"The Evolution of Pat Nice" - Article

I used to write for a local music magazine called Demencha. I had the great privilege of having two cover stories way back in the day and this is the second one, an interview with my friend and serious local legend, Dj Pat Nice.

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For those of you that can, think back to 1986. This is the year the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in mid-air, seventy-three seconds after blastoff, and came down in ash and scraps. This is the same year President Reagan made it known to the public that we had been funding the sale of weapons to Iran in their war against Iraq and, ironically, other than Falco’s hit “Rock Me Amadeus,” radio’s top played songs that year were about love and loss. This is the same year that Stephen King’s “It” hit bookshelves and Robert Ludlum re-introduced Jason Bourne to the reading world after a 6-year hiatus. This is also the same year Pat Nice started messing around with vinyl after having seen the video for Malcom McLaren’s “Buffalo Gals,” an old school breakdance track married to images of the breakers across New York City and late paid homage to by Eminem.

“I was hooked!” says Pat. “I would fashion makeshift slip mats out of the inner sleeves of old records and practice scratching in my bedroom. An older classmate of mine taught me to blend and mix and soon I learned to incorporate the blends and scratches together.” Starting out as a Hip Hop DJ and later morphing into the Midwest’s premier House DJ, Pat Nice has seen his fair share of gigs from all parts of North America and even as far as Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. “[It] was probably my favorite. It's so beautiful there, and the people are really up for a good time! Of course, you have the gigs you'd rather forget about, but the great experiences definitely outweigh the less desirable ones.”

For a while, Nice was a sort of gypsy, never laying roots down in one place for too long. Having spent a lot of time in Kansas City, he took an opportunity to move to Chicago, a virtual mecca-city for House music DJ’s and producers following the closing of DeepFix Records where he was a constant figurehead. The differences between the two cities don’t reside in just the geography, however.

“I've got a lot of history in both places, due to the rave scene and all the traveling everyone used to do. Chicago supports their scene a bit more. They don't trip about small things like cover charges, guest list spots or whether or not the venue is dope. And [they] don’t give a shit if the weather is bad. I LOVE KC with all my heart or I wouldn't be here, but Chi-Town definitely knows how to get down.” Having been back in Kansas City for a few years now, Pat has held down residencies at GLOW (the separate, upstairs dance club above the Lava Room) and the Hangout, typically drawing larger than normal crowds when crowds on average have been shrinking everywhere.

“They are significantly smaller now than a few years back. Your die-hards are still out there kicking it, but there's a lot less of the new people that you can turn on to House music, which makes it a bit tricky to ‘grow’ the scene here.” Does it take a certain style of playing in Chicago that differs from the places he plays in Kansas City?

“I wouldn't say I try harder one place over the other. I like to play the best I can in any city, any situation.”

With time comes practice, and through practice come innovations and evolutions. NASA would come to tighten up their flight safety measures to prevent another tragedy like the Challenger Shuttle. Stephen King and Robert Ludlum would find their written words interpreted on the screen by Hollywood filmmakers and Prince would keep playing music the only way he knows how before changing his name to a symbol. Like everything else, innovations in music bring about technological and even ethical questions in regards to the art form.

Music programs have opened up the world of DJ-ing to pretty much anyone with a laptop and an addiction to music. Rather than carry three or four crates of records to a gig, a DJ can now have a library of up to 50,000 songs on their hard drive ready to be accessed at any point during a gig. One can go from old school hip hop to house with the click of a mouse, depending on how well a DJ reads a crowd. Many DJ’s complain about the feel of playing in the digital realm while others revel in it.

While having a little experience with the laptop option of DJ-ing, Pat prefers to stick to straight vinyl or, as is more likely these days, uses CD’s. “I was extremely resistant to all of these newer technologies at one time or another. Watching them develop, I always felt them to be missing something. I have begun to get my head around Serato, Traktor etc. and I do like the fact that you still use turntables for both. At this point in time, I mainly use CDJ's as opposed to software. It's nice to not lug 60 lbs of records on your back to a show!”

Pat Nice isn’t just a DJ though. With influences ranging from Grandmaster Flash to Derrick Carter, he’s also done production work, making tracks with fellow DeepFixer Matthew Brian and ex-Kansas Citian J-Rod. His tracks have been produced by labels across the states, most notably Dust Traxx, Studio!K7 (on a compilation of artists remixing My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult), .dotbleep, and Seasons Recordings.

The lines between those who are simply producers and those who are simply DJ’s has blurred considerably over the last ten years with the influx of music blogs highlighting bedroom producers without labels and the ease with which one can play a newly finished track in a digital format. For Pat, producing was just “the next logical step” in the evolutionary chain of DJ-ing.

“To me, you are in a perfect position as a DJ to do this, primarily because you have a stronger foundation as to what will work on a dancefloor. I am a DJ first, and a producer second, always. Although there are a few exceptions, I personally don't feel the reverse is as viable. What it has done is saturate the market with "DJs" who might make great music, but aren't as able to work the floor, because they've had to learn that along the way rather than it being their main objective.” But with the shrinking of true die-hard fans over the last few years, is it necessarily a bad thing to have an excess of musical options to enjoy? “I love that there are still people trying to get out there and make some noise; it’s the main thing that will ensure the scene never dies.”

As someone who has been around since before I even touched my first record, Pat Nice has seen a lot of faces come and go in both the Kansas City and the Chicago subcultures, and yet keeps plugging away while each new generation throws on some headphones trying to make a name for themselves. “I don't go out as much as I used to, but it's nice to come out and see the new cats doing it up. I've got a few here [in Kansas City] that I really enjoy hearing, such as Mike Scott, L.C., Jack and Jill, Tactic and others. I think the newer generation has it a bit harder than the old guard, but in general everyone’s got it tough nowadays. One of my favorite things about hearing other DJs I respect is that no matter how big your collection is, they will always manage to bust out something you’ve never heard before, and it’s usually old, rare, out of print, etc.”

Playing a one hour set is distinctly different than playing a five-hour set, as most DJ’s know. With enough practice, one can read a dancefloor and play the track it didn’t know it wanted until it’s too far into the groove to stop moving. This requires a great deal more concentration than most people realize as the DJ needs to not only read the crowd, but also select the proper next track and the one after that and the one after that, so on and so on. Then they’ll have to adjust their track selections accordingly. Nothing kills the vibe of a good floor like a track played at the wrong time to the wrong kind of crowd. Sometimes the right track can end up becoming a DJ’s tool, a kind of secret weapon, in order to pull a dancefloor back together. Does Pat have some of those in his collection?

“Of course! There are plenty of "secret weapons" in the arsenal, but I can't say too much about those…then they're not so secret!”

As with any other DJ that decides to keep playing music as long as Pat has, they will continue to evolve, either in musical ways or technological ways. However, remaining relevant in a music scene with a diminishing base is no small feat and Pat Nice has done it well for the better part of two decades, either by DJ-ing or by his productions. Some of you might be wondering how you go about doing it. “Keep having fun, and keep your name popping up when you can without saturating things too much. I'd rather play fewer gigs to more people than vice versa. Quality over quantity.”

From Hip Hop to House, vinyl to CD’s, Pat Nice has still got that musical wanderlust and doesn’t show signs of stopping any time soon. It would be a good idea to catch him as soon as you possibly can, if not just to say you saw him, but to watch him manipulate a dance floor into a House frenzy. Chances are good if you’re not on the sidelines just watching, you’re probably right in the middle of an evolving dance floor and may not realize it until much, much later in the evening.