Tommie Sunshine “Head 2 Toe In Drag”
Tommie Sunshine - Head 2 Toe In Drag (2001)
This is a picture of a pre-Grizzly Adams looking Tommie Sunshine taken at his first (or second) rave gig in Minneapolis in 1994. (I’m standing a couple of people to the left in the unedited version of that picture). We were playing to about 400 people in the “Chill” room of a rave that night/morning. He played right after me and neither of us played “Chill” music. I played Disco for 2 hours and he followed perfectly with 70s & 80s music of various genres none of which had to do with techno or raving. I had met him a couple of times prior to that night gigging in Chicago or Milwaukee and we became familiar with each other for many years to come, however that particular night I realized just how cool he was with his unique track selection, which Minneapolis partiers ate up.
Originally from Chicago, Tommie really started to shine after he moved to Atlanta in the mid nineties where he ran Satellite records. Since then, he has collaborated with fellow mid-western techno dude Mark Verbos, Chicago native Felix Da Houescat, DJ Hell, and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem to name a few. He’s made a solid name for himself as a remixer in the Alt/Pop world and as a man who’s making a run for sticking to the ZZ Top look longer than some actual ZZ Top members.
Posted: November 12th, 2009 under mp3.
Tags: Atlanta, Chicago, DJ Hell, Felix Da Housecat, Grizzly Adams, Hair, James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem, Marc Verbos, Milwaukee, Raves, Remixer, Techno, Tommie Sunshine, ZZ Top
Comment from m@earth
Time November 13, 2009 at 9:00 am
Tommie dj’d what might be his first out of state gig at Communion and the Communion After Set. He seemed worried that he couldn’t blend or mix like the rest of us could. Some kind of encouragement like “Just play the music, dude,” might have been used to get him over any difficulties he thought he had. He had better music for the job than any of us.
He had the after set on lock down with some of the finest acid jazz and funk our ears could handle.
There was also some big to do about his not attending the DBN New Years over the Minneapolis one, but that’s a story left for another time and more capable hands.