OVERTIME continues! Our summer-long Saturday party in the Ruins returns with a party brought to you by Kiss & Tell and Lost Soul Enterprises. Come kick back in the sunshine, grab a frozen drink, and enjoy!
Kiss & Tell and Lost Soul Enterprises present:
DJ Minx [Women On Wax]
Mike Simonetti [2MR, Pale Blue, Kiss & Tell]
Scott Murakami [Lost Soul Enterprises]
Kiss & Tell Party and Lost Soul Enterprises are collaborating on a series of two outdoor events in the beautiful and lush garden at Knockdown Center. For the spring edition we have invited Detroiter and Women on Wax label owner DJ Minx, along with our respective residents Mike Simonetti and Scott Murakami . Come early and enjoy the beautiful garden. Cocktails and food will be available.
Hosted by R. Gamble and Seze
DJ Minx was inspired to spin by the famed Music Institute in Detroit. Her style is described as funky, powerful house, with a splash of grace. For two years, Minx engineered and hosted “Deep Space Radio,” an electronic music show on Detroit’s WGPR radio station, on which she conducted interviews and played mixes by DJs and Producers from around the world. The show was heralded by the innovators of techno music (“Magic” Juan Atkins, Kevin “Reese” Saunderson, Eddie Fowlkes, and Derrick May). Minx also voluntarily did a weekly radio program at the University of Canada on CJAM 91.5 FM called “Steamy Windows,” which featured house music by local and international artists.
As a resident of world-renowned Club Motor, Minx opened for artists such as Basement Jaxx, Doc Martin, Cajmere, and Afrika Bambatta. In December 1996, Minx founded Women on Wax, a collective of female DJs from the Metro Detroit area. From then on, she began working with promoters and DJs across the country, and helped to solidify the career of several top female DJs and songstresses.
Being a featured performer during the first Detroit Electronic Music Festival (D.E.M.F.) in May 2000 had an incredible impact on Minx’s career. Since then, she’s played at Tresor in Berlin, Output in New York, Toronto’s Film Lounge, Club Ohm in Portland, Deep Sugar in Baltimore, and Club Air in Japan, and for with massive crowds in Paris, Cancun, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium and numerous other domestic and international locales.
In 2001, Minx established her own record label called Women On Wax Recordings, which has served as a vehicle to present many talented artists and producers to the world including Diamondancer, Pirahnahead, and Diviniti. Minx has also expanded her musical majesty by creating a sub-imprint of the label called W.O.W. B.A.M. (Women On Wax Bangin’ Ass Music). Besides releases on her own labels, she has produced and remixed tracks for Minus (Berlin), Trisomie 21 (Paris), Soiree Records (Detroit), West End Records (New York), Code Red (Baltimore), United Music (Paris), Whasdat Music (Detroit), Liberate (Chicago), and Fast Forward (Atlanta), among others.
Currently on the Connect Bookings roster, Detroit’s “First Lady of Wax” is going strong after nearly three decades of DJing. Minx recently moved her “Queen Beats Radio” weekly show to the new deepspaceradio, and she continues to host parties, specifically during Movement in Detroit. She was named one of the “20 Women Who Shaped the History of Dance Music” by Mixmag and one of the “Best house music DJs of all time” by TimeOut New York.
Mike Simonetti [ 2MR, Pale Blue, Kiss & Tell ]
At the forefront of a relatively underground movement for over two decades, few artists have had a history matching that of veteran-producer Mike Simonetti’s. But it’s this 20- year backstory that reveals the interminable role he’s played in the world of dance music. His first introduction came in 1988, at the tender age of 17, when he landed a job handing out flyers at the legendary NYC nightclub Mars. He was just a kid at the time, but it left an impression on him that would manifest itself years later. His record collecting habit got him his first few gigs as a club promoter in the early 90s, and it was then he got his first taste of DJing—hitting the lawless basements and warehouses of New York City. He quickly made a name for himself in the local club scene as a resident at the legendary parties Rubulad and Motherfucker. It was during this time that his tiny record label Troubleman Unlimited started gaining momentum as well, and by the end of its ten-year run would yield seminal releases by The Walkmen, Zola Jesus, Titus Andronicus, Prurient, Unwound, Glass Candy, Chromatics and many more.
Nearly a decade after its inception, Simonetti put Troubleman to rest and teamed up with Johnny Jewel to launch the dance music label Italians Do It Better. Its first release —a hard-hitting synthpop compilation called After Dark—was a game changer. Eventually, Mike released his first EP of original material, Capricorn Rising, after a slew of re-edits and remixes. The EP laid the groundwork for what was to come, yielding a range of influences from techno, krautrock and ambient music to soundtracks.
While Simonetti was in the middle of writing his debut solo work, he was asked to remix tracks from the West Coast twosome Silver Hands. Immediately taken by the incredible range of lead-vocalist Elizabeth Wight, he reached out to collaborate. The result of the bi-coastal email exchange would eventually become Pale Blue.
Most recently, Simonetti has decided to split from Italians Do It Better to focus on Pale Blue, as well as a totally new venture: the freshly minted label 2MR (Two Mikes Records). A collaboration between Simonetti and Captured Tracks founder Mike Sniper (whose own band Blank Dogs was released on Troubleman in 2008), 2MR is an opportunity for Simonetti to start from a blank slate and release music he believes in.
2MR
Scott Murakami [Lost Soul Enterprises, Bentwave Radio]