I sat down with DJ Micah Salkind for an afternoon to discuss the history of two monthly parties—Providence is Burning, and Goosebumps. Providence is Burning started in June 2007 and continued until June 2008—it was a monthly dance party at Firehouse 13 in Providence with mostly house music, and guest DJs were often featured. In September 2008, Micah and his friends started Goosebumps—another monthly dance party with house music, this time in Lot 401, and on a weekday. I learned a lot from Micah about how he and his friends started Providence is Burning and how it had transformed into something new—Goosebumps! We discussed how there is no concrete formula to his parties, and possible visions for the future. He was incredibly kind and thoughtful, and always rooted in the ideas that the most important aspects of the parties are the music and building a safe space and community; feeling at home.
Q: This must be exciting— you’ve been there since the beginning—you kind of created Providence is Burning with your friends, and have seen it transform into Goosebumps. do you feel like this can go anywhere?
A: I think that one of the things that I’m attracted to in terms of where I go out is things that are rooted. So I would really like any party that I’m involved with to have a community that sustains it and to not feel like its totally transient, to not feel like its totally going to change with the students and that there’s really a group of people who can come together and take that space on. I think the hard part is figuring out how to mobilize people to come with us—especially the ones that I don’t know. That’s why I’m always trying to meet the people that come to Goosebumps. I introduce myself to people I don’t know, I welcome them—that’s part of how I’ve been taught to host. It’s not just about throwing a party or having an image or a sound—it’s about bringing people into your home. And that’s not common. I don’t think a lot of people feel that way about promoting, but if they did, we’d probably have a lot more successful, cool club nights that would foster innovation and… I hope that this breeds ten other Goosebumps!
Q: What is your future plan for Goosebumps?
A: I’m hoping it just continues to draw diverse audiences. And that people from outside of Providence find out about it. We got people from Connecticut—it had a reputation, and that was cool. I don’t know if we could ever get to that point with a weeknight party. Which is fine with me. I’m not doing this to make tons of money. I don’t want to raise the cover, I don’t want to find a bigger club. I like what we’re doing. I just…I want it to continue to evolve organically. I don’t want to put any real stresses or pressure on it to be something that its not.
Q: How and why did it change to a weeknight party? Does it affect your audience?
A: The places that you would be able to have them do mainstream top 40 chart hip hop parties on the weekends because that’s how they perceive they can make their money.
I didn’t want to go to a place like Firehouse again because they didn’t have amenities. So it’s a compromise, you know, and I think a lot of throwing parties is making compromises. Like knowing what’s essential—what’s essential for us is the music and the community. So we made a choice… A lot of what Providence is Burning was based on a model that started in Philly with Diplo’s electronic parties, and that just got tired. That whole two-minutes of a song mashed up, like…I’m just not interested in that, and I think that there are enough places that people can go to hear chart hip-hop and r&b so I don’t need to do that. And I have a lot of political issues with mainstream corporatization of the music and people who have access to it and so I don’t want to support it in that way. It’s a lot, I know, but it shows you how deliberate we are about this stuff. We’re not passive about these things. We do consider how the choices we make affect the community that comes to these things. Explicitly, the vision…I wish it could become even gayer. I think that without making it explicitly a queer space, it’s really hard to do that. But I think that there’s a lot of value to mixed parties, but it should be something that queer people really ultimately take ownership of. I think that a lot of brown kids that come are gay boys, and that’s great. I hope that continues to happen. I hope that queer people of color especially feel like it’s a space where they could just do their thing and even if they’re not crazy about the music come for hanging out with their friends and whatever. I don’t know. I don’t interrogate my friends to see what they think on that front, but they seem to keep coming, so… we’ll see. Brown is only one drop in the bucket as far as these things go. There are a lot of other people who can change the mix of people and the dynamic. We’ll see if they come. We’ll see if they hear about it.
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your interview sounds like it went really well! especially since you didn't have to talk that much, so you gave your interviewee a lot of time to talk about what they think and what they are trying to do. In my personal opinion, i wish there were more events and stuff with the same objectives as DJ Micah's because parties should be about making people feel comfortable in a new place.
ReplyDeleteIts also really good that you were able to interview someone who has first-hand experience in the topic you are researching. good job!
:)
I think this interview was very interesting. Like Allie said, its always great to have an interviewee who is a big long-winded. It makes your job a bit easier.
ReplyDeleteIts rare that your come across a club/party promoter who isn't trying to make a large profit so reading this interview, I really appreciate Dj Micah's approach to things.
Also, though I never thought of it, there are huge differences in the music, audience, and vibe of the "top 40 chart" parties and the more underground parties. That was a pretty interesting distinction that DJ Micah made.
Good luck with the rest of your project and I look forward to checking the finished product out!
This looks like a great interview Sara, I really enjoyed reading it! What I found especially interesting was DJ Micah's desire to have a "core audience" that sustains a given house party and space, which really speaks to the centricity of a tangible community within a given musical culture. My advice to you would be to maybe try to attempt to delve deeper into the makeup of the "core audience" found at Goosebumps, or explain why they may seem to only be "a predominantly white, upper-class, hipster, well-educated group" (based on this interview, it seems that DJ Micah aims to draw a more diverse crowd).
ReplyDeleteI also am curious why he would like to draw more queer people of color, especially when he wants to focus on house music - not a musical style that I associate with being queer or person of color friendly, in particular. However, it is interesting that he would move to the weekdays and Lot 401 to improve amenities while keeping the prices down.
ReplyDeleteI find that House music is particularly popular in queer culture, especially in a lot of drag shows.
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