A Banana Splits
Local DJ / Bananas impresario Mr. Stokes picks up stakes and moves to Kunming - By Marcus, Jan 11, 08
Around the time when hair metal bands were popular, humpback whales' recordings were flying off the shelves and the Huangpu River still had a tiny glint of blue in it, Adam Stokes Williams got hooked on Deep Concentration, a sonically experimental multi-tracked album made by some of the most respected turntablists in the world ...
"It was a combo of hearing that and seeing a video of DJ Craze's winning routine in the 1998 US DMC finals that really knocked my block off."
Stokes' grades started to falter and his knowledge of leftfield music skyrocketed. "I started listening carefully to sampling on records like Black Sheep's Wolf In Sheep's Clothing. I was just tripping on the weird originals they were looping."
Four years ago, with his college days over and no promising job prospects, Stokes got the funk out of America and headed to the Middle Kingdom. Soon after arriving, club residencies rolled in and Stokes was playing hip-hop and house sets at his various clubs around town including Bonbon, New Heights, Tanghui and Mural. It was the advent of Serato, however, the hardware that lets DJs play MP3s from their computers, that really captivated this self-professed 'musicology nerd'.
"Living in China, it was ironic that we had no access to record shops but I was discovering more music than I'd ever had access to before, mostly from Soulseek. I didn't need to waste my life inhaling mold in basements of old vinyl looking for hopelessly rare breaks...I could download them. I wanted to do a party where I could flex that broad spectrum of stuff that I was hearing, things like Baile Funk's Deise Tigrona, or Alan Braxe or funny mashups that I could do live with dumb 80s records that I would never have been willing to pay for."
Soon after, the Bananas parties were born. "We wanted to do a party for our friends that would be sweaty and ridiculous. The best part of Bananas is always the crowd going nuts. We always flub mixes and screw up our levels, but I love doing each party as an improvised set that vibes off the people there. I'm happy to put up with the mistakes and the progressively drunker scratching and song selection...and really thankful that the crowd likes it too."
After four years in the concrete jungle of China
"It was a combo of hearing that and seeing a video of DJ Craze's winning routine in the 1998 US DMC finals that really knocked my block off."
Stokes' grades started to falter and his knowledge of leftfield music skyrocketed. "I started listening carefully to sampling on records like Black Sheep's Wolf In Sheep's Clothing. I was just tripping on the weird originals they were looping."
Four years ago, with his college days over and no promising job prospects, Stokes got the funk out of America and headed to the Middle Kingdom. Soon after arriving, club residencies rolled in and Stokes was playing hip-hop and house sets at his various clubs around town including Bonbon, New Heights, Tanghui and Mural. It was the advent of Serato, however, the hardware that lets DJs play MP3s from their computers, that really captivated this self-professed 'musicology nerd'.
"Living in China, it was ironic that we had no access to record shops but I was discovering more music than I'd ever had access to before, mostly from Soulseek. I didn't need to waste my life inhaling mold in basements of old vinyl looking for hopelessly rare breaks...I could download them. I wanted to do a party where I could flex that broad spectrum of stuff that I was hearing, things like Baile Funk's Deise Tigrona, or Alan Braxe or funny mashups that I could do live with dumb 80s records that I would never have been willing to pay for."
Soon after, the Bananas parties were born. "We wanted to do a party for our friends that would be sweaty and ridiculous. The best part of Bananas is always the crowd going nuts. We always flub mixes and screw up our levels, but I love doing each party as an improvised set that vibes off the people there. I'm happy to put up with the mistakes and the progressively drunker scratching and song selection...and really thankful that the crowd likes it too."
After four years in the concrete jungle of China
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