Hippie Torrales was one of the pioneer DJs from New Jersey. Inspired by early forays into New York to see DJs like Richie Kaczor, Hippie began his career in Newark and was the founding resident at the now legendary Zanzibar club. Torrales made a seamless transition from disco to house and was behind the dancefloor classic 'You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone' by Turntable Orchestra.

I wanted to speak to you about the Zanzibar because I know you were a resident there.
I was the first resident.

OK. How did you start DJing?
In grammar school I used to work the turntables for our school auditorium, microphones and all that. This was in Public School No. 5 in Jersey City. I used to do all the audio stuff. The first time I got exposed to DJing and disco music was a friend of mine had a basement in Jersey City. The first time I ever went to a club was El Central in Jersey City and the DJ there was called Angel and that was the first time I heard continuous music. It wasn’t mixed, but it was continuous.

When was that?
I believe it was 1972. So after I heard that I was curious as to what other clubs did this, so I started going to some others. I went to Hollywood in New York City.

Isn’t that where Richie Kaczor played originally?
Correct. I saw Richie Kaczor play there.

What was it like?
The first time I heard him, I was flabbergasted. He wasn’t really a mixer; he was what I used to call a banger, which is basically slip-cueing. But he was great at it. The thing about it was I went up to him in the booth and he taught me my first lesson (even though I was already DJing, because by 1973 my partner and I were doing gigs). But what I’d learned from Jersey City was to let the record die out and then bring the other one in. That was it. But when I heard Richie play I was like, ‘How can this guy play like this?’ because as soon as one was going, he’d be – BANG – right in there with there next. He taught me how to cue. It took me six months practicing every day. So that exposed me to that style and until about 1975 that was what I did.

And what were the gigs you were doing, mobile gigs?
Exactly. But we had gigs but they weren’t clubs, we used to do Branch Brook Roller Rink [in Branch Brook Park], but it wasn’t actually a steady club. In 1975, I met two people Joey C (AKA Cogero) and his partner (I forgot his name) they used to play in a club called Brothers 3. I was in the Jersey Pool by then and we used to have meetings there. One time we had a meeting and these guys were into the long mix. They’d take those old records and they’d leave them in for like two minutes, so that exposed me to a whole different style. They’d be riding these records forever. So I went back to school and practiced that.

So were you still going to clubs in New York, as well?
Yeah, in fact all of the clubs I was going to were in New York. I went to Hollywood, I went to Omega which was the Black & Red and later became the Starship.

Was that the one called Starship Discovery?
Exactly, but before that it was called the Omega.

Wasn’t that the one that burned down in a fire?
Yeah, but it was called Omega when I went and then the Black & Red. I was going to the Limelight, the original Limelight. It was on 7th and 9th St. It was right round the corner from Gables and the Monster. The only person I heard who started to really mix was Joey Palmentieri. I was going to Crisco’s, too. After learning the long mix, I was trying to work out something that would be my style. We just had the first crossover, so I did what I called crossover mixing, using the highs, the mids and bass, dropping different things during the mix. Then we opened our own club called Docks in Newark in 1976. I moved to Newark in 73…

What sort of music were you playing in Docks?
We went through different transitions, but my style was always soulful and black and Newark’s black. I was also exposed to the Latin side having gone to the New York clubs like The Limelight, which was more percussion oriented.

Do you remember any in particular?
Well, the things I remember are ‘I Got My Mind Made Up’, ‘It Ain’t No Big Thing’, ‘Over And Over’. The classics that people play in the clubs today? That was what we were playing.

You say Latin, so was it stuff like Tito Puente’s ‘Black Brother’?
Well, when I say Latin, I wasn’t in the hardcore stuff, it was things like Barrabas’ ‘Woman’, ‘Rain’ by Titanic, which had a lot of drums in it. I was playing at Docks and when we first started out it was a really bizarre sort of white and Latin crowd, because Newark is black. So the novelty of the club was that it was in downtown area of Newark, so it was almost like the Cotton Club in Harlem. But then we hooked up with Al[bert] Murphy, who was the biggest promoter in Newark for gay and black things, that kind of Garage audience. He was the guy that really started the scene in Newark. He started doing parties at a place called Le Jocks. His DJ was Larry Patterson, you probably heard of him.

