October 27, 2025 • 25 mins
Mark is a musician, producer, DJ and now an author, with his memoir Night People: How to Be a DJ in 90s New York City, a moving account of his childhood and early days.
He and Ruthie talk together about how DJ’ing a club night is like being a chef, how cooking a curry is like composing a track, how running a restaurant is like running a rave, and much much more.
Ruthie’s Table 4, in collaboration with ME&EM - intelligent style for busy women.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with me and m Intelligence
Style for Busy Women. If you were looking for Ruthie
Rogers at eleven forty five pm last Friday night, you
would have found me in an abandoned office building, three
stories underground, dancing to Mark Ronson's set, with hundreds of
(00:21):
other people clinging to my friend Josh's hand in the
dark stairway. I asked, so, is this what they call
a rave? It was exhilarating and joyous, and definitely a
night to remember. Mark is a musician, a producer, a DJ,
and now an author, and quite simply one of the
nicest people I know. We share more in common than
(00:42):
you might imagine. We love work as much as fun,
strong friendships and family. His two year old daughter is
named Ruthie. Mark Is published a memoir Nine People How
to Be a DJ in nineties New York City, a moving,
highly self aware out of his childhood and early days
as a DJA. It's a love letter to a bygone
(01:05):
era when everyone was out in the clubs every night.
After my first rave, I planned to do the same.
I don't think either of us were out last night,
or at least I wasn't because at nine o'clock this morning,
were bright eyed and wide awake here at my house,
ready to talk about food, food and music, food and family,
(01:26):
food and memories, food and love. Now that's what I.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Call a rave. That's great. I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
When did the word race start?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Rave? As opposed to a nightclub? What distinguished it was?
Usually it was in a disused or an illegal venue
because it was a place for like underground parties to happen.
So the early raves, obviously, the old rave culture came
out of England and a little bit before my time,
probably the late eighties, and then I was in New
York and the early raves, or at least new or
(02:00):
trying to copy what was going on in London and
Manchester all happened in the early nineties. But it was
fueled by this thing of like kids wanted to go
out and dance en mass a thousand kids, take ecstasy
shore and do all this stuff and in these places,
and they weren't allowed to so they found, you know,
like disused warehouses and in the middle of a field
(02:22):
and all this kind of stuff. So as much as
I would love to believe that our Friday night was
a rave. I would say it was a little like
we call it low key raise, low key rave, but
it was amazing because it.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Was no I'm on a high key race.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
No, no, no, no, as far as I'm concerned. At my age,
that was a high key rave. And it was so
nice to see. I was in the middle of playing
like whatever Drey and Snoop or something, and I just
looked to my right and you're there.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
That was a high point in my life.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It was funny in what you're saying in the intro.
I think about you and being a chef and running
the restaurant and maybe being a DJ. Like I have
a job to do. I am fully concentrate on what
I'm doing, but I do have these like twenty seconds
in between. I can like, go and you're looking out
at this room with all your friends in it and
then a lot of strangers. But it's you know, it's
(03:12):
kind of imagine a little similar it is.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I think that I go in and you know, with cooking,
you really need to see every you know, I stand
at the past. We have an open kitchen. I can't
imagine being underground and not seeing the reactions of people
who are eating you're for good or for bad. Sometimes
you can go somebody looking, or you can see them sharing,
or they'll come up and say, how did you make that?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
There's something that you said before that just stuck out.
It's like you can just remember the face of that
one person. I don't know if it's like this for you,
just the one person who's not enjoying it. You could
have one hundred and fifty people enjoying having the best
night ever met that one person who's just like putting
the food in a napkin, or my case, just standing
there with their arms crossed, not dancing. And I realized
(03:57):
because in the nineties, when I came up as a
day in New York City, we hung out a lot
with stand up comedians, and this was a time when
Dave Chappelle, Yeah, a lot of people are on the
way up. And I remember speaking to my stand up
comedian friends and realizing how much we had in common
because they too would just have like a great night
in the club, but would only remember just like the
(04:18):
one person's screw face there, and you go to sleep
with this person's face like imprinted in your brain. It's
I don't know if that's like.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
That now I feel that I used to come back
and after a night Richard would say, how was it?
And I think, I think maybe I'll give up. Yeah,
I just think maybe this job isn't for me. And
it just felt, you know, either as you say, there's
the person who just kind of shook their head or
they sent their food back or whatever. Because and then
(04:46):
and then you have the other night where you're just flying,
you know, because but I think that people's reactions are
really that kind of immediate reaction is so important. Yeah,
so it's not quite fair that you can do so
many things. Well, no, DJ, you write music, you perform,
(05:11):
you produce, you write incredible songs that we all remember
and listen to. And now you've written a book, which
is a little bit like one more thing that Mark
Ronson has done. What made you think you were going
to write a book?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I don't know. I think quite a lot of my
friends when this time were actually dying. I hate to
sound like so Macaw, but I was thinking about my
best friend, this DJ Blue Gem so I came up
with and went to my first raves with, and used
to do a radio show and all this stuff and
all these memories from the nineties, which is such a
great time in New York, and you had Biggie and
(05:48):
jay Z and c Tip and all these people, like
these heroes of mine. They would be hanging out in
the club and the places I DJed that and it
was before VIP and bottle service, where like everybody mingled together.
