10th
Uptown Magazine - Sammy Bananas
It’s been nearly five years since Max Gitlen and Sam Posner released their first DJ mix as Certified Bananas over the web.
The duo generated significant buzz with their genre-bending, anything-goes mixes. Posner realized early on that the game was changing and that the old way of doing things wasn’t going to work. Hoping to cut costs associated with traditional mix CDs and branch outside its homebase of Providence, R.I., at the time, the duo released the mix for free digitally and hoped for the best.
“We just decided to put it on the web and if people liked it, great. If they don’t like it, they didn’t pay any money for it,” explains Posner over the phone from Kauai, Hawaii. “It quickly became clear that it could actually be a good way to put something out.”
Fast forward to 2009 and the landscape has totally changed. Posner was ahead of the curve; only a handful of mix compilations still exist, with most DJs releasing material for free over the web.
Posner has used that model again for Telephoned, his new cover-song project with singer Maggie Horn. Although they have a new five-song EP coming out this January on the highly respected Fool’s Gold label, they chose to give away their tracks before releasing anything officially.
In addition to his many musical projects, Posner has also been DJing under the guise of Sammy Bananas, turning out bootleg remixes and, more recently, his own original material. Although he has done official remixes for artists such as Kid Cudi and Passion Pit, it’s his white-label remixes that have really caught people’s attention. Posner’s own tracks channel the heart and soul of the ’90s through a modern filter.
“Especially in R&B and hip hop, everyone took themselves way less seriously than everybody takes themselves right now. I think the result, if you look at the music from that era, it’s really playful and fun to listen to,” says the Ivy league-educated DJ. “For me, it’s also the time when I started listening to a lot of that kind of music. It’s basically the foundation of how I understand music. It was inevitable that it was going to be a big part of the music that I make.”
Along with continuing to dabble in bootlegs and remixes, Posner is excited to have a song on the new Fool’s Gold compilation CD on Downtown Records that is slated to be in stores by March.
“I have my first original track on there that doesn’t have any copyright infringing, illegal or otherwise nefarious aspects to it,” laughs Posner. “It’s just me, a bunch of synthesizers, instruments, drum machines and my crazy ’90s thang.”
»»»Tune into Phase One Radio 95.9 FM (www.ckuw.ca) from 10 - midnight on December 10th. 2 hours of music from Fool’s Gold’s Sammy Bananas.
SAMMY BANANAS
Dec. 11, Pyramid Cabaret
w/ The Lytics, Mikey Shhh (aka Mike B), Footwerk
