Smells Like Bootie exclusive APC interview with AplusD

 

There's no denying that Club Bootie is the biggest and most successful Mashup club in the world.  From humble beginnings Ohio born ex-glam rocker Adrian and Dallas Club-Kid Mysterious D have created a club event that has grown from a monthly night on Wednesdays to Regular nights all over the globe.

In it's short 4 year life span, Bootie has regularly been voted the best Dance Club by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, been featured as one of "America's Wildest Parties" in Spin101 magazine and praised as "Best Mashup party" in Complex magazine.

As is inevitable with any modicum of success there are bound to be detractors.  Recently Bootie has come under fire due to accusations of "Starbucks style globalisation" - mainly because they are expanding their boundaries through allowing the Bootie name and "branding" to be used for clubs halfway across the world in places like Paris and Munich.   

In the following interview, they hope to provide a history of AplusD, and Bootie and also respond to these criticisms.

posted by Celebrity Murder Party

Smells Like Bootie
by celebritymurderparty

So tell us a little more about your early years - before Bootie?

Adrian:  I did much of my growing up Ohio and moved to San Francisco in 1991.  She was from Dallas where she was a well known on the party scene.  She used to hang out with the infamous NYC Club Kids (Micahel Alig & co.) as they often used to go back and forth between Dallas and New York. Without going into it, let me tell you -- she has some stories from that time period! 

Mysterious D:  I moved to San Francisco in 1996, and we met -- naturally -- at a nightclub. We'd see each other out and about at various clubs and parties, but it wasn't until about three years later that we actually started dating.

Adrian: I used to be in a glam-pop-punk band, and we would always get frustrated by the kinds of bills we would get booked for, paired with bands that didn't match us, and playing at parties where we weren't a good fit. So we ended up starting our own monthly club night called Glitz, that basically celebrated all the different variations of glam rock, with bands, DJs, fashion shows, etc. It was exactly the kind of party we wanted to play. We soon figured out that if you wanted people to come see your band, a great way to do it is by throwing a fabulous club night around it.   So when we started DJing, we eventually ended up using a similar tactic

What got you into Mashups?

Adrian:  The first mashup we ever heard was either 2manyDJs' "Smells Like Booty" or Freelance Hellraiser's "Stroke of Genius" -- both were on a CD called "The Best Bootlegs In The World Ever," which was reviewed in Entertainment Weekly magazine back in May 2002.
Once I read this, I immediately Google'd it and found it for sale via import through Rough Trade. At the time, we had just started DJing, and mashups fit in perfectly with our very eclectic, all-over-the-map DJ style. It was love at first listen!

What was your first experience of Djing with Mashups?

Mysterious D: We always had an unbridled mutual love of music, so in 2002, when Adrian's band went on hiatus, we started DJing together. Our first regular gig was at our neighborhood bar down the street, for a free weekly Thursday bar night we called "Smashed" --  we smashed various genres together throughout the night, but mostly we played a lot of mashups.

At the time, most people in the U.S. had never heard of a "mashup before, and had no idea what it was. Everywhere we DJ'ed, we felt like "mashup evangelists", explaining to everyone what we were doing, how these tracks got made, where to find them, what this culture was all about, etc.

Adrian:  And many people did NOT like it! We can't tell you how many times people would come up to the DJ booth, going, "Just play the normal song!!"

So, as I learned from being in a band, if you don't want those kinds of gigs with a crowd of people who "don't get it," create your own scene. And we did that by starting our own club night, dedicated solely to mashup culture.

How did you arrive at the name?

Mysterious D:  We called it "Bootie," because at the time, mashups were more popularly known in the U.K. -- where the scene started -- as "bootlegs." The slang term for a mashup bootleg is "bootie" -- so we appropriated that as the name for our party.

Adrian:  Plus, it's a double-entendre. Most mashups are illegal, so it's like pirate booty -- and when you come to our party, chances are you're going to shake your booty. So as a name, it works on lots of levels.