The clubs were such a melting pot. And I also
really wanted to write a story about what it's like
to be a gigging DJ, like on the way up,
(06:10):
not when you're a superstar and you're like kind of
at the top and everyone's handing you everything. It's all easy,
but like doing it some nights playing for empty rooms
for fifty bucks and some nights you're playing in the
most fun basement ever, And what that emotional ride is
like and and technically a bit like what goes into DJing.
(06:31):
It's kind of a lot. Did you write?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
When did you find the time to write?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I kind of had to. I had to. It took
over my life, you know, except for the time we
took out to really make work on Barbie. I took
it took me almost two and a half three years
to finish this book. And I would just write five hours.
I read the Stephen King book on writing, and he
really tells you like the discipline, I lock yourself in
(06:58):
a basement for five hours day and that's what I did.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
That's a beautiful book. And I read it knowing that
I was going to meet you, but I thought that
it was just so honest, and it was took me
through the story of a time and a place, and
it took me through the story of your life of
you know, the emotion and the rigor and the experience
(07:28):
and the honesty. And I was wondering whether you might
read something from the book now.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I thought of this one thing just now, when you
were talking about, you know, in the vinyl era as
opposed to now, when you're bringing music on a USB
stick or a laptop, I would spend so much time
putting my records together preparing for the night, because you
could only bring a finite number of records with you,
and it was so much fun to think about what
(07:54):
kind of night it's going to be, who the crowds
can be, Is it going to be this kind of record?
So you almost have this connection with your audience, even
if you've imagined them before you get there, because you've bonded.
You picture this imaginary dance floor. This is this one
passage where I'm sitting on the floor of my apartment
on twenty ninth Street and twenty twenty one years old
at this point. That's just a short passage, but I
(08:17):
thought i'd read it. Album covers provided visual cues that
helped me start building up a set. The lipstick red
telephone on the cover of Clear's Intimate Connection instantly conjured
the sharp electro sounds of the Rollland eight to eight
drum machine in the song's production. That eight oh eight
(08:38):
led me to Marvin Gay's Sexual Healing with its iconic
rhythm track, then to Loose Ends Hanging on a string
and Shaka Khans Ain't Nobody. The con record wasn't made
with a drum machine, but its moody synth lines made
it a natural fit. And from Ain't Nobody, a DJ
could go anywhere no dance floor resist belting out that
(09:01):
oh oh, oh oh before the chorus. If you duck
the volume and let them sing it, that moment was
a perfect pivot to drop anything from soul to soul
to souls and mischief Sonic Fragments, an eight oh eight
conga or an arpeggiated synthmo teeth hummed constantly in my brain.
It was like I had a tiny antenna that was
(09:23):
always alert for the frequency of music. Standing in line
at the dry cleaner, I'd hear Bill Withers's Lovely Day
and immediately think, Oh, that would go perfectly with you
going to make Me Love Somebody Else by the Jones Girls,
already pre performing the blend in my brain. It's hard
to stay present when your mind is constantly pairing tempos
(09:44):
and keys instead of focusing on the person in front
of you. But there was no off switch short of
a lobotomy.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, we talked both about our work and talking about
how you prepare, But do you have a kind of
way that you want to eat before you go on stage.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I have to eat really light because the nerves and
the crazy like my stomach even before. It doesn't matter
if I'm playing to like three hundred kids in a basement,
if I'm playing ten thousand people on a festival stage,
there's just like yeah, I just my stomach goes into
doing cartwheels. And I remember reading this famous Bowie quote
(10:25):
or something like it was like, I don't trust anyone
that doesn't get nervous before they go on stage. It
might not be the case for anybody, but that quote
certainly made me feel better this much closer to Bowie.
There's something about the adrenaline and what's going on in
the system. As I'm DJing, I can I mean, I
(10:45):
don't do this anymore. But I could not back six
drinks and not feel anything. But the minute the music stops,
I'm suddenly like whoa. And I remember I dj Tom
Cruise in Katie Holmes's wedding and it was going really well.
It was like a great gig. I was doing all
(11:06):
these mixes of like the top Gun theme with like
these hip hop break beats, and Tom's like shooting the
fingers at me and everyone's out on the dance floor
and I was knocking back like drinks, totally fine. And
then as soon as the gig stopped and we got
in the car to drive with somewhere in the Italian countryside,
I was just like, wholl pull over and then I
(11:26):
just delivered a pavement pizza to the Italian countryside. But
there's something about the adrenaline and thing. But yeah, I
have to.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Eat a lot of actors do a performance and then
meet you for the theater afterwards, Right, they want to
go out or something.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, I know, and I talk about it a lot
in the book. As the DJ, you end your set
at like three or four in the morning, and you've
just for four or five hours been in this room
of like pure reverie and like you've been part of
the reason for the ringleader. People are like and that
(12:02):
energy is contagious. And then you have the ego stroke
of like, look what I'm doing all these people And
then four o'clock the lights come on and the room
is not packed. At four o'clock in the morning, there's
the last seventeen people in there. You're like, well, wait,
where's my fun? Yeah. And so back in those days
in the nineties, I would be leaving the club at
four and I'd be maybe calling the coke dealer on
(12:25):
the way out, like you're like, hey, why am I
coming up? And now when I come out of the club,
I'm like online making an appointment for my acupunctures for
the next morning because my back is killing me.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
You mention your back a lot. That does so tell
me the effect of the back.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's just this it's just thirty years of standing up
for five six hours on end because of the DJ stance,
which is the headphones on with the next slightly crooked
to the left of the right when you're doing it.
