Interview with DJ Pete La Rock (The P.T. Disco Crew)

                                  Interview with DJ Pete La Rock (The P.T. Disco Crew)

 

                                                     

   DJ Pete La Rock ( The P.T. Disco Crew )

                                            conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:“Where were you born and raised at?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“I was born and raised in the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"In the Northeast Bronx...which will be Uptown.....last stop on the number 5 train."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You're from Boston Secor Houses, right?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"That's correct. That's the housing project that I live in."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When were you born?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"I was born in 1962."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like to grow up in Boston Secor?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Oh, it was nice, man! Like we had four buildings altogether. One building went to fourteen floors. We got like ten or eleven apartments on each floor. The tallest building went up to eighteen floors. So it was like thirteen, fourteen..the next building I believe was sixteen and the next building was eighteen floors. That's as high as it went. It was very nice at the time when I was growing up. We played games, you know, growing up. Everyone stuck to each other. Everyone hung around each other. No one went outside the projects. It was nice, man."

Boston Secor Houses, Bronx NYC

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"To what kind of music where you exposed as a young child growing up in your home?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Well, my father used to listen to classical music. He was born in Guyana and he listened to Calypso.....steel bands but he also listened to classical music, too."

SIR NORIN RAD:"And your mom? What did she listen to?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Mom was from Portugal and she listened to the same things my father listened to but she liked a little bit of variety."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When and where did your very first encounter with Hiphop take place at?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Seeing these DJs play music in the park. Going to different venues like high schools. It was a time where DJs used to play in high schools. But my first thing was like viewing Hiphop in the park. People playing music in the park."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So when you are saying that you saw DJs play music in the parks who are you talking about? Are you talking about DJ Breakout and DJ Baron? The Brothers Disco?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Yeah, but they came later. It was DJ Lil Rock from Kaos Crew. Grandwizard Theodore..... It was these guys first. Breakout was there but he was now coming."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you witnessed Hiphop as early as 1976/1977?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Oh yeah! That was long before there were MCees and before any of that was on vinyl. It was nothing but two turntables and a mic. DJs came out and played music. They had crates. You'd go in the park and hear music. Then later on as Hiphop progressed MCees would be rapping, too. I was a teenager when I saw that. I was running around here buckwild!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what was it like to be at those jams back then?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Yeah, when I was a teenager... like I said when I was going to different parks witnessing different DJs playing music...it was a unique experience!! There were a lot of other guys that played in the South Bronx, too. Like Grandmaster Flash and Kool DJ AJ."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you're saying that DJ Lil Rock from Kaos Crew was one the first DJs that you witnessed back then..."

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Yeah. Kaos Crew lived around where I lived at. Up in the Twos. We called it the Twos. Like 222nd Street, 223rd Street, 213th Street. We called it the Twos. It's not too far from here. And DJ Lil Rock was the one who was doing needle dropping. He was doing that more than 40 years ago!!! Kaos Crew...they ruled Olinville Park. That was their home turf right there. They had a very powerful soundsystem and one of their MCees Geronimo used to always rap lovely."    

SIR NORIN RAD:“Who had told you about the Kaos Crew? How did you know about their parties?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Well, my cousin lived in the Twos. My cousin Lisa lived over there. My aunt and them, they lived over there. They lived on 230th Street. Her friends went to Olinville High School and you know that‘s how we used to go over there. We used to run in a pack, man!! We had no cars, we had no vehicles, so we would just troop, we would just walk! Whenever there was people playing music in the park we‘d just go over there and see, witness...“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Would you also go to DJ Basic‘s parties?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yes!! He used to tag along with DJ Breakout but he was on his own. I found out about Basic because of Boston Road which is not too far from me, too. That‘s where DJ Breakout is from. Basic was playing music, he was down with the crew.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Were there also B-Boys present at those early park jams that you went to?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Oh yes! Oh yes! We was all  down with the Zulu Nation. DJ Afrika Bambaataa!!! We used to go to his house constantly.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“So you were also close to all these Zulu Nation DJs like DJ Jazzy Jay and DJ Afrika Islam?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yep. DJ Afrika Islam and DJ Ed La Rock. Ed La Rock was with Afrika Islam. He took my under his wing. He was the one that gave me the name DJ Pete La Rock cause his name was Ed La Rock. They were known as The Mayberry Crew.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“What made you start DJing?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“I don‘t even know. I just liked the way how it was done. You know, I watched a lot of DJs play and I was like,“Wait a minute! I know I can do this! I know music and I listen to a lot of music.“ I already had some records that I could use. So I just went and bought me some turntables. My friend that lived in the same building with me he built me a mixer. We used to cut school and he used to play the drums and I used to be in another room DJing. He had turntables and he built me a mixer. And I would just go back and forth, back and forth, cutting up beats. And then from there it got to where I was able to get some money and buy some decent turntables...belt drives.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“What‘s the name of your friend who built that mixer for you?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“His name was Tony Rodriguez. Disco T. That was me and him. We formed P. T. Disco.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Was he Puerto Rican?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yes, half Black, half Puerto Rican.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Where had he learnt how to build a mixer?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“His father was an electrician, I believe. He picked up from his father and he was real nice. It was a knob mixer that he built.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“So it had no crossfader, right?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“No crossfader. Just two knobs.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Please describe how you built up your breakbeat arsenal.“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“ You had to dig, man! You had to go record digging. There was no internet back then where you could look up titles. I would go to different record stores and listen to Jazz cause Jazz has a lot of breakbeats, listen to a lot of Rock cause Rock records have a lot of breakbeats, too. But then when I went to see other DJs play music in the parks I would get to hear what they were playing and I would kinda remember and I would go to the record store the next day or the weekend and I would be like, “Oh, I heard this record.“ So that’s how it starts. You just start picking up vinyl wherever you go record digging.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“So you would actually hum the melody of the breakbeats that you were looking for to the record store owner?

