DJ Paulette gets the world exclusive with one of our favourite DJs on the planet
Interview : DJ Paulette
There aren’t many DJs who can boast the tutelage of two of the world’s most renowned and revered DJs – The Loft’s David Mancuso and Body and Soul’s François Kervorkian – less so female DJs but this fierce Bostonian (Massachussetts), fantastic female DJ and since 1999 a London native, Cosmo can. So, despite this profile being long overdue, I offer you a very warm and wonderful welcome to the pages of DMCWORLD Cosmo…
Let’s get the obvious questions I have for a Bostonian out of the way first…
… are you always full of beans (I know, … groan) ?
“Usually I am as I sleep much less than most people and always want to get involved in everything that piques my interest (which is quite a bit). However, every now and then I hit my wall and want to crawl back into my tin.”
Do you prefer tea or coffee ?
“I go back and forth as I like my tea sweet and my coffee bitter depending upon my mood.”
If you were to have a select tea party, which 5 people living or dead would you send those gilt edged envelopes to and why ?
“My party would be a gathering of musical pioneers : Miles Davis for his perennial musical evolution that pushed the boundaries of jazz, John Lennon for (along with his bandmates and Brian Wilson) steering popular music away from boy-meets-girl pop fluff into more abstract and emotive territory, Joni Mitchell for expanding the palette of colours in music, David Bowie for his post-modern stance as the artist who commented upon pop music from within pop itself, and Kate Bush for creating her own world through dance, theatre, video, musical performance and a singular style.”
It is not lost on me that there is even a cocktail in your name – The Cosmopolitan – but do you personally prefer Beer or Cocktails ?
“I prefer a good wine such as a Spanish Ribera del Duero, a good ale as opposed to a lager, and I generally steer clear from sweet cocktails but a classic champagne cocktail has never gone amiss.”
Boston is such a historic city, do you think this motivates Bostonians to follow suit somehow and do something historic with their lives? Is this in any way what motivates you?
“Boston does have a sense of history more than its other American counterparts even if it is still quite young in relation to European or Asian cities. I feel life is a gift and as a species humans should be pushing forward in a constant state of evolution. Its necessary to reflect upon the past but only to prepare for the future as that is what counts.”
I have always called you Cosmo, but do you remember the moment when Colleen Murphy became Cosmo to all who know her ? Is it a DJ thing or did it happen before ?
“I started using the name around the age of 15 when I had a radio show on my 10 watt high school radio station called Punk, Funk & Junk. My friend Mary and I were playing some early hip hop like IRT and electro like Newcleus. We decided to come up with radio handles and she became ‘Remix’ and I co-opted the DJ’s name from Newcleus : ‘Cosmo’. I picked up the name again a few years later when I started a radio show called ‘Soul School’ on WNYU as I felt if I used Colleen as I had for my atlernative, punk, prog and psychedlic rock shows on the station that it would confuse the listeners. That’s when it stuck.”
Your background is in radio and club DJng with a legendary show in your late teens/early twenties in New York on WNYU back in the day that hosted guest spots from all the greats including Louie Vega. Which do you prefer ? Club or radio DJing ?
“I feel the need for both for different reasons. Radio is my first love as that is how I became deeply engrossed in music. We had a lot of great radio stations in Boston – both commercial and college – so I was lucky to be exposed to a wide variety of music. My career started in radio as after finishing university I was a commercial radio DJ in Japan and then produced syndicated radio shows featuring my interviews with bands like Nirvana, Gang Starr and The Ramones for many years. I like the fact that people can use their imagination while listening and that everybody is invited regardless of their personal circumstance. The club side has an engaging communal and spiritual immediacy and when we collectively achieve a transcendental peak it makes it all worth doing.”
You are a self-confessed audiophile. One of the last times we met in Ibiza (at the IMS no less) you were hosting a panel with Francois Kervorkian where you discussed the finer points of sound reproduction and dismissed EDM as being poorly produced, cheating the music buyers and ‘not music’. Does lazy mastering / attention to sound in sound reproduction from vinyl and cds for home use through to live set ups at festivals and clubs bother you?