And five years ago, my foot's all up to the
size of a basketball. And I went to the doctor
(13:03):
and he looks at me and he's like, yeah, I
looked at some of your videos online of you performing
on the way because I just wanted to see if
there are any clues. And he's like, and I noticed
that you tap your foot like this through the whole
set to the beat. I was like, yeah, everybody does that.
He goes, well, you now have this early onset arthritis cinevitis.
A lot of musicians, even orchestral players like in the
(13:24):
Philharmonic and everything, get it because they're lightly tapping. But
you do that for forty years. So I call it
DJ foot, like I just named it for myself, but
obviously it's but yeah, there's all these back issues. I
have sort of terrible tinetus. It reminds me sometimes of
did you read Kitchen Confidential Anthony Boydeen. Yes, that's one
(13:47):
of my favorite books ever. And that thing when he's
in the end when he's just listing off all the
things that you would know, the afflictions of being a chef,
the burns that all the wear and tear and stuff,
and I was like, it's not near that level for
a DJ. Let's be honest. You don't have like scars
and stitches everywhere, but it does have its own sort
of like list of you know, complaints.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Let's talk about when you were growing up in North London. Yeah,
what was it like in the house because your parents
had parties and they had you described these amazing kind
of open house where people came and there were there
was noise and as a child, but would you sit
down to dinner night as a family and talk about
what you did at school?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Or I remember Friday night dinners are my Grandma? Okay,
so that like I just remember from an early age
being like Grandma makes great marksible. So that's kind of
like just old Jewish kids, right.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Did you do that every Friday?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It was a lot of a lot of.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Jewish families always describe it as that was the one
constant that you could even go and then go out late.
But you had to go.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, there was there's no way my dad was getting
out of like no matter what was going on, what
my parents were doing, like it was like you were
he had to be there, which a month. Yeah, my
mom would go too when they split, and then we
moved to New York when I was eight because my
mom married my stepdad. There was still a lot of
partying and revelry in the house, but they had another
(15:22):
two kids and there was more structure and dinners. My
mom she grew up in a household of five children.
She was the second oldest, and her mom died when
she was eleven, so a lot of like what would
have been like taking care of like the younger siblings
and the cooking and that stuff fell on her. So
(15:43):
she would just make I think, like giant batches of
like macaroni and cheese and whatever. She came up cooking
in bulk, you know, like that was the lesson. So
with five kids as well, it was like it was
a lot of there was so many cast roles in
the freezer, like it was crazy, like and as kids
we were just like it really was like castrole again,
(16:05):
like it was it was that.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So it must have taken quite a lot. She had
five kids, Yeah, in a house in New York and
we were all in school. Yeah, and then she was
still they were having this musical, partying life. Yeah, what
was it like for you?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I think it was a great place to grow up.
You know. My stepdad was a musician. He had a
recording shootio on the home. I would use all his equipment.
Some nights had wake up in the middle of the
night and like John Taylor from Durandur and my absolute
heroes like hanging out in the thing and they were
all partying. And my mother was quite strict because she
(16:40):
came from England, so coming to New York, that level
of parenting and English parenting is much more intense. Like
our curfews were like three hours earlier than everybody else's.
But as long as we did our homework and we
did well in school, she was definitely like I played
in a band. She's like, you can go out play
in a band. I wanted to go to shows. She
(17:01):
wouldn't let me go to shows at first, so I
got a job writing for the school paper reviewing the show.
So then she was like, okay, just concerts, just like
wanting to go see whatever bands and indie bands and
things that I loved when I was fourteen and fifteen,
so by having a position at the school paper then
(17:22):
she was like, okay, well if you're writing about it,
if it's worked, you can go. Do you remember restaurants, Yes,
I remember there was some. There were a few restaurants
that were really like marked special occasions, you know, yeah,
special special occasions. It was like most of the time
waiting home. But there was Gino's on sixty first in
(17:45):
Lexington and it's like a very classic thing and it
had been around since the thirties and no Frank Snatcher
was the only person who was allowed to make a
reservation there, like a classic old school Upper east Side.
It was really sad when it closed. It closed about
fifteen years ago. But they did this amazing thing where
(18:06):
once a year they would do this thing where they
would go back to the prices of when the menu
first opened and it would be like two dollars for
a plate of the whatever, the val milanaise, And there
would be a line around the block on those nights.
And that was I remember as a kid, especially you
go into place here, there's Zebra's on the wallpaper and they,
(18:29):
you know, the waiters are just so Italian and like
from the old country. It was that was I think
that was my favorite place as a kid, and.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
They would take all five of you. Would you was
that a stone?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Sometimes that's a lot. Yeah. I remember we went there
one time after young Kapoor, after having fasted all that,
and my sister Samantha, just as we got to Gino's
to break the fast, she just like threw up all
over the entire table, just like one of those like
really like like just launching Vomit bounces off the table.
