Bits & Pieces 89: Doomsday Scrapbooking

Part 1 of a multipart megamix.

Historically, whenever it gets all apocalypto outside, people tend to reminisce, chronicle, catalog, and document. This always happens whenever it looks like things are wrapping up. Contrarians turn librarians when it seems the mushroom clouds are approaching.

Nostalgia booms.

It makes total sense that people would want to remember, recap, and reflect. Many create “time capsules” of their respective legacies, collecting, assembling, and glorifying their piles of stunning, but ultimately completely useless, material belongings.

Maybe it’s a subconscious goodbye waltz. It seems as though some would like one more stroll down Memory Lane. There’s something wholesome about it, like everyone’s saying, “Let’s have one last look at these here beauties.”

At the very least, many would like a chance at a final round of “grown-up” show & tell before an electromagnetic pulse erases our data and civilization.

Also in the mix, connoisseurs and collectors (and troubled hoarders) who have been doing their thing, collectin’ things, from way before any of these impending doomsday vibes began to kick-in and stick. There may be a current, latest wave, but ultra-specific internet directories, lists, galleries, and groups have been there since www dot Day dot One. The internet is a literal archive. When not being used to commit evil / end Earth, the internet and social media can be a perfectly useful broadcast tool / service. (Plus, all the free porno is cool)

Nowadays, on social media apps like Instagram, X, and Tik Tok, a sea of expert-run “finstas” and specialty accounts dutifully present thoughtful, obsessive mini-museums, gathering everything from ornate iron Gates of Guyana to vintage New York City storefronts, 1980s news screens and mall interiors, and music, clothing, arts, and architecture from every imaginable period of time.

All types of people are pleasantly swept into the zeitgeist. The effects of this trend ripple outward, throughout society.

They’re called “feeds” and we eat them up.

Two of my recent faves are produced by young professional thrift geniuses / street archaeologists, RB Selling Stuff and Storage Based. Both of these New York-based accounts are putting in serious work, chronicling (and selling) streetwear, primarily from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Their retail pop-up events are part flea market, part museum exhibitions that attract a clientele of die-hard everyman enthusiasts and streetwear veterans.

I too got in on the throwbaction with Marvin Gardens, my sometimesy, celebratory visual study of the art and ephemera of the Greater New York City Metropolitan Area and the “Golden Age” Hip-hop of the 80s and 90s… and Acid Jazz. Marvin Gardens also exists for me to try and sell the plastic bin full of clothes that stopped fitting me when I became Matthew Dadboderick.

(Depop link in bio)

There’s something warm and stabilizing about this end-of-times scrapbooking, sorting, and nesting.

A particularly impressive supernova in the galaxy of obsessive online cataloguing is Bootleg MegaMix Archive. This YouTube-based Smithsonian, hosts / posts basically every 12” megamix ever made. The must-see channel is a church, library, and university for anyone interested in the art and history of dance music, deejaying, and “the remix”.

(To learn more about the history of remixing and the megamix, check out this article)

Another Youtube Disco and Electro lovers’ paradise, New York City radio station WKTU has posted a truckload of Paco’s Supermix show episodes from the 70s and 80s.

(Listen here.)

Born in the 1970s, megamix 12 inches were originally, primarily released by record labels, record pools, “remix services”, and independent, completely legitimate individuals under the flimsy auspice of “exposure” and promoting the artists’ music.

These 9+ minute, continuous, pre-mixed, perfect-for-a-pee-break deejay tools were comprised of spliced-together (literally… like, with a razor blade and tape) samples and song snippets, often the day’s latest releases and hits. Many of these mixes were sorta boring and uninspired, basically beat-matched promo samplers.

But some were absolute works of art.

For a young deejay, a handful of these bootlegs (released in the years 1987-1991) were perfect, compressed compendiums, funk-cyclopedias, compiling (and inadvertently explaining) the 4/4 dancefloor explosion of the previous twenty-plus years.

The end of the 1980s marked the end of over two, consecutive decades of nonstop, new, youth-led, musical subgenres and countercultural movements. These megamixes were helpful diagrams, showing the interconnectivity between the past and the new, then-still-emerging, ever-evolving rhythmic forms.

A handful of these expertly crafted sonic collages brought together Blues, Rock and Roll, Soul, Funk, Disco, Ska, Reggae, Dancehall, Calypso, Salsa, Hip-hop, Hip HOUSE, Electro, Freestyle, Punk, New Wave, Techno, and House Music.

