Audio By Carbonatix
DJ Gramophonic, a.k.a. Pete Petrisko sporting a golden tuxedo jacket, yanks the time-traveling rug from under us via his dual wind-up Decca gramophones, spinning the warm crackle and pops of Billy Murray, Doris Day, and the Peerless Quartet from his 60-count collection of 78s. The canny lunatic, who also spearheads RPM Orchestra, an improvisational ensemble consisting of flutes, contact mics, music boxes, and typewriters, is quick to pronounce blinkingly offbeat statements like, “The DJ box is in the conductor’s pocket.”
Over libations, Gramophonic confesses that modern technology intimidates him. He is, he tells New Times, “comforted in a weird way by little pieces of forgotten history,” adding that “the portable gramophone was the iPod of its day.”
Gramophonic drops his needle carriage on Sunday, August 23, at Bikini Lounge, during DJ Top Cat’s weekly Sunday punk/ska shift from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Patrons are petitioned to don D.H. Lawrence-style garb and guzzle $1 PBR bottles like it’s the night before Prohibition.
Sun., Aug. 23, 10 p.m., 2009
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