VERSOFEST 2023
Vinyl has reclaimed its throne as the most popular physical music format. Continuing one of the more surprising comebacks of the digital age, vinyl album sales in the United States have grown for the 17th consecutive year, showing a return to collecting and curating after decades of the digital song deconstruction of albums. Join moderator Dave Schneider (The Zambonis), Kid Ginseng (Kraftjerkz Records), Karen Ponzio (New Haven Independent Arts Writer), Alec Cumming (Snap Crackle POP! on WPKN), Dooley-O, and Eric Holland (WFUV) for a warm, crackly brunch.
Dave Schneider, local hero, Schneider is the creative font behind bands like the Zambonis, the LeeVees, and anchor/conduit behind the ever-growing and ever-amazing, CTGB night.
Kid Ginseng - born in the Bahamas, 25% French American citizen. Mixing and scratching since 1997, he produces tracks, and runs the critically acclaimed Kraftjerkz label played by DJs such as I-F, Helena Hauff, Danny Daze, Nina Kraviz, Solvent etc.
In 1997 Kid Ginseng started as a hip hop DJ concentrating on electrofunk from 1982 to roughly ‘89. In 1999 he began to make megamixes that he imagined would play at the Funhouse (circa early 80s NYC.) He threw in short bursts of favorites by the likes of Jonzun Crew and HASHIM. He was also inspired by Eddie Def to use samples from comedy records, scary stories, and video games. In 2001 Ginseng and partner Jonny Steady made a kut and skratch song under the name KRAFTJERKZ for bay area label, Hip Hop Slam. It was a favorite on hip hop slam’s Scratch Attack radio show. It ended up featured on the vol. 1 compilation of the same name. By the time Scratch Attack vol. 3 came out, Ginseng’s name had shared the credits with others such as DJ Quest of the Space Travelers, along with Shortkut and Qbert of the legendary Invisibl Skratch Piklz. During ‘02 Ginseng made some bizarre synth music on an ancient 4-track. nice and compressed:) also during this time Ginseng toured as DJ for Tom Tom Club. By ‘03 he had done two Tom Tom Club tours in addition to touring and recording with Mad HaPPy. Fast forward to ‘06 Kid Ginseng has made three solo EP’s. The third was titled “BLESSE” for dutch label, La La Land. The EP was released in Den Haag just before a performance sharing the stage with Chicks On Speed, playing to an audience of over 900. since then he has played in Belgium and toured as Tom Tom Club’s DJ playing in such places as the UK, Western Europe, and 6 shows in Japan. Also, in ‘07 Ginseng began Kraftjerkz records, releasing numerous 12”s of a few styles including Entro Senestre, ALONZO, Luke Eargoggle, Martial Canterel, Maroje T, Stallone The Reducer, Bookworms, Zarkoff, Neud Photo, Le Chocolat Noir and others. He has also collaborated multiple times with Detroit technobass pioneer DJ Di'jital.
Karen Ponzio is an arts and culture journalist for the New Haven Independent who cultivated her love of both listening to and writing about music while making mix tapes and reading liner notes as a teenager. She has shared her poems, displayed her artwork, and hosted a variety of live shows at venues throughout the New Haven area over the past ten years as well as the CygnusRadio.com show The Word According to KP which featured both poetry and music.
Dooley-O is a global hip-hop legend, DJ, MC, producer, and visual artist. Dooley-O was the very first to commercially sample Skull Snaps “It’s A New Day,” one of the most-heard and iconic hip-hop samples of all time. Whosampled.com lists 531 samples of "It’s A New Day,” from Pharcyde, Gang Starr, ODB, Das EFX, Common, to The Matrix. Producer of the underground Graffiti Videos called GTV (Graffiti TV).