I know he played with Tee Scott at Better Days quite a lot.
Yeah, but he was actually from Jersey so he was the DJ at Le Jocks and after me he was the DJ at Zanzibar. He had been around for a while. He had worked at Prelude, he had worked at RFC. So they had that place – Le Jocks – and we continued to do our mobile gigs and we were doing a lot of mobile gigs especially for black audiences. We hooked up with a mobile company called Mark 4 and their crowds were strictly black. We were like a novelty, the Latin guys. I was into soulful music, so they were like, ‘Hey this guy can play’. After he had this club Le Jocks, he left that and me and my partner took it over and ran it for a while. After we left that we opened our own place, Docks, and I was the DJ there. By 1978, The Zanzibar… Actually it wasn’t called the Zanzibar, it was called Abe’s.

Right. Abe’s was the thing in the basement?
It was actually in the downstairs floor, the first floor. It was already established. By the time I got there, it had already been open for about two years.

So when did Abe’s open then?
I would say in about 1976. In ’78 I came in and started DJing. At the time, the house DJ there was Gerald T. In 1979, the owner of the club, Miles Berger, paid a visit to the Paradise Garage. He wanted to make a big club and the person who did the sound for him, Richard Long, also did the sound for the Garage, so he took him down there. He said, ‘Let me take you to this club in the city and see what you think’. And he fell in love with it and wanted to bring it to Jersey. So in 79 he took… they had a ballroom upstairs which used to be used for weddings and stuff like that and he decided to turn it into a club. So he converted into the Zanzibar. It opened up on August 29th, 1979.

That’s a hell of a memory you got there, Hippie!
I know, but I was the opening DJ.

What was it like on the opening night then?
We had thousands of people, television covering it, WNJR doing a live remote for us, we had lions, we had tigers, we had those Le Click dancers, you know those girls with the feathers and glitter? We had magicians.

Where did you get the lions and tigers?
We rented them from agencies. They had them in cages, though! On the opening night, I had Kool & The Gang, I had Tasha Thomas, I had people like that. We had everybody coming to the booth and hanging out.

Do you remember the first record you played?
No, but I remember the big records. ‘Ladies Night’ by Kool & The Gang. I remember Joe Robinson coming to me and saying, ‘Look, we have this record. The first it was played was last week on a radio station in Texas. Nobody else has played it in the New York area. I want you to play it.’ It was ‘Rappers’ Delight’. Those were the kinds of things happening on opening night. It was a really amazing night.

What night did you play?
I played Fridays and Gerald played Saturday for the first three months, then after that I was the resident Fridays and Saturdays.

Did you play different music on different nights?
No, it was the same music on both nights. But when I played there we also used to have great bands. We had Eddie Kendricks live, we had the Whispers live and they weren’t foolin’ around! We used to do them about every two weeks. We also had show acts, like the Weather Girls, Grace Jones. You know, they were tryin’ to compete with the Garage, so they had to have good acts on.

How did you get into production?
A guy at my record pool was friends with Ray Caviano [RFC president] and they used to hang out all the time. So he gave us our first shot, the first one Star City ‘Born To Be Wild’.

Was it any good?
No, it was pretty horrible.

Was it on RFC?
Actually I think it was on Quality.

That was the Canadian offshoot of RFC wasn’t it?
Exactly. Later on we did the Jimmy Ross, ‘Fall Into A Trance’, which really took off for us. But the thing that really took off for me was ‘You Brought The Sunshine’ by the Clark Sisters. That went to number 1 on the radio here in New York and they won a Grammy that year. But that was all remix work, late 70s and early 80s.

Which do you think were the best ones you did?
Well, you see it was different back then. We didn’t really play anything. All we did was take the song and maybe do a re-edit of the drum bit and extend it, things like that. We didn’t really do any work. It wasn’t re-production.

But there were still overdubs and extended rhythm passages?
Yeah, but that was later on with the guys who did the Salsoul records. Walter Gibbons. He used to bring in his own musicians. You listen to anything from the 70s, even the early early 80s; it wasn’t till about 81 that people started adding stuff. But Walter Gibbons was doing it to all the Salsoul stuff. He was bringing his own percussionist, but everybody else was just taking the track and doing re-edits.

