That must have been some responsibility.
And then you get taken to the Loft.
The first time I played, I played four records. He didn’t have headphones.You had to put the needle on the record by eye, and it was a moving coil cartridge made by Koetsu. He only had two of them, and David was having a real hard time financially. My biggest worry was handling the cartridges because, if I had messed up, he would not have been able to afford to send it back to Japan to get repaired.They were, at that time, two thousand each . So that was kind of heavy. As was not having headphones to cue up the record.And my first cut was an inside cut. I remember it was Lola’s “Wax the Van (Jon’s Dub)” and it starts, “Hello!,” and I somehow got it.And David turned to me and said,“Very good, Colleen.” You became a trusted musical host at the Loft. Working at [long-running East Village record shop] Dance Tracks and being younger, were you also introducing David to new music? At that time, it wasn’t like he had the money to go out and buy records. He relied on other people either to give him promos or turn him onto things.And I became one of those people. Recently, I found an email from David saying how much he trusted my ear. He said,“If you ever find anything that you like, just buy another copy for me.” When I was living here in London, there were a lot of those records I brought to the Loft, like Karma’s “High Priestess.”
David had just reopened it [in the East Village], and that neighborhood of East Third Street between Avenues B and C was rough. I lived there, but I found out later a lot of the older Loft crowd didn’t want to go there as it was a big heroin and crack neighborhood. David had a few problems there, but he was able to solve it. David’s philosophy was to always become friendly with the people living on the block, especially the grandmothers. He was a friendly, open guy.Very egalitarian.
What was it like walking into the Loft for the first time?
Well, firstly, it wasn’t like I knew what I was walking into. It was Adam saying,“Hey, let’s drop something, and go to a party. I think you’re gonna like it.” We got there, and it was this incredible experience. I saw this older man playing records. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t even know the name David Mancuso, or what the Loft is. Anything. But I immediately felt a similar sensibility.
In what way?
I had grown up with ’60s and ’70s music, and had a hippie sensibility, really into Hendrix and Van Morrison, and so was he. He brought that kind of open, psychedelic approach to all different forms of music.The sound [at the Loft] really was amazing, but it’s not like I knew about Klipschorn speakers and all of that back then. Plus, the space was his home, you know. His cat Wolfie was walking around.There was a bed in the corner.
“High Priestess” was on the Loft compilation on Nuphonic. How did that project come about?
How did you get to know David?
At the time, David was suffering for a few reasons. He wasn’t always the most astute businessperson. This has to be said. He wasn’t motivated by money. He wanted enough to do what he wanted to do. If he had money, like when he was doing parties at [99] Prince Street, he would give it away. In the 1990s era of Giuliani, rents [were] going up in the East Village—the area [was] becoming gentrified. He moved to a space on Avenue A, where I really helped him out a lot. And then to Avenue B.There was an older crowd going but, apart from me and my friends and a cool Japanese crowd, young people didn’t really know about him.
I started going to the Loft all the time, and signed up as a member. I had my show, Soul School , on [WNYU] 89.1 FM on Friday nights, mainly playing all this disco soul stuff I was really getting into. Lots of Larry Levan mixes. I thought, “Oh, my dream is to get David up on the radio.” I’m not one of those people that goes up to the DJ and starts talking their ear off, so I asked [through] a mutual friend. And David said, “Tell her I’d like to go out with her first.” So David and I went to a bar on Avenue A and started talking. I brought up how I have this musical synchronicity thing that goes on, both as a listener and as a dancer on the receiving end, but also as a DJ. Someone would call and request a song that’s already queued up, ready to be played. Or I would think, “Gosh, I hope David plays this next, it would sound really good.” Kind of getting on that telepathic level. He and I just vibed. [David] came to my show, and he was too shy to talk. He just handed me the records. And then he blew me away by saying, “I’d love for you to come to the Loft and play some one-on-ones with me.” That had never occurred to me. I wouldn’t have become a [club] DJ without the whole radio thing. I would have never jumped in.
This was before Tim Lawrence’s book Love Saves the Day came out, right?
Yes, it was. There was one book by Albert Goldman [1978’s Disco ] which mentioned the Loft, and you could find things on microfiche at the New York Public Library by Vince Aletti, but David’s story wasn’t out there. I had just done my first compilation for Nervous in 1998 called New York After Hours: A Later Shade of Deep . It put this thought into my head that David should do a compilation. Not only will it get his story out there, it will also be
( opposite top ) Colleen and David Mancuso in Vatican City, in 2001. (opposite, bottom left ) In Rome with David Mancuso, 2001. (opposite, bottom right ) Colleen and David hatching plans for the London Loft Party with DJ and soundman Andrew Pirie (at center). Photo by Vincent Villard.
34 WaxPoetics
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