(19:03):
But they, you know, they brought us a new tablecloth.
We were regulars.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
We've talked about the way you eat when you're performing,
there's also the way you eat when you're producing, when
you are to take a break and say, let's we've
been working all morning, Let's go and spend a couple
of hours. Would you like to keep going and have
a sandwich.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
It's it's all of those things. It's all those things,
because it's like sometimes like it's great, like you you
have a great session, or maybe you've gone like a
whole week, you know, and then it's like Friday night,
let's got somewhere lovely, Like I've been working with du
Aliba quite a bit in New York, and she loves
to go, like she doesn't live in New York, so
(19:43):
she wants to go to Estella and all her like
favorite places and.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
She loves to eat.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, she's a good you know.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
She and Callum met in the River Cafe and it's
so nice that they met over food.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, how did you meet?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
How did you meet your wife?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Grace?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I met Grace. I saw Grace across the room at
a party and I was down in Mexico City to
DJF Festival, and I saw her across the room with
her like like shock of like red hair, and she
looks so chic. She's wearing some like flowy like silk
(20:19):
pajama suit or something, and I remember looking at her
and then intentionally like in this very immature like school
yard way, like not looking at I'm like, well, I'm
not going to look, because you know this kind of thing,
but then inventing this whole thing like oh, I'm sure
she's seen me looking and I'm really not going to look,
and whatever it is. And then I when I met
her properly, we had a brief hello that someone in
(20:40):
choosed to shook hands and two three years ago later. Sorry,
When we finally had our first real date, I was like, yeah,
I remember that night in Mexico City, and she just
looked at me so blank. She's like, I didn't know
that you were in Mexico City that night, so like
my whole thing. She was like, but I do remember.
(21:00):
So we were introduced by my friend Leaki Lee, the
singer I made a lot of music with. She was
playing match maker, and I remember one of the first
things that she said about Grace, like she meant as
the highest compliment, was like she Grace is just the best.
She's not like all these other girls. She eats everything.
That was like the first thing that just meant like,
(21:21):
she's like not fussy. Whatever. We had our we had
our first day, our whole our whole courtship with food
and dating and all of it, you know. And then
I remember cooking for her like the second or third time. Yes,
I could do a salmon with a mustard glaze, because
(21:44):
I'm just like so useless at improvising, Like that's good,
but I'm very good at following directions to a tea,
So I mean, I'm not going to be able to
make a soup fla, but I could do salmon glaze
or something so and I remember being so terrified of,
you know, over cooking and you know, keep taking the
seminar every twenty seconds to poke it. And then she's
(22:07):
a great cook, but she's much more improv I can
just pull a few things, what from the cupboards. It's
like that's the difference in the two of us. She's
just so free flowing and like wonderful and just in
that sort of way. And I'm quite a virgo and
up tied, so I'm not an incredible cook. But what
(22:28):
I've found in our relationship, like I have three or
four go to dishes that Grace really loves and like
that's what are they do? You know? So there's like
a a chicken curry.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Did you learn to make that in England?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I actually learned to make it from a New York
Times recipe, you know, just like and it takes so
long to prepare the sauce because then making up and
scratch and the purring and the apples with spices. But
there's a it's kind of like making it a track.
There's things, there's there's there's an order to it and
a sequence that you have to follow, but it's so
(23:01):
rewarding as well.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
And I say that food is believes hunger. Of course,
food is also a way of sharing and food expresses
love and food is you know, going out to restaurants
and having fun words. But it is also comfort. Yeah,
and so is there a sense that you seek some
(23:24):
food for comfort.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, my comfort food. It's not the most original idea
in the world, but my comfort food is my brain
just goes to pasta always. That's what I dream about
when I close my eyes. And also there's something about
it's just so fulfilling. I mean even just the way
that like I mean even the physiology, right, it like
(23:48):
expands in or something. There's something you are full you
were full of I don't know. Yeah, So that's that's
always my comfort that Alio Alio, peperoncino. It's just like
one of my favorites. I did make that, I did
start to make that. That was one of like the
second or third things I made for Grace when she
(24:09):
came over. I think I got the pepper ratio wrong
or something, and I just remember like her like like
steam coming out of her ears and her like not
in trying to be like It's like there's a lot
of pepper in this one.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Now that I came on stage while you were working,
maybe you'll come on my stage and come into the
River ca. Yeah, come in the kitchen and we'll do
some cooking together.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
How about that? Is that for real?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I would love to real come to the raves and yeah,
that would be together.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Maybe a rave in the River Cafe.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
That's the best combination. River rave, Yeah, River Rave, Let's
do it.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Ruthie's Table four is hosted by Ruthie Rogers and produced
by Alex Bell and Zad Rodgers with Andrew Saran, Bella
Selini and Susannah. This has be and then asimized production
for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Hi, It's Ruthie Rogers and I'm so excited to announce
that we have a new book. Squeeze Me has forty
seven delicious lemon recipes from the River Cafe, Beautiful art
by Ed Bouchet and words by Heather Eyes.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Pre Order now.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with Me and m Intelligence
Style for Busy Women
Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with me and m Intelligence
Style for Busy Women. If you were looking for Ruthie
Rogers at eleven forty five pm last Friday night, you
would have found me in an abandoned office building, three
stories underground, dancing to Mark Ronson's set, with hundreds of
(00:21):
other people clinging to my friend Josh's hand in the
dark stairway. I asked, so, is this what they call
a rave? It was exhilarating and joyous, and definitely a
night to remember. Mark is a musician, a producer, a DJ,
and now an author, and quite simply one of the
nicest people I know. We share more in common than
(00:42):
you might imagine. We love work as much as fun,
strong friendships and family. His two year old daughter is
named Ruthie. Mark Is published a memoir Nine People How
to Be a DJ in nineties New York City, a moving,
highly self aware out of his childhood and early days
as a DJA. It's a love letter to a bygone
(01:05):
era when everyone was out in the clubs every night.
