They’re Bringing the Club to the Internet: Nothing Radio

Nothing Radio is documenting New York City through their CRT-tinted eyes. Davyn sits down with resident DJs The Analysts (Jake), Something Fun (Tomas), and creative director Carter to talk about basement clubs, BRAT, and DJ saturation.

Q: The Analysts began playing shows in Italy before launching Get a Room in New York. The first iteration kicked off at The End in Brooklyn and marked the first collaboration between The Analysts and Something Fun. How did that come about?

Jake: I mean, I've known these guys for a long time. Me and Tomas have known each other since, like, we were like, 12. I met Carter freshman year of college. We had started and had done a lot of small just sets in our apartments for fun, and played parties. And then I started doing shows while I was in Italy for a little while. And when we got back, I shot the first episode of The Chlorine Bible, which is the show that's accompanying the album that we're working on. So The End is where we shot a lot of the crowd scenes and the concert scenes for the pilot. And so we went to do a show there for the first one, put it together, and then we were all kind of like, this is fun. We should keep doing this.

Tomas: Formally known as for Irving, formerly known as Heaven or Las Vegas, went through multiple iterations.

Your DJ name went through multiple iterations, or, like the actual party name?

Tomas: The venue! The venue used to be Heaven or Las Vegas, like two or three years ago, and like, a lot was going on. And then they went through like, a bunch of iterations.

You think they’ll change the name again?

Tomas: They had it as The End for like six months, and then we shot there, and then immediately after we filmed there, they built an entire new room in the place, and just like, changed the name again.

I don't know how that works for a business model, changing up 24/7. What was that first Get a Room like? having that first show there?

Tomas: It sucked. I can name everyone, but like four people. It was small. our friend group of like, maybe 15 people pulled up. It was also our last week of school. So I left finals early, because I was like, “Yo, I got a show,” expecting it to be huge. There's it was, a Thursday night in Brooklyn at this semi-new venue, and there's nobody there.

Carter: But it was sweet to like them play on stage. I mean, the stage is really cool, and it was cool to just see them up there. We had some good friends play too. Just kind of cool to see the idea come to fruition and shred through some tracks.

Jake: It was educating, for sure. We learned a lot.

Do you guys see yourself ever playing a show in Los Angeles? Or think are you gonna stay in like New York for now?

Tomas: Would love to. I mean, this bro is from California. Points to Carter

Oh! What part?

Carter: I’m from Orange County! Fullerton.

Oh nice! I got into Fullerton and then I was like, That's too close to home. So I was like, a little bit closer to Los Angeles, and I'm good. I got into Cal State LA too. But I was like, their system is weird. So Cal State Long Beach it was.

Carter: Cal State Long Beach’s cool. You guys got that cool pyramid?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just happy to be almost done. So senioritis is hitting like a brick.

Tomas: But yeah, we’d love to (perform in LA). We've talked about it for ages, because obviously yes connects, and we know people out there, so it'd be, it'd be really cool to see it happen, happen one day, broaden horizons.

If you ever want to do an Afterparti gig, let me know. That would be sick.

Carter: Definitely need to make it out west for Afterparti.

Jake: Yeah.

Q: What do you think is the most toxic aspect of the scene? (You can be brutal it’s cool)

Jake: I don’t like lines. That’s my biggest thing. I hate waiting in line.

Tomas: Honestly, swagless specimens. There is zero swag. Okay, there's so many people in this scene with no swag. They're LARPing as people who could be cool.

Yes! Agreed! Thank you! I feel like you have to be bullied in order to be cool in your adulthood. In my personal opinion.

Jake: I definitely agree.

I was bullied when I was a kid.

Jake: Same! Anyone who wasn’t bullied is an asshole now.

Like you can tell with that whole LARPing shit.

Jake: Is that controversial?

No! I say that shit all the time. I'm like, if y'all grew up like, conventionally pretty, had no ops, like, no problems whatsoever. Your parents are still together. Then there's something like, you're still, like, okay, in the head.

C, J, T: Laughs

Tomas: To answer your question, probably swagless specimens, yeah, big issue. But you know, shouts out all the swagless specimens. Still a spot for them in the scene.

C,J: Yeah.

Tomas: And people that come to events, and they're like, Oh, I know blah blah because of blah blah. And it's like, okay, yeah, so you actually are just spewing hot air. You actually know no one.

It's like, I know the PA. Can you let me in?

Tomas: Hey, shout out the sound guys, shout out the sound guys.

Jake: Tip the sound guys.

If I had to tip any sound guy it, I don't have many I would tip, but because I gone to tiny shows. So it's like liter college students doing this shit for free.

Carter: I don't know if that's a tip or a bribe to make them make it sound good.

