Live at Southpaw (February 2012)
Posted: March 1, 2012 Filed under: MP3, Rub Radio, The Rub | Tags: February 2012 Live MixWe put a whole lot of thought into our sets for the last one at Southpaw, and we wanted to hit a ton of Rub “standards” from the past 9 years in addition to the brand new music and classics we’re known for. The party was completely rammed from 10 PM til 4:00 AM, and this two hours is chopped down from the entire six hours we recorded. We edited it to reflect the arc of the party and tried to leave in the best parts without fucking up the flow too much, and you can hear all the drunken shoutouts and some of the crowd noise. This was the most fun party we’ve ever DJed in our lives, and we think it’s just a taste of what’s to come.
“One way to tell the story of a great American city is to track the deaths and lives of its many neighborhoods. Dutch traders once sold cedar on Cedar Street, back when downtown was midtown. CBGB gives rise, inexorably, to DBGB. Just as a red giant becomes a white dwarf, an edgy block must lose its edge. ‘It’s ironic, but everything I like about the neighborhood will probably disappear,’ an investment banker named Richard Conway told New York magazine. “And unfortunately, the reason is that people like me are moving into it.” It was 1985, and Conway was talking about the Upper West Side; but he could have been talking about the West Village in 1959, or Park Slope in 2011.”
“’I don’t like to use the word “gentrification,”’ Matt Roff, a co-owner of Southpaw, told me on Saturday night. We were in the hallway near the club’s entrance, where we could talk without shouting. ‘I prefer—I don’t want to say “progress,” either. I see it more as the nature of the beast. This is just how it goes.’ Southpaw, Park Slope’s biggest and grittiest music venue, will close at the end of the month. It will be replaced by the eighth franchise of the New York Kids Club, a ‘children’s enrichment center’ that offers cooking and rock-climbing classes for toddlers.
“While the real Jay-Z was presumably at home in Scarsdale with his infant daughter, the recorded Jay-Z was on Southpaw’s speakers, boasting about his art collection and pledging his undying devotion to Brooklyn. Inside, about eight hundred people shed winter coats, procured cheap cans of beer, and danced; hundreds more huddled against the cold outside, though bouncers had told them they had little hope of getting in. This was Southpaw’s signature event, The Rub, a hip-hop dance party that has taken place monthly since 2002. The party will move to The Bell House, a larger venue in Gowanus…”
Read the rest on The New Yorker Blog
View the entire gallery on Kenny’s Facebook page: http://ow.ly/8UDVX
Southpaw Closing in March, The Rub Moving to Bell House
Posted: January 31, 2012 Filed under: DJ Ayres, DJ Eleven, Flyers, The Rub
Ten years ago Mikey Palms told us he was opening a bar in Park Slope in an old 99 Cent store with his childhood friend, Matt Roff. As soon as we saw it, we immediately knew we wanted to throw a party there. The Rub started the first summer Southpaw opened, and after an unprecedented run of over a hundred monthly parties, we are sad to report Southpaw is closing.
Simply stated there would be no Rub without Southpaw. Before Fifth Avenue had any sushi restaurants, yoga studios or boutiques, Mikey and Matt took a bet on the neighborhood. They helped us connect with a community of people who wanted to stay in the Slope and party with their friends to quality music. Southpaw was an oasis for Brooklynites who didn’t want to go to Manhattan and spend half a paycheck on bottle service while some asshole played The Strokes off an iPod. And they didn’t just invest in the neighborhood, they invested in three DJs who were dying to find a big room were we could play cool shit for a crowd who loved music as we did.