“Ha ha ! Did I say that ? I certainly don’t mince my words! This is a two-part answer. I find the sonic aspects of the DJ world in general give our kind of music a bad rap. It is unfathomable to me that 99% of the DJs, club owners and party promoters out there have no clue nor desire how to make the music sound as good as possible within their given means. I understand that most people will not be able to spend 6K on a cartridge as we do at our Loft/Lucky Cloud parties but there are so many simple measures that can be taken such as picking venues with good room acoustics, learning how to set up a turntable correctly, using a better cartridge, playing higher – res digital files and finally, not going into the bloody red on the mixer, that will greatly enhance the dancer’s experience. As my friend David Mancuso says, ‘Good sound is a human right.’ Okay, now onto EDM. It saddens me that this is most American’s idea of dance music as try as I might, I still am unable to detect a modicum of soul. America created and embraced soul music and disco until straight White America decided they couldn’t deal with Blacks, gays and women in the musical mainstream. The ‘Disco Sucks’ campaign put a lot of genius Black musicians out of a job. EDM on the other hand is a simple colour-by-numbers construct that is easily digestible by people who do not understand or feel music in a deep and emotive way but ‘use’ it as an aural backdrop to their night out and this is the form of dance music that America has now embraced. Here I go again…”
Is there a place for MP3’s in a DJ set / this world today? Or should WAV / AIFF be the only digital format that is accepted in the performance milieu ?
“MP3s are a great tool as they are low resolution files that are easily bounced back and forth for work or research purposes. As far as using it in a performance aspect, there is absolutely no place for it. When I hear them being used in a live DJ set, I realise the DJ is more interested in a quick buck rather than giving the dancers an intense and uplifting musical experience.”
Which has been your favourite ‘party’ sound system in the world to date?
“Three places : The Loft in New York City, Fillmore North in Sapporo, Japan and our own Lucky Cloud parties in London. We all use Koetsu moving coil cartridges, a Mark Levinson ML-1 preamp, state-of-the-art power amplifiers and several Klipschorns and take into account the most important factor : room acoustics. We don’t use a graphic EQ or compression and we balance the signal so that it is in proper stereo. The sound is very open and has a real life energy. Could this experience ever be bettered ? We are always trying to better it!”
I have fond recollections of your ‘Bitches Brew’ record label from its launch back in the early noughties. What were the last releases on this label?
“I released an album called ‘Musical Blaze-Up’ with my collaborator, former Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas, under the name Wild Rumpus a few months ago. The album is a psychedelic sonic road trip that visits many of the musical forms I adore : Disco, Kosmiche Musik, Dub, Bluegrass, Psychedelic Rock, Electronica, Chill Out, Spaghetti Western, Rockabilly, Surf and more.”
Some people say that making music is like having a baby. Since you have done both – do they even compare ?
“Well, they are both a ‘release’ ! They are both conceived in a moment in time, develop in gestation and then are born into the world fully realized and require creative, out-of-the-box thinking. However, as much as I need to express my creativity through music, and although I’m happy with my musical achievements, nothing beats my pride in and love for my daughter.”
How did the Fat Freddy’s Drop remix for ‘Mother Mother’ come about and are you at all surprised at the success, momentum and plaudits it is starting to gather?
“Scott from FFD is a friend of ours’ and he had heard me DJ on his birthday at Standon Calling and loved the set. He and the guys asked me to do a remix for their new album and they sent us an advance copy to which we listened over and over. As soon as I heard « Mother Mother » I knew that I wanted to remix that song and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I love remixing great vocals, great songs and this had all the elements and the potential to really rock the dance floor. I was so sure of what I wanted to do that the entire remix including playing new parts and mixing only took two days. I love it when it works out like that because then you still like the remix when its finished as you haven’t laboured over it.”
Are you an analog knob twiddler in the studio, do you work with an engineer or do you use software – Ableton, Logic, ProTools ?
