THE SOUL CLAP MOTHERSHIP HAS LANDED
by Dominic Cools-Lartigue
by Dominic Cools-Lartigue
The talk has been hot and wild of late about a sharp duo from Boston dropping heavy doses of soul and funk into house music, with bags of humour, flavour and style. With their legendary podcasts, stunning re-edits, and the overwhelmingly warm soulful vibe they leave in their wake, Soul Clap (aka Eli Goldstein and Charles Levin) have charmed the arse off London and everyone else in a big way over the past year. When I hooked up with them recently it turns out there is a mutual love-in going on here, with the Claps feeling right at home with the general British attitude to raving and, er, fancy dress….
Eli: Brits are crazy, that’s the great thing about hanging out over here, you Brits are crazy. You party really fucking hard, and at after parties people assimilate with normal culture, but still get really fucked up, being silly, having fun, and being stupid. We’ve felt really at home almost immediately. I also like the whole British thing with props and costumes. Fancy dress, it’s cool. It’s like way less casual in the States the way people get fucked up. It’s part of the culture here, where as in the States it’s more aggressive.
Dom: When did you first come over to London?
Charles: Back in 2002 I was a senior in college, and I was living here abroad in Hoxton Market, I was an intern for MN2S, I had dreams of doing music, but no idea of what direction it would take. So to come back now accomplished feels good.
Eli: It seems to have happened so fast. You know it took 13 years of working at it, so that last 6 months it feels like it has finally paid off. We just felt that in the UK they really understand black music, and that’s the basis of what we’re doing. This is like the perfect home for us. It’s felt really nice to have been welcomed here with open arms.
Dom: Well black music is in our roots here in London, so when you drop that sound we get it. It’s also been a breath of fresh air from where we were with the whole minimal thing….
Eli: Well it was probably just over run by Germany. Dance music for the sake of dance music. Trying to be all serious. We’re just making music people can dance to. It’s not about a particular format, it’s just good music. But we have a purpose man. We’re trying to make things soulful. Trying to make something that’s timeless, a record that was amazing then, is now, and will be in the future. Instead of just a song that is very formulaic, like a right now kind of thing, that’s going to blow over in less than 6 months. It’s just such a weird time in dance music. Anything can happen.
And anything it seems is happening, as the boys have an official remix of Goldie’s ‘Inner City Life’ from his classic Timeless album, to be released in mid-July on Crosstown Rebels.
Charles: There’s this Rabbit in the Moon mix of Inner City Life, which is like super down tempo, it’s cool. In fact I played it at Kubicle and people were like ‘Weoooow’, and then all the ketamine fell out of their noses. Our version feels like a jungle track but at 120/119. When we played it to Damian Lazarus he freaked out. We were like fuck are we gonna have to do another bootleg? Or a re-edit? And Damian just calls Goldie right there and then and sorts it out. That’s an honour for us. Goldie? Timeless? That’s like Top 5 influences! And also a huge relief that we don’t have Goldie coming after us for bootlegging his track.
One of the striking things about spending time with Soul Clap is that bubbling away below the humour, the cheeky re-edits, and debauched tales of life on the road, is an unwavering passion for dance music history and culture. Every ounce of funk they drop is backed up by a knowledge and respect for where it came from, and a healthy concern for preserving that legacy.
Charles: The whole record shop culture is so fucking important to dance music. Having a central place you can go hang out, meet people and hear music. This was so important for us growing up in the 90’s in Boston, and continues to be going to Phonica in London, Gramaphone in Chicago, or Halcyon in New York. It’s something that is forgotten and is in danger of disappearing. So Gadi [one half of Wolf + Lamb] has just started a label called Double Standard, which is a vinyl only label. That’s kind of his statement of saying ‘vinyl is really important and we’ve got to keep it alive’. I think it’s something other DJs should be thinking more about; especially older cats who have the record collection and are still making music, ‘just don’t forget where you came from’.
Dom: It’s also the best way to hear the music.
Charles: Damn right.
Dom: The history of dance music is clearly a major factor for you guys, in fact didn’t Eli teach this as a subject at college?
Eli: It’s not something I’ve been able to do recently with making music and everything but the reason why I did it was partly because in America it’s really a forgotten culture, an overlooked culture. In Europe it’s become part of normal people’s lifestyles, in America it has not. It’s almost frowned upon and looked down upon by the masses.
Dom: Was it particularly important for you to do this in Boston? You clearly have a real close bond to the city.
