Donald Glaude Brings Back the Funk
Donald Glaude’s mind is racing. The Seattle-bred, San Diego-based DJ/producer is excited and upbeat, much like his infectious, groovy house productions and dancefloor-slaying DJ sets. After playing a string of shows in recent weeks, including Nocturnal Wonderland and Burning Man, he is ready to invade the Bay Area for its edition of Beyond Wonderland this weekend.
Glaude is a prominent purveyor of West Coast electronic music for two decades and has always stuck to his roots, while also leaving room for growth, essentially to keep up with the scene’s evolving climate. Right now, his mission remains simple: “To bring the funk back to the room. But I still want to do it in the big-room style, at least if I’m doing it under my name.”
The house head has prepped a diverse, gritty electro and bassline-driven house mix to amp you up for the weekend’s actions. “I just wanted it to be a little bit different than what a lot of people are playing, I guess. I just wanted to take a few chances, add a little bit of everything, and show my personality through it.”
I rang him up to chat over the phone about his upcoming projects, DJing 2x4s with DJ Dan, and his favorite mixtapes and CDs.
“I play on four decks by myself sometimes, but I usually play on three. That’s where I feel most comfortable.”
I was going through some of your discography earlier and noticed that you’ve done a lot of jungle and breakbeat mixes, which makes sense because that sound was really popular back in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Whatever happened to it, though?
I don’t know! [Laughs] I played jungle, breakbeat, old drum & bass records and all kinds of shit, but I feel like it’s all evolving with time. It’s not like jungle and breaks are not popular anymore; there are still a lot of good records out there, but I think it’s all morphed into something else—in this case, it’s dubstep.
What are some of your favorite classic mixtapes and CDs from back in the day?
Oh man! There are so many, let’s see. I have a mix from way back called The 420 Mix from Seattle that I love. The Urban Soul Food and The Hemp Project were part of this Freebass project I had going in Seattle. I think Dr. Freeclouds still might have them. They were these red and green tapes; that’s the lingo we would use to refer to them. In terms of CDs, the Mixed Live one from Buzz at Nation in D.C. and This Is Me on Moist and Off the Hook on Moonshine are some of my favorites.
When you are playing live, how do you go about doing 2×4 sets? Have you ever played one by yourself? Who are some people you like playing with?
When you’re playing 2x4s, as long as you can have common ground with someone, regardless of playing different styles, that’s the most important thing. I play on four decks by myself sometimes, but I usually play on three. That’s where I feel most comfortable. But now with a computer, I use two.
When I play with someone else, it’s usually DJ Dan, and it’s always a blast! He makes music similar to mine, so it’s easy to play off each other. Also, he’s probably by far one of the best mixers I’ve ever come across.
Is there anyone you would like to do a 2×4 with?
Carl Cox has never happened, but I would love to. [Laughs] Also, my friend Flav is a really good DJ and an insane scratcher from Seattle. He’s going to be part of my Late Night Science project tour in the winter. We’re going to be playing smaller venues where we can really showcase the 2×4 set of “housey house,” intimate kind of sets. It’s better to do it in those kinds of places because people can actually see it. At a festival or something, the audience doesn’t even notice. They think it’s part of the production.
Tell me more about your Late Night Science project.
That’s a little bit more on the house tip. What you heard on the Insomniac mix is both that persona colliding and myself. It’s funny because I was actually in San Francisco last year and was playing at Mighty, which is one of my favorite places in the city, and I was performing as Late Night Science. It was the first one I had done in a long time. It was Tribal Funk’s 20th anniversary. I used to play for those guys back in the day, so that’s what kind of inspired me to take that project further.
The project has been going on since 2009, but I really wanted to break it out this year. My older fans really wanted me to play house, and the younger ones that didn’t know I did, so I thought that this would be a good way to merge old and new styles of funky tech house that could be enjoyed by both audiences. Going back to what I was saying about Flav earlier, he and I will be going on tour, and you can see us scratch together, do some live shit. I will be playing drums and he will play the sax. We’re going to promote the tour as “Donald Glaude Presents: Late Night Science featuring DJ Flav,” and it’s going to be dope house music.
Donald Glaude – Beyond Wonderland 2014 “Side A” Mix by Insomniac Events on Mixcloud
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