From basement dancefloors in Philly’s Ukrainian social club, to parties around the world, to the New York Times review section — the infamous Hollerboard helped birth one of the most fertile periods in dance music and partying in recent memory.
RJD2, Diplo, & Cosmo Baker at SXSW 2006 (All photos courtesy of Cosmo Baker)
“Kinda crazy to think about how a community that existed in real life ended up becoming an online community, centered around like minded people, like minded DJs, and friends IRL. We really were just playing around and trying to do things a little differently, and I guess that impacted the world.” – Cosmo Baker
Founded by Wesley “Diplo” Pentz and his Hollertronix partner Mike “Lowbudget” McGuire, the Hollerboard was a go-to source for hot music, trash talk, and early memes before the era of Facebook and Soundcloud.
Ahead of a blow-out party at Warehouse on Watts featuring some of the most famous Hollerboard alumni, we chatted with 1/2 of Hollertronix duo Mike ‘Lowbudget’ McGuire to get the scoop on how the Hollerboard came to be.
How did Hollertronix and the Hollerboard start? What was going on in the Philly scene and beyond at that point?
Lowbudget: I know for us we were all hip hop dudes that felt a bit restricted in the scene musically. We found ourselves liking a lot of the new hip hop , especially the stuff coming out of the south. There was also a growing indie dance scene lead by Dave P as well. We were really into all of this stuff and and we just wanted to play everything we liked.
It was a culmination of what a bunch of 20-something music heads had been into their whole lives and it turned out there was a lot of people that were on the same frequency. As for the board, messageboards were pretty much the only form of any kind of social media. There were a lot of local Philly messageboards where people would talk about parties and music and beef over graffiti and gossip, They were a major part of the early “word of mouth (or internet)” success of our early parties. So when we became more established we started a messageboard of our own.
RIP DJ AM!
How did you get to know Wes / Diplo?
We actually met at an underground hip hop show in Brooklyn. I was the DJ for this indie rap labal called Arrakis and he was there DJing. We kept running into each other at parties in Philly after that. We realized we had a lit of similiarly unusual interests and thought we should spin together.
Diplo, Roxy Cottontail, and Lowbudget
What were the projects that Holletronix put out?
Our main mixtape was Never Scared. It was on the NY Times albums of the year ( a mixtape, Iknow, weird) in 2003. We made a bunch of 12 inches with mashups and a few other random mixes here and there. But the mixtape was really the main thing.
https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=%2Flowbeezy%2Fdiplo-and-lowbudget-are-hollertronix-never-scared%2F
What were the parties like at that time?
It seemed like every where we played, it was a mix of all types of subcultures. From hip hop to punk to what would soon be called “hipsters”, everyone kinda came together because they knew it was gonna be a wild scene.
Hollertronix party flier at the Ukie Club
What do you think the impact of the Hollerboard was then and into today?
I think a lot of the sounds you’ve been hearing in music for the last 10 years are a lot of times an amalgamation of the carious sounds being traded on the board. So many relevant producers and djs from this time were part of this scene.
Miami 2009 with Craze, Pase, Chromeo Amanda Blank, Jokers of the Scene, A-Trak, Cosmo Baker
See you at Warehouse on Watts. NOTE: this will also be Spank Rock’s last time performing under that moniker !!!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDLMJccb1YU&w=560&h=315]