Charles: Yeah man, Boston means everything to us. It’s like been this major influence. Learning how to DJ there is a totally different experience from that in New York City, or pretty much any other city. We’ve played every kind of party you can imagine from weddings to big ass BBQ’s, to cheesy clubs to rave. The only job we’ve ever really had is DJing, and to do that in Boston you’ve got to do everything.
Dom: That can also be a great education as a DJ, making people dance when they might have no idea what they’re listening to.
Eli: Exactly. That’s really important. But also to be able to play good underground gigs in Boston, because there are so few, you basically have got to work so hard to throw these parties to get 50 or 100 people out. I think it also really instilled this work ethic into putting the effort into everything, every little step of the process to make sure it’s done right.
Charles: The other thing is that there really hasn’t been a break out artist in electronic music from Boston. There was the legend that was Armand Van Helden that came up with a residency at this club in Boston called The Loft, but then moved to New York and kind of always repped New York.
Eli: There’s also Kooky Scientist the legendary techno dude, but so underground and so serious techno.
Charles: He was not really like a star, more like a legend. Anyway, so there’s like no one from Boston. So we were like shit, we’ve got to be that someone. So now there’s like Eli and I; and there’s Tanner Ross from Dirtybird/Mothership; and this other cat Sergio Santos, who’s like a really close friend. He’s a little bit older but an amazing DJ influence on all of us and now breaking into the production thing. So there’s us, we have our sound, there’s Sergio and Tanner, they have their sound. Then we do SECT together and it’s like this is the BOSTON SOUND.
Dom: You’re pioneering your scene.
Eli: Yeah, because most people we meet think we’re from New York because of Wolf + Lamb, and when we say we’re from Boston people say ’Well what happens in Boston’. So it’s like we’re making the impression of what Boston is.
Dom: While Eli used to teach history of dance music, who was the teacher when Soul Clap were being schooled in the ways of disco and house?
Charles: Caryl Mitro! She was one of the first DJs in New England. She was playing disco in a Lesbian bar in Cape Cod way back in the day. The way she tells the story was at the beginning people would come from New York to Boston to hear disco. The other thing she talks about was being part of the first wave of people who were knocking on the door of the music industry when DJs had only 45s, saying “we need longer intro’s, we need longer outro’s”, and convincing the record labels to start pressing 12 inches. That is about as deep in the culture as you can get.
So here’s this woman who has seen it all done it all, friends with Frankie Knuckles blah blah blah, running this record shop [the sadly now defunct Vinyl Connection] with her business partner this guy called Tom [Boston gay rights activist Tom Morganti]. A cool friendly dude with rose coloured glasses, who had the largest collection of records ever, and everything in his collection, $10, regardless of the value. I mean crate diggers would go in there and freak out.
Eli: There were like two main record stores in Boston, the main one was called Satellite Records, and someone in there told me, “if you really like deep house, if you’re really into your soulful shit, you’ve got to go to Vinyl Connection”. It was kind of above this bar that used to throw parties in this old Boston office building, old smelly rugs, you have no idea what was going on. There was kind of like a stigma about the place. People would say “oh there gonna be mean to you, so you better be ready”.
Charles: So we were like “we gotta prep for this”. We would do wish lists anyway, so we went in there with a list, and Caryl must have been like, ‘Who the fuck are these kids?’ We’re like young white kids, not her demographic. She’s used to old gay DJs or old black DJs. Or just old people.
Eli: So we go in, and she’s like, hmmmm, so we give her the list and immediately she lights up.
Dom: Can you remember what was on the list?
Eli: Probably some Masters at Work shit. We were looking for imports, so probably some Tuff Jam.
Dom: When was this?
Eli: Probably 98-99. We were looking for UK garage. Todd Edwards, Tuff Jam. And the Americans like Masters at Work, Dave Camacho, Mood 2 Swing. So she’s like cool. We start going there and spending money there. That’s cool with them. Then all of a sudden the fucking flood gates open up. She starts taking us into the backroom and showing us ALL the vinyl. Letting us go into the bins, we’d take big piles of records.
Charles: We started going there just looking for house, but when they see that these kids were impressionable and really care about the history, they taught us about the whole thing. There is no way we would be where we are without Vinyl Connection.
Dom: Do you know what’s she doing now that the shop is closed?
Charles: Man that’s the thing, we don’t know.
Eli: We walked in one day and the light was low and she was like guys, we’re closing the shop. The rumours are she went to work in a drug store or supermarket. But we don’t know for sure.