Which things do you think still stand up?
Apart from the Clark Sisters, I did something for a small record label, a Nicky Siano thing called ‘Tiger Stripes’ which I thought was good also. Anyhow, I did the Zanzibar for about a year and a half and after me it was Larry Patterson. After I did Zanz it was really weird because people say you know when they think of Zanz you’re playing at the biggest club in Jersey, so you must be making bucko cash. But I wasn’t. I was living in the motel, that was part of my deal. I was making $40 a night!

That’s rubbish!
I know (laughs). But even when I was working at the Limelight in 78 and 79 I used to drag my records on the train because I didn’t have a car. For $40! You talk about dedication, that’s dedication. But that’s what you did. You did it because you loved doin’ what you was doin’. You’d have done it for free. Later on it got better.

How long did you play at Zanz?
Well a year and a half but I was playing at Abe’s before that. 79-81.

Tony wasn’t playing there then?
He didn’t come until 6 months or a year after that.

Do you know where he came from? Was it a rink in Brooklyn?

What happened was, and it helped him a lot, Shep took a liking to him. Shep Pettibone was the mixer at 98.7

Kiss?
Correct. He wanted to retire so he decided to bring in Tony and give him the spot, which helped Tony a lot because it put him on the air.

Was this early 80s?
Very early. It must’ve been about 81, right after I left he was already beginning there. Shep was good friends with Larry Patterson and he turned him on to Tony. Larry was one of those DJs – a really great guy – who’d give anyone a chance.

What was he like?
Larry was a great DJ. Out of all the DJs that played at the Garage, Larry Levan, Tee Scott, Larry was one of the most favourite. He had a great style. One of the most important things he’d teach you was that it wasn’t the mix that made it. I was really into the mix, I used to love the mix, but I was also a good music programmer and a lot of those black jocks were great at this. Larry, Tee, Levan, they were great music programmers. The mixes were pretty bad sometimes. He couldn’t mix himself out of a paper bag. But music-wise, as far as his selection, he was great. I would pick a music programmer over a mixologist any day. Larry was great.

What sort of records worked best then?
You know the one thing that always worked well in clubs was the percussion-y stuff, but in black clubs, you had to be more into soulful stuff. They didn’t anything like what was called then, Sleaze, which was under 100 bpms. The black clubs used to love it.

Can you remember any of these records?
Like I said, ‘It Ain’t No Big Thing’, ‘Let’s Get Together’ by Pam Todd, Sylvester’s ‘I Need Somebody’.

What do you think were the Zanz classics when you were there?
‘Love Sensation’, Martin Circus’ ‘I Got A Treat’, ‘Funk It’ by ???, I got it in my collection, Sylvester ‘Over & Over’, Pam Todd, ‘I Got My Mind Made Up’, ‘Bounce, Rock, Skate Roll’ Vaughan Mason, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ The Jacksons. We had ‘Mesopotamia’ as well.

What was Tony like as a DJ?
The best thing I like about Tony, honestly, is that – besides being a good DJ – he doesn’t care what he plays. He’ll play any record he gets and give it a shot. If he likes it even a little, he’ll give it shot, whereas I’m different. If I don’t like the record, it ain’t goin’ on my turntables. But Tony will give everything a shot. Sometimes he’ll play something that you might not like, but he’ll play it for an audience and they love it and you have to go, ‘Hey this record’s got something’. I think that was his strongest point.

How did Turntable Orchestra come about?
Then in 1988-89 a friend of mine who owned a record shop called Music Village in Newark he approached me and suggested producing a record. I didn’t have anything. I borrowed a keyboard and drum machine. I went home and put down a little bassline and drum tracks, and then I did the lyrics, which is how I wrote ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’. It was the first song I ever wrote.

What label did it come out on originally?
Music Village.

Then Dave Lee licensed it for Republic?
Yeah. There was going to be an album, but they went bust so the album never came out.

What’s it like?
Yeugh, it’s okay. It sounds a little dated. We did a cover of ‘You Should Be Dancin’’ on it!

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Interviewed by Bill Brewster, on the phone to Florida, 26.4.03