DJ Jonathan Toubin

LOCAL SPOTLIGHT NYC
DJing is so weird; it’s such an ambiguous term. Some people would argue that a real DJ is someone who mixes or scratches. Some people would argue that it’s just someone who can keep the beat. Some collector DJs think being a good DJ is having the rarest records, and then on the other hand, some people are great party DJs and play very obvious choices. They play all the hits and they get everybody dancing. But on the most base level, it’s just rocking a party. Can you rock a party and can you do it your own way that’s distinctive? And if you can get the response from some weird place other than familiarity, and more from just energy and sharing things where people are like, ‘Where has this been my whole life?’ that I think, is probably what a good DJ is.
- Jonathan Toubin

I remember the first time I walked into one of DJ Jonathan Toubin’s Soul Clap and Dance-Off parties at Glasslands Gallery. Wiggly mamas were shaking their manes and hitting the splits, gangly boys were swinging from the balcony, and the two dance contest finalists, having already ripped their shirts off, were vibe-a-ratin’ like washing machines in the middle of a cheering crowd. And the music, man! I was getting hit by squall after squall of screaming, crackling soul tracks, some pitched so fast that I hardly knew how to move to them – so I did like everyone else and just let the music jerk my body around, flailing with the breathless abandon of a toddler. I’m a big fan of sixties soul music, but every song was new to me, each so raw and greasy and BIG and palpable that they had me scrunching my nose up and torquing my neck in this ecstatic frenzy. Now, I make a point of seeking out those rowdy shows and crazy parties that leave you sweat-soaked and grinning uncontrollably, but I’ve been hard-pressed to find anything that can top the roaring bliss of a New York Night Train Soul Clap.

And now Mr. Jonathan Toubin is taking ’em all over the world.

“We’re going into enemy territory, so we have to be as badass as possible,” says Jonathan, passing a 45 to his intern, Georgia. We’re in his kitchen, surrounded by stacks and boxes and cases of 45 rpm records, trying to select the golden cuts that he’ll take when he brings his Soul Clap party to the West Coast. Georgia puts on “And I Do Just What I Want,” this mean, screeching James Brown song that I’ve never even heard of. “It’s one of his sloppiest, but it’s the most punk rock song ever,” says Jonathan. “It’s like some Stooges song that never happened.” Talk like this clues you in to why Jonathan’s parties are so much rowdier than your average soul DJ’s: he’s a rock ’n roll man! And while the idea behind the Soul Clap is to create, among other things, a new space where folks from different subcultures can come together and rock out, at the end of the day, Jonathan’s gonna play tracks that are fast enough and raw enough to appeal to someone who might otherwise be bruising ribs and breaking capillaries at some riotous punk show. In other words, puppies, this ain’t no oldies night.

“Oldies is a derogatory term,” says Jonathan. “You have the oldie and the classic. The oldie means a disposable product that reminds you of something, and the classic is something that will always be supreme. You don’t call Shakespeare an oldie!” Well sure, I get it, and so do the 500 or so people who flock to Glasslands every month. But Jonathan’s taking this thing around the world – how in the hell does one prepare to win people over in Israel, Mexico, and Arcata, California, where there’s really no precedent for a seersuckered soul DJ with a punk rock musical aesthetic spinning exclusively 45 rpm records in an alternative gallery space?

Well, first you gotta test the waters…

“I have all these little benchmark things to see who I’m dealing with. Sometimes I’ll put on the Richard Berry version of ‘Have Love Will Travel,’ which, if you don’t know the Sonics’ version of it, is not that big. But if people know the Sonics, they’re like, ‘Yeah!’ If I play that and no one responds much, I’m like, ‘Oh fuck, these people don’t know who the Sonics are. I have a different kind of job to do tonight.’”

And then you gotta get folks on the dance floor…

“As Jean-Luc Godard said, all you need to make a good movie is a beautiful girl and a gun. All you really need to make a good dance party is a beautiful girl and a 45. You know how they tell public speakers to look at one person in the audience? If I see a couple girls tappin’ their feet here and there, I’m like, ‘Alright, that’s who I’m going to play for right now, cause they’re likely to start a dance party.’ So I just play for them and pretend there’s no one else there. And typically if it’s working out, I just kind of keep them in mind and I’ll keep looking around and keep adding it until I get like a full floor.”

And if the party starts to slump …

“That’s when you play the cover of ‘96 Tears’ by Big Maybelle, something that people will be able to relate to. It’s just a bunch of noise if no one relates to it on any level. You gotta throw the dog a bone sometimes. It’s better to play a cover of an obvious song than just the obvious song.”

And so on…we’re still sorting through records, talking “butt music” versus “hip music,” “sex music” versus “drug music,” the importance of hand claps and a good hook. “The song should do the work for you,” Jonathan tells Georgia. “Good dancers like you, you can do all the work. But what I do is not about being good dancers. You gotta play the stuff that dances the bad people around too. It’s democratic, if somewhat amateurish…” Man, at my first internship I learned how to use a fax machine, but this girl’s getting the important stuff.

At something like three in the morning the final record selections have been made. In an hour Jonathan will be headed to the airport, to find out how far he can take this New York Night Train thing, and to see how much he can shake things up with a single case of explosive 45s.

“It’s so funny cause when I started playing, I was like, ‘Wow I wish more people played this stuff,’ and that was not even three years ago. And now people are going, ‘Oh God I wish I could hear something else other than this soul crap in Brooklyn!’ I think it’s great though, cause people are dancing everywhere more. The main thing is I just got bored of cool people hangouts where everyone just sits around. For a DJ, how boring is that? What’s interesting is when everyone gets up and gets into it and gets wild! And I hope that we take these Soul Claps out there and push the culture towards everything being a little more of a party.”

by Erin Sheehy

ps – The Soul Clap is back in town this weekend. Come shake it.