’t responding to stuff.
(01:01:36)
Johnny De Mairo
I think they would. Then they’re responding to stuff that I think is throwaway. And, it’s actually been really bothering me where I’ve actually went from a person that cared about the dance floor, that now I my new approach is, I’m going to do a gig. I don’t care what they’re doing, I’m playing. I hope they come to the party. I’m not going to take a request. I’m not. I mean, I’m not going to be an idiot. I did a gig in Harlem. Somebody came over to me and they were actually very appreciative and interested. You have Frankie Beverly and I happen to have joy and pain. I mean, before I let go. So I put it on, and I’m not an asshole, but I’m not. I’m not going to do I you know, I don’t think the DJ should be seen or accessible. I’ve been saying this for years. The DJ has become a circus act, dance and pressing the button, fist pumping. You know, somebody sent me a black coffee thing the other day of him sitting there, you know, twiddling knobs.
(01:02:34)
Johnny De Mairo
I just I don’t understand how that’s entertaining up a people listening, like, what is he doing? You’re playing, you know, in house music. The thing that’s that’s always been kind of weird because, you know, I’ve had success in house music, but I don’t, you know, it’s going to sound weird saying this, but I don’t consider myself a house lover. And what I mean by that is I’m very picky with every genre, and house is of everything I love, probably the most disposable. So when you say you go through 100 tracks on tracks, also, if you don’t want to listen, It’s so much garbage that it’s I don’t. Oh shit, that’s hot I don’t Nikki groan you know when we were, you know, we were spinning together for a long time. He used to instantly, oh that’s hot, that’s hot. He would buy into or that that’s an import. You know that right. And I’m looking at him like, you know, those records suck. No no, no.
(01:03:40)
Johnny De Mairo
You know he’s and he was very open and I if I go to his house now it goes through I’m like, these are frisbees. These were garbage records. The you know, it’s so funny. I see people like, who? New Groove records. Oh, my new Groove records sucked. Now let me go back. Tommy Musto and Sylvia were basically the guys that were behind it. Their influence was great, but they put out the wackiest shit. Defected buys the label. Oh my God, new group. Those records sucked. There are so few records on there. The vinyl records are great. Tommy Muscle basically did those records. Earth people went to Apex Fin, which I don’t know if that can set a new groove. Penney’s records on New Groove were incredible. Other than that, for records, five records, maybe that label sucked. They talk about it like it’s Warner Brothers. I’m just like, what are they listening to these label? That’s another just minimal like Chicago. I think the guys in Chicago have incredible talent.
(01:04:44)
Johnny De Mairo
I think Hurley, Marshall, Jefferson. Unbelievable. But the shit that they put out, if you look at your Quantity Trax records, DJ international, they have some gems and then there’s a slew of stuff that’s killing the atmosphere, just garbage.
(01:05:03)
Robert Simoes
And do you think that’s the because of the the principle that you pointed out with like the bigger labels, like they have to put out the corn.
Challenges in Record Labels
(01:05:10)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah, I, I think that I think that people, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people in the record business. I mean, if you listen to Q-Tip, what he says. Music, music, music, music industry people are shady. Like, it’s true. It’s record people that are doing this for a living. It’s all about the money, the this, the licensing or whatever. And it’s like you think you’re going to make money and, and you know, everybody’s striving for the hit. So it’s always about, okay, I’m gonna put this down. But then I started in my last interview, a hit could put you out of business because the way, the way the system worked, and I’m talking about vinyl days.
(01:05:49)
Johnny De Mairo
Not today. Now it’s all digital. It’s a different world. But in the vinyl world, a quick course for your people real quick. And just stay with me. I take your record. I sent it to mastering. I gotta pay the mastering. I had to pay the engineer I pay for if I get an acetate or a Dat, whatever it is now, I send it to the plant. Okay? I mean, let’s just say I’m gonna press a thousand copies. I press a thousand copies of the record. I get the record and I send them out to all the distributors. Everybody’s blown out of the record. The record sells out. Wow. Beautiful job. Hey, we gotta order another thousand records. Now I gotta pay the pressing plant in 30 days. The distributors that I just sent a thousand records to have 90 days to pay me. I’m starting off in a deficit, okay? I’m fucked off the bat. I am behind the bar. Okay, now, one hit record.
