“We definitely predated hipsters,” says Diplo of the now-defunct web forum known as the Hollerboard. “It was like a secret club.”

Throughout the 2000s, the Low-Bee board, otherwise known as the Hollerboard, was an online gathering place for DJs, internet nerds, producers and party kids to exchange music, talk shit, party right, hook up, and LOL. It grew from a tiny community that had migrated from other Philadelphia-based indie rock and hip-hop boards, connected with a party called Hollertronix, thrown by a then-relatively unknown Diplo and his good friend, DJ Low-Budget or Low-Bee.

“What it did was solidify our scene in Philly and NYC—[party crews like] Hollertronix, The Rub, etc.—very like-minded kids,” Diplo continues.

Read the rest at Thump.Vice.com

I have a long interview and some great pictures in Kindling Quarterly #5, a beautiful magazine about creative fathers.

Gotta Dance Dirty just premiered this remix of Beautiful People, which will be out Jan 14. Update: Download the whole EP for Free!

“Treasure Fingers dropped off his amazing remix of Tatiana Owens‘s new track, Beautiful People, on T&A Records. It’s a quite bouncy disco-tech vibe with some amazing vocal work laced on top.”

More press:

Fingers on Blast said some very nice things about the single and remix.

Do Androids Dance picked up Beautiful People.

“Today, New York DJ, producer and label honcho DJ Ayres cooks us his crock-pot chili and A-Trak’s holiday party guests take it for a test drive. Ayres, best known as co-owner of T&A Records and one-half of NYC DJ crew The Rub, tells us about his acid trip of a life story growing up in the Deep South. Read on for tales of life as a late-20th-century Southern beau—stripping at bachelorette parties, eating road kill, selling shrimp out of a dumpster for crack money; old ladies giving away used porn found in hotels, and a restaurant run according to the dietary laws of Leviticus.”

Read the story and recipe on Thump

Time Out New York recently interviewed DJ Ayres and DJ Eleven about the latest happenings with The Rub as well as thoughts on our new home at The Bell House.

TONY: When you found out that Southpaw was closing, was there any thought of going on hiatus, or even shutting the party down?
Eleven: No, not at all. We’ve actually known for a while—several years at least—that we had sort of outgrown Southpaw, but we definitely never wanted to stop doing the Rub. What happened was, Southpaw told us they were closing down about ten days before the last party we did there. And Ayres and I literally left that meeting, walked a couple doors down to a coffee place and began to figure out what we were gonna do next. We didn’t skip a beat. You know, the Rub pays our bills, but it’s also something that’s near and dear to our hearts. It’s not something we want to walk away from because we have to. When we do walk away someday, it’ll be because we want to.

TONY: Does being in Brooklyn help?
Ayres: Definitely. When we started, there weren’t very many big parties at all in Brooklyn, and I think that let us have the Rub develop in a more natural way. We always wanted it to feel like a house party.

TONY: It’s always had the reputation of being a very unpretentious affair.
Eleven: That’s very important—probably the most important thing about the Rub. We know we have to take care of our friends, but we’ve always avoided creating a feeling of elitism. If you’ve got ten bucks and you’re okay with waiting in line for a bit, then we want you. Just be ready to party.

Read the full interview on Time Out New York

What’s the best aspects of being a professional DJ?

I am happiest when I’m playing at a big party and it’s going off, and I feel like I can play my favorite records and the crowd is with it. So there’s that, everything else is secondary to that feeling. Otherwise I love finding new music, making mixes, edits, tracks, all that stuff. I like having friends all over the place and getting to visit folks when I’m in their city, getting to host them at The Rub. And then gigs like touring with Ghostface, Bun B, Smalltown DJs, Tittsworth, A-Trak, that’s always fun and inspiring. It’s an amazing lifestyle. I’m really not the type of person who enjoys having a boss or feeling limited by an overly structured work situation, so it suits me.

Read the whole interview on Turntable Lab

http://www.proaudiostar.com/home-lab-life-ep-4-dj-ayres

Village Voice Sound of the City Awards

Photo by Kenny Rodriguez

Best Party To Take Anyone To: The Rub

Once you’ve been to the Rub as many times as I have, you start to pick up on the little things that make the party flow just so. You’ll notice that of the three resident DJs, Cosmo Baker is the showman, often dancing over his mixer and chatting with the crowd over his signature funk-heavy sets. Or that DJ Eleven, the strongest technically (and most unassuming despite the fact that he looms over his fellow partners), has the keenest ear for r&b and dancehall. DJ Ayres is the friendliest (and funniest) of the bunch, and regardless of his ventures into dance music, his selection constantly reminds us that he’s a hip-hop nerd at heart. In fact, hip-hop is the constant of the party, and the one of the many reasons that half of Brooklyn can’t seem to stay away from the monthly throw down at Southpaw.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sneaker Freaker Ayres sits down with the down-under Nike heads
The New Yorker Critic’s Notebook writes up Flashing Lights
XXL DJ Ayres Interview “Just don’t call em mash-ups”
The New York Times “Houston for Dummies encapsulates the stylistic progression from the raw early rhymes of the seminal Geto Boys to the slow-mo style that later emerged, “chopped and screwed.”
Oxford American “The hottest dj in Brooklyn is a mild-mannered whiteboy from Mississippi named Ayres Haxton, Jr.”
Spin “It’s The Motherfucking Remix CD” in “Heavy Rotation”
MTV “One of the best-kept secrets on the New York party circuit right now is DJ crew The Rub”
Village Voice Best of 2004 – “Best party in Brooklyn to dance sweatily to smart music – The Rub”
New York Press Best of 2004 – “Best party in New York City”
BPM “The best 3 man team working”
FADER “Mashups? Try essays on musical chronology and geography, ruminations on Southern hip-hop, Bill Withers and one drop reggae.”
Urb Guest reviews – DJ Ayres picks six future hip-hop classics
RE:UP “Over the years The Rub has hosted the hottest throw-down around”
Rinse “The Rub has snowballed into… well, everything!”
Spray “Derriere The Rub se cache un collectif de djs new-yorkais…”
The Wire – Hip-House 2 Review
Bedroom Rockers Photography book with large format pictures of DJs’ home setups
Vice Hip-House article
Urb Guest reviews – DJ Ayres picks six future hip-hop classics
XLR8R Guest reviews – DJ Ayres & Cosmo Baker write about their favorite Hip-House singles
Vapors “ill remixes covering everything from the Ghostbusters theme song to Eric B and Rakim”
Vapors “Hello, my name is…”
Hip-Hop Connection Hip-House review in the leading UK Hip-Hop magazine
The New York Times “DJ Ayres has quietly become one of New York’s best mixtape D.J.’s.”
InquiringMind.ca Interview and Mix [MP3] from The Rub
Baby Loves Disco in the New York Times (link) PDF /JPEG
DJ Ayres Interview in Swedish Paper “Mashmasteren”