Night People
How to Be a DJ in '90s New York City
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- $279.00
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- $279.00
Descripción editorial
New York Times Bestseller
Capturing the music, characters, escapades, and energy of his DJ days, a profound memoir from seven-time Grammy-winning record producer Mark Ronson.
Lady Gaga, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, the Barbie soundtrack—behind some of the biggest musical moments in the past two decades is one man: Mark Ronson. Night People conjures the undeniable magic of the city's bygone nightlife—a time when clubs were diverse, glamorous, and a little lawless, and each night brought a heady mix of music, ambition, danger, delight, and possibility. It's about the beauty of what you can create with just two Technics and a mixer, in a golden era before Giuliani, camera phones, and bottle service upended everything. It's also about a teenager finding his way—stalking DJ Stretch Armstrong and biting his mixes, crate-digging in every corner of New York, grinding gig after gig through a decade of incredible music—and finding a community of people who, in their own strange, cracked ways, lived for the night.
Organized around the venues that defined his experience of the downtown scene, Ronson evokes the specific rush of that decade and those spaces—where fashion folks and rappers on the rise danced alongside club kids and 9-to-5'ers—and invites us into the tribe of creatives and partiers who came alive when the sun went down. A heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Night People is the definitive account of '90s New York nightlife and the making of a musical mastermind.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Grammy-winning producer Ronson debuts with a mesmerizing memoir about his Manhattan DJ roots. As child, Ronson nurtured his love of music by spending time in the home studio of his stepfather, Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones. He developed a love for nightlife as a teenager in New York City, learning quickly that "night meant good times, so long as it was full of loud music and people." Here, Ronson recalls cutting his teeth in various Manhattan clubs before and during college, writing rapturously of (often drug-fueled) gigs and highlighting key connections he made along the way, including with his NYU classmate Ben Velez, who introduced Ronson to a cabal of rare vinyl collectors, and club promoter "Big Frank" Walston, who helped the author brand himself and regaled him with stories of Debbie Harry and other downtown legends. Ronson's account sometimes gets lost in nitty-gritty details of DJing, which will fly over the casual reader's head, and pop fans might wish it touched on his work with Amy Winehouse or Lady Gaga, but the focus on music as a community-building force ultimately proves poignant. This wondrous snapshot of a bygone New York will make readers want to get out on the dance floor. Agents: David Kuhn and Nate Muscato, Aevitas Creative Management.