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! (laughs) 'Cause I didn't know no titles or anything so I would just hum it. You know, we didn't have phones then so we couldn't record anything. It was also word of mouth. You'd hear something then you would go to the record store and you would see another DJ digging through some records. You would start talking to each other and he would be like,"Yeah, I know that beat!"And then the record stores picked up on it 'cause they knew that these guys out here are DJing and they're looking for breakbeats. So they would display their records on the wall."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please name some of the record stores that you would go to in order to pick up breakbeats."

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"There was this record store downtown called Downstairs Records. I used to go there a lot. There was a couple of them that we used to go to.....damn, I can't remember their names though. There were a lot of vinyl stores that really didn't sell breakbeats. I mean they sold breakbeats but they didn't advertise it. They didn't cater to Hiphop DJs. They focussed on selling what had just been released. It was a lot of Disco that was out."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You said that you started out on belt drive turntables...."

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Yeah, I had some Sansuis. They were belt drive. Sansui that was the brand name of the turntable."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall where you got them from?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Oh, I can't even remember where I got them from. All I remember is that I got two of those bad boys. They was belt driven. 33 and 45 RPM. I took the platter off and put felt on 'em and that's how I started DJing on those. They sounded good, you know, but of course later on I went to direct drive."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How long did it take you to sharpen up your DJ skills until  finally you  were confident enough to go out and do parties." 

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Oh man, it was days of practicing, man!!! (excited) You know I'd go to school and come home and be in the room just DJing, just cutting up breakbeats for hours, you know! Going to record stores, digging, come back, play the break. Just days of DJing!!! I was DJing every day!!! Like they say,"Practice makes perfect.""

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you start throwing parties at? Did you start at the Boston Secor Community Center?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"I  played at a couple of spots before I played at Boston Secor Community Center. The B-Boy parties they definetely took place at the community centers. Boston Secor, Edenwald.....which is not too far from here......Baychester Projects."

May 26th, 1978: P.T. Disco battles The Superior Force at the Boston Secor Community Center

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Wait a minute....you're saying that you also played at the Edenwald Community Center?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Yes, I had a battle in Edenwald."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Whom did you battle?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"T.N.T. Disco."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who won that battle?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"(laughs) I think we did. We had more people in the crowd that liked us than they had people that liked them."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"DJ Shevy Shev, DJ Timmy Tim and them...They're MCees were the Jazzy 3."

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"We had a battle against them. And that's another thing that was important back then: We had battles."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would these battles go down back then?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Well, you know.....one crew would be on one side and then another crew would be on the other side and they would play, you know? One DJ would play for a length of time and then the other DJ would play for a length of time and that would determine who took who out."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who would judge these battles?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"The crowd was the judge."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was needed in order to win such a DJ/MC battle?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"You needed to have a nice soundsystem, you needed a good DJ cutting it up while your MCees were rapping over your breakbeats."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was it also important to have a huge arsenal of breakbeats?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Oh sure! Sure!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So which other places did you play at besides Boston Secor, Edenwald and Baychester?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"I played in Olinville High School, I played in the Valley Park........"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like to play there? Talking to the Zulu Kings Pow Wow and Cholly Rock I heard that a lot of crazy B-Boy and DJ battles went down there."

