036: DENNIS KANE
*NOTE: We filmed this interview for a larger project with Kane, and his old pal Abel Novosky (AN) directed, during takes Abel kept a running commentary going, at Kane’s request we included some of his comments here. Let’s call it the DVD director’s cut commentary!
Dennis Kane is underground.
AN: What’s that Dick Prince joke? “I’m so far underground I get the bends”
As an artist, producer, DJ and writer, Dennis Kane has worked using varied artforms to investigate and pursue a range of ideas and aggregate a unique world view.
What distinguishes his practice is the seriousness and depth of his engagement in each form, at a time when multi-hyphenation has become an almost comic cultural trope, Kane has quietly and consistently continued to produce at a high level on several fronts.
AN: He’s a decent cook.
Kane has had long running residencies, DJ’ed worldwide, released numerous remixes, some legendary DJ mixes, run a few great labels, issued a number of solo and collaborative original compositions, shown drawings and paintings, and published essays and interviews. He has done it all without compromise and always been on an edge, digging deep, ahead and away from the status quo.
AN: Explains why he’s broke!! Two words kiddo - ok four: Bass heavy tech house!!
Dennis Kane: “LATTICE”. Ink on Paper. 31” x 26”
Art, books and music were the escape from the squalor of Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia, where Dennis came of age; it was the inner-city experience of the 1970’s and 80s: violence, racism, drugs, and police corruption.
AN: He tell you the story about the guy whose truck crashed on his block and Lil Den was holding his eye in his hand for him? or how his next-door neighbor did time for seriously beating up a dirty cop? Good stuff.
The cultural ballast to this chaos was great music, encountering Graffiti legend Cornbread at an early age, hanging around Sigma Sound studios, spending a lot of time at the movies, and starting to draw and paint daily. His art and writing skills got him out of his neighborhood and into college and after stops in Italy and Germany he landed in New York for graduate school. Studying with conceptual artist Robert Morris and October magazine founder Rosaline Krauss.
AN: I first met him on a job site doing demolition, must have been comical working in construction then sitting in a colloquium discussing the Frankfurt School as an actual “worker” – hey is there any more whiskey?
Dennis Kane: “DYBBUK”. Pencil and ink on Paper. 31” x 21.5”
A lifetime of digging led to some DJ gigs and playing on the radio with his pal Bobbito at WKCR.
He eventually started working as a buyer at the infamous A1 records, began a long residency at famed nightspot APT, the rest as they say is history.
AN: I went to that gig you played at the soul spot uptown in what 93? 94? You showed up with so many 45’s I thought you were gonna start selling them!
When you hear a set from Dennis, you feel the grittiness, fire, and Philadelphia soulfulness, the eclectic vibrance of what was downtown New York, and a continual search for the vital new percolating on the margins of an increasingly commercialized dance culture.
Dennis’s work has been described as passionate, visceral, sophisticated, subversive, and complex. Just take this mix as an example. These aren’t descriptors easily associated with dance music, but Dennis is one of rare few who, for us, elevates the genre to an art.
AN: Amen.
Dennis was the obvious choice as the lead-off hitter when we chose to rebrand and relaunch the OVER & OVER mix series that he helped inspire. We are honored to share a mix and this brief exchange with one of our most revered artists and pals.
Dennis Kane: “SHRAPNEL”. Graphite on Paper. 36” x 45”.
KANE/BL EXCHANGE: DK! We’re thrilled to have you take the maiden voyage for the relaunch of this series. There was really no other choice. Life’s been crazy for everyone and I know you’ve been through a lot and continue to push through and make amazing art. How are you at the moment?
DK: Perhaps Abel should just do the interview! (laughter) Well I was just reading about Putin and his long ties to the NRA, as well the number of Republican governed states with their pensions invested in Russia, so kind of staggered at his (Putin’s) long game to rot out our democracy, and how the GOP seems entirely copasetic with it. Also kind of sickened at the thought of a body so decimated by shells it can’t be identified. As a kid I saw a pal I hopped trains with lose his arm, it was severed when he fell off the car and got under the wheel, there is a smell from the blood that is syrupy, acrid and vaguely metallic, the smell makes your mouth go dry and triggers your gag reflex.
AN: Someone remind him this is a DJ interview – talk about festivals, releases, luxury co-branding, Ibiza, positivity, whatever, come on! (laughter)
How do you stay motivated?
