Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy
Coffee and a chat with the unparalleled DJ/host/ selector about The Loft, The Moody Blues and how she finally got that rare Andrew Weatherall remix on the new Balearic Breakfast
Photo by Eilon Paz
If you’ve ever seen Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy spin in a club or tuned into one of her live-streamed DJ sets, you know she’s always in the flow of the music, the space, the moment. Those dance moves are undeniably part of her good energy, swaying, swimming, exuding great joy and radiating warmth. That love for the music was sparked from an early age, nurtured by the progressive sounds of Boston radio, shouting out WBCN and an early love for psychedelia.
Colleen’s so ubiquitous in dance music culture, so open, personable, and gracious with her deep knowledge, that en route to meet up with her in the East Village, I had to pause and wonder if I had actually ever met her in-person. If so, was it when she hosted Classic Album Sundays here in the city? When she DJed at the Good Room? Or was it when she co-hosted one of the parties at David Mancuso’s Loft? Maybe it’s just the many hours of streaming she’s put in with her pandemic radio shows on Worldwide FM –now the ever-reliable Balearic Breakfast broadcasts– that makes her just seem like a dear friend rather than a distant DJ.
She remains a vital resource for dance music history. I’ve always reached out when I had a question about the world’s original disco dance party, about the revelatory nature of deep listening to a beloved album, or when I set out to give the legendary Yvonne Turner her flowers. We’ve been in touch for years now.
So it was so lovely to see her again while she was over in the States and we greeted one another on the street like old friends. (Fun fact, we’re birthday twins. Virgo Mafia too strong.) As we walked into a coffee shop, she immediately picked up on Cleo Sol playing in the background. Later on at a record shop, she immediately tuned into the velvety voice of Tikiman on a very necessary reissue of this twelve. A customer recognized her by the sound of her voice and chatted amicably with her for a few minutes.
We talked about her most recent compilation, Balearic Breakfast 3. We talked about her radio past, her love of David Mancuso and the Loft. (And yes, we did discuss a certain matter, off the record.) As we walked the East Village, it was hard not to envision her still swimming with that invisible, undeniable flow moving all around her and with her.
I learned about the Loft because of The Loft compilations you made with David Mancuso starting in the late ‘90s. So how did you yourself come to know about the Loft?
I became program director of NYU in ‘86-’90 and I had a few different shows. I had a ‘60s psychedelic show, a new afternoon show of 3 ½ hours of new music. All the 4AD, Rough Trade, Nirvana, post-punk, it was just called “college radio.” I then started producing syndicated radio shows. I interviewed Nirvana the week Nevermind came out, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Oasis, Blur.
But I knew nothing about David or the Loft. He had taken a sabbatical after he moved to E. 3rd Street after Prince Street. He didn't have a lot of nice things to say about the artists who were colonizing SoHo in the ‘80s, he felt they were racist, more concerned with property prices than being creative. He had people of color outside on the street during the parties and the neighbors didn’t like that.
At that time in ‘91-’92, David Mancuso had opened on E. 3rd Street. I was just going to this party on E 3rd between B and C that my friend Adam Goldstone invited me to. I lived on 9th between B and C, so I went to this party 6 blocks away and had a great time. I wasn’t a dance music aficionado then. But I went and I was just blown away and started collecting that music.
So what struck you about The Loft?
So many things. I was on LSD for one, so that helped. And I could tell it was a really psychedelic place. David was 48 and I was 24, but I could tell…I knew a lot about ‘60s music and I could feel that feeling, that ethos. But I never heard music played on a soundsystem like that. I had never heard sound like that. Also, the fact it was someone’s home, it had a very home style. It made me feel really comfortable, so I started going alone, which as a young woman was great. And rare.
Two songs from that first Loft are still some of my favorites: Lonnie Liston Smith’s “Expansions” and “Life on Mars” by Dexter Wansel. I remember hearing them and running up to ask “What is this?!” WNYU asked me back and I started “Soul School.” I started inviting guests. And I asked David to be a guest. He didn’t talk, but he selected all the records. We just got on. We had gone out for drinks and talked about different things. I saw he had a Buddha and I studied Buddhism. These little personal things, we just connected. He knew it right when he met me.
I asked him years later: “Why would you let this 24 year-old who you don’t really know, get on the turntables?” He had no money at this time. He had these two cartridges that were $2000 each. If I had whacked one, he’s out of commission and couldn't have even repaired it.
You can also overwork a system like that. The signal path is pure, it doesn’t go through compressors like for normal DJ situations. No EQ, nothing, no headphones. It’s just Phono 1 and Phono 2. He asked me to play four records. I listened to my entire record collection before that night because I knew it had to be great. My first record was Arthur Russell! Lola “Wax the Van (Jon’s Dub)” which is an inside cut. I cued it up perfectly. That’s how it all started.
I had been a hippie. I had gone to see the Grateful Dead many times. One of our favorite shared albums is Astral Weeks. It was recorded the month I was born. We both bonded on Hendrix, The Orb, as David would play that in the early morning hours. I started going to Shelter a lot, After Life, House Nation, Renegade. People were renting dance studios on Broadway and use them as clubs at night. I even heard Walter Gibbons play!
Did it surprise you just how far back the roots of the Loft went?
Yes! I started hearing about Larry Levan. Paradise Garage had just closed like the month after I moved here. There’s no history. There’s one book by Albert Goldman called Disco that mentions The Loft. But that had been out of print since the early ‘80s. It was just word of mouth. David’s story was unknown and by the early ‘90s, he was destitute. He gave a lawyer power of attorney and he just took the building and sold it out from under him. (He later went to prison.) That’s why we did the compilations so that you could know David’s story.
