Brightest Young Things

This week kicks off Pride in DC.  If you haven't got your discounted (for now) tickets to our pride party next Friday (BYT & Capital Pride Present "Somehwere..." at the Newseum) then stop right now and get them now.

Maybe you’ve heard of a party called RAW.  Its the dark-disco phenomenon and monthly party that has been turning stuffy Washingtonians into carefree dancehall queens for more than a year.

Well, DC is about to get much RAW-er. This weekend, RAW co-hosts Bil Todd and Shea Van Horn (of MIXTAPE) are injecting a shot or two of steroids into their party by moving the monthly event for one-night to the Warehouse Loft on New York Avenue for a special event they call RAW/HNY.

RAW/HNY? Yes, the boys of RAW are bringing in Honey Soundsystem of San Francisco for their Washington, DC debut. Honey is a self-described group of DJs, musicians, performers, and designers who “share love of timeless sound, iconic imagery, the complete look, indulgent behavior, and most of all, attractive men.” They also sell their own signature speedos.

Since forming in 2006, they have brought new edge to the San Francisco party scene—according to a writer for the San Francisco Guardian, their shows feature "genius, history-compressing sets that melted my panties into a sugary lump." The boys of the group have spread Honey as far as London and Berlin and have headlined events like the official Folsom Street Fair After Party—that alone should tell you everything you need to know. (If it doesn’t, this might help you understand.)

So what can you expect from Honey Soundsystem at RAW/HNY? Well, Ken Vulsion of the group was kind enough to talk to us for a few minutes—check out the interview below where he talks about Honey’s origins (sex parties), musical tastes (sounds of a generation lost to AIDS), and most memorable moments (you’ll have to read that part for yourself). The last question, in particular, might shed a little light on your Saturday night future. Because, let’s face it, you aren’t going to be anywhere else.

What: RAW presents RAW/HNY w/ special guests Honey Soundsystem (SF) & Chris Burns (DC)
When: Saturday, June 4th, 10 PM – 4 AM
Where: Warehouse Loft, 411 New York Ave. NE (@ 4th & Penn NE)
$15 door, $10 w/ RSVP: http://bit.ly/RAWHNYDC (Hint: you should RSVP)

Toby Zasloff: How did Honey Soundsystem get started? What’s your background?

Ken Vulsion: Well, it got started when I met Jacob, who I’m coming out to DJ with in DC. He was 19 at the time and had just started doing parties, mostly with fake IDs and not telling any of the bars he was working with that he was underage.

We had this idea to do a party called “Honey” at a bear hangout bar on Castro Street—so that’s where the name came from because it was gonna be a bear party, sort of along the lines of Horse Meat Disco in London, and bears like honey. That venue didn’t end up working out but we still liked the idea, and about six months later a friend of ours wanted us to DJ a loft party so we bought the sound system on credit cards… that was about five years ago.

Jacob met another DJ named Robert (Robot Hustle) who was playing a lot of disco then and another guy named Jason Kendig who was a DJ out of Detroit playing a lot of minimal techno that was hot then. They became the next two Honey Soundsystem DJs, and we started doing one off parties—sex parties, pool parties—for about a year and a half. Then, about 4 years ago we started doing a regular Sunday party in SoMa. Somewhere along the line we picked up another DJ named Josh Cheon, who runs a label called Dark Entries, and Derek Bobus joined the group in the fall of 2010; so there are six DJs in Honey.

TZ: You touched on this briefly, but what are some of the different musical personalities in the group?

KV: Our styles have sort of mixed once we started playing together... it’s almost become a house sound. Early on, I think as a result of some of the guests we were booking, we were getting tagged as a new disco party but, if you came on any Sunday, you would say “Oh, this is a house party” maybe with a disco flavor to it.

Within that, Josh Cheon’s label is focused on coldwave and he does a lot of re-releases from obscure 80s electronic records. Jason Kendig was sort of known as a Detroit House and techno DJ. He used to do a party out there with Derek Plaslaiko whose part of the whole Bunker crew. All of us drew upon different circles of musicians and DJs. I used to run around a lot with a group of DJs called Hardkiss in San Francisco, which was kind of big on the late 90s rave scene. So we all drew upon our backgrounds and it became a mix of things once we started playing together.

TZ: Honey Soundsystem has hosted some big names in house and disco (Hercules & Love Affair, Todd Terje, Tim Sweeney, Kim Ann Foxman, Cosmo Vitelli, etc.). How tightly knit is the house music community?

KV: I’d say probably half the guests we book are local. Because San Francisco isn’t the size of London or Los Angeles—well, I wouldn’t put LA in that category—but because San Francisco isn’t the size of New York or London, there are more opportunities for crews to collaborate on parties. We did a New Years party with a crew called Sunset who’ve been doing parties for 15 years, and they started as an outdoor free party on Sundays. That party was 8 DJs from our crews plus Kim Ann Foxman and Tim Sweeney. And that was like a big room, big venue party.

TZ: I was actually there… making out with random boys all over the dance floor.

KV: Oh, really? That’s hot.

TZ: Yeah…

KV: There are a lot of people from San Francisco we play with… a good example is a guy named Steve Fabus. He’s old school; he was one of the residents at Trocodero Transfer, which was one of the biggest discos on the West Coast when it was open. And he still DJs. We’re really interested in connecting to the past in a way that makes the music valid to a newer audience. I think that because of AIDS a whole generation of men was wiped out and a lot of the stories lost—it’s important to be connected to people like him because that is how the stories are passed on… and the knowledge about what the good records are.