DK: Luckily that engine keeps running, it started when I was a really young kid, drawing, records, and books, and it hasn’t changed, art is, as Wallace Steven says “the necessary angel” that helps mediate existence, its more complicated as capital has saturated and created simulations of every form. For every Adrian Piper there is a Damian Hirst, for every Andrew Weatherall there is a….
AN: Oh boy here we go.
DK: are you lit?
AN: I’m working on it
Could you tell us a bit about the mix you’ve done for us? I noticed a strong Japanese and Afro current running through it… some rare bits in there for sure, but a progression that can’t be described in any catch-all term or neat language. I absolutely love it. Top level stuff. What was your process for this mix? What is the vibe?
DK: I had re-read The Crying of Lot 49 for the first time since I was a student, what I remember thinking then was “wow this guy is baroquely paranoid” he sees these complex connections – charcoal made from dead soldiers turned into an import business to supply the leisure grill culture of America… now he seems prescient. I was thinking about how does one find a way to maintain a relationship to a culture when it is so codified. DJ’ing was this marginal neighborhood practice, now it is big business, mining the history of dance culture becomes a way to build a career. An advertising firm contacted me recently to discuss doing a fanzine as a way to place their client’s product.
AN: Hell you should have said yes, we could have had some fun with that.
People hire others to make their EP’s and work social media full time. It’s a long way from Ron Hardy creating magic in a warehouse, or David Mancuso going entirely in his own direction to build something from scratch, their motivations were vocational not careerist, so I was thinking about how to nomadically make something away from what I see too much of, I was thinking of how there are just a few blocks between where I live and Chinatown that still hold out some mystery and difference in a quantized city. The notion of a hidden discovery and preserving a secret kind of got me going. There is melancholy, but also a sense hopefully of some grace and refuge.
AN: I noticed there are vocals but really nothing in English….
Do you take a different approach to recorded mixes than playing live? If so, what are the differences? Is it more or less challenging for you?
DK: A recorded mix is more of a thing, an object, playing live becomes some-thing – what is great about playing live is the awareness of time, you get there the room is empty, the space is clean and cool, and then the people begin to arrive, it has to be about the dancers, being attentive to them, building a fire, helping them get somewhere, having faith in sharing the records you love and hopefully presenting them with some elegance and passion so that the people have a great time and it all fuses into some elevating magic.
AN: I’ve been at your nights and not realized I started dancing until I was already doing it, such a great disconnection with myself and joy being in motion with others, no words.
We got into your pieces in BanBanTonTon about NYC during Covid, and following your Instagram for your nighttime photos of the city on your bike rides and skates. How did that start?
DK: I remember reading in late 2019 about possible virus outbreaks and saying to myself – don’t be alarmist (laughs), come early March I get a call that a gig is being cancelled, and then it all happened, the quiet was unbelievable, then someone I knew for 20 years died, science fiction. I started going out on my bike to explore the quiet usually around midnight, it helped me calm down, and the ride wore me out so I could sleep, I still do it.
Dennis Kane: “FROM”. Ink on Paper. 38” x 26”
As someone who works in multiple media, how does all the art connect? Do you see it all feeding off each other or are these each their own distinct spaces for you to communicate?
DK: It just starts with a notion or idea, put this record next to that one, or make these marks on the page, add this color – you certainly have bigger concepts behind what you are doing, but I like how solitary and basic making is, some ideas go to drawing or a painting, some ideas go into a chord or melody, lately I’ve been writing down some ideas for film, Abel and I might try shooting a few.
AN: Kane and Abel hell yeah, nah Abel and Kane.
I don’t have any programmatic overview, just do one thing then the other, my issues are time which as I get older seems so precious, and money, because the less budget you have, the more time you need. If I had more capital I wouldn’t want to have a big house, or car, whatever, I would just use it to get things done, (Ok spoil my son and take pals to dinner as well), but just set things up so I could keep making things day and night. I would be very content with that arrangement.
Thank you for taking the time to do this, Dennis.
Check out Kane’s work here:
Two, zero, two, two,
Sounds like science fiction
The Dream Syndicate, floating, ageing.
Where am I? What am I going to do?
Ground control, Hello? Hello?
Time is stretched
The arc of the past
Systems consuming, language lost
The soul a vagabond,
Traced
I need a coffee.
SMS save my spirit
Dennis Kane: "DREAM”. 41” x 28”.
