Mixtape by Nico Lustgarten

Check out our first mixtape ever. We’re especially excited about this one. Fourteen tracks of grinding, dim-lit thrashing.

Track List

1. Soft Moon — We Are We
2. Zola Jesus — Smirenye
3. Violens — Trance Like Turn
4. Baron — Behold the Black (feat. A Place to Bury Strangers)
5. Young Boys — Bring ‘Em Down
6. The Horrors — Excellent Choice
7. Dum Dum Girls — Jail LA LA
8. La Femme — Sur La Planche
9. La Femme — La Femme Ressort
10. The Hundred in the Hands — Dead Ending
11. School of Seven Bells — I L U
12. Cold Cave — Heaven Was Full
13. Ceremony — Future
14. Yes But No — Ceremony (Remix by Kites With Lights) [New Order Cover]

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO DOWNLOAD

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Downstairs at Lit (2008)

By Nico Lustgarten

(Well, as the title states, I’m transitioning these posts to my new web site (nicolustgarten.com), which should be open soon. Maybe by the time you read this, it’ll be live. Now that I’ll be without a day job, I’ll be focusing more on my DJing career and a specific location for information regarding my gigs, etc. is due.)

The crowd definitely keeps me on my toes. It’s not one of those gigs you can sleep through. There is such variety in the tastes in music people enjoy, which makes it more difficult due to my self-imposed restrictions on playing Hip Hop. Just can’t do it anymore. I used to feel like a pigeon dodging tires but I’ve figured the crowd out.

I used to practically live at Lit – that island of debauchery in the East Village where everything from the Cure to Curtis Mayfield was played. Even now, I hear Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!’s “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth,” and I think of dancing on the ground floor then I’d surrender to the cavern in the basement for cigarettes and more alcohol for a slightly different experience — these two rings of Manhattan hell commingling the experience of the night. But that was a couple years ago and now things are different. Can’t smoke downstairs. The speakers turn off and on randomly like a sick game of musical chairs but the influence of the music never severed itself from my style.

These days, if you walk into Angels & Kings on a Saturday night, you’ll hear a reminder of the old Lit days, before Murray Hill took over and the last of the renegade artists and hipsters hold on to the yesterdays. Not saying that AK is the new Lit by any means…just different; the music played inspired by that seedy and wonderful bastion.

It’s been a while since I’ve shared my playlist. You’ll notice that the music is a bit darker, grimier, and yes, I’m leaning toward post-punk/goth and house. This will give you an idea of what you’ll hear this Saturday night when I get to share the decks with another Whiskey Dregs writer, Jenn Sussman (aka DJ Belladonna).

Playlist for 5/22/10

1. Adam Ant “Puss n’ Boots”
2. The Horrors “Excellent Choice”
3. Skywave “Over and Over”
4. Public Image Limited “Annalisa”
5. Shocking Blue “Fire of Love”
6. Sia “Clap Your Hands (Diplo Remix)”
7. Britney Spears “3 (Wolfgang Gartner Remix)”
8. Amanda Blank “Big Heavy”
9. Gene Loves Jezebel “Desire (12″ White Label GW Childs Remix)”
10. Engineers “Sometimes I Realise (Sasha Invol2ver Remix)”
11. Alien Sex Fiend “Zombified”
12. Crystal Castles “Celestica”

(12′s a good number)

I like to yuck it up with friends and sometimes they’ll ask me how the name of this online publication came about. I can’t remember but one promoter friend and I were celebrating after a meeting for an event in Brooklyn when, in the midst of drinking and dancing with art-lovin’ beauties, he yells out, “Someone should write about this.”

I agreed with him and started an online lit and arts magazine. Now, a bunch of years later, The Whiskey Dregs is going back to the party from which it came.

We’ll be introducing the readers through a series of Q&As that will appear on The Whiskey Dregs.

There will be a reaffle for Tony O’Neill’s latest book (co-written written by The Runaways’ Cherie Currie), Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story as well as another surprise prize.

