BENNY BLANCO® : BLANCODISCO

mostly electronic dj music and related tech

August 7, 2004

Moving Fridays Moving Forward

okay, so what have i been doin over the past couple months. with not a blog entry in site?

was working at a small agency called Creative Priority since the beginning of the year. But, as the summer wained on, business started to move to a crawl and i was growing a lil grumpier day by day. Two weeks ago, i go into work on a monday morning expecting business as usual, and i was called to go into the conference room to have a lil talk. I was informed that I had to be let go.

I wasn’t too fazed about it.

20 minutes later, when I was out on the streets a free man, I called up my buddy, Merv, who had informed me of a freelance gig at the company he works for, Dennis Publishing. The makers of such fine newstand mags like Maxim, Blender & Stuff. By 11 am, I had an interview and by 1 pm of the same day i was let go from CP, i was informed that i’d start work on Wednesday at Stuff Magazine! word! Well, i’m still there for the time being. Hoping to max out the gig as best i can. I’ve never worked at a magazine before and i must say, it’s pretty damn cool to work Pop Culture Content for a change.
Next week, i’ll see if i can leverage some work on the interactive side. *crossin’ fingers* So, thanks again Mervert for the hooksups. Even if don’t last, the experience here is way cool and useful and another thing to add to my list of, done thats.

Check out the masthead for October’s issue:
Stuff Mag October Credits

So, aside from the day gig thingy.. i’ve been regularly dj’in up a storm as you most likely already know if yer subscribed to Blancospam. Depth Charge Thursdays & Moving Fridays I run with my partner and friend, Mark Flynn .
here are some of the images for this week’s events:

I also have been semi regularly playing at an Irish pub on the Upper West Side of Manhattan called the Parlour. Not so much my scene, but, the staff there is wicked and oddly enough, i’ve had my best AND worst gigs in NYC there. We’re suppose to start a regular Saturday gig there, Goin’ Down, where I offered to make a full color flyer, but then, they cut back to just makin some cheapo black and whites ones. Whatever, we’ll see if this gig EVER really gets going. For now, I’m good for their purposes when they need a dj for private parties. They Pay well.


Last night at Mr. Dennehy’s for the weekly Moving Fridays Party, we tried something a little different.

We changed the location of where we put the dj rig. We setup in one of the booths where people normally sit to eat meals. it’s a little pearch in the back part of the ground level floor. You can peer all the way to the front of the bar now. It’s pretty cool I must say.

Now, a little review for last night, I started dj’in around 10:15 pm and rolled out the 80’s remixes and singles to ease the transition from satellite radio to house/techno jammin later on. Around 11 pm, i had transitioned over to the housier grooves and allowed one of the guest dj’s for the evening, Markus Mehta, get warmed up on the decks. My girlfriend, Sheri, showed up with her dinner posse already pre-sauced and hung out til 1 am or so. Markus played til around 12:30 am and after a brief catch up with Dylan Drazen, placed Dylan on the throne to take control of things. Eva and Co. came down to hang out and converse and consume, just hangin’ out for Dylan and Markus’ sets. Around 2:30 am, Dylan ran out of easier listening house and had to stop. His boy fans were starting to cramp in on him anyway. One interesting notable is that this one Fan of Dylan’s, Amid, traveled all the way from Boston to hear Dylan play. He’s never met him either. Just a fan… wanted to come down to see him play! ‘ardcore! love it. i bought him a Blanco Blammo as a very small token of appreciation. I think his day was really made when he finally met Dylan and Dylan ended up hooking up with a free Mix CD. Amid was talking so fanatically about dylan and how he had downloaded all of his online mixes. Props.

So, Dylan packed up and rolled on home and Markus and I were instructed to keep the party rolling, even though there were very few remaining real customers still around. Redboy and lady friend, Connie, showed up as the transition was taking place and fell into a drinking session of shots and beers and megamixed concotions that i have no idea what they were. Manager Victor and Bartender Sean were ready to party and blow off some steam themselves. Redboy cued up a few tracks on iTunes’ party shuffle mode while I made wisecrack and Markus laughin it up. Eventually, Markus and I got back up on the decks and traded tunes back and forth on Miss Pinky unitl 4:15 or so. The lights came up and we sent Redboy & Connie home while the rest of the crew packed things up to call it a night.

Great Party.

next week, we got some nice Guiness giveaways and Betsy the Housekeeper joining me on the decks.