Welcome to Dive Bar Jukebox, where bartenders, writers, chefs, musicians, and a cast of cool characters answer the question: If we were hanging out together at a bar and I put ten credits on the jukebox, what songs would you punch in and why? The answers reveal thoughts on their favorite dive bars along with a hand-picked, annotated playlist for your weekend listening pleasure.
This is a super-sized dispatch, and will likely be truncated in your Inbox, so be sure to click the “View Entire Message” link to expand.
Today’s Dive Bar Jukebox is free to all readers thanks to the generous support of Faccia Brutto Spirits.
Before launching Faccia Brutto Spirits in March 2020, founder and distiller Patrick Miller spent 14 years working at restaurants around the world, wrapping up his culinary career as chef at Brooklyn’s Rucola. The influence of growing up in an Italian family can be felt in the Italian-inspired amari and liqueurs he produces in his Crown Heights distillery—from Aperitivo and Fernet Pinata to the Sicilian-inspired Amaro Gorini and Carciofo.
Their latest release, Faccia Brutto Centerbe Giallo Riserva, is a limited-edition version of their popular Centerbe that has been aged in used American oak wine barrels for one year (using a single-stage Solera system to maintain consistency year to year). It’s made with the same 20 botanicals and herbs as Centerbe, including coriander, lemon balm, anise hyssop, nettles, tarragon, parsley, and bay leaves. After the extended time in the barrels, the golden-hued herbal liqueur rests in stainless-steel tanks for an additional six months, after which saffron and lemon leaf are added.
On its own you’ll experience the aroma of mellow oak, flowers, and citrus. On the palate it delivers sharp, slightly honeyed herbaceous notes rounded out with vanilla and spice. Faccia Brutto Centerbe Giallo Riserva is perfect in a highball with soda garnished with a thick lemon peel or try it in a Martini or Gimlet. It also has a fondness for agave spirits (try it in Grand Army’s Lady Bug Juice—recipe below)
Limited to just 66 cases, you’ll want to pick up a bottle of Faccia Brutto Centerbe Giallo Riserva while you can—for yourself or to share with your favorite bittersweet friend or loved one—at select retailers like Astor Wines & Spirits and Leon and Son Wines & Spirits, or try it at bars and restaurants such as Grand Army, The Richardson, Altro Paradiso, Lodi, and Estela.
Now, please join me in welcoming today’s special guest…
DJ Mojo
The 6’4”, 74-year-old, wisdom-spouting music aficionado, Vietnam War veteran, and NYC nightlife legend known as DJ Mojo has regular gigs at bars around Brooklyn, but my favorite place to catch him is on Saturday nights at the San Pedro Inn at Red Hook.
“San Pedro is my home away from home. I really love this place, and the people that I work with. With the proliferation of different and new places in Brooklyn in general—and in Red Hook in particular—we need more places like San Pedro. That kind of all encompassing, all welcoming, let’s give it a try nature is something most places don’t have.
Everybody is looking to carve out their own niche and sit there, but to me that’s like a grown chicken trying to get back in the egg. And on the other hand, when the chicken comes out of the egg, it doesn’t spit on the broken pieces of eggshell. It says, thank you for protecting me while I developed. And San Pedro is like an incubator, not for just music and good food or for the dive bar ethos. It’s an incubator of the commonality of humanity. I know that sounds really wild and almost pretentious, but I really mean it. This is a place we come to to learn about each other. That’s why a place like this exists.”
—DJ Mojo
Born and raised in Brooklyn, DJ Mojo grew up in Crown Heights and later in Brooklyn Heights, where he currently lives. After serving four combat tours in Vietnam with the First Marine Division, First Recon Battalion from 1967-1971 (“I spent 54 months of duty with 48 of those in combat. I survived, but I wouldn’t wish my luck on the Riddler.”), he spent time cooking in kitchens in California, Texas, and Illinois, where he worked at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago.
“One thing my mother and father’s rigorous work ethic taught me was if you’re going to dispense at least 40 hours a week of your life you on something, it might as well be doing something you like,” says Mojo. “At the very least it’s stupid to spend that much time doing something you hate.”
Jesse Rifkin’s new book, This Must Be the Place, chronicles New York City’s live-music and club scene from the ‘60s folk movement to the rise of Brooklyn indie bands in the early 2000s, and features DJ Mojo, who was a fixture of the late ‘70s and ‘80s New York City club scene, starting out as a doorman before becoming a DJ, working at Hurrah, Berlin, Pyramid, Danceteria, Area, and Mud Club.