Were there any other clubs that inspired you?

Adrian:  It's funny, because on GYBO (a popular internet forum) we would hear about the Bastard parties, and we somehow always envisioned it as this big giant party, since London was seemingly at the time, the hub of the bastard pop scene. And we wanted to do something similar.

Mysterious D: We found out later, that Bastard was smaller and more insular than we'd imagined, but at the time we founded Bootie, we'd thought of Bastard as 'bigger than life' and followed suit.

* What makes a good club night for you?

Adrian:  "Fun" is the operative word! One club reviewer called us "commitedly unpretentious" and that's really what we strive for. Which is interesting, because both of us came up during the "club kid" scene, with guest list lines, VIP rooms, and making sure you always look fabulous enough to get in for free. And humbly, we were the ones getting the VIP treatment.  However, as adults, we see that differently now Š we see it as a bit childish and not what we really consider "cool" anymore.  We wanted Bootie's values to be different.

Mysterious D: "Cool", to us now, is being yourself and doing what you want despite what other people think, not following whatever trend is popular that moment, or putting others down so you can be one up on them.

What were the early parties like?

Adrian:  Those first few Bootie parties, not many people danced. They mostly stood around at the bar chin-scratching, trying to figure out the songs and what we were doing. We had quite a few curiosity-seekers and looky-loos. But after a couple months, we started to find our crowd, and they started to dance.

Mysterious D: Now, we have people hitting the dance floor usually by 9:30 PM, only a half-hour after we've opened the doors, and that's crazy for most nightclubs, which usually don't get going here until around midnight.

How do you react to criticisms over Mashup nights asking for a cover charge?

Mysterious D: Smashed, our first "bar night" where we played mostly bootlegs, was free. We were there at least two years. Then we wanted to actually have a place people could dance at - a small club rather than a bar.  In our experience (and at this point we've worked with many venues in many cities) it's a rare thing to find a dance club to allow you do a free night.

Adrian: The nightclub game is run by the venues, not the promoters.  Venues tend to be the ones who benefit financially from a promoters' hard work.... and, the bigger the party, the more the venues take. Sad but true!  However, even with that, we keep our door prices as low as possible.

Many of the parties we throw at this point barely break even on expenses - IF THEY DO, which means - they obviously aren't done for profit.  We only collect enough money to keep expenses paid so we can *keep doing the party* which we think is important for the fans and mashup producers.

Mysterious D: Not only that, but if people don't come because they don't value the party (free parties are sometimes seen as less valuable), then the venue doesn't make money at the bar, and then they will kick you out for a more profitable party.

Adrian: And then let's factor in that sometimes a Bootie party loses money! We honor all guarantees for fees for performers, band and DJs.  If the party loses money, it comes out of our pockets alone.  So that profit that may have been made the month before, can be lost in another month.

So if you factor in all of the above, you can see clearly that Bootie is done for the love of mashup culture and creating a scene dedicated to open-minded music lovers without pretention.

Mysterious D: Having said that Profit isn't always a negative thing...when Bootie makes more money, we tip our DJs/bands/performers out... so everyone gets a little compensation for whatever they put in to entertain our crowds.

And let me be clear - Bootie charges for the entertainment, not for the mashups, which are given out for free.

Are you in a position to do Bootie full time?

Adrian:  When we started Bootie, both of us still had day jobs, so basically, that's how we financed it. Promotional expenses such as flyers, posters, ads, decorations, giveaway CDs, etc. would get paid out by us, and then (hopefully) paid back by what we made at the door that night. And we always made it a point to try and pay our DJs at least SOMETHING, even if only $20. Often, that meant not much money was left over, and for the first year, we either broken even, lost a little money, or made a very small amount. But we weren't doing the party for money. We were doing it because we loved mashups and we wanted to throw a party dedicated to exposing them to more people.

