Influences – Dimitri From Paris

The track that in my late teens started it all for me, in this exact iteration. The François Kevorkian remix was taking the short radio version into dubbed out territory and Shep Pettibone was editing the best bits of the three existing mixes into one no nonsense Dancefloor weapon. My first and biggest lesson in remixing and editing is all there.

An intellectual record collector (Steve Stein) alongside a studio wizard (Doug DiFranco) made this as an entry to a remix contest launched by pioneering Hip Hop label Tommy Boy. It not only won, but showed it was possible to put cheekiness, wit, and humor in a solid piece of dance music.
My Sacrebleu would never have seen the light of the day If hadn’t heard this.

When I heard this, it was like a modern version of D-Train, more pumping, yet as soulful and dubby.
Not only did this record get me in to House, but it made me dig back at its Disco origins and whole new world opened to me, totally defining the rest of my career in the process.

This record is without a doubt my favorite one ever AND the benchmark I judge all of my Disco remix work against.
I got it during my first trip to New York, and it took me years to figure out it was actually a remix of a much older Philly Disco record. It started my love with all this things Philly sound, and taught me how to give a modern twist to a vintage song without losing its original spirit.

The 3d Shep Pettibone record in the list. It was a tough call to choose between a Pet Shop Boys and New Order record. The latter made it as they were the first to mix pop and dance in such a massive and perfect way. Shep’s remix adds only what’s necessary but yet essential to turn an already great pop song into a club monster. Another lesson learned with something I still play today.

It was difficult to choose which Frankie Knuckles remix influenced me the most, as they pretty much all did. I particularly like the slower tempo of this one and how him and Morales incorporated House music elements in a hyper lush, melodic, highly emotional yet, subdued way. Showing musical power without any “in your face” bells and whistle. House music never got much more sophisticated than this.

This more current track is special to me because it summed up a lot of my earlier influences in a way today’s audience could appreciate. In a moment where I thought my time had passed, it ignited the sparkle to also make something relevant of my own. A way to pass over all the musical knowledge I had gathered in the past 30 years, to new generations of music lovers.

I was already remixing and producing quite a lot at the time, and was totally blown away by the high production values of this. MAW stepped out of the all-electronic word of House, hired a bunch of historical musicians and made this version a serious challenger to the Disco original. My current remix of Diana Ross’s first version does owe a little something to them.