“I came up in night life around ‘76 / ‘77, and in those days people trusted the DJ. Nobody went up and said ‘play this, play that,’” says Mojo. “If I know you and I know you’re not gonna ask something stupid, I don’t mind. And if I know you and you’re gonna tip me well, I don’t mind. I have a motto: If you want some action, show me a Jackson. If you can get away with giving me five then you know it means I like you.”
Now that I know I have to up my DJ tip game at San Pedro I’m excited to share this special, super-sized edition of Dive Bar Jukebox with DJ Mojo, featuring an extended interview—including stories about sitting for two Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings, and a certain Beastie Boys song he’d rather forget—and a stream-of-consciousness playlist featuring Aretha Franklin, Gil-Scott Heron, David Bowie, and more. I hope you dig it.
This weekend you can catch DJ Mojo in Bushwick: tonight (Friday, September 29) at The Rookery (425 Troutman Street on Saturday, September 30 at Rubulad (389 Melrose Street, Brooklyn, NY 11237). He’ll be back in the Saturday night groove at San Pedro next Saturday.
As DJ Mojo would say, Peace and Love…
Talking with DJ Mojo
What is your favorite dive bar and why do you love it?
Mojo: There were several. And I usually don’t talk about them because when I go out I tend to—well, let me tell it like this. I was walking down St. Mark’s sometime in the ‘90s and I’m standing on the corner waiting for the light to change and someone I knew was walking toward me and I go, “Hey, how you doing? What’s up?” So we started talking. And as I was talking to Person No. 1, Person No. 2 comes over and says, “Hey, Mojo, how you doing?” Boom boom boom. Person No. 1, meet Person No. 2. Then the next thing I know we’ve got Person No. 3. Then I’m surrounded by nine cats, all who didn’t know each other. Then they all disappear and Person No. 1, the original guy, says, “Being with you is like being with the mayor.” [laughs]
So dive bars for me… I mean, I keep my mouth shut. But some of them are closed now so I can talk about them. One great place on Spring Street is the Ear Inn. It’s still there but not exactly in the same way it used to be. It was very laid back. It had a huge spectrum, musically. Prices were good. The bartenders were cool. It was one of those places where if you paid your tab and mind your business and didn’t cause any trouble you could drink there from noon to midnight. Everything was copacetic.
Another really good one was Shark Bar [BTP: the nickname of Spring Lounge due to taxidermy sharks leftover from a previous owner.] on Spring and Mulberry. Around 2012 I was working at BeakThru Radio doing my own show, “Maximum Music with DJ Mojo,” and the studio where I would record my voiceovers was a block away. So I’d get up in the morning around nine or ten o’clock, go to the studio until noon then go over to Shark Bar for a few drinks the rest of the afternoon. Another very laid-back place. Huge cross-section. You had models, because there were a few modeling agencies nearby. Then you had all the firemen who would come in to try to pick up the models [laughs]. And a lot of bar and restaurant staff would come by and hang out there.
What makes a dive bar a dive bar?
Mojo: It’s about the spectrum of, not just the people, but the spectrum of vibes. You can see a young couple on a first date. You can see an old man with gnarled hands who looked he worked bending iron for 20 years. You can see young neighborhood guys who thought they were Tony Manero. You can see single mothers with a small family stopping in for a quick beer before taking the kid home. A dive bar is typified by how relaxed all these different types of people can be there. I’ve walked into bars where I’ll have one drink but the vibe is off and that’s not my thing.
What is the strangest or most interesting thing you ever witnessed go down at a dive bar?
Mojo: Besides me? [laughs] Wow. Too many stories… I used to work at a divey bar called The Hard Swallow, a rock and roll bar on First Avenue between Eighth and Ninth. I was a DJ there and they were hiring new girls to be bartenders and one of them got behind the bar and I asked her for a Jameson’s and soda, you know, seltzer. She gave me a Jameson and Coke. OK, that was my mistake. So I said, sorry, I should’ve said seltzer. So she makes me a Jameson neat and comes back with a glass of seltzer.
What didn’t dawn on me was that she was loaded. She was like juketified. The bartenders do their own registers and I watch her put all the money in her pouch and then the owner, Big Lee, came in and asked me how the new girl is doing as a bartender? And I was like, well since you asked… I was like, look man, I know we’re friends and I don’t want to get anybody fired, but I work here and I gotta be honest with you.
As we’re talking she comes over and says she’s done with her shift and she did the drop. But as she walked out I saw her put something in her bag, which looked a lot like the drop bag. She walked out but knew she had been busted and came back and handed him the drop bag like she was handing him a folded newspaper saying she forgot she still had. And Big Lee took the money and looked at her for two minutes in silence until she knew she would never be welcome back.
