Ian Beck turns the Hill out; Uffie and Leedz
By DAVID DAY | July 25, 2006
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Ian Beck (left) and his Mission Hill party posse |
The demography of Mission Hill is complex. Left to rot in the ’60s and degenerated by the ’80s, it’s had a resurgence in the naughties of young and hip vibes. Near Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and Brookline, it intersects a diverse crowd, and with Mass Art and the MFA nearby, arty types abound. Lately, Mission Hill has become a beacon for party goers and party throwers. One such party thrower, IAN BECK, moved in this December. “I love Mission Hill, I’m a pretty big fan of it. I’ve met some interesting people since I moved in,” he says over the phone from Bedford, where he is, of all things, house-sitting for the weekend. “It’s interesting, hanging out with different DJs. You become more conscious of your personal style in terms of music that you play, and what passes with people.”Beck along with PATRICK O’NEAL and SAMIR NASEEM runs the monthly Happy Endings party at the Paradise Lounge, and they all live together on the Hill. Beck and O’Neal got their feet wet as a night called Collective but soon fell into Happy Endings. “We started off as a big fluke. One day, I randomly got an e-mail response from the Paradise saying, ‘We just had someone cancel for 10 days from today.’ So I talked to Samir and Patrick and we worked our butts off spreading the word for 10 days, and it ended up bigger than anyone had expected.”
Beck is from the North Shore and went to UMass-Amherst. “I wasn’t hanging out with the right crowd when I was there. I was hanging out with the Faneuil Hall crowd. I didn’t know any better. When I finally came to Boston and began hanging out with the artsy set, I realized my college experience might have been a lot different.” His music recently featured such strangely diverse selections as the Flaming Lips, Calloway, the Pipettes, and a segue between Mitch Ryder and Spank Rock. “The energy seemed right. As long as you can connect the energy. That [Mitch Ryder] song hits the ground running. If you’re going from a hip-hop song into a song that is completely different, people have to know what it is.”
Beck is plotting a one-off event next Thursday, August 3, at Great Scott with DJ CAITLIN, MIXELPIXEL, and PROJECT JENNY, PROJECT JAN. The night will be called either Waterslide or Masterpiece Theatre — he has yet to decide. “We want people to have fun, and we want a little debauchery, I guess. I want people to spread the gospel that there are dance nights in the city, and our goal is to make everyone remember how much fun they’ve had.” The next Happy Endings at the Paradise goes off August 19.
Local techno legend TYM RYAN is starting to make waves again. The man who ran Axis Spin Cycle for a long time has been plotting some low-key gigs to get back into the ring. Most notably, he’s taking the reins on regular Fridays at the newly rethought Good Life on Kingston Street. (Downstairs they now have a frozen-vodka bar with more than 150 kinds of vodka.) If you want him sooner, though: this Saturday he hosts a one-off at Enormous Room, where he’ll spin a “decent mixture” of old- and new-school house along with something he calls “electroskank.”
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