words: elizabeth mitkos

Nickey Siano

In 1972, at the age of 17, Nicky Siano opened one of New York's most influential clubs, The Gallery -- and he's been making dance-music history ever since. Hand-picked to DJ at the legendary Studio 54 in 1977, Siano was the first DJ to produce a record -- "Kiss Me Again" on Sire Records -- and the first DJ to play on three turntables. He left the decks in 1984 to work with HIV patients and to obtain a degree in social work after his best friend died of AIDS. Returning to the decks in 1998 to play a tribute for the late Larry Levan, Siano's back for good with a forthcoming compilation CD due out this fall (chronicling the tunes made famous at The Gallery) and a film documenting the club's best years.

Siano's recent visit to Toronto (May 14) had him specially remix a song that went a little something like this: "When you're feeling down and out, and wondering what life's all about, I know a place that has the answer…." Known for grand dance floor experiences with tracks specially tweaked for certain gigs, I ask what exactly does he do?

I prepare a lot of special effects and edits for each gig. It's all about the message. The main theme is there's an answer in music and when you hear the message you can understand the answer.

Klublife: What's the message?

Nicky Siano: Love is always the universal message for me. There's too much negativity in music today. I feel it's my mission to play a kind of spiritual message…. I'm a very spiritual kind of a guy. I meditate every day and have very specific spiritual beliefs that are kind of an eclectic mix of different frame works. But to me, anything that becomes organized becomes bastardized so I have stayed away from organized religious practices and gone out on my own because I've realized that anytime things get organized they became egoistically bent and the ego has no place in spiritual practice and it's hard not to have an ego especially - when you're the DJ who had such an influence on the whole molding and shaping of the "love scene". For me, I believe it's the environment - not just the music, but the lights, the air conditioning, it's what your eating, it's what your drinking. That's what The Gallery was all about.

KL: Do you mean disco?

NS: You know, that whole Donna Summer thing, for me, was not the most exciting part of the old club scene. The exciting part was the funk, the soul and the rock. It was everything together, not disco, which is a word the big-wigs used to name it, label it and package it. I hate that word because it stands for everything that went wrong with the industry, which is the packaging, the labeling and the looking to make money blindly without looking at the art.

KL: How should the '70s club movement have evolved?

NS: House music in its '80s heyday was more what I thought club music was going to be in the '70s. House remained the indie people with indie labels who ended up cashing in big because their records went so far. It had so much new talent, so much input, and it never became a marketed thing where Billboard called DJs for Top 10's. I would've preferred the '70s to be more like that indie, anti-establishment vibe.

KL: This year you established your own record label. Is INSPIRA records indie?

NS: The new release "Love Serenade" by Marlon Saunders is one of the most beautiful messages. "Smokin' It" by Automagic is a very vibe record and has taken off like crazy. I'm trying to do what I believe is right for me right now, which is to put out music with a positive message. We'll see where it goes. I never know. That's part of the excitement.
KL: Why return to DJing the club scene after all this time?

NS: I believe I was meant to do this. I have 8mm films from by father with me dancing. And I mean me in front of a little speaker - I'm 4 years old and I'm dancing! And that's always been my favourite thing. I remember when I had braces on my teeth when I was 18 because my parents couldn't afford them. I had started playing records when I was 17 and my girlfriend says, "You gotta get these braces," so I went to the dentist and had four teeth pulled and the guy says to go home and I said "No! It's Saturday night, I have to go to the Loft!" And I did! You know, I see a lot of DJs and they don't dance. How can you be a DJ and not dance? To this day I have my dancing partner - he lives around the corner - and he's my dancing partner, this 55 year old guy and we go out dancing. I just love to dance, I love the whole experience.

KL: What are your musical influences today?

NS: Creativity is a very strange thing. A muse comes and goes…. I draw a lot from the past - not the music, I'm using new music - but the way I'm putting things together, the way I'm building things is very much influenced by the early '70s in a storybook kind of fashion with a beginning, middle and an end. I'm really bored if the music is the same beat and tempo for more than half an hour. And if I'm bored, someone else must be. You have to follow your heart, your inspiration and your muse and you'll really tap into the crowd. And, I've mostly been going out to see Danny Tenaglia. He is something else, in a category all of his own.

KL: Do you ever long for the excitement of The Gallery or Studio 54?

NS: We're planning two big parties [in September] in London and New York where I'm going to recreate The Gallery experience in hopefully the original Gallery space, which is now a small Soho clothing store. Studio was phenomenal because it was so entertaining in every sense of the word. It was like going to a club where a Broadway show was playing every night… it was incredible, beyond anything you could imagine today. But unfortunately it became very hedonistic. It just became about sex and drugs when really it was supposed to be about the music.