The Rub is MOVING in March!

I rarely just cut & paste, but Ayres put it so eloquently I’m going to leave it alone:

“Ten years ago Mikey Palms told us he was opening a bar in Park Slope in an old 99 Cent store with his childhood friend, Matt Roff. As soon as we saw it, we immediately knew we wanted to throw a party there. The Rub started the first summer Southpaw opened, and after an unprecedented run of over a hundred monthly parties, we are sad to report Southpaw is closing.

Simply stated there would be no Rub without Southpaw. Before Fifth Avenue had any sushi restaurants, yoga studios or boutiques, Mikey and Matt took a bet on the neighborhood. They helped us connect with a community of people who wanted to stay in the Slope and party with their friends to quality music. Southpaw was an oasis for Brooklynites who didn’t want to go to Manhattan and spend half a paycheck on bottle service while some asshole played The Strokes off an iPod. And they didn’t just invest in the neighborhood, they invested in three DJs who were dying to find a big room were we could play cool shit for a crowd who loved music as we did.

We were talking about it the other day, and Mikey put it in perspective when he said “remember, when we opened, you could still smoke in bars.” This was just six months after Bloomberg took office – before mash-ups, before 50 Cent, before Serato or MySpace, or all-over print and skinny jeans, before any of us had gone on tour or released a record. If you were there in the beginning you remember Roger, and Uncle Moe, and Marissa, and Bill, and Alex (RIP). You remember when Mark Ronson Djed on Halloween in face paint, when Diplo and Low-Bee played in a blizzard, when DJ Premier dropped in for a surprise DJ set and when Dave Nada tore the room wide open with Baltimore club. You remember when a couple fucked the sink off the bathroom wall, when Pumpkinhead got in a fistfight at the end of the night and rolled around on the dancefloor, when the winner of the White Rapper Show threw up and passed out on stage, when we got shut down and had to move to Bar Reis because Southpaw didn’t have a license to serve lemons and limes, when Jeru the Damaja hopped on stage and performed “Come Clean.” There was a special feeling every month, like a big house party, loud and sweaty and thrilling. And in the last few years, you also remember waiting on a long ass line around the block. We could have moved The Rub to a bigger club plenty of times, but it was such a special feeling and a perfect crowd, and besides we were loyal to Mike and Matt, and of course Kenan and Ro and the whole crew.

This Saturday will be the last time The Rub is at Southpaw, but it’s not the last Rub. Mikey and Matt are going to focus on their Williamburg club, Public Assembly.  The Southpaw space will become a tutoring center for children.  Eleven, Cosmo and I are taking The Rub down the hill to Bell House, a beautiful venue very similar to Southpaw in a lot of ways, but a little bigger, with a little better sound, and a little off the beaten path. We looked at a bunch of clubs in Brooklyn and talked to a ton of our friends, and everyone agreed that this feels like the perfect room. The gang’s all going to be there, with Rahnon and Matt at the door, and me, Eleven and Cosmo on the turntables. We’re switching it up to the last Saturday of every month, and we hope you’ll help us spread the word so we can keep it up for ten more years. Please please please sign up for our email list, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and ask your friends to do the same. And if you don’t have anything else to do this Saturday, come to Southpaw (EARLY, to beat what will surely be a crazy line) and join us for the first Rub of the rest of your life!”

I must reiterate this: COME EARLY ON SATURDAY, FEB 4TH!!!

If you’re so inclined, head over the The Rub blog to see many of the flyers from the last 9+ years.  And, for those with even more time to kill, head to The Rub Facebook page to see a LOT of pictures from the parties.

The Rub NYE party

Ring in the New Year with The Rub & DJ Moma at Southpaw.  Buy them here now!

New Mix for Aritzia

The Rub for Aritzia | DJ Eleven by Aritzia

Sitting down compiling the tracklist for this mix, I knew what I wanted immediately: a Sunday night party from beginning to end, condensed into 70 minutes. Hitting recent R&B, nu disco, remixed classics, house, and a grand dubstep finale, the whole mix is Sunday soulful & exactly what I want to hear after a long weekend of partying and an even longer week of work ahead.   You can find the full tracklist after the jump.

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The Rub 9th Anniversary

9 years…  Gotdam!  Going to be a crazy crazy night.  Make sure you arrive EARLY!

The Rub – Best Party on New Years Day

Our friends over at the Village Voice have crowned The Rub “The Best Party To Take Anyone To” in their 2010 Sound of the City awards.  I think that roughly translates to “Best Party Ever”, but I may be slightly misreading it.

As tradition dictates, we’re back at it on New Year’s Day 2011 (first Saturday of the month, son!) at Southpaw.  Story is the same as always: 10PM-4AM, come early, $5 for ladies, $10 for gents.  It will be a great party!

America’s Best DJ

So, umm, America’s Best DJ…  It’s a little tough to explain the mixed feelings of being part of a crew nominated for DJ Times’ America’s Best DJ contest.  On one hand, The Rub is included in the same list as Jazzy Jeff, Grandmaster Flash, Derrick Carter, Francois K, and Armand Van Helden.  On the other hand, that list also includes Pauly D & Tommy Lee.  So, I’ll leave it at this…  DJ Times, Thank You!  I am truly flattered.

http://www.americasbestdj.net/bestdj/vote.asp

The Rub History of Hip Hop

We just wrapped up the grand finale of The Rub’s epic History of Hip Hop series.  Click on the links below to check out every mix as well as the wrap-up interview we did with our friends from Brooklyn Radio.

Every damn mix – http://www.itstherub.com/?cat=15

Wrap-up interview for Brooklyn Radio – http://brooklynradio.net/blog/interview-the-rub-look-back-at-the-history-of-hip-hop

New Rub Radio gone live

Pumpkin Patch (Young Robots) drops in on Rub Radio this month for an interview and a blazing DJ set, dropping disco, house and his own keytar-fueled original jams! Eleven, Ayres and Cosmo follow it up, covering everything from the super groovy to a taste of their History of Hip-Hop series.

Listen at http://scion.com/channel2

Retirement

After many years of faithful service, I’ve decided to retire my old html heavy website & trade up for a fancy WordPress-y thing-a-majig.  For most people, the response would be “yawn… what did you say?”  But, that site, and in particular the PRESS page, represented quite literally years of work in the by-gone days of print media, both writing & trying to drum up interest in a younger Joseph Eleven.

So, for the sake of my mom still being able to brag about what her tallest son once accomplished and because I can’t bear to throw all that work away, click here to see what www.djeleven.com/press.html looked like before I completely stopped updating it.  You’ll find my monthly column for Hip Hop Connection, pieces I did for Wax Poetics, and mixtape reviews from a who’s who of magazines that have gone out of business, along with more than a couple of The Rub’s well-deserved accolades.

Going forward, all new press (ie: those snarky comments I copied & pasted from the blogosphere) will be posted under the PRESS category.  I’m pretty sure you don’t care, Mom.