(01:06:39)
Johnny De Mairo
I need to press the thousand. I go back to the guy up front. Money 30 days. He has another thousand. Send them out to the distributors. Blow out them again. In the meantime, I put two other records out there. Those records don’t perform as well. Okay. These people have 90 days to pay me. 90 days comes. What do they do? They send me returns. What returns are they sending me the other records that weren’t the hits. Now what? So I fronted this money. I gave it to these people. They send me back records I can’t sell. Where am I getting the money to pay the royalties to the hit record? Where’s the money? And that is a vicious loop and a cycle that that we let happen. Quite honestly, if I would have been involved more in the distribution level, I probably would have advocated to, just somehow fix that because that was a major problem. And it, it, I think that was a, that was a major problem because now you’re not paying royalties, you know, the money, you know, labels on the money if you’re in that cycle, you know, and I’m talking about having a hit, what happens if none of those records hit and everybody just returns all the records? What about that? Because there wasn’t a limit.
(01:07:56)
Johnny De Mairo
So it wasn’t like, you know, so and so Joe Blow distributor took 30 records in and in 90 days he’s sending me 30 records back. That could happen.
(01:08:05)
Robert Simoes
Yeah it’s a, it’s a, it’s almost like a, a curse a cash flow curse.
(01:08:08)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah. So, so so that’s, that’s not something you hear about at any of the courses of, Music Business 101.
Transition to Digital
(01:08:16)
Robert Simoes
And so taking them from the vinyl days to the digital days, because now Henry Street, for example, is a pure digital label, if I’m not mistaken.
(01:08:24)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah, I’d love to do vinyl, but every time I try to work with somebody, it kind of hits a wall. It’s extremely hard these days to put vinyl out, because there are so few pressing plants and everybody that wants to work right now, they’re basically they’ve exhausted almost all of the, the plants. So it’s like you go somewhere there’s a backup, you know, three, six months, like choosing always six months to put a record in.
(01:08:47)
Robert Simoes
Yeah. And do you find is there similar challenges on the digital side then like releasing.
(01:08:53)
Johnny De Mairo
Well, I think I think the digital challenge is your competition. So you know, you went from so you went from being in a point where let’s just say vinyl. I mean, you got a fax every Tuesday from downtown. 161 hey, Charlie, this is Judy from downtown. 161. These are the next 20 releases. Let me know what you want. How many you want? Okay, great. I can go through that list. Maybe you give me a soundbite. Maybe I’m just going off of the name. Oh, Kenny. Dope. I’m going to sell that record, Todd I’m going to. Oh, this guy. I don’t know if I’m going to sell that guy. So that’s how they would go about doing it today. If you don’t have that splash page on track source or whatever, how are people going to find you? There are thousands being released weekly. How are you, how are you? How are they going to find you? And even if they do find you, then what? It’s a it’s kind of a horror.
(01:09:43)
Johnny De Mairo
I mean, thank God Henry Street has a name and a reputation. I always felt that John Nick helps sneak helps Robbie Bronco helps. Kenny helps Todd. Because as much as we could talk about these big names, the new kids don’t know any of us. So they don’t know David Morales from Danny. They don’t know anything. Every day they go on the air listening to some new guy in their bedroom, the black coffee or whatever that he does. That’s what they know. So it’s it’s very. No, I also I’m pretty big in I don’t like to sell out factor in. A lot of people have done that where and it it is important to stay relevant. I don’t think it’s important to sell out and that’s there’s a fine line. And I think the records that I make and Nikki and Nikki’s been making a lot more about me. If, if you listen to John Nick records 30 years ago, listen to him today, it’s basically the same thing. We’re doing the same thing. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel where a lot of bigger name people for the moment.
(01:10:49)
Johnny De Mairo
Oh, we got to get into the 15 year old’s head and I can’t. I mean, my son and daughter, I love them dearly. And I turned them on to so much music. But my son, he’ll go from knowing, I mean, I can’t even believe what he’s retained. He’ll sing mixes to me, which blows me away because that’s how my brain’s to work. And I hate to be that father, you know. I mean, he really blows me away, but he’ll go into mumble wrap and I’ll sit there and he’s just doing Kanye, and I’m looking at it, and I happen to love Kanye, but. And I’m like, I can’t believe that. Like, like if I was coming up today, the last thing I want to do is do anything musically like I there’s there’s not a morsel in my body that would be like, oh yeah, I’m going to be a DJ. It’s just there’s nothing sexy about it. Every female jumping around naked, everybody twisting the knob.
(01:11:37)
Johnny De Mairo
Everybody’s with the ice. All of a sudden the isolated. It’s just it’s it’s despicable. It really is. It’s despicable. Sync buttons. You know, it’s.
