Rich Medina is a straight up legend. He’s one of the few DJs out there that can bring crowds to a frenzy with literally any style of music. We were blessed to have him come through our studio with a bag stuffed full of soul, funk, psych and African vinyl on a seriously cold and chilly Thursday night (that also was the NBA trade deadline).
This Hot Mix was a reunion in a few ways.
A few years back, the guys from Robotique (Billy Werner & Ryan Todd) used to have Rich on as a monthly resident at their parties at Kung Fu Necktie. It was only right that I had them come through to warm things up for Rich. I also asked EMM alumni Max of Brewerytown Beats to come through, as he’s one of the few people I know that’s on the same vinyl IQ level as Rich. Max brought along his buddy Gabe Coffey who made the amazing CINEMAGRAPHS that are featured in this post.
Billy Werner was back in the building, making a triumphant return to our studio after smashing the EMM under his M//R alias with a gritty 1 hour techno set as part of the Great Circles takeover. One of the amazing things about Billy is that he wears like 15 very different musical hats. He was the singer in a post-hardcore band called Hot Cross, threw disco / boogie / dance parties as 1/2 of Robotique and now makes some truly amazing techno, amongst other endeavors. He’s got some things that will be bubbling up when the weather turns (stay tuned for that…).
Everyone in the house was a vinyl head and some true record geek-ery was going down as the warm and groovy sounds of vinyl filled up our studio. Rich took to the decks after Robotique and immediately sent our staff’s jaws to the floor.
Rich is a veteran in the game and came prepared for anything with his 4 TB laptop in tow. After seeing the Robotique fellas spin all vinyl, he maintained that flow and started pulling records out of his bag, even opening some of them ON THE SPOT (#RealDJing, yo).
Rich’s dedication and understanding of his craft is evident in everything he does. He asked if we had a record brush (which we didn’t – because someone STOLE IT!!) and then proceeded to clean all of his records like in the GIF above. He said he never plans his sets ahead of time and then quoted Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan ’til they get punched in the mouth,” as reason for not doing so. Rich is also VERY tall. He called pitch faders “BPM eliminators” and talked about how he’ll sometimes pitch down tracks to open up the pocket on a beat and give his long frame some room to groove.
We had Rich’s set on blast in the studio, Billy, Ryan and Max unearthing weird and rare records from our vinyl library – vibes were abound. Hot Mix in full effect!
At the end of Rich’s set, we thanked him for making time in his hectic schedule to come through and complimented his set. He talked about how you can’t really accept compliments for what you’re supposed to do. He said that if he were doing some Roc Raida type shit, THEN he would take the compliments.
Regardless, it was an honor to have Rich bless our studio. He used my mixer! I’ll never wash that mixer again!
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Be sure to check out Rich, Cosmo Baker and Mike Nyce TONIGHT (2/27) and every last Friday of the month at Trilogy for GET LIFTED (presented by: Stacey Wilson [FLYGRRL]).
BEFORE THAT (6 PM tonight), catch Cosmo doing a guest set on Eavesdrop Radio.
Junior and Lil’ Dave are celebrating 10 years of their show on our station and we couldn’t be more proud to have such talented and passionate musical tastemakers grace our decks every week!
Hot Mix pops off every Thursday night on WKDU hosted by yours truly, Chris B. You never know who’s gonna be in the studio so STAY TUNED!