What is your go-to drink at a dive bar?
Mojo: I’m very simple. Jameson’s, neat. Jameson’s on the rocks. Jameson’s on the rocks with seltzer. Jameson’s with seltzer, no rocks. Maybe I’ll have a beer. If it’s really hot I’ll have a vodka Greyhound with lime and a little bitters.
How did you come to be known as Mojo?
Mojo: I got the name Mojo in 1967 when I was in the Marine Corps. I got off the bus in the middle of the night at Paris Island and the Master Sergeant had us all stand attention along a yellow line as they thew all our luggage in a big heap. He’s walking past the lot of us and on my right was an Asian dude with glasses and a really skinny guy on my left and I kept thinking to myself, he ain’t gonna make it. Master Sergeant was giving everybody their new name and he looked at me and said, “You look like a Mojo, boy!” And that was it. But I fared better than the skinny kid, cause he called him Asswipe. I thought, I’m ahead already!
How did you get into being a pretty well-known doorman in New York?
Mojo: It was around 1977. I was, like, a lot slimmer then, and I had the military career behind me, and they took one look at me and they're like, put this guy on the door. I started doing that and it was easy money for me, but I had a definite sense of ambition and got the reputation of being very reliable. And being reliable in nightlife was a big asset. When they found somebody who was good, and who could do their job, that was like gold.
What was your look back then? Were you styling?
Mojo: I was never a fashion maven, but yeah, I liked to look good. Or at least to wear things that make me not look like everybody else. There was a period of time where I was wearing a lot of suits. In those days, I could actually go to a thrift store and find some that fit me off the rack. I found this really great black merino wool suit. It was a two piece, and I matched it with a black turtleneck and a crimson wine-colored pocket square and a black Kangol cap. People would see me walking down the street and they'd be, oh, that's Mojo. And when I was making good money I got a silver shark skin suit. I had that one custom made. And that looked good. Very Cary Grant.
And how did that lead into DJ-ing?
Mojo: When the DJ scene came I started moving into DJ-ing at Berlin. Richard Sweret was a big DJ then and he worked from 9 p.m. til 10 a.m., so he showed me how to work the DJ system so he could take breaks. I was familiar with the music he played but over time I started bringing my own records and soon I had four cases of albums with me each night.
Can we talk about “Egg Raid on Mojo”?
Mojo: Ugh… they all ask…
Is it a badge of honor to have a Beastie Boys song inspired by you or is like, fuck those guys?
Mojo: I’m just sorry I never sued for fair usage rights. I mean, come on, man…
So what happened?
Mojo: It was simple. That whole crew would all hang out on St. Mark’s. I was considerably older than everyone else—they were kids—but we just all appreciated the same music, and since I was in the nightlife world they wanted to hang out with me. They would drop by Berlin after hours and because they were so stylish everyone would take pictures of them and the club owners didn’t give a shit about them hanging around.
When Berlin burned down I ended up working at Pyramid, which was a real bar, and I was like, dudes, I can’t let you in here, I’ll get fucking fired and the place will get closed and then what? They called me a sell out, but I’m not gonna risk my job to be part of a clique.
There was always a big line to get into Pyramid. It wasn’t for notoriety, it was just a small place. You know, five out, five in. And then one night I see these white spheres coming my way in the air and they’re eggs! They never hit me once—I’m ducking them and dodging them. I had on a baseball cap and I took it off and would catch them like jai alai and wing them back at them. And I nailed one of them in the face and the crowd, in unison, went Ole! But I never got touched.
But you wish you had a little piece of those royalties?
Mojo: Wouldn’t hurt! [laughs]
Would you mind telling me about sitting for Jean-Michel Basquiat?
Mojo: I had been in California working as a sous-chef at the Sheraton House Hotel. I’ve never been good with money and I’d just throw my paycheck in my desk drawer. I’d always ask the chef, who was a good friend of mine, if he could lend me a hundred bucks and he was like, do what you want, man, but you’re getting paid now. So he spotted me a hundred and then back in my apartment I had seven or eight checks and I was surprised to see I was making over $1,500 a week. So I put it all in the bank and worked there for a little longer and I saved that money to put a down-payment on the house I still live in in Brooklyn. That was cool, right? But now I’m broke again. So I went back to working at Area where I could also drink for free.
I’d see Jean-Michel around all the time and I knew Keith Haring very well—he was a great guy, and he was a great artist. I saw those guys daily. So Jean-Michel came up to me in the lounge at Area and said, “Mojo, I’ve been looking for you. I hear you’re looking for some money and wanted to see if you’d like to pose for me. I can pay you. Here’s my address. Come over tomorrow around five o’clock.” I figured it’d be a couple hundred bucks at best. That would be great.
