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Bye Bye Junior >> Danny Tenaglia replaces Junior Vasquez as the king of all New York DJs, and the city sounds much better for it by MIREILLE SILCOTT
All this bother, of course, caught the fancy of a few in the dance music press, notably the British wing, who subsequently began cackling that New York, the world's nightclub epicentre, "was dying." "I've been playing for 4,000 people at the Tunnel 'til 11 a.m. every Saturday," says Danny Tenaglia, the squat, thirty-something Brooklyn native who is now unquestionably the most lauded resident house DJ in New York. "Before I even start, the place is turning away hundreds of people! If the British press want to speak from 3,000 miles away about whatever they think is going on in New York..." Tenaglia reached high critical acclaim in '94 with the release of his splendid fierce-beat album Hard and Soul, which sharpened the label's signature style and made it particularly inescapable in nightclubs internationally. This was when New York's nightlife was on its highest high in ages, due in colossal part to Junior Vasquez's DJing at the famed Sound Factory afterhours. But when Factory was forced to shut down in '95 and the space was renamed Twilo, Tenaglia became the Saturday resident. Junior had to settle for the lesser Tunnel (where Tenaglia is now, to great success), and the transition was noisy. Junior quite literally freaked out. He began threatening Tenaglia by telephone, barring him from nightclubs, trashing him all over the papers, saying he had no right to play "the Sound Factory space." "It's ironic," says Tenaglia, smiling and good spirited. "I moved to Tunnel this September, now Junior's at Twilo. He's calling the night Juniorverse." Juniorverse? "I know, it's retarded. Anyway, it's not doing as well as he'd like. It's like, bad karma. He's became so concerned with what's going on down the block that he can't even focus anymore." Even though Tenaglia's courtesy won't let him admit it, he has directly benefited from Junior's rather public self-destruction--there's only room for one "best resident" in any city, even New York. "Yeah, yeah," says Tenaglia, "I'm the CHOSEN ONE! Ha, ha. Really, I just spend my whole week preparing, shopping for records. I'm known to go [to shops] all over town, which I think makes me kind of different." It certainly makes him different from Junior, who'll proudly tell anyone he "hasn't shopped for records in YEARS." Tenaglia, now perfecting his next LP (for Twisted, Tribal's newer incarnation), was called in to produce three tracks for the Pet Shop Boys' Bilingual album last year. Bono recently sent him champagne ("and a six pack of Guinness!") after hearing him spin. But you'd never know all this star stuff from speaking to Tenaglia. So, after the boastful haranguing of Junior's reign, that's really kinda neat. It's a kinder, gentler, and in the end, better sounding New York maestro. Now what's so "dead" about that? Danny Tenaglia spins at the Black & Blue party at Palais de Congrès Sunday, October 12. 11pm-noon, $35 at the door. Info: 875-7026
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Few things rattle the chain of any club circuit like a good bit of drama. New York has had its fair share this past year, with club-kid murders, club-lord drug rings and Mayor Giuliani's positively Victorian "quality of life" crusade, which campaigned against clubs.