After my first rave, I planned to do the same.
I don't think either of us were out last night,
or at least I wasn't because at nine o'clock this morning,
were bright eyed and wide awake here at my house,
ready to talk about food, food and music, food and family,
(01:26):
food and memories, food and love. Now that's what I.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Call a rave. That's great. I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
When did the word race start?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Rave? As opposed to a nightclub? What distinguished it was?
Usually it was in a disused or an illegal venue
because it was a place for like underground parties to happen.
So the early raves, obviously, the old rave culture came
out of England and a little bit before my time,
probably the late eighties, and then I was in New
York and the early raves, or at least new or
(02:00):
trying to copy what was going on in London and
Manchester all happened in the early nineties. But it was
fueled by this thing of like kids wanted to go
out and dance en mass a thousand kids, take ecstasy
shore and do all this stuff and in these places,
and they weren't allowed to so they found, you know,
like disused warehouses and in the middle of a field
(02:22):
and all this kind of stuff. So as much as
I would love to believe that our Friday night was
a rave. I would say it was a little like
we call it low key raise, low key rave, but
it was amazing because it.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Was no I'm on a high key race.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
No, no, no, no, as far as I'm concerned. At my age,
that was a high key rave. And it was so
nice to see. I was in the middle of playing
like whatever Drey and Snoop or something, and I just
looked to my right and you're there.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
That was a high point in my life.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It was funny in what you're saying in the intro.
I think about you and being a chef and running
the restaurant and maybe being a DJ. Like I have
a job to do. I am fully concentrate on what
I'm doing, but I do have these like twenty seconds
in between. I can like, go and you're looking out
at this room with all your friends in it and
then a lot of strangers. But it's you know, it's
(03:12):
kind of imagine a little similar it is.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I think that I go in and you know, with cooking,
you really need to see every you know, I stand
at the past. We have an open kitchen. I can't
imagine being underground and not seeing the reactions of people
who are eating you're for good or for bad. Sometimes
you can go somebody looking, or you can see them sharing,
or they'll come up and say, how did you make that?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
There's something that you said before that just stuck out.
It's like you can just remember the face of that
one person. I don't know if it's like this for you,
just the one person who's not enjoying it. You could
have one hundred and fifty people enjoying having the best
night ever met that one person who's just like putting
the food in a napkin, or my case, just standing
there with their arms crossed, not dancing. And I realized
(03:57):
because in the nineties, when I came up as a
day in New York City, we hung out a lot
with stand up comedians, and this was a time when
Dave Chappelle, Yeah, a lot of people are on the
way up. And I remember speaking to my stand up
comedian friends and realizing how much we had in common
because they too would just have like a great night
in the club, but would only remember just like the
(04:18):
one person's screw face there, and you go to sleep
with this person's face like imprinted in your brain. It's
I don't know if that's like.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
That now I feel that I used to come back
and after a night Richard would say, how was it?
And I think, I think maybe I'll give up. Yeah,
I just think maybe this job isn't for me. And
it just felt, you know, either as you say, there's
the person who just kind of shook their head or
they sent their food back or whatever. Because and then
(04:46):
and then you have the other night where you're just flying,
you know, because but I think that people's reactions are
really that kind of immediate reaction is so important. Yeah,
so it's not quite fair that you can do so
many things. Well, no, DJ, you write music, you perform,
(05:11):
you produce, you write incredible songs that we all remember
and listen to. And now you've written a book, which
is a little bit like one more thing that Mark
Ronson has done. What made you think you were going
to write a book?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I don't know. I think quite a lot of my
friends when this time were actually dying. I hate to
sound like so Macaw, but I was thinking about my
best friend, this DJ Blue Gem so I came up
with and went to my first raves with, and used
to do a radio show and all this stuff and
all these memories from the nineties, which is such a
great time in New York, and you had Biggie and
(05:48):
jay Z and c Tip and all these people, like
these heroes of mine. They would be hanging out in
the club and the places I DJed that and it
was before VIP and bottle service, where like everybody mingled together.