Alec Cumming - I’m a child of the early sixties who grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a scrappy town that reminds me in many ways of Bridgeport, which has been my home base since 2015. With the help of my two older and beloved sisters, as we grew up together in the 1960s, the most exciting and adventurous decade for music in our lifetimes, I developed a sweet tooth for “snappy” (think: crisp new wave), “crackly” (think: old-vinyl-friendly) and “poppy” music (think: music that combines melodic hooks, art, and unabashed catchiness mixed sometimes with adventure, curiosity, angst and abrasiveness, and maybe more than a little nostalgia and melancholy). The Beatles were and still are a “ground zero” of sorts, my alpha and omega. Their melodic gifts and restless experimentation are at my very core. In 1979, when punk and new wave was really thriving in the U.K. and slowly starting to take hold in the U.S, I started to attend Syracuse University for TV and Radio, and that moment in music still resonates deeply with me.
If you get around to checking out my show on WPKN, you may note I have an enthusiastic if imperfect ability to remember anecdotes about when and how certain songs were written, recorded and released. (Again, my mind works in mysterious ways.) That’s a BIG part of the Snap Crackle POP! ethos; I go DEEP into the backstory of how and when the music I play got made. Sometimes I worry I overdo that part. My hero of heroes, in term of radio deejays, is the now-mainly-retired Vin Scelsa, who was (a) also a talkative chap who (b) for many years was a freeform DJ at WFMU, WABC-FM, WNEW-FM and later WFUV. As I play my mixture of oldies, newies and obscurities, I feel I am aiming at what Vin was doing, although I am nowhere near him in terms of grace, humanity and radio expertise. Anyway, I cannot begin to express my gratitude to WPKN for giving me a wonderful platform that allows me to develop such a skill – a meeting ground of music, broadcasting, and human-to-human communication with a dollop of hippie-punk idealism and unpredictability.
When my daughter Julia (of Sunflower Bean!) hears me on WPKN now, she says “dad, you obviously should have been doing radio ALL YOUR LIFE.” She’s right. But thankfully, I have decided it’s never too late to start; ergo, I did my first on-air shift here in 2016.)
Eric Holland - "The best decision I ever made was not getting rid of my albums." While building his vinyl record collection growing up in the 80s, EricHolland would never have guessed that he would be playing some of them on the air in his House of Wax Monday through Thursday evenings around 8 o'clock. Or maybe he would have! "From the time I was 15 years old, I knew I wanted to be a rock radio DJ."
WICB at Ithaca College was where his radio career took flight. Following graduation, Eric spent time behind the microphone at rock stations like WAQY in Springfield, MA and WKGB in Binghamton, New York. Between gigs, he crisscrossed the country to explore national parks and musical cities such as Clarksdale, New Orleans, Memphis, Austin, and San Francisco. He eventually settled down for a few years as Program Director/Afternoon Host at KKLV in Honolulu. ("Going to Hawaii was a good decision too!) After this consciousness-expanding quest, he ended up back where he grew up in Massachusetts, where he continued on air at WZLX and WBOS and taught classes at Emerson College, where he later received his Master of Arts.
As a lifelong lover of sushi and Kurosawa, Holland found a way to live for a few years in Japan where he co-hosted a bilingual radio program called Henna (strange) Communication in Tokyo. In the fall of 2007, Eric returned to the states and headed for the town he fell in love with during a handful of visits in his college years: New York. In June of 2008, Eric did his first show on WFUV, and it has proved to be a perfect fit.
"It's brilliant to be able to draw on all the different genres in the FUV music library and carry on the spirit of independent, free-form radio. It's also a pleasure to be able to work with some of the best DJs I've ever heard."
Comfortable in front of the camera too, Eric was the music reporter on NY1-TV from 2012 to 2017. He currently resides not far from our Bronx studios with his wife and his cat, Black Sabbath, surrounded by his record collection and in striking distance of the city’s live music venues. Aside from being a live music fiend, he enjoys crossword puzzles and riding his bicycle. He's also a nut about nature's best-dressed flightless birds! He's traveled to the Chilean side of Tierra Del Fuego to hang out with penguins and hopes to visit the Falklands or Antarctica one day to spend time with more.