We were talking about it the other day, and Mikey put it in perspective when he said “remember, when we opened, you could still smoke in bars.” This was just six months after Bloomberg took office – before mash-ups, before 50 Cent, before Serato or MySpace, or all-over print and skinny jeans, before any of us had gone on tour or released a record. If you were there in the beginning you remember Roger, and Uncle Moe, and Marissa, and Bill, and Alex (RIP). You remember when Mark Ronson Djed on Halloween in face paint, when Diplo and Low-Bee played in a blizzard, when DJ Premier dropped in for a surprise DJ set and when Dave Nada tore the room wide open with Baltimore club. You remember when a couple fucked the sink off the bathroom wall, when Pumpkinhead got in a fistfight at the end of the night and rolled around on the dancefloor, when the winner of the White Rapper Show threw up and passed out on stage, when we got shut down and had to move to Bar Reis because Southpaw didn’t have a license to serve lemons and limes, when Jeru the Damaja hopped on stage and performed “Come Clean.” There was a special feeling every month, like a big house party, loud and sweaty and thrilling. And in the last few years, you also remember waiting on a long ass line around the block. We could have moved The Rub to a bigger club plenty of times, but it was such a special feeling and a perfect crowd, and besides we were loyal to Mike and Matt, and of course Kenan and Ro and the whole crew.
This Saturday will be the last time The Rub is at Southpaw, but it’s not the last Rub. Mikey and Matt are going to focus on their Williamburg club, Public Assembly. The Southpaw space will become a tutoring center for children. Eleven, Cosmo and I are taking The Rub down the hill to Bell House, a beautiful venue very similar to Southpaw in a lot of ways, but a little bigger, with a little better sound, and a little off the beaten path. We looked at a bunch of clubs in Brooklyn and talked to a ton of our friends, and everyone agreed that this feels like the perfect room. The gang’s all going to be there, with Rahnon and Matt at the door, and me, Eleven and Cosmo on the turntables. We’re switching it up to the last Saturday of every month, and we hope you’ll help us spread the word so we can keep it up for ten more years. Please please please sign up for our email list, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and ask your friends to do the same. And if you don’t have anything else to do this Saturday, come to Southpaw (EARLY, to beat what will surely be a crazy line) and join us for the first Rub of the rest of your life!
http://www.itstherub.com
https://twitter.com/ItsTheRub
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http://www.thebellhouseny.com/
After the jump: 10 years of Rub Flyers!
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Benny B (center) partying at The Rub, November 2007 (photo by Ian Meyer)
Benny B has been a F.O.T.R. (Friend of The Rub) for quite a while, from most recently recording a shit-hot Heavy Warmup mix for my series. We booked him for The Rub this month, and it’s really weird that we never had him play before but awesome that he is going to do our final Southpaw jam. He wrote some really kind words about the party in his email newsletter, read it after the jump.
9 Years of The Rub! We’re celebrating this one with one of our favorite DJs, a dude who played with us at The Rub all the way in the beginning, Low Beezy of Hollertronix. Here’s a recent mix for my Heavy Warmup series, get reacquainted with the bol!
Heavy Warmup Vol 6: Low-Bee by T&ARecords
Be advised, this guy is playing at The Rub this Saturday, June 4. You remember what happened last time. As always, get there at 10:00 to avoid waiting in a long line.
DJ Tameil is the undisputed king of Jersey Club (his boy Tim Dolla is up there too but you know what I mean). What you might not know is that Tameil came up with Redman and Tame One, making him a great hip-hop and all-around party rocking DJ. He’ll be at The Rub on June 4 on the extended set in the basement; here is a little taste for those of you who might not be familiar:
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Dj Tameil – Everybody (From “Tek 9 EP” out now) by Moveltraxx
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Moveltraxx Radio Show #4 – DJ TAMEIL – February 14th 2011 by Moveltraxx
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Tonight at The Rub we are joined by two of Boston’s finest, DJ Knife & Tommee. They throw a great party called Fresh Produce, where we’ve all done guest sets (in fact I’ll be back up there with Nick Catchdubs on April 9). Fresh Produce is basically classic hip-hop through a 2011 lens, so you’ll hear Biggie and Ed OG next to Cee Lo and 50 Cent. Here’s a little sample of how they rock, to get you pregaming for tonight:
DJ Knife live at Fresh Produce by d.j.knife