The clubs were such a melting pot. And I also
really wanted to write a story about what it's like
to be a gigging DJ, like on the way up,
(06:10):
not when you're a superstar and you're like kind of
at the top and everyone's handing you everything. It's all easy,
but like doing it some nights playing for empty rooms
for fifty bucks and some nights you're playing in the
most fun basement ever, And what that emotional ride is
like and and technically a bit like what goes into DJing.
(06:31):
It's kind of a lot. Did you write?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
When did you find the time to write?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I kind of had to. I had to. It took
over my life, you know, except for the time we
took out to really make work on Barbie. I took
it took me almost two and a half three years
to finish this book. And I would just write five hours.
I read the Stephen King book on writing, and he
really tells you like the discipline, I lock yourself in
(06:58):
a basement for five hours day and that's what I did.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
That's a beautiful book. And I read it knowing that
I was going to meet you, but I thought that
it was just so honest, and it was took me
through the story of a time and a place, and
it took me through the story of your life of
you know, the emotion and the rigor and the experience
(07:28):
and the honesty. And I was wondering whether you might
read something from the book now.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I thought of this one thing just now, when you
were talking about, you know, in the vinyl era as
opposed to now, when you're bringing music on a USB
stick or a laptop, I would spend so much time
putting my records together preparing for the night, because you
could only bring a finite number of records with you,
and it was so much fun to think about what
(07:54):
kind of night it's going to be, who the crowds
can be, Is it going to be this kind of record?
So you almost have this connection with your audience, even
if you've imagined them before you get there, because you've bonded.
You picture this imaginary dance floor. This is this one
passage where I'm sitting on the floor of my apartment
on twenty ninth Street and twenty twenty one years old
at this point. That's just a short passage, but I
(08:17):
thought i'd read it. Album covers provided visual cues that
helped me start building up a set. The lipstick red
telephone on the cover of Clear's Intimate Connection instantly conjured
the sharp electro sounds of the Rollland eight to eight
drum machine in the song's production. That eight oh eight
(08:38):
led me to Marvin Gay's Sexual Healing with its iconic
rhythm track, then to Loose Ends Hanging on a string
and Shaka Khans Ain't Nobody. The con record wasn't made
with a drum machine, but its moody synth lines made
it a natural fit. And from Ain't Nobody, a DJ
could go anywhere no dance floor resist belting out that
(09:01):
oh oh, oh oh before the chorus. If you duck
the volume and let them sing it, that moment was
a perfect pivot to drop anything from soul to soul
to souls and mischief Sonic Fragments, an eight oh eight
conga or an arpeggiated synthmo teeth hummed constantly in my brain.
It was like I had a tiny antenna that was
(09:23):
always alert for the frequency of music. Standing in line
at the dry cleaner, I'd hear Bill Withers's Lovely Day
and immediately think, Oh, that would go perfectly with you
going to make Me Love Somebody Else by the Jones Girls,
already pre performing the blend in my brain. It's hard
to stay present when your mind is constantly pairing tempos
(09:44):
and keys instead of focusing on the person in front
of you. But there was no off switch short of
a lobotomy.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, we talked both about our work and talking about
how you prepare, But do you have a kind of
way that you want to eat before you go on stage.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I have to eat really light because the nerves and
the crazy like my stomach even before. It doesn't matter
if I'm playing to like three hundred kids in a basement,
if I'm playing ten thousand people on a festival stage,
there's just like yeah, I just my stomach goes into
doing cartwheels. And I remember reading this famous Bowie quote
(10:25):
or something like it was like, I don't trust anyone
that doesn't get nervous before they go on stage. It
might not be the case for anybody, but that quote
certainly made me feel better this much closer to Bowie.
There's something about the adrenaline and what's going on in
the system. As I'm DJing, I can I mean, I
(10:45):
don't do this anymore. But I could not back six
drinks and not feel anything. But the minute the music stops,
I'm suddenly like whoa. And I remember I dj Tom
Cruise in Katie Holmes's wedding and it was going really well.
It was like a great gig. I was doing all
(11:06):
these mixes of like the top Gun theme with like
these hip hop break beats, and Tom's like shooting the
fingers at me and everyone's out on the dance floor
and I was knocking back like drinks, totally fine. And
then as soon as the gig stopped and we got
in the car to drive with somewhere in the Italian countryside,
I was just like, wholl pull over and then I
(11:26):
just delivered a pavement pizza to the Italian countryside. But
there's something about the adrenaline and thing. But yeah, I
have to.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Eat a lot of actors do a performance and then
meet you for the theater afterwards, Right, they want to
go out or something.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, I know, and I talk about it a lot
in the book. As the DJ, you end your set
at like three or four in the morning, and you've
just for four or five hours been in this room
of like pure reverie and like you've been part of
the reason for the ringleader. People are like and that
(12:02):
energy is contagious. And then you have the ego stroke
of like, look what I'm doing all these people And
then four o'clock the lights come on and the room
is not packed. At four o'clock in the morning, there's
the last seventeen people in there. You're like, well, wait,
where's my fun? Yeah. And so back in those days
in the nineties, I would be leaving the club at
four and I'd be maybe calling the coke dealer on
(12:25):
the way out, like you're like, hey, why am I
coming up? And now when I come out of the club,
I'm like online making an appointment for my acupunctures for
the next morning because my back is killing me.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
You mention your back a lot. That does so tell
me the effect of the back.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's just this it's just thirty years of standing up
for five six hours on end because of the DJ stance,
which is the headphones on with the next slightly crooked
to the left of the right when you're doing it.
