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Interestingly enough, the man who is about to be interviewed could easily be called the Grand Dad of the party scene here in Bali, and probably outside of the so called in-crowd you would never know that through his efforts, karma and just good vibes you wouldn’t be dancing.



S.B. You’re on.

B. My name is boots, just had my fifty fifth year old body with an eighteen year captive inside it. I hold an English passport, but I’m a world citizen. I arrived in Bali nineteen eighty six and came here basically to supply my gallery and boutique in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I came for two weeks, fell in love with the place, divorced my wife, married Bali, and here I am twenty three years later. (Laughter)

S.B. Were you in Bali all this time?

B. No, traveling around the world, preferably on the party scene, involvement of the party scene.

S.B. Before Bali were you on the Goa circuit?

B. Yeah, I’ve been going to Goa since nineteen seventy eight and around Asia.

S.B When did you begin to be a spin doctor?

B. I started here in Ninety two. I went from production, producing parties, to actually playing at them. Ollie Wisdom from the Space Tribe gave me my first Dat and actually gave me the confidence to be able to do it. I had always been sitting in the background and being larger than life that everybody always thinks I am. The big kick I had was producing the parties, and then when get you really first good feedback from D.J.ing, it’s like a drug, it’s highly addictive. 

S.B. That’s show bizz. What kind of equipment did you use then?

B. In those days it was digital audio tapes, there was no such thing as instant rewind. If you missed a track it would be like, ah shit, rewind, rewind and the next track would be finished half way. It was very difficult.

S.B. Coming from being a D.J. in New York, I was totally unaware of tapes, it was strictly a vinyl records thing, how did the tape thing start?

B. This party thing coming from Goa, nobody wants to schlep a hundred kilo’s of vinyl records around with them, plus the fact when you came here, into the airport, they see you and one dollar per record airport tax.

S.B. What do you think about the music scene now as opposed to then?

B. When that happened, I was listening to bands like the Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Jimmy Hendrix.  These were good rock bands, so when this duff, duff, duff techno music appeared on the scene, in the beginning I was wondering what the hell is this shit, and then all of a sudden it was location, decoration and stimulation, all in place and it went clung, clung, clung and the left side of my brain opened up to meet the right side of my brain, and it was love at first listen.

S.B. You just pointed out in those days it was rock music. In the States it was Motown and Stacks, disco. You could never get anybody on the dance floor with the English invasion.

B.  I was never into that, I was brought up on Cream and Rory Gallagher. For many years in knolling the fact, why isn’t anybody mixing the trance dance music with Jimmy Hendrix, Zepplin and all the old masters. Then all of a sudden it happened, took ten years, beautiful mix’s and incorporating all the old greats.

S.B. The last party that I was at you were playing, you played a lot of oldies but goodies.

B. For me, good music is timeless. When you got a good track, Dire Straights (Money for Nothing) their classics, their eternal timeless classics and they’ll never go out of fashion and a lot of time it’s refreshing.

S.B. Age has nothing to do with music?

B. No.

S.B. So you will be a D.J. until you go to the grave? (Laughter)

B. Beyond that hopefully, a rave from the grave (Laughter), why not?

S.B. Are you getting more work now these days than before?

B. Not really, times being what they are and the nature of the party’s that we like to do where by there’s no entrance fee. Now you’re doing it in night clubs, your doing it in fabulous locations and half these parties is in getting there. From start to finish, organizing the whole thing with the trucks and decoration on site, and the generators and equipment up there, it’s an adventure from start to finish. But then again, that’s the fun, the adventure; you’re almost creating the impossible.

S.B. When you do these gigs are you responsible for the whole sound system?

B. Yeah, yeah, basically from A-Z. You would go there organize the sound system, transportation, decoration, permits with the locals, the police license etcetera.

S.B. Well that separates you from D.J.’s where they just come in and spin.

B. I’ve never considered myself to this day to be a D.J., I’m not, I’m a party planner, organizer and my passion is actually playing music. I have per say, never been paid to play (Laughter), actually that’s not true. (Laughter)

S.B. We know, Life. (Laughter)

B. Basically it’s a collective energy of people celebrating; you know solar eclipse spreading the joy.

S.B. Whatever excuse there is to party.

B. Exactly, you don’t really need an excuse to party.

S.B. When you first started playing here, were there many D.J.’s around?

B. Less than there are now.

S.B. Does the competition bother you?

B. Like I said, I don’t consider myself as a D.J., Papa Full Moon they used to call me, it’s always been about aural pleasure, aural being aural, not oral. (Laughter)

S.B. Are you having more fun these days?

B. That’s a good question? I’d like to say yes, but honestly it’s getting harder and harder to party these days. It’s become a job and a lot of aggravation associated with it. Everything was done in commissions, so now it’s getting harder to lock those commissions in place and you have to deal with Banjars, licensing and it’s getting more and more expensive.

S.B. Have you done these kinds of parties outside of Bali?

B.  All over the world, Australia, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, India, and America. I’m a party people citizen.

S.B. One day on the moon, then you’ll really be Papa Moon (Laughter)

B. Hopefully I won’t be playing in jail. (Laughter)

S.B. What do you think of the club scene as opposed to the event scene?

B. I think the club scene here is world class; it’s as good as anywhere, that not saying it’s for me. The first five years that I was here in Bali I don’t think I stayed home one night, now with kids, family life, responsibility, you have to direct energy sensibly and responsibly eventually. For years I’ve put off containers of furniture which were going out all over the planet waiting to go and it would a be full moon and I would say to hell with it. Totally irresponsible, there’s a time when reality really does exist.

S.B. You’re just a kid with wrinkles? Yeah, that’s the one (Laughter), Can I use that one?

S.B. It’s yours. O.k., a rap is a rap, so let’s wrap this up.

B. Everything I do is about having fun, it’s not about making money, money is not the issue. It’s all about spreading happiness, and when you get that feedback, like in Padang, Padang a big fire ball coming off the bridge, down the valley, over the beach, over the people, hitting the fifty liters of gasoline on top of the rock in the ocean and exploding and hitting the Tibetan burning Om. When you see that energy come back, these idea’s that are so simple create such energy, there’s nothing like it.

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Chow mein, Salvador Bali​