After a two-and-a-half-year run, DJ William "Fucking" Reed has decided to pull the plug on Sticky Fingers, Bar Smith's ultra-hip Friday night dance party (which just so happened to win our best of award for Best Weekly Dance Night for Hipsters in 2012, and a whole bunch of other years before, too).
"It's time to either hang it up or move forward," said Reed in a phone interview, looking back on Sticky Fingers' successful run. Find out why William Reed is ending Sticky Fingers and what he is planning with Jen Deveroux, Jared Alan, and Kevin Wayman after the jump.
Up on the Sun: I hear you're done with Sticky Fingers. What's going on there?
William Reed: After two amazing years, I've decided to take advantage of other opportunities and explore other avenues, and move on. I thought the two-year mark was the perfect time to use that as a benchmark or a turning point. This will be my last Friday at Bar Smith and this will be the last Sticky Fingers as well. We're looking forward to ending it on a high note and taking it from there.
Why end it?
That's a really good question. In the world of nightclub promotions, nothing is permanent. I started [Sticky Fingers] at Rips for about six months before I moved it to Bar Smith, so it's been alive and kicking for about two and a half years. The direction has changed to a direction that I don't feel like is in parity with the original concept and the brand of the night and the whole spirit of the night. It's not a bad thing at all; the club wants to go in a little bit more mainstream direction and I get it. I understand that, but it doesn't really resonate with me or the brand of the night. I don't want to stand in the way of the nightclub and the success I'm certain they will achieve by moving in their new direction, and I don't want that new direction to hinder the spirit of the night.
As such, I gave my two weeks' notice a couple of weeks ago and I wish everyone there the best of luck. I'm really grateful for the opportunities they've extended to me and my concept over the years, but it's just time to move forward.
What can we expect out of your last hurrah this Friday?
I don't want to give all of the surprises away, but we do have an amazing roster of resident DJ talent, which is no secret. We also have a very special guest, Rush Midnight, formerly of Twin Shadow, coming to perform live. I expect the usual Sticky Fingers debauchery and awesome high energy to be present. So, yeah, exciting times.
I feel like you're always coming up with new ideas. Where do you go from here? I've been spending a lot of time in the studio with my production partner on my project Blaque Panther Disco, and we are soon to be releasing a string of singles that we recently signed to a UK house record label, and we're looking at a late November/early December release date for that. This will actually be our first original productions that we will have released, so it's really exciting to see in such a short time, it was only six or seven months ago when we started the project, and now we have a string of singles coming out that are being released on a label internationally. We've been spending a lot of time in the studio working on original production and it's been really exciting for me because my background primarily stems from the promotions and DJ background, concerts, nightclubs, you name it, so getting in the studio and actually making music and seeing that released is something that I've never really been able to experience. It's really exciting and it's still relatively new to me, but we're just taking it one day at a time.
That's one aspect. My company, Arizona Deejay Company, we're a high-end boutique mobile entertainment provider, we're super-slammed as well. It's something I don't really mix with the nightclub promotions, but we're staying really busy. We're working 5 to 7 days a week doing a lot of high-end events. It's been really cool and really fun, kind of balancing out the whole nightclub and concert promotion scale.
I also teach in the music business department at Glendale and Mesa Community College, so obviously school is in session, so that's consumes some time of mine as well.
Above and beyond that, I don't want to speak too soon, but I have a couple of new nightlife projects that are in the works. That should be solidified here in the next couple of weeks, which I think are going to be fresh and inject some new life into the local nightlife scene, which I'm really excited about, too. Will you eventually have another Friday night gig?
I'm sure that's inevitable, I'm not rushing right now to fill my Fridays. I think it will be nice to actually take a Friday or two off to see what it's actually like to have a Friday off after so many years. There have been some opportunities thrown my way and who knows, but I wouldn't be surprised if something new developed in the coming months.
Thanks for catching me up on Sticky Fingers.
It's kind of bittersweet. Everyone there is lovely and what they've done with the club over the last few years and what we've helped done to the club, and the whole thing with Monarch Theatre is really exciting for downtown Phoenix and the community. I have no doubts in my mind whatsoever that they'll continue the spirit of Friday nights down there [with] their own signature on it, but as far as the Sticky Fingers brand, it's time to either hang it up or move forward, so that's where we're at right now.
One last project that is on the horizon is...Jen Deveroux has recently accepted the position as marketing director for the Gypsy Bar at CityScape in downtown Phoenix. I'm going to be involved in a new, ongoing Thursday night promotion called Risky Business at Gypsy Bar which is going to start I believe December 6. It's pretty exciting because it's members of Party Foul, Cheap Thrills and me/Sticky Fingers.
[Deveroux] orchestrated the whole thing and it will be great to be involved with Jared Alan and Kevin Wayman, a.k.a. Kevin the Makeout Bandit or Kevin M.O.B. again, kind of coming full circle because I've worked with both of those promoter/DJs before in the past extensively and it's been quite awhile, so to come full circle is pretty exciting. It's always exciting to be involved in a new venue in downtown Phoenix. It's pretty funky, it's like a nightclub meets an arcade. Gigamesh is going to be a guest DJ of ours, which I'm really excited about. We've had him out a couple of times over the years and he does really cool indie dance remixes.
Sticky Fingers' final night is Friday, November 16 at Bar Smith.
