Who is Spesh and what is Qool? If you have to ask, you probably think that the only nights to party in San Francisco are Friday and Saturday. For the last 11 years, every Wednesday night at 111 Minna Gallery downtown, Spesh and his team from Looq records have played host to a happy hour party like no other, Qool. Spesh sat down with MetroWize for an interview about Qool, Djing, musical influences and life. Read the interview below.
MW: Thanks for joining us Spesh. Your real name is Stephen, so where does the name Spesh come from?
Spesh: It's a short version of a nickname that's based on my real name. Check it out:
Stephen Kay (real name)
Special K (nickname)
Spesh
Voila!
MW: How long have you been involved with music? What got you started?
Spesh: I have loved music all my life and really got into in the 70s when punk rock came to the suburbs. I would seek out the music any way I could get it. I taped radio shows, begged my folks to take me to record shops in the city, and traded vinyl with friends. I discovered dance music in the 80s, and learned to DJ then, so I guess you could say I've been at it or a long time!
MW: What were/are your biggest musical influences?
Spesh: I think I take a bit of something from everything I am exposed too so it's hard to be specific, but I'll try to give you a few. New Order, Roxy Music, John Digweed, Buzzcocks, Danny Howells & Doc Martin.
MW: When started doing Qool, Minna was just an art gallery that let you bring records in and play music for the patrons at the gallery. What were those first Qool sessions like?
Spesh: Sketchy! In the beginning, the gallery didn't really have a sound. But fortunately they had weekend rave parties in the space and there was always some leftover gear laying around on Wednesday that hadn't been picked up yet. Each week I just sort of pieced together a system and hoped it sounded OK. The bar was just a few kegs of beer on tap and a cash box. But that was enough for my friends and I to have a great time. We really thought we were getting away with something listening to all that great music after work in that wonderful hidden space in the middle of downtown.
MW: When did you know you were on to something big with Qool?
Spesh: When people began forging Qoöl Qards which were vip cards that allowed people to skip the line and go straight in. Back in the dot com days, we had lines around the block as early as 6pm, and those cards became like gold to people. We even found them for sale on Craig's List for upwards of $300. We had to switch to a paperless system after that!
MW: You have a great relationship with your crowd (AKA Qoolios). What do you think separates Qool from other parties that go on in SF? How do you keep the vibe friendly and laid back?
Spesh: We say, "Qoöl Is You", because it really is. People discover it, and claim it as their own. So really all we do is take care of this natural phenomenon! But I do think there are some things that we do that help, like recognize that these people who are coming to Qoöl every week are not just clubbers, they are interesting people in their own right. We encourage people to come as they are, and even profile some of our regular customers on the website. The website also allows us to expand on some of Qoöl unique culture, and of course make fun of ourselves, other clubs, DJs and anyone taking themselves too seriously.
MW: Can you tell us a bit about Looq records. What makes a Looq track?
Spesh: Loöq is a label that Jondi & I started in 1998. It was born from a love of music and that is primarily where it has stayed. Fresh sounds with a strangely broad appeal are what drive Loöq Records. We've had over 50 releases, and our artists come from all corners of the globe. Besides being great to dance to, a Loöq track has to push the limits of the genre a bit. And we've even had a bit of success beyond the world of electronic music, with some of our tracks being featured in various episodes of CSI, and in a very popular video game called "Dance Dance Revolution". We really enjoy those moments when we are able to take a young dance music producer's music and get it exposed to millions of people on national television.
MW: Over the years, how many guest dj’s do you think you have had on the decks at Qool?
Spesh: Oh, that's a calculator question...
11 years of Qoöl, 35 weeks a year, an average of 3 guest per week... that would be about 1,155 guest djs, give or take 100. Rather astounding, don't you think?
MW: Definitely! Do you have a favorite?
Spesh: I really can't say. There are so many different DJs with so many different and unique styles. Its just fun to be around all that talent.
MW: Take Qool out of the equation for a second, who is your favorite DJ?
Spesh: Danny Howells.
MW: Favorite band?
Spesh: Band? Hang on, let me look at my iTunes for a second.... Kraftwerk!
MW: How long will you keep doing Qool?
Spesh: We'll do it until the day people decide that they now longer want to have fun once a week after work.
You can catch Spesh this Wednesday @ Qool for a 5 hour Spesh-A-Thon.
Qool happens from 5-10pm every Wednesday at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. This is no regular happy hour, this is Qool.
To see footage from MetroWize from a recent Qool, Click Here
photos courtesy of John Kane. www.johnkane.com
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Monday, January 29, 2007
Qool San Francisco w/ Spesh
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Anon Salon New Years Eve (Video)
This year for New Years, MetroWize went big with Anon Salon. Sea of Dreams 2006 featured some of the biggest names in the music and dance scene and was the place that nearly 10,000 people celebrated the coming of 2007. The 2 day event was huge and the parties were off the hook. We have a video to prove it... See it now!
New Years Eve with Anon Salon featured String Cheese Incident, ALO, Lotus, Mark Farina, Bassnectar and many more...
Put this video on your website, myspace or blog! Just click the Get Code Icon to get the html. Need to know more? Check out our article on how to take MetroWize videos with you wherever you want.