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Q: What is Home Sweet Home like? How do you guys like it compared to first DJing at The End?

Tomas: Home Sweet’s, epic. I mean, I think it's one of the best laid out bars. That kind of bar just lets a lot of people just kind of talk, mill around and share. There's spaces to dance, there's spaces to just talk. There's a bar space outside that’s always full of people smoking, a lot of exchanging ideas, and I think it's just kind of the perfect melting pot for good music and cool events.

Carter: Booths right by the dance floor. It's really fun. Once the sound is dialed in, it can sound good, yeah–

Tomas: After Jake is done fiddling with it for 40 minutes because only one speaker works, then through some magic, he fiddles and gets all the speakers to work. God send.

Jake: I feel like every Get a Room, we have to get there like 20 minutes earlier, because I get more and more paranoid that all these figures aren't gonna work. But I love it. I love that it's in a basement too, like just walking down the stairs into it. There's a little like picture of a cat.

Carter: Taxidermy. There's a taxidermy.

Tomas: The ​​taxidermy animals are sick.

Oh, I love taxidermy!

Tomas: And disco balls.

That sounds like my vibe. Wait a minute, now I have to go there.

Tomas: Yeah, you have to pull up.

Jake: You have to taste the fog machine.

Taste?

Jake: Yeah, it just floods the space.

All I’m imagining is the taste of wet towel.

Tomas: It’s kind of that, like with a mix of electricity

Wet towel and licking the end of a battery, that’s what I’m getting.

Jake: And it honestly kind of tastes good.

Tomas: Like when SpongeBob in that one episode where he cuts like the fog and then it puts it down to clear the path.

Nice, nice. I’m picturing it in my head.

Tomas: Just to, like, ‘round that whole amalgamation of fuckery off. It's a great venue. It's definitely different from what a lot of people use in terms of small venues, because in a lot of small venues you can have a table that allows people to, you know, leverage promoters. They can be like, “We’ll give you a table.” But for us, it's different, because it's a dive bar with a dance floor. So in terms of promoters, we can't offer them a table, we have to offer them something else. So we're working with something very different than a club space, but it's like a New York institution. It's been here for, I think, over 20 years. It's LES basement space, it’s like dive to the core. It's just like a super cool space, great bar that we liked even before playing there. Super happy to have it as a space.

I feel like dive bars are the best for a night out, because clubs are kind of boring now. My friend was coming in from Arizona at the time and I took her to a club in DTLA called The Reserve. We were too drunk to notice at first, but later into the night we noticed that they were playing the same, like 10 tracks every 30 minutes. And I was like, didn't we hear this already?

Tomas: That’s fresh.

Jake: A 10 track loop, I might have to set that.

Q: Going to the 10 track thing, what party tracks do you think are overplayed whenever, like, you go into a club or a party, like, do you think it's bad to be cliche as a DJ, like having that one go to track or –

Tomas: BRAT. Fucking BRAT. Play BRAT.

Jake: I’m tired of people asking for BRAT because we're gonna play something from BRAT, I feel like everyone should just assume that it's gonna get played now. I still like the album.

Tomas: Great album.

Great album. 10 out of 10.

Tomas: No hate. No hate.

It’s just gotten to a point where it’s overplayed. I work as the college DJ here, and there's a high possibility that Charli XCX, Abba, or somebody random will get requested.

Jake: I would be stoked if someone came up and asked for Abba. I would be so happy. I wouldn’t play it, but I would be really happy. I was at this club a few weeks ago and this DJ played, like, a seven minute remix of a song from BRAT going back and forth. That was sick. But, I'm trying to think about actually overplayed songs in the club. I don't think we have a solid answer on that, but it's just the amount of “play BRAT” that we hear and that we see given to people. Oh my God.

I feel like it's definitely subjective, depending on the scene that you're in.

Tomas: Not to sound pretentious in anyway, but we’re not going to like promoter clubs where it's like, you obviously hear the same fucking like Drake and Rihanna song all the time. But either way, we love Charli XCX. Big Ups. Big ups.

Q: As the DJ, you guys are practically like the party curators. You have to keep the vibe going, keep people on the dance floor. Disregarding aspects like money, fame, notoriety. What do you think it takes to be a successful DJ from a social standpoint?

Tomas: Cloud chasing and social climbing.

Jake: Famous parents.

Tomas: The DJ market is so saturated.

Everybody’s a DJ!

Tomas: Yeah, we're spending the other week at this place called Paul's and got an actually, genuinely, really good compliment. She came up and she was like, “Your guys' set was amazing! I saw you guys last week. Everybody's trying to be a DJ right now, but like, you guys are actually doing well.” It just takes networking. You can't just be a good DJ. Oh my God, our home sweet sets, half of them are fucking awful, even though, like, we genuinely know what we're doing. But half of our sets are just awful because we're dealing with like 50 other things.

