I Love Vinyl
I started I Love Vinyl in the summer of 2009 as a series of monthly all-vinyl dance parties. The first of many parties was held at the Gallery at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City’s Greenwich Village with five friends and co-resident djs, Amir Abdullah of Kon & Amir, Ge-Ology, The Twilite Tone, OP! and Jon Oliver. The Dream Team. Shawn Dub joined as a resident in 2013.
The name of the party was visual in origin. In line with a longstanding hip-hop graphic design tradition, I took the classic I (heart) NY logo, designed by Milton Glaser, and added a VI and L around the NY, to make it I (heart) VINYL. Pretty sure I was the first to do this. It became the logo of our party and the name. We had to stop using the Glaser-based logo some years later when the lawyers for NY State’s copyright office sent us a cease and desist.
The concept was musically freeform, all vinyl, and no guest djs. We took photos, live, of the covers of every record we played and compiled “Visual Playlists” for each party. Later we occasionally invited friends to join us for a guest set. DJ Spinna played with us. Natasha Diggs. Rustam Ospanoff before he moved to NYC from Kazakhstan. But the party very intentionally did not rely on guest or “headlining” djs to draw a crowd. We built a local and loyal following based on our resident djs.
In the first year, we added a second monthly party, I Love Vinyl: On the B-Side, in Brooklyn, first at Brooklyn Bowl, then Southpaw, Littlefield, Cameo, Public Assembly Loft, Output’s Panther Room, TBA Brooklyn and C’mon Everybody. One-off parties happened at Louie & Chan, Le Baron and Output’s Canopy Bar.
We were pure analog as much as possible, and usually played on Ge-Ology’s customized E&S DJR 400, the first new rotary mixer that had been made since the 80s, and the only one at that time, that spurred the current wave of interest in rotary hi-fi dj mixers. We used Isonoe’s isolation feet for our 1200s before Isonoe made its first mixer.
In our almost 10 year run, we were invited to bring our event to institutions like the Brooklyn Museum, Celebrate Brooklyn, Mass MOCA, Pioneer Works, Oberlin College, Lincoln Center, Performance Space New York, BRIC House, Bryant Park Film Festival, NYPL, Harlem Stage, Dekalb Market and Ace Hotel. We collaborated with Creative Time, Fat Beats, the artist Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Moblie Mondays, Blue Note Records, Fela the Musical, Ortofon and more.
I Love Vinyl was written about in the New York Times, New York Magazine, and TimeOut New York, and shortlisted for best party of 2009 by Giant Step and won the award for Best Event Series at the first annual Brooklyn Bodega awards in 2011.
In 2011, we started I Love Vinyl (Amsterdam), a sister party in The Netherlands featuring resident djs Mr. Mendel, Rob Manga and Illco. That party took on its own life and was an Amsterdam fixture for years.
ILV launched the I Love Vinyl Radio podcast in 2013. It was initially self-produced, and later found a home at Clocktower Radio at Pioneer Works. The format was that the ILV djs would interview one guest each episode. Guests were asked to bring a few records that were meaningful to them to play and then talk about with us. Guests included Gilles Peterson, Salvatore Principato of Liquid Liquid, Justin Strauss, Alex From Tokyo, Bobbito Garcia of Stretch & Bobbito, Meghan Stabile (RIP) of Revive Music/Blue Note Records, Duane Harriott, Steve "Steinski" Stein, Shred One and Andrew Brearley of Cherries Records, Natasha Diggs, Carol C of Si*Sé, Dana Vlcek of KONK, and Grandwizzard Theodore.
We once held an invite-only I Love Vinyl party in my apartment when my downstairs and nextdoor neighbors were away at the same time. The parties ran until 2018.
For more info see
ilovevinyl.org (archival)
I Love Vinyl on Mixcloud (archival)
I Love Vinyl on Instagram (archival)