Scratch Phase

These local Jockies give the needle a ride.

Boogieburg. What is it? Aside from a nickname with an obvious alliterative connection to Blacksburg, what exactly is Boogieburg? I sat down with Joey Paulekas, John Gaskins, and Jason Berrie, three members of Boogieburg, to get a history lesson.

photos by Al Fayez

For starters, Boogieburg Soundsystem is a mini-collective of seven DJs: Joey Paulekas (Eclectic), John Gaskins, Jason Berrie (Subklue), Jason Cerna, Ben Bradburn, Tim Redlund (Skwash), Dominic DeDonno and conga player Tonito Santos. The collective has been largely responsible for hosting dance parties in Blacksburg, that at times have become mini events or even one better—a happening.

First round of shooters—Boddington Bombs.

Gaskins and Berrie had been spinning at house parties as well as running a website, moonbuggyrecords.com, with friend Mike "The Lemur" Reich.

On the site they would host information regarding any parties being hosted in the area, information on their radio program on WUVT, The Laundry Room Sessions, and hour-long DJ mixes recorded exclusively for their radio show by artists from around the world.

Joey: I got started throwing dance parties with Lounge Affair...back in 1999.. Do you remember Bob Cardoni? Fun Bobby? [Bob Cardoni was the Special Events Coordinator for WUVT at the time]. Well, he and I got together with an idea of throwing a classy dance party, with everyone dressing up and looking good, to effectively counter the attitudes toward dance parties and raves at that time. Mostly the drugs and bullshit associated with it that made club owners apprehensive. It was all to break the stereotypes and show that a good time could be held. That not all parties were raves. Those went on ‘til about 2004 when Baylees closed.

Gaskins: As far as [the name] Boogieburg, I just remember seeing people referencing Blacksburg in posts online as Boogieburg. "When are you coming back to Boogieburg?" "See you in Boogieburg." One day it just kind of made sense to rename the website to Boogieburg.com.

Berrie: The parties took on the name as people just kept referencing them as Boogieburg parties.

Joey: At the beginning of Boogieburg, the Lounge Affairs were over and I was really just out of it. I had worked with a lot of people over the years and it was a lot of one-sided relationships. When I hooked up with these guys I was rejuvenated about the whole thing. It was a give and take relationship. These guys offer a lot of shit that I can't and vice versa.

Second round of shooters—melonball?

16 B's: What about the other members?

Jason Berrie: Ben and Tim were the Critical Party at Nerv [now the Southern Oven]. But when their venue became interested in other styles (read: club style hip-hop) they lost the club's support.

Gaskins: Tim, Ben and I used to throw hip hop/reggae/funk parties at Champs with the idea of having a different live instrument each time added to our lineup of 5 turntables. We did about 5 of those. Dominic is Boogieburg's Richmond representative.

Jason Berrie: Cerna had moved back into town and was part of the Liquid Lounge at She-Sha for awhile.

That was around the beginning of Re:Fill. What is that, 3 years ago?

Gaskins: Four. This'll be our fourth year.

Jason Berrie: John and I started Re:Fill on Wednesdays at the River Mill, no cost to enter. We did it on a dead night at first and then moved it to Thursdays. Then when Tim and Ben's gig fell through we assimilated them into the mix. Joey joined up about six months later. About a year ago we added Cerna and Tonito.

Gaskins: At first no one would dance. We would set up in the dart pit and just play. Now at these things, people are on the chairs and tables dancing if there isn't room on the floor!

As far as Spark Arrester – well, that is the performing name of Eclectic and Gaskins.

As they describe it, Spark Arrester started off at a small apartment party on a whim.

JP: We were at a party, an apartment party with turntables sitting around.

JG: and Zy – Zy was there

JP: Zy! This guy (points to Gaskins) started playing downtempo 45s and I added the other turntable on top. It worked well. It almost immediately took root. Next thing we were being asked to play at 4 or 5 other parties.

Third round of shooters—peppermint schnapps

How was it that they could get relatively big name artists to come all the way down to the mountains of southwest Virginia? Especially if there wasn’t a big payday in it for them. Originally it started the same way that Gaskins and Berrie started collecting their exclusive mixes. They found DJs and labels they liked and listened to. Then they would ask. Simple enough.

JG: I found Nickodemus (Brooklyn DJ) online. I drove 8 hours to New York City to go to one of his parties and I introduced myself to him. When I went up a second time to see Quantic (Brighton, England DJ) perform I made it a point to talk to both of them.