I heard those comps when I still lived in Texas. But even when I moved to New York, it didn't even occur to me that the party would still be happening. Like, I could still go and see David DJ the party. I’m so glad I did.
Exactly, people didn't know. We did fundraisers, anything to drum up business. I would mention it on the radio. You could still give out David’s number: 212-674-1237, everyone knew his number. The world knew me as a WNYU DJ, no one knew about the Loft. Only in Japan did they know that I had played at the Loft. In any case, I was asked in 1998 to make a mix CD for Nervous, New York Afterhours (A Later Shade Of Deep Volume 1).
But someone like David, he could get a proper fee for this. I asked him and he only wanted to do it with me. I was then moving to the UK but I knew people at Nuphonic. I thought it would be better in the UK. They know the history there. Underground house music in the US is Top 40 in the UK. Non-DJs, women who were British and not DJs would come to Dance Tracks to buy singles.
That comp got David’s name out there and all of a sudden, people knew about the parties and they started selling out. David was able to fix his teeth, simple things like that. And then we did the Loft in London. He trained me on the sound system, how to build the party.
What’s the difference between the Loft aesthetic and the Balearic aesthetic?
They’re very alike. But I didn’t know about Ibiza outside of that David Bowie song. We were selling the Café del Mar comps at Dance Tracks. I found out about Ibiza that way. A friend who was spinning at Pasha every summer told me about it. I knew about acid house and had interviewed all the bands who had spun out of it: Primal Scream, Orbital, Aphex Twin. I didn’t know that kind of history until Bill Brewster wrote Last Night a DJ Saved My Life.
In terms of the eclecticism, that nature was what David and Alfredo had. That made sense to me. My DJing is completely all over the place, my radio shows were very random, bits coming in. A lot of those songs I already knew before I even heard about Alfredo. I had been playing The Cure “The Walk.” I didn’t know European pop hits, but “Rude Movements” was a big crossover tune between the two. The types of music…it doesn’t matter what the style is, there’s something emotive and slightly psychedelic about each song. And it’s all produced very well. The chilled out songs are almost transcendental.
Just me using the word “Balearic” is kind of a fluke. Same with “Cosmo.” I first used it on my radio show my junior year of high school. The band Newcleus was big at the time and their DJ’s name was Cozmo.
Ben “Cozmo D” Cenac!
There you go, that’s how I got it. I only used it my junior year of high school. All of my DJ shows were Colleen but when I started a dance show, I went with “DJ Cosmo” again. I didn't even pick “Balearic” for my radio show.
At the start of the pandemic, aside from Giles Peterson, I was the only other DJ who could broadcast from home. And I just thought the thing was only going to be a few weeks. My husband said": “You’re a broadcaster, you have to broadcast live.” And I loved it; You're on the edge, in the moment. Pre-records are never the same.
I had done BBC, Worldwide FM. Giles had asked me to go on the station. In my head, I was focused on Classic Album Sundays, but Giles convinced me. My first show was March 2020, so I started doing request shows. “Favorite female vocal house record!” “Favorite song about the sun!” I only had turntables, no downloads. I was getting hundreds of requests. The shows were very interactive. I start streaming with video and chat on Twitch TV. It was the community interacting, a captive audience.
I’m making it more of a musical conversation, rediscovering my record collection. It was great for me. I would get 120 requests for one show. Giles then takes the summer off and he had me cover Tuesday mornings. This is just a summer show, so I called it “Summer Staycation.” A lot of Balearic tunes were coming up. Giles comes back that September and I keep the slot, but decide to change the name of the show and my friend came up with “Balearic Breakfast.”
It’s about people going on a mental holiday. I didn't think it would have these legs. It’s open-ended musically. It became one of the top five shows on Worldwide FM, up there with the big boys like François K., Louie Vega, and Giles, every week. It built a global community. We had all these green screens set up and we were doing all these psychedelic visuals with it. I was desperate to dance around all the time. I was having fun, chatting, people are making friendships online. It was just a lot of fun, a collaborative effort, a means to communicate through music and conversation.
The way the comp happened, I had played Hong Kong in 2019. I DJed there during the democracy protests. I played in this afterhours place and a lot of young people went. It was an incredible time to be there. I did a set of psychedelic soul, revolutionary songs from the late ‘60s, with political messages. It went up on Mixcloud and around that time, at the start of the pandemic, Jeff from Heavenly became obsessed with the mixes and wanted to do a comp of that set. But now everything is owned by a major label. Anything you want to comp, you have to deal with a major label.
By spring 2021, I realized the radio show really has legs and Jeff loved the idea for a Balearic Breakfast comp. The way I do it is to get a few obscure things that are pricey on Discogs, a remix or two, and the rest is stuff that only came out digitally. That’s where there are no downloads.
In making a radio show or a compilation, what did you learn from David?
Sequencing. But that’s not necessarily from David quite frankly. My first favorite album is the Moody Blues’ Days of Future Past. All of my mixtapes were always about sequencing, even before I became a DJ. But the order is always important.
What would you say is the filtering process like for the radio show?
It’s a lot. And I have a lot to catch up on. I get about 30 promos a day digitally.
I think about crabs on the beach, always filtering sand.
But that’s what we are. My first thing, before anything else, is a curator. Whether it’s a radio show, Classic Album Sundays, a radio show, almost every way I share music is through, it’s all about filtering. That’s my ear, that’s what makes me distinct. That’s what people are buying into. Trusting my ears.
[Beyond the veil: how Colleen scored this ridiculously rare Andrew Weatherall remix of Primal Scream for Balearic Breakfast 3 and some of her favorite tunes of the moment.]
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