The Night I Fell in Love With Dance Music: Sarah Polonsky

With her saucy attitude and encyclopedic musical knowledge, Sarah Polonsky is like no one else you know. The native New Yorker and dance music journalist got into the scene as a teenager and then parlayed her love of the music into a career, working for publications including Elektro and Vibe, where she wrote the 2013 Daft Punk/Pharrell cover story after the magazine recruited her to incorporate dance music into its coverage.

Now the Editor of the US edition of DJ Mag, Polonsky travels the world, covering the scene. She also coproduced Nile Rodgers’ recent FOLD festival, which included Beck, Pharrell, Janelle Monae and GTA.

Here, Polonsky talks about the night she fell in love with dance music.

Tell me about the first night dance music gave you that magical, one-of-a-kind feeling? 
It was definitely a non-legal exploit to see Danny Tenaglia at Vinyl, during his Be Yourself days. This is the night I recall saying, “I want to be in the dance scene.”

Why wasn’t it legal?
I was 14, so I actually didn’t know anything about dance music, but I had some older friends, and they got me in. They decked me out as a raver in the UFOs and the visor. I didn’t know who Danny Tenaglia was. I was barely in high school. I went out to Vinyl, which was very much a part of the New York City heyday in the ‘90s, part of the Limelight and the Tunnel era … You know, they call that the first time dance music had its peak; obviously it was nothing compared to now, but it was amazing! I didn’t know what I was in for; I was just going out, and I had never been out like that.

Did your parents know what you were out doing?
I don’t even know what I told my parents. I think I said I was sleeping at a friend’s and just went. I may have told them the truth. They totally supported it.

So, you’re 14 years old and dressed like a warehouse raver. How’d the night play out?
I went out to Danny Tenaglia, and I ended up befriending the owners and the owners’ son, who bartended, even through there was no liquor license. I’ve never met so many colorful people. Before I even started hearing the music, I was into the people in their costumes, from every walk of life. I kept meeting all these really interesting people, and I guess that’s the reason I became a journalist: because I’m fascinated by people. The amount of acceptance among all of those interesting people that I met—I had never experienced anything like that.

What did you think of the music?
Danny used to play mammoth sets that nobody else played. I mean, this went until 10 in the morning most times, every Friday. It was hours of running around and meeting people and becoming instant friends with someone dressed as, like, a Disney character—you know, Tigger or Mickey, with the tail on. Everyone was giving me glowsticks and stuff, and nobody judged or was like, “Who’s this young girl?” And everybody danced. Once I got past the exciting feeling of just talking and meeting so many people, I started listening to the music and dancing. And I danced and I danced, dripping in sweat. It didn’t matter. Even at that age, something definitely changed.

How do you mean?
That’s the night I specifically recall feeling so like myself, even though it took doing something I had never done to feel that way. It’s funny, because that party was called Be Yourself, and it took me doing something that wasn’t myself, and wearing something outside of my comfort zone in a place where I knew nobody, and hearing music that was all new to me. Then the moment he dropped “Stardust,” I instantly went crazy. I was like, “That’s my jam,” and it was, even though I had never heard it before. I would go and wait all night for that song… I’ve been hooked ever since. I started begging my parents to let me skip school when certain DJs were in town.

Would they let you?
Yeah!

What was your evolution from there?
I really fell in love with drum & bass, which is odd for a white, Jewish New Yorker. The bartender from Vinyl would take me to Satellite Records and started taking me to Concrete Jungle on Monday nights. That music, even though it’s so stylistically opposite to house music, gave me so much energy. To this day, I can still be so tired, and I hear drum & bass and jungle music and get energy and dance, no matter what. It’s got that syncopated beat that really gets me going. Everyone has where their heart lies, and for me it’s drum & bass.

How did you make that pure love of the music into a career? 
I never thought I would have a career in it, because I’m not a singer, a producer or a DJ. I loved writing, and I wanted to become a journalist. I did become a journalist after college and continued going out the entire time. New York had started changing, with the bars becoming more bottle servicey. When I first started going out in high school, there’d be a long line down the block and they didn’t let you cut the line because you had paid for a bottle. That didn’t exist; they let you in because you were cool and down to be friendly and have fun. I still found the good stuff though, and I would always go out.

I worked at the New York Post and wrote for BlackBook magazine, and I’ve always done the freelance thing. I did food critiquing for a while, which was fun—lots of food. I did the celebrity beat; that was interesting. Then somebody asked me to write about Electric Zoo, and I said, “What’s Electric Zoo?” That was about seven years ago, so it was already going on, but I had sort of started to lose faith in dance music, not realizing there was a revolution in America coming for dance music.

And then?
Then I was asked to write for a dance music magazine—an “EDM” magazine. I googled “EDM,” because I had no idea what it was, and I was like, “Electronic dance music! I know everything about it!” Not that I actually did, but it was like, “Let me just catch up, because I know everything about the old stuff.” I got tapped to launch the magazine Elektro. They were like, “We need an editor, and we saw your article, and we know your name from being a New York journalist. How much do you know?” I had just gone to see Bassnectar, randomly. What I saw was a lot of kids younger than me that reminded me of myself back at Be Yourself. I was like, “Oh my god, I’m so old,” but I saw so much fun, although I didn’t quite understand him at first. It was a very new kind of sound for me, and I knew that I was seeing a revolution, because I knew that I was seeing a genius.

Yeah?
I wasn’t quite understanding the music, but I remember that Lorin mixed a Biggie track, “Juicy,” and I was like, “Yeah, we used to read Word Up magazine!” I looked around, and none of the kids knew it; it was me and the bouncer singing along. The kids probably thought it was a Bassnectar track, and I was stunned. But I saw him, and I was like, “This is something revolutionary. I’m not sure if like this, but I like what I’m seeing in terms of that feeling I first felt on that night that changed my life. Lives are changing tonight, and that’s really cool.”

Follow Sarah Polonsky on Facebook | Twitter 

Share

Tags

You might also like