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Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Add MetroWize to your Toolbar!
Hey MetroWize people. Brian here. Wanted to let you know about a few cool ways you can stay in the loop with MW happenings. We've got a bunch of new feeds you may want to add to your MyYahoo page, RSS Reader, or IPod.
For starters, you can add us straight to your Google Toolbar. Just click on the little button in the lower right corner. A pop-up will tell you that MW will be added in your toolbar. You'll see the icon near your search. Pretty cool. You can do the same thing with FireFox by hitting the RSS symbol in the address bar when you're on this site.
Next is our Pod Cast Feed. That's right, you can subscribe to our podcast and when you sync up your IPod, you'll get our newest videos and music uploaded to your IPod. Of course, it's free, so check it out if you're into PodCasting.
Then we've got the RSS Feed. For the 96% of you that don't use RSS feeds (I just read that in some magazine), I'll explain. If you have a Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Earthlink, etc. account, you can customize your home page so relevant articles pop up when they're posted, no matter which site they come from. As long as the site you want articles from has an RSS symbol (look under the subscribe label on the right) then you can feed that site into your site. Try clicking on those buttons, they'll do the rest.
So, wherever you are on the geek ladder, we hope you'll join in and hook up to MW, or at least get our weekly newsletter. I'm making it my personal mission to hit every bar, club, concert, street fair, brothel, warehouse party and festival in the next year, you won't want to miss any of it.
Brian
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Wednesday, January 3, 2007
New Years Eve Bites (Article)
Happy new year everyone. I’m sure we all have many ridiculous stories to share and while I have you sitting around the MetroWize campfire, I’ll take this opportunity to share with you mine. It’s about me and the 18 year old crazed girl who bit me. It’s a classic boy meets girl, boy gets too close, boy gets bit, boy punches girl type story. Read on…
This year for New Years, I went up to Tahoe with my girlfriend for all of the festivities. For those that haven’t been there for New Years, South Lake is one of the strangest places anywhere to celebrate this particular night. I’ll set the stage… It’s about 15 degrees out and thousands of people come from miles around (most on foot) to go stand in a giant cluster of people in the middle of the street between the casinos. South Lake is split in half by the California/Nevada border and on the California side the police are in riot gear and have check points set up everywhere confiscating any alcohol they find. If you manage to make it to a particular intersection without getting caught however, you make it into Nevada where they lose their jurisdiction and any power to stop you from apparently doing what ever you want. It’s like a giant game of tag with police in riot gear. Literally hundreds of people would get together and make a dash for it to get to the Nevada state line. Some would perish and have to forfeit their booty but it was for the good of the group… Think of a pack of gazelle’s being hunted by a cheetah, but the cheetah is wearing riot gear and the gazelle’s are trashed.
So anyways, we make it to the State line, narrowly avoiding the cops and sneaking in our backpacks full of booze. We nestle our way into the sea of people and stake out our circle of trust (you’ve seen those candles with the people holding hands in a circle right?) that under no circumstances is to be broken. New Years hits and the mob goes insane… The crowd starts shifting and swaying and our precious circle is broken. This is when all hell breaks lose. As I am holding on to my girlfriend to protect her from this madness, I am getting tossed around in the sea of people. Apparently, and I say this because it was very unintentional, I invaded some girl’s personal comfort envelope with my arm… This happened to be close to her mouth and her razor sharp teeth. She did what any drunken 18 year old girl in a mob of New Year’s Eve revelers would do in her situation and opened wide then chomped down on my arm with all her might. I know it was all her might because this was a very little girl who managed to grind her teeth into my skin through my ski jacket, fleece and sweatshirt. Needless to say, this caught me by surprise and it hurt like a son of a bitch and my knee jerk reaction was to swat at whatever was causing this horrible pain. My big black mitten hit her square on the face as I wheeled around yelling some sort of string of swear words like Ralphy in the Christmas Story. 
Now I see this vicious animal and she has this exorcist style possessed look on her face. I think she might have had rabies because she was foaming at the mouth (that might have been Champaign though)? She screams at me to “Back the F’ off” and makes another lunge at me with those jaws of death of hers. I felt like a kid who thought it would be fun to throw rocks at the bee hive but then realized that when bees get mad, they come at you and sting you. I did what any boy in that situation would do… Got the hell out of there. I’ll be honest, she scared the crap out of me. The rest of the night was spent nursing my wounds and listening to my intoxicated girlfriend tell me how she would have kicked that girls ass and how I was a wuss… happy New Year indeed.
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Monday, January 1, 2007
Contributor Profile: Erik
Erik Lillquist (Aka Erik Rumors)
MetroWize Co-Founder Erik "Rumors" Lillquist has been at the nightlife and clubbing game long enough to call it a lifestyle. If it's got a 4/4 beat and some bass to it, Erik is on it. Progressive house, techno, psytrance, breaks, house (the good house) and anything else electronica is Erik's world.
"I love to go out and catch a local dj who can throw down as much as the big dogs when they come to town. Good music comes from the heart and popular or not, a good dj is someone who knows that." He's MetroWize's resident electronica expert so if he says "it's on", bet on it.
Erik also happens to be the man behind many of the MetroWize video productions. The video-cofounder-electronica-guy... That's Erik.