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SF Weekly Mix
Giving Reality Bites the Soundtrack It Deserves
For Debaser's 9th anniversary party this Saturday, DJ Jamie Jams has put together a booming alt-rock mix.
Jessie Schiewe Fri. May 26, 2017 12:17pm, All Shook Down
This year, Debaser — a monthly party at the Knockout dedicated to early ’90s alt-rock and led by DJ Jamie Jams — turns 9. For the party’s third anniversary in 2011, Jams concocted a mixtape of “odes to love and love lost” themed around Cameron Crowe’s film Singles, replete with vocal cuts from the movie. For its fifth anniversary, Debaser created a mix themed around Boyz n the Hood, with tracks by Cyprus Hill, EPMD, Grand Puba, Public Enemy, and more, and jokes from Ice Cube littered throughout.
In keeping with that tradition, Jams has just released Debaser’s third official mixtape, this time based on the iconic ’90s film Reality Bites, with songs by Yo La Tengo, Fugazi, R.E.M., The Lemonheads, My Bloody Valentine, and more.
“I wanted to take another stab at the ’90s rock era,” Jams says. “How can we distill it into its most distilled form? How can we get a concentrated dose of whatever je ne sais quoi there was about the ’90s?”
He’ll be playing the mix — along with an assortment of records, from the 12 crates of vinyl he’ll be bringing to the party — at the Knockout on Saturday, May 27.
“The idea is to create the feeling of being at the craziest rock show, but made out of all records,” he says.
We chatted with Jams about the mix, the particular songs he simply had to include on it, and why he chose Reality Bites in the first place.
Catch Debaser’s 9th Anniversary Party from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., on Saturday, May 27, at The Knockout.
SF Weekly Interview
Hey, DJ: Jamie Jams
The San Francisco DJ talks about Last Nite, his Y2K indie dance party.
Christina Li / Thu. Oct. 13th, 2016 12:14pm / All Shook Down
There’s no question that the ‘90s are back and have been for the past few years, whether it’s clothing trends, TV remakes, or musical styles. When All Shook Down first interviewed DJ Jamie Jams over eight years ago, the indie music connoisseur was already foreshadowing the future by wondering, “When is everyone going to realize this ’90s business is the shit?”
To date, Jams is still running his ‘90s night Debaser, but he has also added a party celebrating the last decade of indie called Last Nite. We got a chance to catch up with Jamie Jams about the changing SF scene, his favorite ‘90s outfit, and what a good time means to him.
Last Nite SF Weekly Feature
Top Five Parties This Week Plus Notable Local Records
Chris Zaldua / Wed .Aug. 17, 2016 5:30pm / Some Thoughts of a Certain Sound
One interesting side effect of the unprecedented speed of life in our information age is that society’s nostalgia cycles have been compressed substantially. It used to be that what came 20-25 years before was fun, hip, and cool (in an ironic way) again; now, it’s more like 10 years and change.
Enter Last Nite, a party unabashed in its barely there nostalgia, which harks back to that early-mid aughts period when legions of punks discovered the wonders of disco, house, and dance music — nevermind that many of them scorned it in decades prior — and began trading guitars for synthesizers.
Friday marks Last Nite’s third anniversary, and they’re hosting L.A.’s Moving Units to celebrate. Moving Units have the look and the sound of 2005 down pat — their songs are short, bright, dancy, and catchy. A slew of DJs — Last Nite’s Jamie Jams and Rocky, Popscene’s Omar, 120 Minutes’ Marco, and The Queen Is Dead’s Mario — will be spinning tunes, retro and otherwise, to make you wistful for the days of George Dubya’s presidency.
Last Nite’s Third Anniversary featuring Moving Units at Mezzanine, 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday, Aug. 19. $10-$15; mezzaninesf.com
48 Hills Interview
The 2000’s are back! (And that’s OK)
BY MARKE B.
Sep 24th
The great Last Nite party celebrates two glorious years of resurrecting a decade some people would rather forget.
Pop music critics salivate over how Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen are bringing the ’80s back to radio (despite “’80s retro nights” being a joke older than ’90s bachelorette pit Polly Esther’s, RIP). Dance music critics roll their eyes at yet one more sample from ’90s R&B on a “deep house” record. Someone recently wore an Abercrombie and Fitch tee ironically to a gay party and I almost passed out. “Please, please don’t let the 2000’s be coming back,” I silently pleaded, paralyzed among a forest of perilous drag queen stilettos on the club floor. “Or at least if they are coming back, let them come back like the Last Nite party.”
Last Nite in the SF Chronicle
Do 415, Featured Tastemaker
Last Nite SF Weekly Review
Lost in the Night
Debaser's New Last Nite Party Takes Nostalgia Back to the 2000s
Posted By Derek Opperman on Mon., Apr. 15, 2013 at 9:06 AM
Growing up in the veritable golden age of cultural nostalgia that was the '00s, it never really occured to me that my own decade might eventually be revisited. Even now, it's surprising that anyone would care to go back and try to relive much of those days. If you'll recall, it was a pretty dark time under George H.W. Bush's presidency. The bleakness of the American situation created a kind of nihilism that seemed to seep into the club culture and music. In San Francisco, this found its expression via the emerging scenester clubs that first began popping up in weird places like the basement at LiPo Lounge and the loft at Edinburgh Castle, then later at bigger parties like Frisco Disco, Club i-D, and Popscene.