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"It was crazy, man. When we went over there they didn't want us to play. Yeah, guys were like, "You can't play over here!" You know? Like you had to show up with a lot of people. But it was incredible...Cholly Rock and Pow Wow..they wasn't lying about those battles!!! It was a lot of battles there!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So how did you convince them to let you play there?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Well, I had a crew...guys from Edenwald and Boston Secor. Like we travelled heavy. You know, they had guns, they had knives...they had everything. And my guys were like, „Nah, we gonna play!“ We played for a little while but then we left because they was talking about shooting up my equipment. Like putting holes in my speakers and all that.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“So playing outside of your neighborhood could lead to some serious problems?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yeah, you know cause Hiphop was territorial.You can‘t just go into someone’s house and expect to DJ. Like some people wouldn’t like that, you know? But then other parks and territories they would let you play. They wanna hear music. Once you get on and start playing and they like what you‘re playing, they‘re not gonna do nothing. They gonna like you.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Please describe how you met DJ Ed La Rock from the Mayberry Crew.“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“ The guy that we used to play for...Biddy...it was called Biddy Production. He was a real life pimp and he wanted us to play music. I can‘t remember how he knew DJ Ed La Rock but he was like,“Well, I got this crew of DJ Afrika Islam and DJ Ed La Rock and I‘m gonna have you play with them! I‘m gonna have two rooms. Afrika Islam and Ed La Rock are gonna be in the big room and P.T. Disco is gonna be in the small room. He introduced me to Ed La Rock, you know? I used to wear braids, he used to wear braids. So we just hit it off. But Ed La Rock was more advanced than I was. He had more records. He told me a couple of titles and he told me where to go to get music. He was,“You can go here! You can get a lot of breakbeats here!“ And that’s how you start gaining respect from other DJs that know you.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“So you became friends right away?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Right, cause he seen what we was doing in the back. He came back there and he seen everybody back there bumping it out, everybody is dancing. I‘m cutting it up my man is MCing. Ed La Rock introduced me to Afrika Islam. We just hit it off right there and then. We was talking all the time. We was kool. He told me,“Yo, we‘re playing over here I want you to come out here and play!“ I went to see him a couple of times in Bronx River.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“What was it like to be at DJ Afrika Bambaataa‘s apartment in Bronx River with all these crazy crates full of records being there? Did Bam also share titles with you?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yeah, he shared titles with me but it was so much. He knew so much about beats and he had so much!! It was just impossible to have all this input in one night. He shared a lot of stuff. He also got many beats from Grandmixer D.St and D.St got his stuff from this guy called Kool Aid. Kool Aid had a lot of breakbeats. He was a serious breakbeat collector. Bambaataa had stuff from Africa, Calypso, Spain....It was different cause the breakbeats that we were playing were good but he was playing some off the wall stuff!!! It was just sounding the way it was sounding. Plus when you play it on a nice system......Incredible!!! Incredible!!“

November 17th, 1979: DJ Pete La Rock  rocks at the Bronx River Community Center along with The Dynamite Brothers, The C.B. Crew and DJ Afrika Issac - DJ Pete La Rock is called Uptown's Best

 

SIR NORIN RAD:“Did he ask you to join the Zulu Nation? How did you become a member? Did you sign that book of his which included all the Zulu Nation members?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“ Yeah, we were at his apartment and signed it. He said,“You’re official!“ I said,“Aight. Kool!“ 

SIR NORIN RAD:“So you brought the Zulu Nation to Boston Secor?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“ Yes, I put Boston Secor on the map. If it wasn’t for me playing nobody would even know about Boston Secor. Coop City..they knew about us. People from Tremont Avenue knew us. We had people from Harlem come all the way to Boston Secor to see us play. And there wasn‘t no internet back then, we would just give out flyers. Roll on the train, give out flyers.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“What did P.T. Disco stand for?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Peter and Tony. My name is Peter and my friend that built the mixer his name is Tony. That‘s Disco T. So we just put P.T. Disco.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Did he DJ as well?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yeah, he DJed a little bit but he was more the sound guy. He took care of our sound.“

DJ Disco T (The P.T. Disco Crew)

 

SIR NORIN RAD:“So it was important to have someone in your crew that knew how to wire up the soundsystem?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Sure! Cause I didn’t really know a lot. I learnt from him, you know?  Yeah, I know how to put two turntables and a mixer and hook that up into a receiver and have sound. But then there was other stuff that came in to play, too. He was building speakers. He was putting woofers in speakers. He was nice like that.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“At which point were you allowed to play in the Boston Secor Community Center?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Well, you know we had to go there and ask them if we could play. They wanted us to rent the center out but before that we had this guy called Biddy and he would rent it out. He was like,“Yo, you gonna play! I want you to do this party! I‘m gonna give you some money out of what we make.“ He was like a ballplayer / pimp. I‘m talking about a real pimp. He had girls on the stroll and everything.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“How many people fit into the Boston Center Community? What did it look like inside? Where would the parties go down at?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“I think you could fit 200 to 300 people in there. They had a stage there and then they had a lunchroom. It was an actual lunchroom. We used to put the tables up but it was a lunchroom.We made it into a HipHop room.“