(01:11:48)
Robert Simoes
Because you’ve stressed in the past, I guess, the technicality aspect. And like you said, it’s it’s this real hard challenge where there’s a relevancy. I mean, on one hand, there’s the aperture and accessibility is opened up so much from the bedroom producer perspective, right. You can I mean, and that’s, that’s kind of amazing that some kid in Sri Lanka, for example, can, you know, implicitly. but I it kind of becomes like a signal to noise problem, right, where you’re having to do all this filtering, which is the DJs role. But then at the same time it’s like, wow, there’s just so much. And then maybe as they’re just like a little bit of frustration when you hear, like, I can think of things, for example, when I hear like a tech house remix of something from like the 2000 and I’m just, I’m in my like, why? Why am I hearing this when there’s so much quantity of, is that kind of similar to maybe some of the frustrations you feel with modern deejaying?
(01:12:41)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah, I mean there there are definitely there are multiple levels.
(01:12:45)
Johnny De Mairo
Why? I think it’s well, listen, you know, I don’t think we’re going to get hits from the dance scene. I’m talking about real hits. You know, Bucket Heads is 30 years old. The record’s like a brand new record. People still love it. It’s still relevant. Very blessed to have that. But, you know, I don’t see that ever happening again. It’s just it’s you’re never going to get that global support. Each person now, every deejay is in fact a producer. If you have an iPhone, you could basically be a producer. So why are you going to play the Johnny D version of the remix? I could just do my own. That’s just what it’s turned into. So now a DJ with a tremendous ego, which everybody is. I mean, every DJ has an ego. I don’t care what they say. Nobody wants to discuss that. But it’s true. So now as a DJ, why am I going to go out and play for ten people, a thousand people, 10,000 people and play your remix mix? And then after that I’ll play my next remix.
(01:13:46)
Johnny De Mairo
So it’s it’s turned into such a, you know, when this world became digital, you know, when the TV thing came out that was like, that was a punch to the stomach. And a lot of people didn’t embrace it like, oh, I’m a vinyl vinyl purist, blah blah blah blah blah. And I never was waving that. I always felt like I love vinyl, but, you know, let’s see these. I got a thousand hard drives. I’m a lunatic with all of it. Vinyl is my heart. But of course, I’m doing a gig. I want to carry six crates of records. I’ll bring a flash drive with me. I put it in. I can’t stand Stevie J’s, but I’ll use them. And, if you look at the the whole part of it, it’s just when the CDs came and then nobody like from the RIAA that supposedly was like, oh, that guy’s on the corner selling bootleg CDs there. But it was kind of like they get a little tap on the hand.
(01:14:42)
Johnny De Mairo
The next day they come back again. Everybody was over there and it was a mess. So our our business was ruined by that. It wasn’t until the movie company started getting the DVD bootleg. That’s when all of a sudden people gave a shit because that level of money was hitting different pockets. So the music people was always like the stepchild of the entertainment business. Oh fuck them. They’re fucking everybody out of money anyway. Who gives a shit? But the head people that were in charge of movies were like, wait a second, now you’re getting to us now it’s not funny anymore. And that’s when the FBI cracked down and whatever. But Napster comes out once those things come out, that’s it. And the major labels, who should have been the ones to embrace it and take it over, they couldn’t control it. And that was the end of it. That was the demise of the music business. They can no longer control it. Years ago, if somebody took a Rolling Stones record and made a bootleg, you press a couple of thousand copies.
The Demise of Traditional Music Business
(01:15:51)
Johnny De Mairo
In the biggest scheme of things, if they were selling 2 million albums and you sold 5012in. Nobody gave a shit. They almost looked at it like, oh, that’s a really cool thing. You know what? We’ll buy the bootlegs out and send them to the fan club of the Rolling Stones. It was almost like the major labels will use that street credibility of somebody bootleg the live performance of The Who. Oh, let’s let’s put it out, let them do it, and then we’ll buy a thousand of them and we’ll give them away. It when it became a digital thing and you can’t control and you could put it out. I remember I was programming, there’s a company called promo only. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. There was one in Canada as well. It was Canada. Well, the main ones in Florida, Florida. There’s Canada. England. Yeah, there was the three of them. Anyway, I was programming the underground series for 19 years, and I remember one of the I think it was 2003, somebody in Australia I had literally, Really literally dropped the CD like the Friday before on a Sunday.
