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Thanx to Chris Burns for cracking out this interview with like 5 min prep time, show the man some love at http://chrisburnsdc.com/ -cale

Tim Sweeney is coming up on a ten year anniversary for his internationally renowned weekly radio show/podcast, Beats in Space, which is aired every Tuesday night on WNYU 89.1 in New York City. His show features live mixing and frequent special guest appearances, which includes pretty much every awesome well known DJ record nerd in dance music.  He’s also tight with the DFA crew. This Friday night, Tim will be headlining a soiree at the 411 NY Ave. Warehouse loft and we shot him a few pressing questions that were on the top of our heads.

BYT: You grew up in our area; where specifically? I always like to ask the DJs/artists/talent that were once based here to share fond memories or musical-inspiring experiences they may have had during their childhood/adolescence…

Tim Sweeney: Yeah, I grew up in Baltimore from 7th to 12th grade. Then I moved up to New York to go to NYU and have been here since. As for fond musical memories, well, I remember going out to plenty of raves when I was 15 and 16. I think I still have some of the flyers somewhere! Outdoor things under a tent, LTJ Bukem at Lonnie’s warehouse after the main party had been shut down, those Ultraworld parties at the DC armory. I basically just followed my older brother wherever he was going most of the time!

BYT: I’d also love to hear some stories about your experiences playing raves in the heyday of the DC/Bmore 1990s scenes, if anything memorable comes to mind. Did this experience consciously inspire you to seek bigger and better things in NYC when you shipped off to college at NYU?

Tim Sweeney: Hmm, I think my biggest moment was when I got to DJ at the Buzz “Battle of the DJ’s” when I was 16 or 17. I remember I was so psyched because I had gone to New York and pressed up a dubplate of a new track I had plus some stupid sound effect things. The days before CDJ’s!! I can still smell that fresh dubplate acetate though! You can’t forget that. Anyways, I lost the “Battle of the DJ’s” to some dude who could scratch and that got me motivated to learn how to scratch better. I’m still not great at it, but I want to battle that guy again! I remember just being really excited to be at Buzz though because I was never able to get in before, since I didn’t have a fake ID.

When I moved up to New York, I just knew I wanted to do a radio show on NYU’s station and try and DJ wherever I could in the city. I got a radio show right away, but it took a while to start getting gigs in the city. It’s still hard DJing in New York though. There are lots of great DJ’s living here.

BYT: The legacy of live mixing on the radio in New York City/New Jersey is incredible. From Red Alert and Marley Marl, Timmy Regisford/Boyd Jarvis, Tony Humphries, Shep Pettibone, Merlin Bobb, the list goes on. Right now, it appears that the only ones sticking to this legacy, in terms of dance music/house/disco, are Ruben Toro and yourself. Do you think this format is still relevant and in-demand? Or is it rightfully or wrongfully overlooked by the heavyweight corporate juggernaut radio conglomerates that control FM Radio?

Tim Sweeney: It’s definitely not in-demand, because no one is kicking down my door to try and switch stations or anything like that. Is it relevant? Well, I don’t know how relevant radio is anymore. I mean, I think more people probably listen to my show online than actually live on the radio, but I don’t really ever know how many people are actually listening live on the radio. I think FM radio has mainly become a joke because of the corporate guys erasing anything fun and personal about it. There’s no originality anymore. It’s just a computer playlist. I love doing my show though, so I don’t really care if there’s no one listening, I’ll still do it. I just like the whole experience of it. You never know how many people are listening when you do radio. You’re just in a room by yourself.

BYT: The Nicky Siano show from last year and the more recent DJ Harvey show are favorites of mine because they lent voices to these legends. The listener was able to hear these guys give audible, concrete and passionate opinions to the music they brought to play. This is in contrast to earlier trends where dance music (as it were before the internet), was typically appreciated and worshipped as this somewhat anonymous thing – you didn’t really know who these DJs or producers were, what they looked like, where they were from, what cuts got their rocks off, who their beef was with in their hometown/country, etc. Do you think the increased visibility, marketing and accessibility of talent is a good thing or a bad thing? Do you think it affects the integrity or mystique of the actual music being created?

Tim Sweeney: Honestly, I really don’t know. I just like talking to these guys who have done a bunch of interesting things and hearing their stories. Hopefully other people like their stories too. But I’m not really worrying about how it’s affecting things. I just want to hear what these people, who I really respect, have to say.

BYT: If I were still in college or had a lot more free time on my hands, I’d love to do a statistics project on my hypothesis that the more obscure, yet awesome records that are broken/found on your show are directly correlated to a realized perceived and/or actualized market value on discogs, EBay, Gemm, etc. Especially all those Japanese and European record nerds who really drive up the prices. Do you have any opinions on this? Do you think the excitement of hunting for weird, old “new” records has diminished with the accessibility of podcasts, blogs, etc.?

Tim Sweeney: Haha. Thanks Chris! Yeah, some people come on the show and don’t like giving out their track names because they’re afraid of people finding the records. I just don’t worry about it anymore. It might take
someone a bit longer to find an unlisted track, but people will still find it! It’s become easier to find some old, expensive, rare things because of the internet, but I don’t mind. You still have to do a lot of hunting online to find the good things. To find the good quality recordings. You still have to sort through a lot of shit, just like in a used record bin. I love being able to go onto youtube and be turned on to all of these tracks I never knew about.

BYT: What music and/or A&R projects are you currently working on?

Tim Sweeney: I’m working on a couple different projects for the end of the year to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my radio show! I’m looking forward to that.

BYT: What is going in music RIGHT NOW that makes you excited and want to tell everyone and anyone who will listen?

Tim Sweeney: Yura Yura Teikoku!

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