October 6th, 1979: The P.T. Disco Crew performs at Communnity Center #1 in the Bronx

 

SIR NORIN RAD:“Did the Boston Secor Houses also have B-Boys?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yeah, there were a lot of them! They used to travel where I travelled cause they wanted to hear their B-Boy music.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Who were the best B-Boys out of Boston Secor?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“There was Hassan. He was really good. He lived across the street from where I lived at.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Was he the best B-Boy out of Boston Secor?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“I believe so. There was somebody else. I just can’t remember his name...“

SIR NORIN RAD:“ Who was Sha Sha Rockwell? It seems to that he was another DJ of P.T. Disco. Is that correct?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yeah, that was a friend of mine. He lived across the street in the second building. He was like really my older brother‘s friend. He was my of my brother‘s age but he liked to hang out with us because he loved music.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“What was his function within your crew?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“He did what I did. He cut up breakbeats. He was trying to get as good as me.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“So you were competing with each other?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Yeah! We would also practice together.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Please describe how you recruited your three MCees. Stevie Dee, Curious and Mary.“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Well, Mary lived across the street in Sha Sha Rockwell‘s building. I would hang out with her brother. She had a really nice voice. So I was like,“Let me her you rap!“ cause I had seen other crews that had female MCees. Stevie Dee used to live in Edenwald, when I used to hang out in Edenwald. I heard him rap one day and I asked him,“Why don’t you rap with me? Why don‘t you rap for my crew?“  He said,“Aight. Kool.“ I forgot how we met Curious.  I know he used to live in the Twos. So we used to all hang out in the Twos. I think that‘s where we met him. They joined me a little bit later because it was just Disco T and me at first. We were doing parties together. When Sha Sha Rockwell and the MCees joined our crew it caused some friction between Disco Tee and them because he had thought that P.T. Disco would be only me and him. I let others join because they were nice. He didn‘t like that.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“ Were you able to solve this problem?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Not really because Disco T started getting heated. They still wanted to be with me, you know? So after a while he didn’t want to participate anymore. I was hanging with them and he didn’t wanna hang with them.“

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did your MCees do routines and did they harmonize?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"No, they were strictly rapping and then they passed the microphone over to the next MC. They didn't really get into singing." 

August 24th, 1979: The P.T. Disco Crew participates in a DJ/MC Convention at the legendary Webster P.A.L. in the Bronx

SIR NORIN RAD:“Did you have a record boy?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Nah. I would dig for myself. I would go from the top of my head like,“I‘mma play this now! I‘mma play that!“ But yeah there were times when Sha Sha Rockwell would give me some records. He would be like,“Play this next!““

SIR NORIN RAD:“How many crates of breakbeats did you have at the height of your DJ career?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“I think I had about five crates.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Okay, and what were your top three breakbeats to cut up back then?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“(laughs) There were so many. I liked Bob James „Take Me To The Mardi Gras“.  „Truck Turner“ by Isaac Hayes. „Indiscreet“ by DC LaRue.“

SIR NORIN RAD:“Where would you play outside during spring and summertime? Was there a park close to your building?“

DJ PETE LA ROCK:“Oh yeah, we would go to the basketball court. Now the basketball court is located behind my brother’s building. We have a baseball field back there, too. It’s one full court with one rim on the side. So it's like three baskets but we have one full court. Right there by the baseball field. It‘s like behind the projects. They call it behind the projects but it's behind my brother's building. We used to go there, set up our equipment, plug in to the light poles and guys used to be playing tournaments and we would be out there playing music. It used to be nice, man. I loved it. We used to have the whole place packed!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How long did these parties go?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"We would start like during the day.....around 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock and we'd play until the lights went out. It was a time when we didn't have lights until they put lights in the basketball court. Sometimes we would play in the middle of the street."

SIR NORIN RAD:"A block party."

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Yes, like a block party. We could play at night 'cause the street lights would come on." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was your worst experience with technical difficulties while playing music in the park?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Sometimes a needle broke or a needle turned upside down. I remember one time I had to perform surgery on my needle. I took the needle out to screw it in to the arm and the point of the needle was turned upside down.  I had to get a tweezer to turn the point down. It was crazy. I did it though." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you like to give shout outs at the end of this interview?"

DJ PETE LA ROCK:"Shout out to you, Norin Rad! Thank you for letting me do this! I really appreciate it. Shout out to all the original Hiphop DJs!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you very much! Shout out to Pdub!!! Shout out to my Intruders Crew! To Princess Teela (RIP)! And to Sureshot La Rock!"