Here is a list of authors and performers:

Stephen Elliott (Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder, published by Graywolf Press and editor of The Rumpus)
Tony O’Neill (Down and Out on Murder Mile, published by Harper Perennial)
David Henry Sterry (co-editor of the anthology, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex, published by Soft Skull Press)
Lynsey Griswold (McSweeney’s)
YH Etheart (The Whiskey Dregs)
Christina Cicchelli ($pread Magazine)

Afterparty at 10:30pm hosted by

DJ Belladonna (Subkulture, The Whiskey Dregs)
and
DJ Nico Lustgarten (The Whiskey Dregs)

BLACK INK
Doors open at 7:30pm
Readings at 8:00pm
ANGELS AND KINGS
500 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10009
212.254.4090

STAY TUNED FOR MORE DETAILS!

I'm calling myself out.

By Nico Lustgarten

My priority at AK was to develop Saturday nights with an identity. I didn’t just want a hot night there. I wanted one of the hottest nights in the East Village. I’m reminded of this as the cruelty of winter dwindles and spring emerges from this shitty season.

People are beginning to catch on as these Saturday evenings pass. The music I play is interchangable between genre and completely ignorant of boundary. It is as unhinged and as free-spirited as I am. My hope is that it continues to attract people who don’t care to define themselves with narrow minds and lifestyles. That’s the point of the music I play. It’s to attract everyone and fulfill that disgustingly cheesy and domineering belief I have of bringing new friends together to build a community of revelers who can depend on an environment, and eachother to release inhibition to the wind and free themselves from the drudgery of the week. It’s cutesy and cheesy and idealistic — sure but I know you want it too.

Thank you to all who have attended almost every night. I can’t exactly share, with words, my sincere appreciation but I will eventually find a way with gifts. I can offer a soundtrack to beat down the last slow and dreadful heartbeat of winter.

More info about Angels and Kings New York City here

Stomp its Winter’s guts out,

NL

Look out for these tracks (and many more) this Saturday night:

1. Led Zeppelin “Black Country Woman”
2. A Place to Bury Strangers “Keep Slipping Away”
3. The Horrors “Whole New Way”
4. La Roux “Quicksand (Mad Decent Remix)”
5. Guns n’ Roses “Sweet Chyld of Myne (DiscoTech Remix)”
6. Janet Jackson “Rock With U” (this song is a really big surprise. you’ll hear what i mean)
7. Little Boots “Earthquake (Treasure Fingers’ Epicwave Mix)”
8. DiscoTech “That Lady (Gigamesh Talkbox Edit Extended Mix)”
9. David Guetta feat. Kid Cudi “Memories (Armand Van Helden Vocal Remix)”
10. Tiesto feat. Tegan and Sara “Feel It In My Bones” (i’ll save this one for late night)

New Year's Eve '07

By Nico Lustgarten (har har)

I spent nearly an hour on a flyer for Angels and Kings. It’s a piece I expect to be taped to the walls of the bar and then torn down by stoned and overzealous revelers. The font looked right. Background was provocative but not too revealing. Pertinent information was white. The party’s title in some fusia/hot pink color, but the name, the one that is supposed to indicate the DJ, was perplexing: Nico Lustgarten.

I’ve been using his name, Nico Lustgarten, for years but not without conflict. It’s a strange thing to introduce yourself by a name that wasn’t given by my parents. It’s like giving birth to myself and changing the name on the birth certificate. How can I seriously reply to an introduction with someone else’s name? A sexually ambiguous Nico with a German surname?

For starters, it was the name of a feisty crab I kept in an undersized aquarium with a few fellow fiddler crabs. One of the other crabs was called Zack Chumpy. His fighting claw was even larger than normal, which in the crustacean world would have made him a John Holmes among his peers. He would wrestle his mates, who would cower against the glass, snapping their feeble claws at their assailant. Zack Chumpy was a sonofabitch. One morning, after one of our house parties, I found his claw, flat under my foot. Nico survived while the others around him died one by one but then he disappeared one day. He still hasn’t been found. It’s a goddam four and a half year old mystery.