In the time before everyone was on the internet, these mixes also amplified dance music from different regions of the country and different parts of the world. I sometimes called this stew “Club Music”, a handy, catch-all term for basically anything that was a little faster, or that wasn’t one of our beloved hip-hop / rap records. At the time, Hip-Hop was everything and everywhere in my young world, it was air and life. Club Music (or whatever you wanna call all this) was everything else they played at the party (besides Slow Jams, a separate musical genre).

“One Nation, under a Groove.” Everybody partying under one roof.

These records were so New York.

The bootlegs were pressed on 12” vinyl and could sometimes be found on “special” record store shelves, off to the side or behind the counter. They’d be in plain sleeves with simple, often cryptic artwork and information. Many of the labels contained phrases like, “For Promotional Use Only” or “For DJ Use.”

Regardless of attempted label text legal trickery, a great number of these recordings were released in a completely illegal manner, without permission from the artists or their actual labels. One (flimsy) justification was that these niche records were (allegedly) manufactured in very small quantities and were purchased almost exclusively by nightclub and radio disc jockeys, a good thing for an artist trying to break a single. An argument could be made that there really was some actual, legit promotion and airplay to be gained as a result of these illicit mixes.

Flimsy excuses aside, these records slapped, so leeway was given.

If you were paying attention, many megamixes revealed the stew’s secret recipes.

A little ABC, Yaz, and Kraftwerk. Tons of James Brown, Winstons, and Incredible Bongo Band. A splash of Jay Williams, a shake of Doug Lazy and Jungle Brothers. Throw in some Clash, Jimmy Castor Bunch, Debbie Deb, Lisa Lisa, and Shannon. Then you just need the Talking Heads, KC Flight, Cybotron, The Paragons, Blondie, Adonis, and Madonna.

Mix it all together, give it some spins and some scratches.

Stir it up.

The best megamixes basked in the creative and cultural circulatory systems that connect Chuck Berry to Chuck D. to B.D.P. to Sheila E. and Timmy T. They connect Lakim Shabazz to Information Society, Todd Terry to Adam West, and Kraze to Sean Paul and Inner Circle.

Some of these blends featured surgical edits, rapidly firing samples, calls, responses, and even jokes into multi-source “dialogue”. The mixes used (wait for it…) bits and pieces of everything from Brian DePalma films to Malcolm X speeches to Taylor Dayne and Two Without Hats. This was years before anybody used the term “mash up”, and long before deejays like Spinbad and AM would expand, perfect, and redefine this art form.

Bits & Pieces 89 is an exemplary work (if somewhat outer-fringe) from this “Golden Era” of converging, maturing, countercultural, multicultural dance music styles.

A bare, turquoise blue label and plain white sleeve.

In italics, a simple font communicates,

Side A:

Bits & Pieces 89

Dynamite Mix

R/U/DEF/BOY Mix

SIde B:

Bits & Pieces 89

Dynamite Mix

Another VIN Mix

This record was a staple in my crates throughout my earliest days as a disc jockey. Last year, nostalgia had me curious about who had made this important record from my past. A rudimentary googling led me to one of its creators, Vincent Campisi, aka DJ Vinnie Campisi, aka DJ Vincent Vanguard. The “Vin” from “Another VIN Mix.”

Vinnie has been right here this whole time, still mixing, still playing clubs, still everything. And he was exactly where one could expect to find a semi-mythical New York nightclub figure… up in Yonkers.

This is to be continued….

Here are a few of my favorite “Club Music” megamixes from the late 80s / early 90s:

3 Turntables 2 Otaris and 1 Mixer - Side A - Techno Babes (1989)

3 Turntables 2 Otaris and 1 Mixer - Side B - Techno Babes (1989)

3 Turntables 2 DATS and 1 Mixer - Side A - Techno Babes (1989)

3 Turntables 2 DATS and 1 Mixer - Side B - Techno Babes (1989)

Promo 6 - Side A (1988)

Promo 6 - Side B (1988)

Promo 7 - Side A - One to Beat (1989)

Promo 7 - Side B - Green Turtle Mix (1989)

Promo 8 - Side A (1990)

Promo 8 - Side B (1990)

Double Six Volume 2 - Side One - House Mix

Double Six Volume 2 - Side Two - Freestyle Mix

Double Six Volume 3 - Side A - Techno House Mix (1989)

Double Six Volume 3 - Side B - Freestyle Mix (1989)

Bits & Pieces 88 - Side A - Dynamite Mix

Bits & Pieces 88 - Side B - Dynamite Mix

Bits & Pieces 89 - Side A - R?U?DEF/BOY

Bits & Pieces 89 - Side B - Another VIN Mix

Bits & Pieces 90 - Side A - A Dynamite Mix

Bits & Pieces 90 - Side B - A Dynamite Mix, 1-2 Beat