Published in the September 2008 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 21 - Number 9

Casual observers can be forgiven if they assume the Spiegel family only supplies the world with designer dresses and accessories.

Adam Spiegel’s created a mountain of commercials, music videos and movies under the name Spike Jonze and brother Sam has been moving and shaking in the DJ world (as Squeak E. Clean) with great success as well.

By day, Sam’s production company creates music for commercial clients like Ford, Converse and Levis. He’s also become known for studio work for a variety of artists, including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, for whom he produced their second album, Show Your Bones. But in his spare time, alongside his partner DJ Zegon, he’s coordinated a small army of name musicians—from Tom Waits and George Clinton to Karen O and Method Man—to guest star on his N.A.S.A. music project, which has just been signed to Anti/Epitaph. On top of all that, he’s scoring David O. Russell’s latest film “Nailed,” so he can be excused for seeing DJing as a pastime mostly.

“I spend a lot of time recording music,” he says. “DJing is about going out and enjoying myself. When you’re DJing, you just get into this zone. There’s a flow where you’re changing the records and scratching. It’s very…almost meditative kind of zone you get into and I love that about it.”

For his job, Spiegel works mainly with Serato Scratch LIVE and a Rane TTM-57SL mixer, alongside a Pioneer EFX-1000 effects box. While Spiegel also enjoys the Pioneer DJM-800 and uses it as the midway mixer for N.A.S.A. sets with DJ Zegon, he prefers to have the effects separate from the mixer. Occasionally, Spiegel scratches in and out of mixes, so he’ll bring DJ QBert’s Butter Rugs slipmats with him to use on his Technics SL-1210 turntables, which go up to +/-16.

And Spiegel admits to a strong and recent fetish for the Uberstand, Stanton’s sturdy, collapsible laptop stand. “It seems like something that is so simple,” he marvels, “but if you don’t have one, it sucks.”
As a musician, Spiegel is accustomed to making his own tracks, and will often create remixes before a show using Ableton Live, Pro Tools and Serato. It’s possible for him to give each gig an individual touch, as he might layer hip hop a cappellas over Baltimore breaks tracks or swipe a spoken-word sample of a city’s name from a YouTube video and chop it up in Ableton or the MPC2000XL for the perfect show intro. If he’s not playing tracks from the N.A.S.A. LP, Spiegel will split the difference between Baltimore breaks, Brazilian baile funk and electro house, with Ed Banger and U.K. producer Hervé being particular faves of his at the moment.

Come the release of the N.A.S.A. LP, Spiegel admits the DJ sets with Zegon will become more structured. They’ll play tracks and screen animated videos of the songs via Serato’s video plug-in. In between tracks, a VJ will manipulate spontaneous footage shot by Zegon and Spiegel on the road. Not surprisingly, Spiegel welcomes this and any other opportunity to get behind the decks.

“This is the most exciting time in music for me in years,” he enthuses. “I’m loving what’s coming out right now. It’s totally throwing me.”