Tom Moulton was a fashion model on hiatus from the music business when he visited Fire Island's Botel during a photo shoot. "I got a charge out of it, all these white people dancing to black music." Painstakingly, he spent 80 hours making a 90-minute dance tape using sound-on-sound and vari-speed to create a nonstop build. The Botel's owner rejected the tape, but the competing Sandpiper offered to listen, and Moulton left the reel. At 2:30 on a Saturday morning, Moulton was awakened by a call from the Sandpiper that was unintelligible except for the screaming of dancers. To a tape!
So Tom, How come you started mixing stuff?
"Well, I started mixing... Eh, I went out to a place called Fire Island and I went up there for a weekend 'cause
I had never been there and I watched these people dance. All these white people dancing to black music - I was so amazed.
I said "Oh my God, there are other white people that like black music." I was really stunned. And... Especially seeing that
many of them.
And of course all the songs were 3 minutes long and I went "It's a shame because the minute the song is over they start
mixing in this other song and they don't know whether they should dance to the new song or keep dancing to the old one." And
then people would just walk off the floor. That's when everybody would change and you could see that they were trying to get more intense and more involvement. I said "There's got to be a way to make it longer where you don't loose that feeling. Where you can take them to another level." And that's when I came up with this idea to make a tape. - So that's what I did.
I spent like 80 hours to make this 45 minutes tape and then I gave it to them and they told me "Don't give up your day job."
Hahaha [both laughing]
Oh, that was cruel!
Tom continued; "Well, but it was true and then I was so depressed. I was waiting for the boat and then this guy came over to me and said "I got to say something - You look soo down. What's the matter?". I told him what happened, I said "Well, the
guy who has this place down the boardwalk here, he is also a model and I was invited out here and I made a mistake." But he
said "Well, you know, we own a place here - the Sandpiper. How bad can a tape be." I said "I think it's incredible.
It took me 80 hours to do it." He said "If you like, I'll give it to Ron here and let him play it and let him see what he
thinks of it. He'll tell you! And if he says - Don't give up your day job - Then I guess it must be true." I gave him the
tape and I gave him my phone number and a couple of weeks later they called me at 2:30 on a Saturday morning and said "Oh,
can you make another tape - the people are getting wild for this tape!". And that's how I really got started into that side of it."
Great! So have you ever been DJ'ing?
"No! Absolutely not."
OH - You haven't???
"Everybody assumes I have, but I haven't. - I made the tapes for 2 seasons for the Sandpiper. And if you're from New York, doing the music at the Sandpiper you sort of hit the... It's like you take the most famous place you can think of and then if you played there you've made it. So, by doing the music at the Sandpiper people sort of like saying "Oh my God, he has to be like one of the best to do the music there." And no one could understand that it was a tape, so someone had to stand there behind the booth so people wouldn't know it was a tape!"
