“DJ Lee” Has Left the Building

DJ Lee said he prefers vinyl, always.

ATWATER VILLAGE—The Bigfoot Lodge feels like your great-grandfather’s hunting lodge that the kids from Brooklyn have inherited and repurposed.

On the log cabin’s walls, the vintage taxidermy displays are joined by pointed kitsch, with a 6-ft-tall Smoky the Bear figure and a sign for “Sasquatch National Forest” winking at the mounted stag heads and bear pelts. Most importantly, a bar runs the length of the main room’s eastern wall and draws a crowd to match the décor.

Around the polished wood bar top, a slightly older, occasionally mulleted group predominates, dressed in loose T-shirts and tapered, faded jeans. Meanwhile, the rest of the place is occupied by twenty-somethings in flannel, skinny jeans, and, in defiance, on this unseasonably December warm weather outside, leather jackets. The two groups don’t intermingle much, but, like the two sets of decorations, their juxtaposition lends the place a certain ecclectic charm.

Every Wednesday night for the past five years, Lee Joseph, better known as DJ Lee, has teamed with the $3 drink specials to attract such diverse crowds, playing a mix of British music from the past half century. Last Dec. 30th however, the last Wednesday of the decade, DJ Lee manned the turntables at what he calls “Club London Calling” for the last time.

“It’s been amazing for me,” Lee said. “I’d play anything British from 1962 through last week. It kept pushing my knowledge of British music.”

Lee began his relationship with the Bigfoot Lodge as a regular patron on the heels of a divorce, finding some solace, as so many have, in a pint and a bartender’s friendly ear.

It was from one such conversation with a bartender, in 2001, that “Club 66-77” was born. Though he had never spun professionally before, Lee—the owner and founder of Dionysus Records—became DJ Lee, spinning 1960s garage and 70s punk records on the last Thursday of each month.

A lifelong record collector, Lee spun mostly on vinyl from the start of his Bigfoot residency, occasionally mixing in CDs.

“I don’t like the compression on mp3’s,” he said. “It sounds one-dimensional. Vinyl just sounds so much richer. Also, it’s more fun to spin with vinyl. I’d fall asleep if I had to stand in front of a computer the whole night.”

Lee also began booking bands to play Wednesday nights at the Bigfoot, starting with his own—Davie Allan and the Arrows, which he called “the last real band I was a member of.” He continued to bring in bands every week through 2004, when complaints from local residents about noise levels finally put an end to live music at the bar, and Lee took over Wednesday nights as the resident DJ at “Club London Calling.”

“British club night was based around $3 pint specials,” Lee said. “Deejaying at a bar is about getting people in there to drink and keeping them there.”

From the crowd at his Dec. 30th farewell party, it was clear Lee excelled at this aspect of the job. Every few minutes, someone would pull him out of the DJ booth, out into the packed room for a picture or a hug. If he got caught out of the booth too long, a friend would step in and set up the next track. Over and over, bar patrons told him how sorry they were he was leaving.

Unfortunately, there’s not a new venue where Lee’s fans can continue to hear him spin. In addition to running a record label, Lee also owns Lee Joseph Publicity, which does publicity work for the Bigfoot Lodge, among other businesses.

“It dictates your entire schedule, being a deejay in the middle of the week,” Lee said. “I love it, but I’d end up getting home at 3 a.m., wouldn’t get to sleep until 4. It’s hard to do that every week while you’re trying to run a couple businesses.”

Keep on the lookout at the Bigfoot Lodge, though, where Lee will continue to do fill-in spots for other deejays.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Community News, Lead Cover Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.