Last Nite SF Weekly Intro
Weekend Party Preview
The Top Five Parties in San Francisco This Weekend
Posted By Derek Opperman on Thu., Apr. 11, 2013 at 9:56 AM
Last Nite at Elbo Room
Friday, April 12. 10 p.m. $5-$10
Well, folks, the snake has officially reached its tail. The crew behind the '90s-themed Debaser party has gotten together to create "Last Nite," a brand new event that, much like its parent, is dedicated to reviving a specific moment in time. In this case, it's all about that brief period in the early-'00s when garage rock, dance punk, and electroclash all emerged and combined to form the soundtrack to the-then nascent hipster lifestyle. Resident DJs Jamie Jams and Em Dee will be on hand to take you back to the days when "deck" was almost an adjective.
Last Nite in SFBG
Nice booking
SF-based talent agency Liaison Artists is behind most of the techno you dance to. Plus: Last Nite, Rare Bits, FGAG, James Blake, and more parties this week
04.09.13 - 5:18 pm | Marke B.
LAST NITE: 2000S INDIE DANCE PART
Oh gawd it's here: let the retro-00s (retr00s?) commence! Jamie Jams and Emdee, the fiendish minds behind seminal '90s revival party Debaser, kick it into the Interpol-Shins-Strokes-White Stripes era and take you slightly back to "a time when punks suddenly remembered how to dance" — you could still hear guitars on the radio.
Fri/12, 10pm, $5 before 11pm, $10 after. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.facebook.com/lastnite00s
We're on NPR Music
The Bold Italic Profile
Spin City
Abby Wilcox / Apr. 20, 2012 / The Bold Italic
Jamie Guzzi (a.k.a. Jamie Jams) of Debaser takes us back to our roots with his ’90s parties at the Knockout. He scours local record stores for popping ’90s LPs, which run the gamut from baggy beat to shoegaze, grunge, alternative, Britpop, indie pop, post-rock, post-hardcore, and emo. Jamie spins mostly ’90s alternative at his parties, though he’ll periodically mix in some hip-hop and r&b.
The parties feel like a community, with lots of epic rock T-shirts in the house, though he would love to see more baby-doll dresses. “We're doing this year-by-year theme, so we'll be slicing it sort of horizontally instead of vertically for a little bit. Probably throwing in a bit more of the other genres we've missed too as we go. We even played a little industrial at the last one! We're definitely putting the ’90s on rinse, that's for sure.”
San Francisco Chronicle, 96 Hours Interview
Debaser: DJ night parties to all things '90s
Michelle Broder Van Dyke, Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, March 23, 2011
DJ Jamie Jams, born James Guzzi (shown), explains the origins for the party, which begins in 2001: "We wanted to do something that reflected our own experience of growing up, and figured the '90s would eventually come into style demographically speaking. The only problem was, at the time, no one really knew what 'the '90s' was. So, we spent the next four years talking to our friends, going through old mix tapes and testing the records out at parties."
Debaser on Current TV
We were the subject of a short film on Current TV.
SF Weekly, Best of San Francisco
Best Club Night to Wear Flannel
Tue. May 18th, 2010 4:00am
Bars and Clubs / Best of San Francisco
The first Saturday of every month, divey hipster watering hole the Knockout becomes a time machine that transports all those people who were teenagers in the '90s back to their childhood bedrooms. But you can check your angst at the door (just don't forget your flannel before 11 p.m., otherwise you pay $5 cover) because this is a full-out eardrum-busting party where kids who never got the chance to live out their alternative music fantasies (or maybe they did, and never got over it) can bump chests and grind privates to Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, and, yes, Neutral Milk Hotel. You will be lathered in the sweat of strangers, there will be mosh pits and stage diving, and if you're on the prowl, the throb of sex at this party is palpable, just like it was in high school.
SFBG, Best of the Bay
BEST FLANNEL REVIVAL
In this age of continual retro, it comes as a surprise that listening to mainstream '90s alternative rock can give you, under the right inebriated circumstances, the kind of pleasure not experienced since heroin went out of vogue. Debaser at the Knockout has become one of the best monthly parties in San Francisco, largely because it gives '80s babies, who were stuck playing Oregon Trail in computer class while Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland were rocking it out in Portland, the chance to live out their Nirvana-era dreams. Debaser promoter Jamie Jams is the only DJ in San Francisco who will spin the Cranberries after a Pavement song, and his inspired mixology is empirically proven to induce moshing en masse until last call, an enticingly dangerous sport now that lead-footed Doc Martens are back in style. Sporting flannel gets you comped, so for those still hung up over Jordan Catalano and the way he leans, Debaser is rife with contemporary, albeit less angsty, equivalents.
First Saturdays, 9 p.m., Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.myspace.com/debaser90s