Beatport cohorts B-Rad & Sabotage show off their ginormous…catalogue

wordplay: orangepeelmoses.com
images: Sean Hartgrove
models: Katya, Latisha, Mandy, Masha & Vicki
makeup: Irena Murphy

 Brad Roulier and Shawn Sabo like to rock “panty droppers.”  Panty dropper is a slang “sexpression” referring to music that puts ladies in the mood.  Whereas most of the big name jocks Roulier regularly books to pack Vinyl and The Church specialize in the sharpest part of underground dance music’s cutting-edge, only occasionally feeding fans guilty pleasures in the form of manufactured pop song re-rubs, Roulier and Sabo—AKA DJs B-Rad & Sabotage or Manufactured Superstars, collectively--relish in such shameless set programming behavior.  After all, they already rule the global electronica food chain as the promotional muscle and marketing department behind Beatport.com.  What on Earth do they have to lose?  Dick, as it turns out…and all the pussy in the world to gain.

“We wanted to do something different, we wanted to play what ever we wanted. And so the motto came about ‘Whatever, we do what we want.’ Also, most DJ’s take themselves so seriously; MSS are just trying to throw a good party that the ladies can enjoy, with fun party music.”

Roulier is easily one of the most powerful promoters on the planet.  In a mere ten years, he has gone from promoting his first Come Together Productions event Forces of Nature with ex-business partner Jason Bills to helping establish Beatport--currently Earth’s largest dance music retailer--as a serious clout-wielding global brand.  The world’s most overpaid knob twiddlers, from Oakenfold to Tiesto, address him by first name and would probably play his birthday party--for free--if asked.  In fact, Tiesto supposedly flew him down to South America for dinner once.  Although early Beatport promo material featured crude snapshots of Roulier doing the Jesus Christ pose in his bassment bedroom, he’d never actually stepped up to the decks in public until his and Sabo’s MSS duo debut in December of 2005. 

While he may have been a smidgeon nervous about his maiden voyage at the Vinyl helm with partner-in-crime/jungle scene veteran Sabo a few months later, all four floors were packed to the gills with scenesters lured by the party’s South Park-inspired marketing, superhero theme and zero cover charge.  Then again, in hindsight, the numbers were hardly surprising considering Roulier’s highly impressive promoter track record and Sabo’s obviously sufficient experience in the mile high club cockpit.  Strategic booking has seen to it there’s ne’er a single empty room on their resume to date, including out-of-states at Crobar NYC and, more recently, the Avalon in Hollywood. 

The MSS dance floor filling formula certainly doesn’t hurt their feet on the floor to square footage ratio either.  Pretty pipes are forced to fornicate with dirty beats.  Nostalgic rhymes are set adrift phat new patterns.  Omnipresent meets underground.  Ubiquitous meets up and coming.  All the sing along of FM radio with none of the sugar-coated production.  It’s a marriage made in dance music heaven, the best of both worlds.

“I just want it to be fun.  I never wanted to play the newest coolest thing, just throw a party and play lots of fun music new & old. We can get away with a lot that pro DJs just can’t--do house to progressive to pop back to house, that makes us a little different.”      

October 27th @ HallowFreaknWeen (HallowFreaknWeen.com)

w/ Paul Van Dyk, Crystal Method, Sander Kleinenberg, Kaskade, DJ Dan & AK1200

myspace.com/ManufacturedSuperstars

ManufacturedSuperstars.com