Space for his beats

Kickass NYC house DJ and radio host Tim
Sweeney cracks his stacks of wax

GRAND HEFT AUDIO: Tim Sweeney

by JACK OATMON

“I think what it was, was 80 boxes of records and 60 records in each box.”

I’m hearing Tim Sweeney’s familiar voice over the phone. He’s modestly, slightly reticently detailing the logistics of his recent move into a new, larger apartment in Brooklyn to accommodate his gargantuan vinyl collection.

If you do the math, he’s got in the ballpark of 4,800 records. At a conservative average of around 140 grams per disc, the grand total mass of his mountain of grooved petroleum Frisbees is about 672 kilos. That means Sweeney has approximately two-thirds of a metric ton of vinyl at his place.

“Whenever I have to move, the movers never want to work with me again,” he says with a chuckle.

For some years now, I’ve been amongst the many avid listeners of Beats in Space, Sweeney’s weekly Tuesday-night WNYU radio show. The excellent FM show, which is podcast at www.beatsinspace.com, is a stalwart of crate-digging and has a ludicrous list of past guest DJs, generously peppered with names like Diplo, Erol Alkan, Simian Mobile Disco, the Avalanches, Carl Craig, Spank Rock and Quiet Village.

“When I was in high school, I went to NYU one summer to study between 11th and 12th grade. There was a show called BPM and I played it twice. From then, I really knew I wanted to do radio, so as soon as I got into NYU, I talked to them about doing a show.”

A music technology major at the East Village university, Sweeney started Beats in Space in 1999, at which point he was working with underground hip hop DJ Steve “Steinski” Stein. Heads might recognize Steinski’s name as the complement to Doug “Double Dee” DiFranco from pioneering, early-’80s sample-heavy hip hop records The Lessons, the conceptual backdrop for modern chop ’n’ crop artists like DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist and Girl Talk.

“Show-wise, when I started out, I was definitely getting influenced by the records Steinski was turning me onto. A lot more hip hop, funk and soul. From there, I hooked up with the DFA guys and the show progressed, getting into post-punk, then disco, then more house and techno, spreading into a bunch of genres that way.”

Sweeney’s currently a resident DJ for DFA Records, regularly touring with a gamut of groundbreaking dance-punk and new-disco artists. Sweeney’s chill, street-level groove might also ring a bell because of the work he’s done licensing music for Rockstar Games, including researching, designing and DJing all the in-game radio stations for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Midnight Club 3 and others. The research experience turned him on more and more to Detroit techno legends like “Mad” Mike Banks, with whom he was in contact for the video game work, and Juan Atkins—artists who have fallen into obscurity over the decades.

“Someone like Juan Atkins should just be in such a better place than he is. Sometimes it’s just so frustrating. It happens with all musicians, really. You hear about people who made such amazing records and you just hope that they’re having a nice life afterwards. I think I heard about [’70s disco producer] Gino Soccio being a bum on the street in Canada. He’s made so many amazing songs, and to have him fall off like that, it just blows my mind.”

WITH LOOSE JOINTS DJS AND WHY
ALEX, WHY? AT ZOOBIZARRE ON
FRIDAY, SEPT. 19, 10 P.M., $8