Jake: Social climbing, clout chasing.

I agree, the only way that I was able to, like, get some of the shit that I was able to get is because my mom worked in the music industry. So at that moment, I was telling my mom, thinking,I was taking DJing more seriously. She's like, “Oh! really, I'll call up Sway.” I'm like, Sway? Like, Sway in the Morning Sway?. She's like, “Yeah! I still have his contact.” I'm like, “You're lying.” She's like, “No.” she still hasn't, hasn't given it to me because she forgets but that’s besides the point.

Jake: Sway as in the morning?

Yes laughs. You ain't got the answers Sway.

C, J, T: How Sway!

Tomas: That’s fresh. But people get mad at nepo babies playing their cards.

Honestly, do it! I feel like, in today's day and age, talent is kind of disregarded now. People aren't really paying attention to it. And I see a lot of DJs that are coming up (I'm not gonna say who's who) and a lot of musicians and I'm like, “Oh, y'all are ass.”
I can't even judge though because they’re starting their career on a public stage larger than those who might not have the resources they have. Being a nepo baby is a win-lose situation.

Tomas: Yeah, like you can’t be mad at that. Given the fucking past, make fire with flint and steel, or you can just accept it and move forward.

I’m trying to make friends with Nepo Babies. I wanna be on a boat next summer.

Jake: I want a Hamptons place to go to in the summer.

Carter: All white party for real.

Yeah, No Diddy.

Carter: No Diddy! No Diddy! What’s like–the boat, guy that throws like the crazy one.

Mike Rubin?

Jake: Yeah! DJ the White Party Afters.

Or maybe the ROC Nation party. That’s the next step for Nothing Radio.

Carter: Get A Room x ROC Nation.

Q: What tracks on your flash drive have to be your favorite to play at gigs. And why is it Brat? I'm joking.

Tomas: Only by fucking request.

Jake: Brat is fun. But Indo Silver Club. Daft Punk has always been one of my favorites. So I love playing that. That's, I think that's been at every set recently. I love that song. Quiet, shameless plug.

I’ve been listening to that a lot. It goes off. It goes off.

Jake: Thank you, Shameless, Shameless plug. I Love You Fantomas Nautalis Pompilus.

Tomas: Mouthful right there. Great house track.

Jake: Great house track.

Tomas: I ripped Scary Monsters, Nice Sprites a couple weeks ago.

12-year-old me would appreciate that.

Tomas: Some Skrillex on a sick one for sure.

Carter: Levels?

Tomas: Haven’t got any Levels.

Got any Deadmau5?

Tomas: No Deadmau5 yet, but maybe that’s the next wave.

Any Benny Benassi? Cinema? You gotta put that in there somehow.

Tomas: Anything Skrillex. I'm definitely gonna gatekeep all the shit on my USB, but everybody knows, Bon Bon by Fcukers. Shout out. I ripped it out on every set too. So yeah.

Carter: Gatekeeping everything on my USB. Posts mix on Youtube.

Tomas: (The mix) is on Youtube if you wanna go watch it.

Jake: Yeah, you can go watch that.

Have your phone open on Shazam.

C, J, T: Laughs

I shamelessly do that, every single DJ gig I go to, I'll open up Shazam. And I was like, I'll be the person holding up my phone.

Tomas: And when it can’t read anything, I go visceral.

Jake: Signs of a good DJ though: can’t Shazam their shit.

No, some of that shit pisses me off, especially listening to older mixes. I've been listening to a lot of older Disco D mixes and some of the tracks I can't find because they're only available on vinyl.

Jake: Vinyl DJs piss me off. They're fucking great. They pissed me off, though.
They’re amazing.

Jake: We saw DJT 1000 at Public Records, and he played all vinyl. It was one of the best sets I've ever been to. But I put Shazam on because I knew he was going to play some crazy shit. And I had it on in my pocket the whole night, and I got two tracks.
I feel like having the ability to gatekeep songs that nobody else can play has to be the best feeling.

Jake: Pretty unbeatable in this day and age.

It is! Unless you're deep down into some shit. Like, I made the joke a long time ago that I've been searching for music on MySpace, because Spotify isn't doing it for me anymore. I’ve found some cool shit.

Carter: Internet archive.

Tomas: Like harder drugs.

Q: What have you guys been listening to lately?

Tomas: Best new drop this year has to be Addison Rae’s Diet Pepsi. I don’t think anyone has done it like that in a while, so that’s gonna be my one and only answer for this.

Jake: Oasis.

Did you get the tickets?