(01:17:02)
Johnny De Mairo
Somebody sent the playlist and they circled it and sent to him and he said, look at this guy in Australia. And it was a record I knew only existed on my CD, because I would put very specific things there that only existed, like I did the Bebe Winans Masters at Work. Thank you. I put an acapella on the CD only, and only when you get that acapella was on that promo this evening so the heads knew. Oh shit. But back then there wasn’t a lot of sharing as far as. And somebody put up on a playlist. One of the records I had just dropped, I said in two days, I don’t know if this person had, or they just saw the playlist somehow. And I contacted the person, oh, that’s my secret, the person said. And I wasn’t mad, I was. I really wanted to know, how did you get this across the world in a day and a half? Yeah. How do you even know about this? And that’s when I knew.
(01:17:52)
Johnny De Mairo
I’m like, oh, you can’t. You can’t put this back like this is. It’s it’s too full. That’ll. It’s done. And right now I can put something up and that’s it. In five minutes, it’s all over the place. That’s unbelievable. Now it’s great if you have a proper social media team that can take that and run with it and and then get you gigs to follow it, that’s the best thing in the world. But if you’re trying to hold something back or whatever, there’s no more process of, oh, I’m going to give the the exclusive to Joe Blow, let him have it for two weeks and create it. But there’s no such thing once that one person gets it. So on and so on. And that’s going to spread like wildfire.
(01:18:36)
Robert Simoes
Yeah, it’s almost like, you know, you mentioned this buzz thing, and I listened to one of sneaks interviews when he talked about how vinyl used to get broken. And you would kind of create those plans where you’re like, okay, we got to play it in the clubs so that, you know, people show up on Friday and it’ll get busted.
(01:18:49)
Robert Simoes
But like you mentioned, I guess it’s it’s almost like these really explosive peaks. But then they just they burn very quickly versus.
(01:18:57)
Johnny De Mairo
Well, yeah. And it’s funny you mentioned Sneak because Sneak is a perfect case in point of like when you talk about a textbook how to promote a record properly. Now this is having said that you and all the record properly. I’m in Chicago with a gig. I think I was at a Ralphie Rosario gig and guy comes over to me, yo, man, I’m DJ sneak. I want to be down with Henry Street. Now. I had known his records on casual like I love the guy. Sneak to this day is one of my closest I, I love sneaking, I mean, he is he is one of those stand up guys and I mean I love them is passion. It’s talent. Love him to death. And he gives me to I get back to my office when I went a couple of days later, sends me a Dat, show me the way it was on it, which was, you know, obviously as big as record at the time.
(01:19:43)
Johnny De Mairo
And, gave a test pressing the Louis and Louis at Sound Factory Bar. He didn’t know sneak was he broke that record there and he put that shit on Benny. And people used to go bananas. And that was like, Louie, that was okay. You got to bring the record to Louie. Hopefully he’s going to play. Hopefully Louie was going to spread it. It’s going to break at Sound Factory. But that was like, you can’t write that better. That was eight is the that’s how you break a record. And sneak got the attention of Strictly Rhythm. And Gladys was up his ass for years flying him in whatever. Every time he came to my office, there was money for him. Ask him if he’s big time. Sneak. Sneak is, I mean, I got ridiculous respect and love for stick man. Great guy. Always been great. Straight up. I gave a Tori Amos. He did. Tori Amos makes a lot of people know about that.
(01:20:33)
Robert Simoes
Yeah, yeah.
(01:20:34)
Johnny De Mairo
putting the damage on.
(01:20:36)
Robert Simoes
Yeah. I mean, he’s he’s, I definitely credit sneak for, you know, that that record specifically show me the way because it really kind of put me into I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta go. There’s something here, I gotta go, I gotta go deeper. And then, you know, through him I think he did expansions also on Henry Street. And then I found Monte Smith.
(01:20:54)
Johnny De Mairo
Mansions, and I was like, there was actually a there was a vocalist. Show me the way. I never put out where it did and work it out. Work it out. He took the work at Alpo, which I didn’t put out, at the time, you know, at the time was, you know, Michael Jackson, everybody, you know, now, it’s like people just take Billie Jean, put a drum under it, put it out, call it Billie Jean, take the credit. And nobody seems to give a shit. It’s, you know.
Future Plans and Autobiography
(01:21:17)
Robert Simoes
So as we get closer to, to to wrapping here, Johnny.