And five years ago, my foot's all up to the
size of a basketball. And I went to the doctor
(13:03):
and he looks at me and he's like, yeah, I
looked at some of your videos online of you performing
on the way because I just wanted to see if
there are any clues. And he's like, and I noticed
that you tap your foot like this through the whole
set to the beat. I was like, yeah, everybody does that.
He goes, well, you now have this early onset arthritis cinevitis.
A lot of musicians, even orchestral players like in the
(13:24):
Philharmonic and everything, get it because they're lightly tapping. But
you do that for forty years. So I call it
DJ foot, like I just named it for myself, but
obviously it's but yeah, there's all these back issues. I
have sort of terrible tinetus. It reminds me sometimes of
did you read Kitchen Confidential Anthony Boydeen. Yes, that's one
(13:47):
of my favorite books ever. And that thing when he's
in the end when he's just listing off all the
things that you would know, the afflictions of being a chef,
the burns that all the wear and tear and stuff,
and I was like, it's not near that level for
a DJ. Let's be honest. You don't have like scars
and stitches everywhere, but it does have its own sort
of like list of you know, complaints.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Let's talk about when you were growing up in North London. Yeah,
what was it like in the house because your parents
had parties and they had you described these amazing kind
of open house where people came and there were there
was noise and as a child, but would you sit
down to dinner night as a family and talk about
what you did at school?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Or I remember Friday night dinners are my Grandma? Okay,
so that like I just remember from an early age
being like Grandma makes great marksible. So that's kind of
like just old Jewish kids, right.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Did you do that every Friday?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It was a lot of a lot of.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Jewish families always describe it as that was the one
constant that you could even go and then go out late.
But you had to go.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, there was there's no way my dad was getting
out of like no matter what was going on, what
my parents were doing, like it was like you were
he had to be there, which a month. Yeah, my
mom would go too when they split, and then we
moved to New York when I was eight because my
mom married my stepdad. There was still a lot of
partying and revelry in the house, but they had another
(15:22):
two kids and there was more structure and dinners. My
mom she grew up in a household of five children.
She was the second oldest, and her mom died when
she was eleven, so a lot of like what would
have been like taking care of like the younger siblings
and the cooking and that stuff fell on her. So
(15:43):
she would just make I think, like giant batches of
like macaroni and cheese and whatever. She came up cooking
in bulk, you know, like that was the lesson. So
with five kids as well, it was like it was
a lot of there was so many cast roles in
the freezer, like it was crazy, like and as kids
we were just like it really was like castrole again,
(16:05):
like it was it was that.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So it must have taken quite a lot. She had
five kids, Yeah, in a house in New York and
we were all in school. Yeah, and then she was
still they were having this musical, partying life. Yeah, what
was it like for you?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I think it was a great place to grow up.
You know. My stepdad was a musician. He had a
recording shootio on the home. I would use all his equipment.
Some nights had wake up in the middle of the
night and like John Taylor from Durandur and my absolute
heroes like hanging out in the thing and they were
all partying. And my mother was quite strict because she
(16:40):
came from England, so coming to New York, that level
of parenting and English parenting is much more intense. Like
our curfews were like three hours earlier than everybody else's.
But as long as we did our homework and we
did well in school, she was definitely like I played
in a band. She's like, you can go out play
in a band. I wanted to go to shows. She
(17:01):
wouldn't let me go to shows at first, so I
got a job writing for the school paper reviewing the show.
So then she was like, okay, just concerts, just like
wanting to go see whatever bands and indie bands and
things that I loved when I was fourteen and fifteen,
so by having a position at the school paper then
(17:22):
she was like, okay, well if you're writing about it,
if it's worked, you can go. Do you remember restaurants, Yes,
I remember there was some. There were a few restaurants
that were really like marked special occasions, you know, yeah,
special special occasions. It was like most of the time
waiting home. But there was Gino's on sixty first in
(17:45):
Lexington and it's like a very classic thing and it
had been around since the thirties and no Frank Snatcher
was the only person who was allowed to make a
reservation there, like a classic old school Upper east Side.
It was really sad when it closed. It closed about
fifteen years ago. But they did this amazing thing where
(18:06):
once a year they would do this thing where they
would go back to the prices of when the menu
first opened and it would be like two dollars for
a plate of the whatever, the val milanaise, And there
would be a line around the block on those nights.
And that was I remember as a kid, especially you
go into place here, there's Zebra's on the wallpaper and they,
(18:29):
you know, the waiters are just so Italian and like
from the old country. It was that was I think
that was my favorite place as a kid, and.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
They would take all five of you. Would you was
that a stone?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Sometimes that's a lot. Yeah. I remember we went there
one time after young Kapoor, after having fasted all that,
and my sister Samantha, just as we got to Gino's
to break the fast, she just like threw up all
over the entire table, just like one of those like
really like like just launching Vomit bounces off the table.