I used Tantrik back then for my DJing alias. It was cute for a little while until my sets began to evolve from bassy, transcendental house music to electro-house and breakbeats. Tantrik was the name I used during my breakthrough surge in the underground party scene, playing at nearly every Complacent party (now Danger) that aroused the sensibility of hard boozin’, druggin, dancing fiends.

Pussycat Lounge

My set became dirtier, sexier. The gnarly bass lines ripped through the cavernous halls of the Pussycat Lounge and 3rd Ward. It wasn’t sensual anymore. The music was gritty, sleezy, primal even. Raw sex like the ridged insides of a woman’s genitalia — pink and salacious. Nico Lustgarten couldn’t be wasted on a nomadic, magical crab so I took it as my own.

But then I didn’t.

It was difficult to make the switch. I would continue to say Carlos when a happy dancer would ask who I was. I only blamed things on Nico, like, I didn’t kiss the girl. Nico did. But it didn’t inform my audience who the man was on the turntables with the identity troubles.

I looked at that flyer on the computer screen; pink, black, white. I deleted my alias and inserted my own name but it didn’t look right. It took the zing out of the style of the music I play. It didn’t indicate my dedication to rock and roll or house or even hip hop and indie. It didn’t reveal passion. Changing my name shouldn’t be any different from a porn star who understands her place among a million pussies. It’s her name that gives the first impression of her technique.

So, after a fruitful conversation with my dear friend, Zito (thanks), I hit the backspace again and typed in the only name I could ever use for my career as a DJ. It’s time to blame Nico again for all of the things I love about DJing and share my passion and love with the sacred underline a hundred shiny smiles can understand — music.

By Nico Lustgarten

The night couldn’t have gone much better. People were up, dancing, drinking, and sharing a decent line to the bathroom.  I stuck mostly to rock and roll remixes, sliding the fader over to the hip hop selections when appropriate.

The experiment to satisfy everyone’s musical tastes proved successful and the cheers from playing Outfield’s “Your Love” was lovely. I really felt like I earned my pay. DJing is seriously the most fun and rewarding gig in the world. I woke up the next morning and wanted to do it all over again.

Anyway, my recap will be short. I’ll let the pictures and play list do the explaining. I’m saving my writing energy for a dreamy short story about albino twins committing incest. It’s a sappy tale called “Gemini”. I want to post it soon so you can read it since I’m such an attention whore.

Here are some of the gazillion songs I played that night:

1. Jay Z “Run This Town (DiscoTech Remix)
2. Wolfmother “New Moon Rising (YACHT Remix)
3. Marina and the Diamonds “I Am Not a Robot (Penguin Prison Remix)
4. Cassius “Toop Toop (Streetlab Remix)”
5. Flo.Rida “Apple Bottom Jeans (The Rave Mix)”
6. CSNY “Judy Blue Eyes (Gigamesh Edit)”
7. Michael Jackson “Billie Jean (Daft Punk Remix)”
8. DJ Sizzahandz (feat. Brando) “Dirty Girl (Short Radio Edit)”
9. New Young Pony Club “The Get Go”
10. David Bowie “Rebel Rebel”

Sorry.

I almost forgot about the pictures (Thanks Aryn and Alexis!). See you next weekend. I’ll be at A&K on Friday and Saturday. What a treat.

I told my old lady once that every one from my daddy to my boss has tried to make me fly straight.

My heart broke while telling her that I couldn’t be held to any ground, couldn’t trim my legs, couldn’t stop being out there in the world, surrounded by everything I could touch and if I got burned then that was the way it was going to be.

“”Freebird” is my song,” I choked. I could see the tinge in her eyes, the painted red around the pupils, my reflection in those glossy green ocular orbs stretching wide my quivering lips from ear to silly-shining ear.

“”Freebird”’s your song?” she smiled. “You couldn’t be any more generic.” She walked out of my apartment laughing all the way down the stairs.

When I was a kid, I watched Tom Arnold pull a practical joke on Rosanne for a tv show. I don’t remember the prank but my family and I laughed.  Then Tom hugged Rosanne.

Media darlings. Lovers in love. Newlyweds.

We were just happy that someone married that fat harpy.