I still haven't quit my day job, which is a part-time graphic design job that I've had for over 12 years. D quit her job almost three years ago. But Bootie isn't the only thing she makes her living off of. We also do a lot of DJ gigs that we're hired for, for a variety of events. If Bootie was our only source of income, we definitely wouldn't be able to survive -- at least not in San Francisco!

Tell us a little about the Bootie CD's.

Mysterious D:  We've always believed in giving away the music for free, and getting it out there. A lot of people, believe it or not, still don't download music, so we always give away free 10-track Bootie CDs to the first 20 -- and now it's 75 -- people at the door. And we always burn a bunch of extras to give to random people throughout the night, often giving away about 150 at every Bootie party.  We also do a new CD for every party, and in every city.  We do it all by hand -- we choose the tracks, do the mix, design and print the covers, burn them all, and stuff them.  We've put together, and given away, literally THOUSANDS of mashup CDs by this point!  It takes hours to do these CDs, and we do them all by hand, every time.

How did Bootie Evolve from those early parties?

Adrian:  When we first started Bootie, we figured it would only be a matter of time before other people around the country started doing mashup nights too. But aside from Boston and Seattle, we were shocked when it didn't happen!

Mysterious D: We met up with DJ Paul V, who Adrian used to know from his band days -- Paul used to manage a band that his old band would play with sometimes. He got reacquainted with him when he found that Paul was a member on GYBO! Small world!  Also, Paul V. was already doing "Mashup of the Day" on radio station Indie 103.1, and soon after the "Smash Mix."  It made perfect sense to try and work with him, as it was obvious he had a similar interest in mashups.

Adrian: After the success of our LA party, our next logical step was to get into New York! We had made friends with a girl from Shaw Promotion, an independent New York promotion company that works with a lot of indie clubs and parties. She saw us spin at a New Years Eve party in San Francisco, where we were doing a "Bootie" room. We gave her a "Best of Bootie 2005" CD, and she really liked it, and she ultimately helped us get a couple DJ gigs in New York.

We DJed in New York a couple times, and it felt like when we first started out in San Francisco. People were not necessarily "getting" the mashups. How did this scene migrate over here from London, and somehow SKIP New York City? It was baffling to us, but there was no mashup/bootleg scene in New York at all. The only mashups that got any play were the most basic rap/rock mashups, spun by hip-hop DJs. It certainly wasn't the eclectic genre-clash that we were used to. So this galvanized us to bring a Bootie party to New York.

Mysterious D: Initially, we teamed up with a co-promoter, who tried to help us, but ultimately, he had too much on his plate. He helped us out with a few things, but mostly, we launched New York on our own. We've now done the party at four different venues, and that's apparently how many parties work in New York, moving around from venue to venue.  The nightlife scene in NYC isn't what it used to be, and good venues are constantly shutting down, and the popular parties move around a lot.

Without our friend Halcyon (or other NY friends) providing a place to stay and work, Bootie NYC would not be able to happen.  Things like this make us laugh when people imply we are like some corporation. I've not seen many CEOs crashing on their best friends couch every month, in order to run their business!

How did the European (and virtual) Booties come about?

Adrian: In each instance, we were approached by someone else to do a version of Bootie in their town. Paris set the precendent.  French Bootlegger ComaR, who has DJ'ed at both the SF and LA parties, seemed to have a very similar, crowd-pleasing mashup aesthetic as ourselves. So when he wanted to launch his own mashup party in Paris, we discussed doing a Bootie Paris party.

As part of this we let him use the name, logo, flyer images, etc... all the identity graphics for the parties were already done, he just needed to adapt them with the new information for the Paris parties. There weren't any papers signed, or contracts drawn up. We just gave him the materials, advised on direction and promotional ideas, and let him and his partner Jam run with it.