(19:03):
But they, you know, they brought us a new tablecloth.
We were regulars.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
We've talked about the way you eat when you're performing,
there's also the way you eat when you're producing, when
you are to take a break and say, let's we've
been working all morning, Let's go and spend a couple
of hours. Would you like to keep going and have
a sandwich.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
It's it's all of those things. It's all those things,
because it's like sometimes like it's great, like you you
have a great session, or maybe you've gone like a
whole week, you know, and then it's like Friday night,
let's got somewhere lovely, Like I've been working with du
Aliba quite a bit in New York, and she loves
to go, like she doesn't live in New York, so
(19:43):
she wants to go to Estella and all her like
favorite places and.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
She loves to eat.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, she's a good you know.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
She and Callum met in the River Cafe and it's
so nice that they met over food.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, how did you meet?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
How did you meet your wife?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Grace?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I met Grace. I saw Grace across the room at
a party and I was down in Mexico City to
DJF Festival, and I saw her across the room with
her like like shock of like red hair, and she
looks so chic. She's wearing some like flowy like silk
(20:19):
pajama suit or something, and I remember looking at her
and then intentionally like in this very immature like school
yard way, like not looking at I'm like, well, I'm
not going to look, because you know this kind of thing,
but then inventing this whole thing like oh, I'm sure
she's seen me looking and I'm really not going to look,
and whatever it is. And then I when I met
her properly, we had a brief hello that someone in
(20:40):
choosed to shook hands and two three years ago later. Sorry,
When we finally had our first real date, I was like, yeah,
I remember that night in Mexico City, and she just
looked at me so blank. She's like, I didn't know
that you were in Mexico City that night, so like
my whole thing. She was like, but I do remember.
(21:00):
So we were introduced by my friend Leaki Lee, the
singer I made a lot of music with. She was
playing match maker, and I remember one of the first
things that she said about Grace, like she meant as
the highest compliment, was like she Grace is just the best.
She's not like all these other girls. She eats everything.
That was like the first thing that just meant like,
(21:21):
she's like not fussy. Whatever. We had our we had
our first day, our whole our whole courtship with food
and dating and all of it, you know. And then
I remember cooking for her like the second or third time. Yes,
I could do a salmon with a mustard glaze, because
(21:44):
I'm just like so useless at improvising, Like that's good,
but I'm very good at following directions to a tea,
So I mean, I'm not going to be able to
make a soup fla, but I could do salmon glaze
or something so and I remember being so terrified of,
you know, over cooking and you know, keep taking the
seminar every twenty seconds to poke it. And then she's
(22:07):
a great cook, but she's much more improv I can
just pull a few things, what from the cupboards. It's
like that's the difference in the two of us. She's
just so free flowing and like wonderful and just in
that sort of way. And I'm quite a virgo and
up tied, so I'm not an incredible cook. But what
(22:28):
I've found in our relationship, like I have three or
four go to dishes that Grace really loves and like
that's what are they do? You know? So there's like
a a chicken curry.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Did you learn to make that in England?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I actually learned to make it from a New York
Times recipe, you know, just like and it takes so
long to prepare the sauce because then making up and
scratch and the purring and the apples with spices. But
there's a it's kind of like making it a track.
There's things, there's there's there's an order to it and
a sequence that you have to follow, but it's so
(23:01):
rewarding as well.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
And I say that food is believes hunger. Of course,
food is also a way of sharing and food expresses
love and food is you know, going out to restaurants
and having fun words. But it is also comfort. Yeah,
and so is there a sense that you seek some
(23:24):
food for comfort.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, my comfort food. It's not the most original idea
in the world, but my comfort food is my brain
just goes to pasta always. That's what I dream about
when I close my eyes. And also there's something about
it's just so fulfilling. I mean even just the way
that like I mean even the physiology, right, it like
(23:48):
expands in or something. There's something you are full you
were full of I don't know. Yeah, So that's that's
always my comfort that Alio Alio, peperoncino. It's just like
one of my favorites. I did make that, I did
start to make that. That was one of like the
second or third things I made for Grace when she
(24:09):
came over. I think I got the pepper ratio wrong
or something, and I just remember like her like like
steam coming out of her ears and her like not
in trying to be like It's like there's a lot
of pepper in this one.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Now that I came on stage while you were working,
maybe you'll come on my stage and come into the
River ca. Yeah, come in the kitchen and we'll do
some cooking together.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
How about that? Is that for real?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I would love to real come to the raves and yeah,
that would be together.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Maybe a rave in the River Cafe.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
That's the best combination. River rave, Yeah, River Rave, Let's
do it.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Ruthie's Table four is hosted by Ruthie Rogers and produced
by Alex Bell and Zad Rodgers with Andrew Saran, Bella
Selini and Susannah. This has be and then asimized production
for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Hi, It's Ruthie Rogers and I'm so excited to announce
that we have a new book. Squeeze Me has forty
seven delicious lemon recipes from the River Cafe, Beautiful art
by Ed Bouchet and words by Heather Eyes.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Pre Order now.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with Me and m Intelligence
Style for Busy Women
Host
Ruth Rogers
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