(01:21:20)
Robert Simoes
And I’m so appreciative of your time for for today. Where do you see the future of of Johnny D and Henry Street? I know you mentioned that you’ve got your your third book coming out, which is an autobiography or a biography.
(01:21:33)
Johnny De Mairo
Yeah, pretty much yeah. I’m gonna, you know, just basically tell the stories from, you know, a person who grew up in a predominantly Brooklyn Italian neighborhood, who loved disco, really music, and turn that into a career. I mean, that’s really the story and, a lot of everything along the way. So I’m looking forward to it. I just, I said, I need to put myself into a room for a week with somebody who actually has more of an intelligent way of, you know, piecing it together and just getting it all done. Because I have it all here, and I jot I’ll jot like, I’ll 3:00 in the morning, I’ll think of something and I’ll just text myself, add this or add this title or whatever. So I have like pages of just, you know, oh, blah, blah, blah.
(01:22:17)
Johnny De Mairo
It’s just you look back six months, like, what was I talking about? So that gets a little, gets a little crazy. But yeah, that’s my next thing.
(01:22:25)
Robert Simoes
You’ve also got a hot sauce thing that you’re doing now. I don’t know if that was serious.
(01:22:29)
Johnny De Mairo
It was funny. I kind of backed into that. But yeah, people want it, so I’m gonna I’m gonna see what happens. I just did I did 12 was kind of like a goof, but people actually want it. So I’m going to see I might make a couple hundred bottles and see what happens from there. It’s pretty good, actually.
(01:22:45)
Robert Simoes
and so for my last, you know, I guess, segment here, and I feel like this is going to be kind of difficult, but. Or maybe not for you, but just, you know, with the size of your collection. I did want to ask one thing before, although I at one point, I recall you said they had 100,000 records. You’ve been trimming that down.
(01:23:00)
Robert Simoes
It’s like 40,000 at this point.
(01:23:02)
Johnny De Mairo
I probably about 40. Yeah 4050. I’ve trimmed it down significantly.
(01:23:07)
Robert Simoes
And I had hear that somebody asked you what the most expensive record in the collection was. And in 2015, you said it was Madonna’s first test press. first album, test press, Prince’s Purple Rain test Press and an acetate of Madonna. Everybody. Is this still accurate? Have you got something else selected?
(01:23:26)
Johnny De Mairo
But I will tell you, I have a thriller acetate, Michael Jackson, and that’s probably the biggest selling album in the history. So that’s probably, you know what? I’m going to show you something. I just got I got some I’m gonna I’m going to show this to the world just because. Because we just. Quincy Jones just passed away. I didn’t do a post yet, but, Alright, man, are you ready for this?
(01:23:54)
Robert Simoes
It’s got a Quincy Jones there for people listening to the.
(01:23:57)
Johnny De Mairo
Michael Michael Jackson off the wall.
(01:24:01)
Robert Simoes
And then he’s got a test press.
(01:24:03)
Johnny De Mairo
I mean that I mean, when, when you look at Smithsonian type things, I don’t think you can get deeper than that.
(01:24:11)
Johnny De Mairo
That is some, that is some incredible fire right there.
(01:24:17)
Robert Simoes
so then for the last something here, Johnny, we’ve got request is for three tracks. Okay. Yes. Like one category for each one is under the radar. It’s a track. Field hasn’t gotten as much playtime as it deserves. Perhaps, two is on repeat. What is the thing that you’re just playing over and over again? Whether it’s, you know, that arm had been held in, track back. Back in Henry Street. Okay. Three is your guilty pleasure.
(01:24:44)
Johnny De Mairo
Okay, so it could be any genre you want it to be anything.
(01:24:47)
Robert Simoes
It can be anything you want.
(01:24:48)
Johnny De Mairo
Okay. A track that I could. All right. I’m going to give you three records. Well, I don’t want to think guilty pleasure for these, but some people might. I will give you three records I can listen to constantly. And I’m still going to answer the other two, but three. Falling in Love by Hamilton, Joe, Frank and Reynolds.
(01:25:13)
Johnny De Mairo
Cool night by Paul Davis. And you’re the Only Woman by Ambrosia. I can listen to those records. I could just constantly. If I had those looping for 24 hours, I can listen to those guilty pleasure. I’m going to say heart beat it to Love Beat by Tony DiFranco, Canadian. that record was something. If you look behind me, I have an actual a promo picture in the corner over there. It’s right underneath, above a Prince photograph of Purple Rain. But, I that record is just for when I was a kid. And, you know, last year was 50th anniversary of the record. I reached out to him and he did a drop for my radio station. I almost passed out. So. All right, so I did the guilty pleasure. I did the record listen to over and over. And what was the other one? The first one.