JP: Yeah, whenever someone comes up to us at one of our shows and says that they drove over X hours, 5 hours or so, from DC, Baltimore…it’s very flattering, and you remember people like that.

JG: You remember that (the others both silently nod in agreement).

JP: and [Nickodemus] is laid back and in it for the right reasons.

JB: He turned down a $2500 gig in Vegas to play in Blacksburg!

JG: A week or so before the show I called him to reconfirm and make sure all was well. He told me that his label, Eighteenth Street Lounge, had double booked him and really wanted him to play this one particular show but he told me “I promised you first. I’m comin”.

JP: It also helps when they see we are a collective of musicians, not club owners, who are working our asses off to put on a show. A lot of artists will book outside of their booking agents to play here. It is such a good vibe.

JB: Ohmega Watts said that Blacksburg was the best stop on his entire tour. When the All Good Funk Alliance played a few weeks back they had told me how they prefer small towns like Blacksburg to the bigger clubs because people would keep coming up and ruining their sets with mainstream Top40 requests.

JP: We’ve been getting in the habit of hosting for overseas artists. Taking care of booking a mini tour, advertising and all the major expenses. Think about the appeal. The artists just have to show up and play. We recently did it with Aldo Vanucci out of the UK.

JG: That was funny. Aldo isn’t his real name and he didn’t want us to book his tickets. He was all about taking care of it himself because he didn’t want anyone to know his real name.

Fourth round of shooters—pineapple upside down cake

What about original music? Were the guys interested in producing their own material? Did they see Boogieburg as a potential label and/or distributor? Well, yes AND no. They do make original material and new songs, just not enough for a traditional album. And no, they don't see themselves as a label.

Gaskins: We all make tracks good to play, but mostly they are for our own use for the dance floor.

Jason Berrie: John's been busy doing mash-ups. You know "Crimson and Clover"? He just did a mash up of that that will be released on South City Recordings, out of Atlanta.

Gaskins: I beefed it up a little. It will be on the first "Booted" release on the South City Recordings label.

Jason Berrie: And John, Ben and I recently remixed a tune called "Colonial Mule" for the label Cast-a-blast out of Greece.

Gaskins: I had two releases on a compilation called "Backslam Extravaganza" for the same label. European interest through the website has begun to generate more music coming in as well as requests for remixes and mash-ups.

Fifth round of shooters—is this meant to be ingested?

The persistence, dedication and hard work that these young men have given to Boogieburg is starting to pay off. Boogieburg DJs have been invited to play parties in NYC including the legendary Turntables on the Hudson (the same party that Gaskins met Nickodemus and Quantic: see story online), Atlanta, as well as countless others in the DC-Baltimore area. Cerna has played at Vision, a large event club in Chicago, and Joey, as DJ Eclectic, has spun in LA a couple of times. Joey and Gaskins will be performing as Spark Arrester at South City Function as part of the 2008 Winter Music Conference in Miami, FL, spinning along with Kraak and Smaak, Nickodemus, Fort Knox Five, Kid Gusto, Tal M. Klein and South City Allstars (all, with the exception of K/S, have played in Blacksburg as guests of Boogieburg Soundsystem). Spark Arrester will also be playing on the Triple Sweat tour, a three day event April 24-26 with Flevens (UK DJ) and Wiseacre (Los Angeles DJ).

Despite all this playing out, Boogieburg still has its home in its heart.

Gaskins: We have parties planned this semester featuring DJs from San Francisco, Brooklyn and England.

Recently, the auto manufacturer Scion has signed on to sponsor their tour, to the point of providing cars to tour in.

Joey: Scion has their finger on the pulse. They agreed to sponsor our tour. We're even getting cars for the tour, maybe. This isn't new to them, they regularly sponsor art exhibits and other similar events.

So does this mean that we will be hearing Boogieburg sounds on commercials? Not likely. The company is more interested in just sponsoring the tour and getting their advert out in that way. As for the boys, I don't think that they are too interested in selling out, per se... at least not for now.

Joey: I don't know how not to do it. It's all I fuckin' know. It's a lot of work, a lot of sweat and a lot of money, but when that party's going off, it all makes sense right then.

Check out Boogieburg on their Facebook group, "Boogieburg Soundsystem." For the latest photos and YouTube videos, log on to Boogieburg.com.