Jake: Fuck no I didn’t get the tickets. I was really excited listening to them before I tried getting tickets and then I couldn’t get them. And then, I called my dad–I called him when Oasis got back together, I didn’t call him when I got a dog. I’m still gonna get Glastonbury tickets. It’s easy to get Glastonbury tickets and a flight then tickets here.

I had the same thought for the last Beyonce concert. I was fine with being in debt, but I didn’t go. Looked fun though. How about you Carter?

Carter: There’s that one Boys Noize and Rico Nasty track I can’t stop listening to. Arintintin. It’s been stuck in my head for the past three weeks.

Before you guys came on, I was humming that Bee Gee’s song Tragedy that was in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Tomas: Good movie, great movie.

Great movie, never seen it.

Carter: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the second one.

Tomas: Oh, I’ve only the first one.

Jake: If I see one more ad for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, I’m gonna fucking kill myself. The marketing for that movie has been shoved up my ass.

Tomas: Oh yeah, going back to the DJ question–marketing.

Jake: Let me see your Facebook Ad Specs.

That was me with the new Top Gun. Me and my friend were seeing ads for it everywhere and I was tired of seeing this short scientologist on my screen.

Jake: He’s got that propaganda money. The US government marketing team.

Worshiping Cathulu or some shit I don’t know. I don’t even know what scientology is about.

Carter: It’s the reptilians!

Q: I found you guys through social media–I came across one of your mixes over the summer and became obsessed. Being someone who throws my own events, I absolutely loved seeing what you’re doing with Get a Room and Nothing Radio. I feel like Nothing Radio calls back to a time of the early internet, specifically the blog era. Was that done on purpose?

Jake: Take it away, Boss.

Carter: This all started because these guys are really good at playing music and I suck at it. But I love making websites. Coming out of a place of archiving, I love to write stuff, I love to edit videos and Jake’s wicked at video editing so it’s just like how do we showcase this talent, document it, and create something to look back on. I’ve had a tumblr since I was a high school and I’ve always been obsessed with it. I was like, how do I make this next level? Because I feel like tumblr is gonna get shut down every two days. I look back and check to see if I can still log into my account. And my computer has no space to download the 45 pages of tumblr.

Jake: We started throwing house parties and it was like, “Oh my God, we’re gonna get a noise complaint and someone’s gonna get kicked out of Tomas’s apartment.” So maybe we should find a place where we can be really loud. And we need to do that by finding like-minded people, plan it out, and, you know, grow from there. Finding other cool DJs and cool shows we can write about and take pictures of. That’s how we expand the reach of cool people we know.

When I saw that you guys had AliRQ DJ at Get a Room I was like “OMG”

C, J, T: Shout out Ali.

She’s awesome. But Tumblr is definitely gonna get shut down.

Carter: Yeah, literally I was like I had to get away from it. It’s on its last leg.

Q: What do you see Get a Room and Nothing Radio becoming? Will it reach a formidable end? Or do you see it becoming a legendary staple within the New York music scene?

Tomas: Sell out as hard as possible. As hard as humanly possible. Perform at MSG.
Jake: Preform at SNL.

Tomas: I don’t know if you guys have this on the West Coast, but as soon as you move to New York you somehow get put on this number list where you get texts every weekend. The DL, Harbor, Lil Baby will be there! Iggy Azalea will be there with a table! And it gets blasted to everybody, especially every freshman who moves here. I think accruing that level of fame. Who knows, we might shut down Get a Room next week. Fuck it.

Carter: Yeah, we have a show tomorrow and that’ll be it.

Tomas: Oh shit, we have Halloween too.

Carter: Yeah, Halloween.

Jake: Halloween. Last one!

Tomas: I don’t know, we don’t have clout. Give us money. Yadda yadda yadda.

Honestly, just lie and see if people believe it. For our last party we had a poster that said Gyspy Rose would be there with her new born baby.

C, J, T: Shout out Gypsy Rose.

Carter: One of the posters we said that Matty Healy was gonna be there. He was not indeed there. But he could’ve.

Q: What has been your most favorite release recently?

Jake: That new Justice!

Tomas: This is gonna sound insufferable, but that new 2Hollis album is fucking good.

That album is good!

Carter: Not as good as the new Justice.

I’ll keep my thoughts to myself for that one.

Jake: Did you see them live is the question?

I didn’t! I’m broke!

Carter: They’re gonna be at the Hollywood Bowl!

Jake: Tickets are probably like 30 bucks.

Carter: You could get those shits for like, 30 bones.

If I can, I will. (I didn’t) My brother showed me the D.A.N.C.E video when I was playing ToonTown and I was, like, 5-years-old. That’s how I found out about Justice. But this new album for me is eh.

Tomas: ToonTown to D.A.N.C.E. is crazy.

Carter: Yeah, but that new Travis Scott is pretty great.