(01:26:05)
Robert Simoes
Was under the radar. Under the radar? You know what?
(01:26:07)
Johnny De Mairo
I’m going to give you a heavy shoe record under the radar at all that nobody knows King Britt did.
(01:26:12)
Johnny De Mairo
It’s probably I mean, I said, hey, baby, and let’s have top five records on Henry Street. This is in the top five, no doubt. It might even be neck and neck with the hey baby. It’s called non-stop action. The force now. Okay, the reason why it’s named that was non-stop action. And the force with two graffiti crews at the time it was done, King Britt did it, but I couldn’t use his name because he had to deal with Sony for his album the That was he was on the same label of Cypress Hill. That guy. Butch. Joe. Butch. I’m blanking. I’m getting old, I will tell. I used to remember everything all of a sudden. I can remember. Anyway, he did a record through, through Columbia, and I couldn’t use his name at the time. I had given him his first remix ever on his first major label remix, which was I Love You Always Forever by Donna Lewis, which he destroyed on my station.
(01:27:11)
Johnny De Mairo
Then I gave him for the Lucifer Tori Amos Kills the Record downtempo boom boom doom doom doom doom nasty. When I get when you get off this call, look up for the Lucifer Silk 130 mix. I think it will sell. He does a house version and I go bananas and I’m like, I gotta have this. So I just kept it. That’s non-stop action. The force, the credits. Reed, KB, King, Britt and J.W., which was John Wick that was his partner at the time. If you listen to that record, house wise, that is one of the nastiest fucking. But damn damn damn damn. But it is the nastiest shit. Nobody knows it. Nobody knows it. The Buckethead. Yeah. John. Nick. Okay. That record you listed out record. I remember I had a BMW ls6. I bought my old boss’s car. At the time, I was obsessed with a Mercedes 450 SL when I was a kid. So I finally came into a little money.
(01:28:18)
Johnny De Mairo
I said, I have to get this car, I’m about to get it. I don’t know the owners or whatever. My old boss, Vince, had an Ls6, which was a real limited BMW, and he goes, it was like the 636 series, but like the M6. But the Ls6 was like, they probably made under a thousand. Very hard to get. He goes Because listen, rather than spend the money there, buy my car. I’ve had it since inception of every oil change, blah blah blah. Of course I’ll buy it. I get the car. It was my backup car because I had a Honda at the time, and I wouldn’t run an old times to the battery, and I’m not mechanically in charge. So, you know, a couple of years later I want to get rid of it. But I would get in the car on a Sunday and say, okay, I gotta just you gotta ride those cars because they’re you can’t let them sit. They’ll you’ll destroy the engine.
(01:29:00)
Johnny De Mairo
So I wake up on a Sunday morning early, I like I said, 90. No bullshit 90 minute cassette of non-stop action. I just kept I played it over and over again, and I would just drive for two hours. But this record like this is. I did this to clear my head and get the car moving. That’s how much do I record. So that is the under the radar. That’s the track. So maybe we’ll sell three more copies. But King Barrett, every time I talk to him, I tell him like he has no idea the influence, the impact that that record had on me.
(01:29:31)
Robert Simoes
I love it, I love it. Well, Donny, again, we are super grateful to to have you on and thank.
(01:29:38)
Johnny De Mairo
You for having me. I appreciate the time. Thank you so much. Yeah.
(01:29:41)
Robert Simoes
And I think, we can tell, you know, you can tell how much you really have passion for the music and passion for the label and the scene and everything.
(01:29:48)
Robert Simoes
So, yeah, it’s just been it’s been an incredible, to just hear your story and, and I’m looking forward for that book coming out. yeah.
(01:29:56)
Johnny De Mairo
Well, actually, when we get off, send me an email with your information and also your shirt size, and I’m going to send you I’ll send you packages, some stuff.
(01:30:05)
Robert Simoes
All right. Well, thank you very much, Johnny, for that. Yeah. well for everybody then listening to this, again, thank you again. So, Johnny, so much for the this is definitely one for the culture for the. I really appreciate it.
(01:30:17)
Johnny De Mairo
Thank you.
(01:30:19)
Robert Simoes
So subscribe on all the different, you know, providers that you listen to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, what have you. and we’ll catch you next time. Thank you again, Johnny.