“I have written basic ideas for songs with Reason in my home studio and then I work with an engineer to flesh it out. I play keyboards so have a basic training in music and I use a combination of live instrumentation and Logic in the studio. However, I would like to make music that does not involve a computer anywhere in the chain just to feel how that works. Hopefully I will get the chance someday.”
What and who makes you laugh the most?
“I am always quick to laugh at myself and the absurdities of life and our daughter is hilarious, too. I also love stand-up comedy and Louis C.K. is my favourite comedien at the moment.”
Never one to rest on your laurels, you created Classic Albums Sundays concept in 2010. Tell us a little bit about this. How has it grown ?
“Classic Album Sundays sprung out of my involvement with David Mancuso at The Loft and Lucky Cloud parties, playing entire albums for friends on our own audiophile hi-fi at home and a blog by my friend Greg Wilson called Living to Music. I started these full album listening sessions hauling our personal hi-fi (including two massive Klipschorns) up the stairs into the function room of my friend’s pub. I told the story behind the album and then played in on our world class state-of-the-art hi-fi and the few people who attended could hear things they had never heard before. Then BBC Breakfast covered a session and that week everybody started calling : the press, hi-fi manufacturers, and we started selling out the sessions. Through a lot of resolve, blind faith and hard work, I have built it up so that we have Classic Album Sundays sessions with artists and producers, at festivals, in art galleries and in franchises around the world. In a nutshell, I wanted to challenge the way we listen to music in the 21st century in terms of enhanced audio formats, treating classic albums like our great novels, and taking the time out of our hectic multi-tasking lives to sit and devote ourselves to music. Classic Album Sundays reminds people what they love about music by providing a sonic oasis where they can engross themselves into one of their favourite albums or an album they have never heard before. For myself, it has brought together all of the different aspects of music and the business in which I have worked for the last three decades including radio, events, DJ-ing, music production, record shops and journalism, so it feels right.”
Are you a cosmic, musical cosmonaut ? Or an eclectic, electronica.
“I like to think of myself as a musical cosmonaut. I hope others agree.”
Where can we hear Cosmo spinning tunes next ?
“In Oslo this coming weekend and at our Lucky Cloud parties where I play VINYL for seven hours straight on our amazing sound system.”
We know that sound is mega important to you but if, in order to save the world, you had to lose one of your senses overnight would you surrender your hearing or your sight ? Why ?
“I suppose it would have to be my sight or otherwise I would be out of a job!”
Do you ever see yourself going back to Massachussetts, like the Bee Gees once sang?
“Nope. Although there are many things I love about Massachusetts (including my family) I could never return as there is an undercurrent of cultural conservatism and I must be culturally stimulated by the weird, wacky and wonderful.”
Finally – you are back home after another amazing run of Classic Album Sundays sessions – can you give us a ‘Back 10 To Mine’ of the 10 tracks that would soothe and smooth the passage of you and your friends from the festival mayhem back into your home life ?
“I think I will have to give you 10 albums…
Manuel Gottsching ‘E2-E4’
Miles Davis ‘In a Silent Way’
Joni Mitchell ‘Blue’
Black Uhuru ‘Dub Factor’
Nick Drake ‘Five Leaves Left’
Alice Coltrane ‘Journey in Satchidananda’
Donny Hathaway ‘Everything is Everything’
Cocteau Twins ‘Blue Bell Knoll’
Richard Wafnfried ‘Tonwelle’
And of course, one to represent my love of dance music, Mr. Fingers ‘Introduction’.
Thank you so much for the music, the cosmic vibes
and general all-round musical amazingness.
All the best to you from me, DJ Paulette and DMCWORLD…
Bitches Brew http://www.bitchesbrewmusic.com/
Cosmo (Facebook) Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy https://www.facebook.com/colleencosmomurphy?fref=ts
Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/colleen-cosmo-murphy
Mixcloud
Classic Album Sundays https://www.facebook.com/ClassicAlbumSundays?fref=ts
Classic Album Sundays (Twitter) https://twitter.com/ClassicAlbumSun
