theknockout

SF Weekly Mix

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.

The Bold Italic Profile

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

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."

SF Weekly, Best of San Francisco

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

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

SF Weekly Review of Debaser

SF Weekly Review of Debaser

DJs dig into '90s nostalgia

By Jennifer Maerz
Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2008

It was one of those balmy September weekends when San Franciscans can actually go sleeveless after 10 p.m. And yet in the line snaking outside Mission bar the Knockout for the club night Debaser, partiers were bundled in flannels. One dude kept a nest of dark hair tucked under a black ski cap. Were we in the same climate zone here? Yup. These folks weren't dressing for the weather; they were working an era. This particular Saturday night was all about the '90s, so no matter what the thermometer displayed, the look required plaid Pendletons — or, I should say, the admission discount required it. If you show up at Debaser before 11 p.m. in flannel or a babydoll dress, you bypass the $5 cover.

Jamie Jams SF Weekly Interview

Jamie Jams SF Weekly Interview

Hey DJ! Friday Q&A: DJ Jamie Jams

Posted By Ian S. Port on Fri., Jul. 11, 2008 at 7:00 AM

This week's Friday DJ Q&A is with Jamie Jams, a dude who loves his '90s icons, from Nirvana to the Pixies and R.E.M. What with Sub Pop turning 20, and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" showing up on DJ playlists again, there's a big old flannel flashback going down. Crystal Akins interviews Jamie, who rock 'n' rolls all night and fights the power every day.

 

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