Charles: We just want to share with her where we’re at.
Dom: Do you think she knows how far you’ve come?
Eli: I don’t think she has any idea. It’s such a different world. We’ve got to track her down.
Dom: Well it’s a hell of a journey to go from these young crate diggers in that record store to putting on one of the top 5 outdoor parties in America. What are your plans this year for ‘Dancing on the Charles’?
Eli: Well this is a bit of a sore subject.
Charles: This was our blood sweat and tears in Boston and one party that actually worked, where we would have like 500 people, and it was profitable. Which is mind blowing to do a party that actually puts a little money into the hands of everyone who worked.
Eli: We started summer of 2007 at this American Legions Post where American veterans of war would pay like £30 dollars a year membership to go and hang out. It had this amazing patio right by the Charles River. You rented the place for $300 and you could do whatever you wanted. As long as there weren’t any complaints and you were respectful of the guys that ran the Post.
So we were like fuck it, let’s do this, just throw like a BBQ, rent a sound system, maybe a few friends come contribute a little bit, break even and have a nice party. And 150 people came. We had only booked one, so we ended up booking three more that summer, each one there was more and more people and by the last one there was 450 people. The coolest part is that we weren’t booking any other DJs, it was just our crew. It was bringing in all kinds of people from Boston who were up for partying outside and then started getting into what we were playing.
Dom: How did the press react to it?
Eli: The next year it blew the fuck up. We get major features in all the Boston newspapers. Front page of the Cambridge Chronicle. However the Cambridge license commission saw this and went to the Post and said “this isn’t allowed, you’re only allowed to have parties for members, and we’re shutting you down”.
Luckily, I’m from Cambridge, and I’ve got family and friends on the city council, and they managed to convince the license commission to let us do the party. We had to get a sponsor at the Post and go through all this process; it was a couple hundred bucks. But it’s ok, it’s cool. We make some money, let’s give some back to the city.
Urb Magazine called us one of the top 5 outdoor parties in America. The great thing is that people would say, wow, I don’t feel like I’m in Boston, especially our friends who had travelled, who’d been to festivals and parties in other places, saying “wow, I feel like I’m in Club Der Visionaire right now, or on the beach in Ibiza”. It was just really amazing to have done that in Boston. The third year the license commission found other reasons to try to shut us down, but we worked through it again, and I think this year the pressure finally got to the Post, because they said they weren’t going to rent to us anymore. So we thought about trying to get another venue to do the party but we knew it’s not going to be the same.
Dom: Despite your trouble with the license commission do you think what you did with ‘Dancing on the Charles’ helped people in Boston have a more positive understanding of dance music culture?
Eli: For sure. It’s so hard to get any quality nightlife. Super clubs, Oakenfold, Tiesto, buying tables, VIP service, everything is kind of run like that in Boston. We tried doing things in the side rooms of these parties, and it always ended up with problems, not having a vibe that you want. So to have a space to create the exact vibe that you wanted is so special.
Dom: Well let’s say I’m Mr. Corporate Brand, and I give you a load of money to create that special vibe here in London, what would happen if ‘The Soul Clap Mothership’ landedin the middle of the East End?
Charles: Oh man! Well a big part of our performance is we’re trying to create this interaction between the DJ and the crowd. We don’t like DJ booths, we like to be right there in the middle of the party, connecting with people. This is a big part of it for us. We haven’t figured out the best way to push it, but we’re looking at different ways to get the crowd involved. The dancing is huge, it’s about getting people dancing a certain way. Getting loose.
The dream is having it more like a band making original pop music that’s totally accepted in dance circles. With hip hop going downhill, electronic music is back in the pop music scope. Even a year ago we were talking about the emergence of something like another Depeche Mode, something that has its foot in both pop culture and dance culture.
Dom: Have you thought of what vocalists you would like to work with if you created a band?
Charles: Well yeah, but I would like to be the one to front a band.
Dom: You sing?
Charles: Yeah, I’m a little bashful about it, but I was at The Marcy Hotel a couple weeks back, we’d just come back from a party, and I was kinda loose, and there was a vocal booth set up, it was a lot of fun. There was Lee Curtis on bass, Eli making ill sounds with the drum machine, Deniz Kurtel on the juno, me singing, Greg on trumpet, it was like fuck, we’ve got a fucking band. This is ill! So when the Soul Clap Mothership lands we’re gonna come out George Clinton style, with smoke and everything.
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