So the next day I go by his place on Great Jones Street. It was in the fall and I take my coat off and I was wearing a red sweater. He puts me under this huge klieg light against a white wall and says, “Stand right there and try not to move around too much.” So I stood there quietly and he’d ask me to turn my head or move this way or that way and he’s making all these sketches. After around 45 minutes he says, “OK. I got what I need. Let me go get your money.” So I put my coat on and he puts an envelope in my hand and, hey, I know the guy, I’m not going to open it on the counter and count it in front of him. I put the envelope in my pocket and shake his hand and said let me know when it’s finished and say goodbye.
I’m walking down the street and figure I’ve got a couple bucks in my pocket I can get me a drink and afford a cab. And I open the envelope and it was five fucking grand in one-hundred dollar bills. You could get a two-bedroom apartment in the East Village at that time for $400 a month. I was like, this has got to be a motherfucking mistake.
So I went back to his loft and knocked on the door and said, I think there’s been a mistake. He laughed and said, “What do you mean?” He checks out the envelope and says, “No, that’s good, man. See ya.” And boom, closes the door.
And then you sat for him again later?
Mojo: Yeah. Two weeks later he calls me up and said he wanted to do another one. I was like, no way that’s going to happen again. Then, fuck. Another five grand. His paintings then were selling for $50,000-$100,000, easy. The “Mojo” paintings were big, the size of this window. I know one, for a fact, is in a private collection. The only thing about the second one I remember was I was wearing a blue sweater. I never really saw the finished one. A woman who was curating some of Basquiat’s archives for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts somehow tracked me down and invited to come and talk about the experience. And there it was, hanging in a museum. I was more interested in watching the people looking at the painting. There’s nothing I can say that’s gonna be more interesting than this painting.
What do you like about DJ-ing at San Pedro Inn?
Mojo: San Pedro is like my lab. I feel the most freedom when I play here. But my first mandate of being a DJ has been to never try to change someone else’s taste.
How was being a DJ changed for you over the years?
Mojo: Nowadays, I think that both the conceptual and the actual practice of being a DJ has been corrupted into being a human jukebox. Everybody wants to blame the technology, but it’s because people have gotten lazy about listening to music. In the day when you wanted to listen to music, when you wanted to buy records, you had to get off your butt, get on the train, go into Manhattan, go to a record store, buy a bunch of records, and then you’ve got 60 pounds of records you gotta carry around.
Now people go on Spotify, and the reason I think Spotify is the devil is because of how it retrains people to think about the visceral aspect of it. I mean, I can remember concerts, live shows, and even the first time I heard certain records, and I can remember what that was like for me. And some of those are pivotal moments in my life.
And now it’s all about the “shuffle” button where the algorithm is telling you what you like. You're not figuring it out for yourself. An album like A Love Supreme—that's meant to be listened side A, then side B, then turn it back over to Side A. The Spotify algorithm is like making a meal out of cotton candy, but thinking it's a steak. [BTP: Yes, I realize the irony of linking to Spotify throughout this Dive Bar Jukebox.]
I know “Peace and Love” is one of your favorite sayings and a salutation of sorts. Can you give me one more Mojo-ism for the road?
Mojo: I say “Peace and Love” because I think that’s something that’s sorely lacking. But one more for you?… Don’t let your alligator-sized mouth get your hummingbird-sized ass in trouble.” [laughs]
Dive Bar Jukebox: DJ Mojo
Most DBJ guests spend hours fine-tuning their annotated playlist, but when I broke down the details for DJ Mojo he waved away any homework and instead wanted to create it on the spot with me in a freestyle, stream of conscious manner. He didn’t want this to have a theme or represent a typical set-list. So instead we pulled up at a table outside San Pedro on a recent late-afternoon Saturday before his DJ slot for a black coffee spiked with Jameson's and a long talk filled with stories, laughs, and good music.
—BTP
“H20 Gate Blues” by Gil-Scott Heron and Brian Jackson [Not available on Spotify]
It’s what we talk about when we talk about Watergate. Gil-Scott Heron was primarily a poet but he did a lot of jazz work and he’s just great. The song is spot on about how the government has been corrupted and how the people who have corrupted it have never made it right. And even now people who understand that concept are less interested in correcting the problem and more interested in being on the right side of history.