Also, for myself, when I moved out here in ‘89, the rave scene was just happening, and what attracted me was that it was a really mixed group of people. That’s another element as well… while we’re all gay men, having a mixed party is important to us. Straight, gay, how old they are shouldn’t matter—everyone should have a good time.

Discodromo - Mercurio [DSC 001] by discaire-records

TZ: How much do you feel like your queer-ness influences your music and shows?

KV: When I’m picking music, it’s not because it’s a gay artist. And, in a lot of ways, if it’s something that’s become hyper-commercialized, that’s not probably not the kind of music you’re gonna hear at our party. That being said, we are connected to a lot of other queer musicians and artists in the room, like Prosumer + Boris in Berlin, the Horse Meat Disco guys in London, and others around the world who we’ve released music for and worked on projects with.

At one point I think, the gay disco dance floor was at the forefront of dance music. And, to me at least, it kind of got commercialized and lost, but there are like-minded people... This is especially true of our connection to Horse Meat Disco, where the quality of the music is more important than making a lot of money or being commercial.

TZ: A lot of the records you play out were released years ago, but who are some of the musicians that you think are moving house music forward?

KV: Ah, the future of house… you know, you’d get a different answer from all of us, but some of the producers that are putting out interesting new music are André Lodeman and Lee Foss. There’s also some really quality music coming out of the New York Rub N Tug crew, Eric Duncan and Thomas. There are those DJs I’ll always enjoy listening to, like Harvey from LA. People we really like we try to get to come play with us… then, ideally that connection will open us up to even more music coming our way. We’ve been lucky to have some really good producers play for us.

For a while Jason was with Andy Butler from Hercules and Love Affair, and they started a label together called Mr. INTL. Jason’s been doing a lot of his own production and remixing. And there’s a label called Discaire, started by Jacob and Robot from Honey and some people from New York, London, and Berlin. They just put out their first 12”. There’s also a 7” record that came out on Honeytrax, our own little label, that was by Alexis Blair Penney, a local singer/party person. There’s a remix that Jason Kendig and Jason did on that, so we’re starting to do production as far as music.

Alexis Blair Penney - Lonely Sea (Honey Soundsystem Remix) by Honey Soundsystem HNYTRX

Anyway, I think I might have got a little off track for a minute…

TZ: No, actually that’s perfect because you answered my next question about Honey’s label and production projects.

KV: That’s a natural progression—putting music out that we think is quality. I just got some edits from a guy we played with in London named Jonny Rock who is part of Freaks. Two of them I really loved and I was like shit… I’d really love to put that out on a record.

A fair amount of Patrick Cowley material came our way through a DJ I played with who used to run Patrick’s label. Some of that music was released a couple of summers ago on a label out of Berlin called Macro, run by Stefan Goldmann. Stefan had come out to DJ a party for us, and I had given him some CDs of this music, and he and his partner loved it. They actually tracked down the guy who did the music with Patrick, a singer named Jorge Socarras, who was in a group called Indoor Life. They did a wonderful job re-mastering it and cleaning it up. There’s more, but the catalogue was sold and bought and sold again and belongs to Unidisc. But that won’t stop us from putting it out even if it means doing it as a white label or something a bit sneaky.

TZ: To give people a taste of what your show is going to be like, what are some of the most memorable moments over the last five years of Honey?

KV: Oh, God… um… probably… I don’t know… How PG-13 is your blog?

TZ: You can go as far as you want.

KV: I mean… there’s certainly been sex on the dancefloor. Actually, there was a month when our party was on the run, about Labor Day of the last year, and Jeno DJ’d for us—he ’s one of the guys from the Wicked Crew, probably one of the most influential DJ posses around here. Anyways, [chuckle] at some point I had to gently push these two guys… one of them was getting his dick sucked right in front of the turn table, and I could see it ending badly and the record skipping…

There was a time when Jacob and I went to play with Horse Meat Disco at the Glastonbury Festival. They’re part of a thing called the New York City Downlow, which is literally like a disco dropped into the middle of a field. The front looks like a New York street scene. The people that put it together are partly production designers for films, so it’s pretty amazing looking. Besides all the Horse Meat Disco guys and us, there were also all the best, craziest trannies from London, and we literally drove into the festival in a coach with trannies hanging off of it… like right through the middle of the festival with all the people looking at this spectacle. So that’s basically the way the whole party went.

It can be pretty amazing playing for half a million people at the gay pride festival here right by City Hall, getting the music out. But we also enjoy each other a lot and have a lot of fun while doing that.

Honey Soundsystem put out a compilation last year called "Brotherhood". It's wicked. Listen below and buy here before it runs out.

Honey Soundsystem presents: Brotherhood (V/A) by Honey Soundsystem HNYTRX

Previously in BYT interviews:

• 5/18: INTERVIEW: Jasmine Solano
• 5/18: Interview: Richard Linklater
• 5/17: Interview: Penguin Prison
• 5/16: Interview: Brian Regan
• 5/15: Richard Davies (Cardinal) Interviewed by Archie Moore
• 5/11: Interview: Horse Feathers' Justin Ringle
• 5/10: Reflections on a Conversation with Mickey Avalon
• 5/9: Inside the STYLELINER
• 5/8: The Politics of Mastodon
• 5/4: Preview: Mucca Pazza @ The Kennedy Center's "Look Both Ways" Festival