FRANKENSTEINSKI’S MONSTERS

Pioneering cut’n’paste DJ STEINSKI talks to Jason Draper

In a remarkable career trajectory, Steve ‘Steinski’ Stein went from rejecting city life, living in a cabin and washing in a snakeinfested creek in West Virginia, to working as an advertising copy executive in New York. In response to a Tommy Boy (see RC 337) competition to remix MC Globe and Whiz Kid’s Play That Beat Mr DJ in 1983 he recorded The Payoff Mix (aka The Lesson) with Douglas ‘Double Dee’ DiFranco. A benchmark of cut’n’paste DJing, it set him on the path to becoming one of the world’s most respected DJs.

As his new collection, What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective (Illegal Art) demonstrates, his anything-goes approach is more important than ever as digital downloads open up a wider world of music to those once at the mercy of their limited high street megastores.

Some have said that, in the late 70s and early 80s, hip-hop in New York was dead until Afrika Bambaataa’s Planet Rock came out. Did you feel that?

To be honest, I wasn’t that clued into it. When I got to New York I was listening to a lot of new wave stuff like Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds. I didn’t even know about hip-hop till I heard it on the radio by accident.

At that point I was already working at the advertising industry and …

by Jason Draper
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