Indie 5000 was a legendary, weekly, hip-hop party founded in 1997 by myself, Sean Richey of Vinyl Dogs Records, DJ Max Glazer, Stephen “ESPO” Powers, and “On The Go” Ari Forman.
The party lasted for about three years and was named “Best Party In New York” by New York Magazine (I think that was in ‘98 or ‘99). Indie 5000 started at a small bar called Velvet (on Avenue A) but went on to be held at Nowbar, Joe’s Pub, 205 Club, and, finally, Spa.
The basic gist of the party was that at a time in hip-hop where everyone was questioning everyone’s “realness”, we wanted to have a party where you could hear Jay-Z and J-Live in the same mix. Our intent was to turn the backpacker kids on to having some fun while showing the usual party people that there were, in fact, a few other records out that weren’t recorded by Puffy. This formula turned out to be wildly successful and, each week, the party attracted a super-eclectic mix of music nerds, skaters, models, celebrities, recording artists, dirtbags, and everyone in between. In the process, we managed to turn some hood cats onto some lesser known artists, while teaching the backpacker kids not to be afraid of socializing (and dancing!) with actual, living females.
On a weekly basis, me, DJ Sean One , or DJ Force would warm up the crowd until it was time for the then-up-and-coming Max Glazer to come on and proceed to rip shit, dipshit.
Besides our in-house team, each week we would feature guest djs who included everybody from talented, unheard of, bedroom djs to some of the world’s most celebrated and legendary turntablists.
Eventually, Levi’s sponsored our party (Thanks Joe Townsend and Sheri Timmons!) and they even sponsored a number of Indie 5000 tours. Besides the Indie 5000 tours, they hired the Indie 5000 crew to book djs to play the pre-show action for a 35 city tour headlined by Sugar Ray and The Goo Goo Dolls. WTF!!!
Anyway, we are awesome and we had mad fun.
Big Up To All The DJs And Artists Who Played At Indie 5000
(Please let me know if I’m forgetting anyone)
A.Vee
Big Daddy Kane
Bobby Riviera
Camilo
Chairman Mao
Chubb Rock
Cipha Sounds
Citizen Kane
Defari
Diamond D
Dilated Peoples
Dummy
Eclipse
EV
Force
Grand Wizard Theodore
Grandmaster Flash
Horror City
Johnny Walker Red
K.O.
Kid Capri
Kool DJ Red Alert
Loot Pack
Lord Finesse
Lord Sear
Maceo of De La Soul
Madsol Desar
Masta Ace
Minista
Missin Linx
Mister Cee
Mr. Len
Nex Millen
Non Phixion
Peanutbutter Wolf
Percee P
PF Cuttin
Premier
Prince B (PM Dawn)
Prince Paul
RobSki
Sadat X
Scrappy
Sean Richey AKA DJ Sean One
Set Free
Soul
Special Ed
Spin One
Spinbad
Spinna
Stetsasonic
The Juggaknots
Toshi
Truth Enola
Xzibit
Yooter
5 responses so far ↓
Matt is a bum // October 24, 2008 at 9:42 pm |
for leaving Soul off of the list.
Matt Goias // October 25, 2008 at 5:05 am |
Yo, no lie, swear to God, you were the first name I put but I fucked up somehow during editing when I went to alphabetize. But on the really really real though Mister O’Mally…why the fuck you biting with the sneaker shit??? That’s fow-ull. You know I own sneakersaregay.com, you even wrote about it on your blog. There’s a sign at the door…
DJ Force // November 3, 2008 at 7:48 pm |
thanks 4 da trip down memory lane. good people, good times…
Matt Goias // November 3, 2008 at 8:06 pm |
Hey… What up Vijay!
Big Daddy Thing « Business Class // January 17, 2009 at 2:00 pm |
[...] been digging way deep into my personal stash of video footage from my Indie5000 days and uploading it all to [...]