This is the thing I always tell my left-wing friends. You may not like the guy voting for Biden. You may not like the guy who is gonna vote for Cornell West. But the guys who are trying to eclipse Black history and Trans and LGBTQ consciousness, and the people trying to get rid of social security and healthcare. Those people are organized. In fact, they’re frighteningly organized. So for me, being organized is more important than being able to say, well I don’t like this, and that makes me cool.
What comes up next? That’s easy. In behind him I would have to play…
“Evidently Chicken Town” by John Cooper Clarke
John Cooper Clarke once said, “I was fascinated to see 350 people waiting to hear me ready my poetry.” He was considered offbeat in his day in London. This is perfect continuity following Gil-Scott .
And then I would go into something like…
“People Get Ready” by Aretha Franklin
John Cooper Clarke has a really gravely voice and the beginning of “People Get Ready” just has a beautiful harmony—[sings] “I believe, I believe….” To me, that’s counterpoint. That makes you sit up.
Then I would go for something like…
“Opus Pocus” by Jaco Pastorius
It’s all about that bass line. Jaco is known to be one of the greatest jazz fusion bass players ever. The guy had a lot of problems but musically he is just untouchable. And what that stands for is the beauty of his music versus the tragedy of his life. And I think that heads or tails, black or white thing is something you have to remember. I think what makes life difficult is feeling that life should be good all the time.
Song five? That’s easy…
“Gurbet” by Özdemir Erdoğan
It’s a Turkish song and, as you know, I really like Turkish music. Many of the singers, male and female, have these beautiful voices that can make you feel pain and love. “Gurbet” means homesick. There was a big migration from Turkey in the 1970s and all of these people were feeling literally cut off from not only their country but from their fellow turks and families. And in this song, if you can’t feel that that’s what he’s feeling, then I cannot help you.
Now I’m going to blend together the next two songs. The first one would be Jean-Jacques Perrey’s “E.V.A.” and that would go into “Just to Get a Rep” by Gang Starr. Gang Starr uses Perrey’s song as a sample and it blends almost flawlessly.
And songs 8 and 9 and are also going to be two blended songs because they’re in the same beat. First, “Young Americans” by David Bowie, followed by “Masta I.C.” by Mic Geronimo. This is the thing. Two songs that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but they’re the same BPM. And they flow—the musical cadence—they just flow right into each other. And when I play them behind one another, people go, why did that work? Not, how did that work, but why?
For No. 10 I could take the easy way out and go with “Blue Train” by John Coltrane. But I usually try to end the night with something spectacular. And if I really wanted to end the night like I’d do both and finish with a song called “Alone in This Dark Romantic Night” by Beautiful Lunar Landscape [Not available on Spotify]. The song is beautiful. In fact, I’ll play it for you later. And there’s this incredible drum solo—it’s just gorgeous. People think it’s a love song, but it’s not. It’s about the AIDS epidemic. That chorus [sings]: “There are were some words I didn’t say….” When you figure out what it’s about, it hits you twice.
Listen to or download the complete playlist on Spotify
Our thanks to Faccia Brutto Spirits for underwriting today’s LAST CALL dispatch.
Featured Recipe: Lady Bug Juice
Ally Marrone and Patty Dennison, Grand Army | Brooklyn, New York (2023)
Faccia Brutto Spirits recently shared the debut of their new herbal liqueur, Faccia Brutto Centerbe Giallo Riserva, at a launch event at Brooklyn’s Grand Army. One of the two featured cocktails of the evening created by Grand Army’s Ally Marrone and Patty Dennison was a Naked and Famous variation they call Lady Bug Juice. This twist on the equal-parts modern classic modern created by Joaquín Simó at Death & Co. in 2011 (what Simó has called “the bastard love child of a classic Last Word and a Paper Plane, conceived in the mountains of Oaxaca”) gets the on-the-rock treatment and the addition of a touch of simple syrup as Marrone notes that the Faccia Brutto Aperitivo is drier than the original Aperol in the drink. And as for that final touch of grated nutmeg? “It softens everything a little bit,” says Marrone. “Plus, I think nutmeg makes everything better.” Pop, pop!
Makes 1 Drink
3/4 ounce Faccia Brutto Centerbe Giallo Riserva
3/4 ounce Faccia Brutto Aperitivo
1 ounce mezcal, preferably Del Maguey Vida Mezcal
1 ounce lime juice
1/4 oz simple syrup (1:1, water:sugar)
Garnish: grated nutmeg
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Add ice, cover, and shake until well-chilled. Strain into a double old-fashioned glass over a large ice cube. Garnish with grated nutmeg.
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That was so fun and captivating to read Brad! So cool you got to interview someone with such an insane life experience
I just loved this, Brad. Thanks for bringing me back to my 80’s NYC.