Mysterious D: We did ask DJ Zebra, who was doing his own very popular, and very large, one-off mashup parties, Zebramix, if he was okay if we did a Bootie party with ComaR, as we are very careful not to want to stop on any toes. He gave us his blessing, so we proceeded.

Adrian: We have to tell you, it's awfully weird to see your club's logo and flyer images being used for parties half-way around the world, and helping out in various ways, but mostly, it's in their hands. Cool, but weird.  :-)

How do you react to criticisms of a Bootie "Franchise"?

Adrian: Well, first of all, calling it a "franchise" somehow implies that we're charging a fee for use of the name and identity graphics, which ...we're not! That isn't what we're doing at all! In fact, so far, we haven't benefited financially one bit by letting other people run their own Bootie parties!  Zero.

Basically, we're letting them use the name and graphics and concepts in exchange for connecting with a new city, and a new group of friends that love mashups then way we do, and I guess the prestige of having our party in multiple cities!

Mysterious D: We just like the idea of having a mashup party spread like a meme around the globe -- just like mashup culture in general.  Why would someone want their bootlegs heard all over the world?  Same reasoning really.

The truth is, we are a 'mom and pop' club night...and we are the mom and pop.  And we've never sold out on our beliefs about this music and what it means

Do you think Bootie is a good springboard for new promoters looking to start their own Mashup parties?

Adrian: When others first approached us about doing Bootie parties in other cities, my first thought was, "Why wouldn't they want to create their own mashup party?" But after I thought about it, it kinda makes sense. It's a good name, and our flyer images are instantly recognizable -- one look at the half-and-half faces, and you immediately get what the club is about. All the graphics and imaging are already done, so that probably helps out a new promoter a lot.

Plus, I suppose there's something nice about knowing that you're attached to something bigger than just one little party ... it's a whole network of parties, united by a common concept, yet each has their own distinct flavour.

Although we have a name and logo and flyer design that's consistent on all the flyers, we aren't really a corporation. We're still just two people trying to throw some parties in different cities, and helping out a couple of friends who are throwing the same party in other countries.

How much of the Branding do you like potential promoters to have to be considered official Bootie?  Have you ever turned anyone down?

Mysterious D: Well, as we mentioned, it's not like there are any contracts drawn up. But basically, all the flyers should use the same logo, imaging, font, and layout as the flyers we make for San Francisco. That's just the graphic designer in me, wanting a consistent "look" for all the parties.

However, we love it when ComaR comes up with a half-and-half face on his own! It's like, "Wow, I don't even have to help out with the graphics anymore!"

We almost ended up partnering with somebody in San Diego to do a Bootie party down there, but they didn't really seem to have that much of an interest in the actual mashup scene itself. It was more like they were just trying to jump on the bandwagon, because mashups were "hot" at the moment, and to use Bootie as a way to get their band noticed more (and they didn't really play live mashups so much as simply play medleys and parody songs).

Bootie means very much to us, and we won't just hand it off to anyone -- especially those just taking advantage of a fad, just trying to make money, or those who don't understand what a mashup is or the mashup scene as a whole.

Who comes to Bootie?

Adrian: Although we try to have lots of flavor and characters at our club, we're actually the complete antithesis of that sort of nightclub attitude and pretension. We don't care if you're dressed up or not, cool or not, geeky or not, whatever -- everyone is welcome.

Mysterious D: We like having a mix of everyone ... a little bit of everybody ... straight and gay, mainstream and hipster ...  (the style categories go on and on) ... pretty diverse, really.  Diversity is very important to us, it reflects the music and where we feel culture should be.. people of all types have something to offer the world.

Bootie works to maintain a very mixed and open-minded crowd.  The music lends itself to that.

Sum up for us what people can expect on a Bootie Nights

Adrian: Drunken fun, a constant musical guessing game, dancing your ass off, singing along at the top of your lungs ... and maybe a free CD to remember your night!

Comments

[JOHNJOHN]

A&D are the shit! Long live Bootie!