Spotlight

Frankie Bones

by Fredstrong

Lowbrow, innovative, outspoken, one of the pioneering minds of global dance culture: Frankie Bones, "The Godfather of Techno," has been spinning and producing dance music for over 15 years. Bones was the first American DJ to spin in the London Orbital rave scene; he was also the originator of the East Coast rave scene with his now-legendary STORMraves. He established the first techno record shop in N.Y.C. --now called Sonic Groove-- which he co-owns with his brother Adam-X and Heather Heart. I have known him and followed his career for 11 years, having arrived on the scene in the summer of '91 and having had the privilege of working with both Frankie and Dennis the Menace on the STORMraves from there on.

It's 3 am, we are in the Colorado Springs Holiday Inn. Frankie has just finished spinning an adrenaline-laced one-and-a-half hour set at a warehouse party called Atlantis (sponsored by a group of corporate interests known as United Promoting Sensations) .

Fredstrong: What are some of the things you're working on now?

Bones: My new album, the first album I've done for the U. K since The Future is Ours (and it's going on like 12 years now). It's called The Thin Line Between Fantasy and Reality ( and is to be released on Projex). This album. . .

Fredstrong: It's wax?

Bones: It's wax and CD. It's the first time that anyone's ever composed an album of original material, burned it to acetate and then offered mixed and unmixed material. I'm going to have the original versions available on wax. Or (there's CDs) if you want it in DJ mode, where it's the same tracks, but it's mixed the way I would in a show. So I'm doing mixed and unmixed. Nobody's ever done that.

Fredstrong: In the last few years you . ve put out work on a lot of different labels: X-Sight, Ghetto Technics, Moonshine. . .

Bones: Ghetto Technics is my own label. It started out as just Chicago-style Booty House, but somehow it merged into. . . like, I'll take hip-hop and I'll speed the record up so that it has the proper tempo, but I won't change the pitch. So it winds up being hip-hop, updated, with a hard beat behind it. Again, it's like a clash of styles that no one else is really doing. I mean, if I really spent the time to do more than that, I'd promote it and it would become big, but I like my shit to be underground.

Fredstrong: You also own a new label called Hard To Swallow with Circuit Breaker and Lou Grell (or Big Lou). You've put out some tracks with Circuit Breaker and Nigel Richards so far. What direction do you want to go with Hard To Swallow?

Bones: You know, originally we were talking about just taking that old rave sound, and having fun with it, taking it back ten years. You know, to me the records are like bad marriages; they don't belong together. You take two records, collide them together and they don't belong together, but it works for that particular moment. It's like updating the past and bringing it into the future.

Fredstrong: That comment you just made about two records colliding, but working in that moment, is really indicative of your DJ style. Tonight you started out hard, then took it down pretty dark, you brought us out of that with breaks, and out of the break beats back into hard techno. At points I could even hear some house creeping in, but you never hit a wall, it always remained fluid and seamless.

Bones: Well, thank you. I've always felt if there's a room full of people, everyone's going to like something different in every given moment. And I'm not worried about everyone liking the whole set. I like a bit of controversy. People talking afterwards about what they liked or didn't like about the set. It's like they say, whether they're talking good or bad, at least they're talking. I don't like to be just a name on a flyer.

Fredstrong: Who's somebody that you would like to collaborate with?

Bones: I would love to do a rap thing, but not with techno, work with hip-hop directly. I like a lot of hip-hop that's out there, but I've had bad experiences working with people and it's kind of like --I'm a one-man band. I just like working on my own shit myself. See, I . m not a color by numbers DJ! Like they say Paul Oakenfold (is the) # 1 DJ (in the world)-- Color by numbers!

Fredstrong: Yeah, I know what you mean. I've seen him spin and he just matches the beat and spins one track into another.

Bones: See? That' s color by numbers, man. You can't have a major label owner be big in the underground, and yet he is. Look --in pop we've got Britney, in rap we've got Jay-Z, in porn we've got Jenna and in DJing we've got Paul Oakenfold? I mean, come on, give me somebody! That's not DJing. Thats America buying the hype from some U.K. guy.

Fredstrong: What do you think about Carl Cox?

Bones:Carl's always been a great guy. It's not that I know him, but he's the one guy who does what I do, in his own way. We don't sound alike but he'll play a progressive house record into a techno record into an underground techno record into a trance record. And he does it in a way that you have to give him respect.

Fredstrong: I think of Carl Cox to U. K. house the way I think of Doc Martin to L. A. house.

Bones: You know, the thing with Doc is when he had that trauma, he almost died. And he's mellowed out to a point where, like, a good example of what he used to do right now, would be Onionz.

Fredstrong: Onionz is the bomb.

Bones:And he's underrated.

Fredstrong: Underrated here, but he gets much props in Europe. Every month he' s got great reviews in Muzik (the U. K.'s premier dance mag).

Bones: I know, I know. . . I talk to him about this, and Joeski, too. You know, they took this Latin house thing and just gave it to the dance floor! And there's a mutual respect. Like, Micro just got to a point where he was too good for everybody, and it's a shame, 'cause we were friends for so many years.

Fredstrong: Well, Frankie, thanks for the interview. Good luck on your upcoming projects. Your next gig out here is at Pure on April 19. We'll see ya then.

Photos Courtesy Bellboy Records

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