Mark Ronson did not feel anything, he said, while standing in front of a Sherwin-Williams store where Buddha Bar used to be.
Back in the 1990s, when he was a halfhearted student at New York University, he had bent over backward to spin a few records at this downtown spot on the corner of Varick and Vandam.
That was when Buddha Bar was a center of New York cool, a lounge where supermodels danced to the beats of the city’s most inventive D.J.s and the men at the door made sure the wannabes remained on the sidewalk.
Mr. Ronson stared up at the Sherwin-Williams sign.
“I wanted to play so bad at this place,” he said. “It did nothing for my career. All that work to play here, and it means nothing to me. It’s probably more useful to people as a paint store.”
At 50, Mr. Ronson is decades removed from those nights of hauling his heavy record crates from gig to gig. After years of making people move on the dance floor, he went on to a career as a record producer, songwriter and film score composer. While working closely with Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars, Adele, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga, among many others, he has racked up nine Grammys, one Oscar and several multiplatinum hits.
Now he’s taking a moment to look back. In his just-published memoir, “Night People: How to Be a D.J. in ’90s New York City,” he recalls the years of his apprenticeship with a mix of fondness and horror. He continued reminiscing one recent morning on a walking tour of his old haunts.
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The post Mark Ronson Strolls Through His D.J. Past appeared first on New York Times.
