Justin Jay

DEEP HOUSE.

A few months ago I walked into a Pete Tong DJ set in San Francisco’s SOMA district. The foundation thumped with base. Synesthesia-triggering visuals danced on the wall. We moved to the top level to watch the crowd move – arms waving like an amoeba, tentacles propelling bodies.

DEEP HOUSE! The crowd screamed.

The beat wove in and out, speeding up and slowing down. But soon our knees began to ache. We bent forward and back to keep up with the plodding rhythm. The DJ’s swapped out their mixing boards, equalizers. A new table. But we’d missed the axis road and were left behind, forced to try and catch up with a runaway train.

Maybe this is deep house at its worse. Overdone and burnt. Lots of sound, but little music.

Then there’s Justin Jay. A recent graduate from USC and producer of deep, planetary house.

For Justin Jay it feels like the DEEP is an after thought. He’s not propelling the masses. There’s no manic drug component here. Don’t freak out about keeping up. Two minutes in and you’ll be in the slow current, grooving to the alien environment he creates with synthesizers and glammy guitar riffs.

This is good deep house.

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Adventure of the Weeks, Chayed Out, Jamboys

Sweet Alchemy

I bought a girl a rose this weekend. It was on impulse, a last-minute apology, a chance to stick out from the other glassy eyed guys offering her shots. It was also her birthday.

I gave her the rose, any edge of embarrassment blunted by the requisite surge of shots I slugged before the Uber. She inhaled, smiled, thanked. We talked, she laughed, I drank.

The night sped and the bar surged around us. Around her. But she remained motionless, rose gripped in one hand, clutch in the other. Friends and strangers extended dancing hands and clouded drinks, but she reproached all comers.

Behind pretty eyes, hesitation scintillated. The ugly trio of self-pessimism: doubt, fear and loathing guarded her every movement. Those bastards seep through even the heaviest masks of makeup.

Thirty minutes later she was gone. What she’s looking for I do not know, but it won’t be wrought from the sweet alchemy of another night, another bar, another round. This, at least, we have in common.

As my roommate and I made to leave, I saw the rose, slightly battered and entirely forgotten on the sticky bar top. I took it with me and gave it to the Mexican girl working the midnight shift at the burger joint down the road. She tucked it behind her ear.

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