one of their last singles before the group split up. This barely got a foothold on the R&B charts before settling into obscurity. Krivit: It’s another extreme mix, not something you’re expecting. I enjoy records that have a sound that takes you somewhere. I like a lot of David Morales’s stuff, not all of it— he’s done a lot of records. I thought this was one of Loose Ends’ best records, and they had a few really good ones. But in this case, I thought it was his mix that made it. I played this in Japan and a lot of people were surprised, because this version had kind of gone by them; they didn’t remember it. People were amazed at how big and powerful it was in the club. It’s kind of epic-sounding.
with anyone else. Whenever they get a new record, they can put it there. Everything they own is there. When they get the rush, especially if it’s set up nicely, they can just go right to the record and play it. Having everything in a CD book—though it’s great—is very uninspiring compared to seeing all your records in front of you. It’s these pictures [ gestures to an LP cover ], people don’t give enough credit to the art on the records. The smaller you make it, the less I respond. The size of this picture, when I’m going through a crate, just a flash of it is going to take me places I didn’t realize—to other records or whatever. It might take me somewhere I never thought of going... It gets my mind going. Sometimes, I can look at these books of CDs and not be inspired at all. For the same reason I used to go to record stores and be inspired to buy these records I would see on the wall, now I go into CD stores, and I’m uninspired. I do very little impulse buying, because there’s no covers that are going to make me buy that CD.
Do you play a lot of mid-tempo stuff like this in your sets?
Krivit: All across the board. I try to build people up, bring them down. Peaks and valleys. Get them tired, let them catch their breath. I like to play as long as I can, go lots of places in the course of the night. In Sapporo, Japan, I played an eighteen- and-a-half hour set. It was great.
New Birth “Deeper” (Warner Brothers) 1977
Krivit: This is a difficult record to find. I did an edit of this song that used elements of the instrumental, only available on this promo. When I used to go to these companies to get records, it wasn’t like just anybody could go up there; you had to be playing somewhere, and they had to know you. At Warner Brothers, there used to be this girl, Jackie Thomas, I think it was. She used to personally sign every [promo] record. I have records that I acquired from another DJ for example, and they’re signed to him. She had nice handwriting; it was always written beautifully. It kind of made you not want to get rid of the record! On the other side of that, speaking of writing on records, my friend David DePino used to DJ at the Garage, and I’d help him out with records all the time. He was always asking me to point him out the good stuff, so he didn’t waste time. You know, “Just tell me which ones are good.” So I’d tell him what I thought, and he’d take the pen and just [mark up the record]. I’d be like, [ deadpan ] “All right. That just made it worthless...” To me, though it may’ve been a new record, it was already a rare promo-only thing. He doesn’t think that way; he’s not a record collector.
You bring enough records to Japan to cover that?
I bring too many! First of all, I have two enormous CD books. One of them is all classics. That one book of classics I’ve condensed down so that it represents about seventeen crates of classics. If I only had that to play from, I’d have enough. I also bring a few crates of records and another couple handfuls of CDs, so I have plenty of things to play. But I never have enough! I want to have every record that’s in my mind! Whenever I get the rush to play something and I don’t have it, it hurts me. I want to play what I really feel I want to play. Certainly, in those eighteen and a half hours, there were a lot of things I didn’t even get to.
Do you feel comfortable working with CDs at this point?
At this point, very comfortable. Whereas in the beginning, François was very into CDs, and it was a little intimidating for me. I remember whenever I had something that was only on CD, I’d look at François like, “Could you mix this for me?” I appreciate CDs for a lot of things they can do: I can play a rare record without destroying the vinyl, for example. Every time I play it, it sounds perfect, new. I would prefer to play the vinyl. The vinyl sounds better, but in many situations, it isn’t practical for me. Junior Vasquez, Larry Levan, Timmy Regisford—these people have their own clubs. Their collection of records is sitting behind them, and they don’t have to share the booth
You consider yourself a collector, I guess.
You can’t move in my apartment. I’m a chronic collector. Some records that are classics I have thirty copies of. Every time I saw it cheap, I’d think, “How can I turn away from this?” I used to go to this flea market religiously. There was one guy who I always bought stuff off, a dollar a record. One day he tells me, “I got a lot of good stuff today, a whole collection.” As I’m looking through I began to realize that they were
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