Instead, small packs of spaghetti-strapped, black-slacked coeds frolic and wordlessly flirt with unspeakably cologned, yet buttoned-down, sideburned males, who sip domestic long necks, feign disinterest, and awkwardly attempt to keep up with the 130-beat-per-minute grooves. Everyone is well-dressed and tidy, but the action on the floor is purely primordial. It’s not about the music, but something that might interest a sociologist, perhaps even Marlon Perkins. 

Talk about it later with Vicious – himself a Jersey Shore kid from Long Branch – and it’s apparent that he deeply understands the scenario and relies on his patience and vast experience in such endeavors. Give it time – they’ll get it. Sure enough, within a quarter hour, as ascending key lines zinged through the custom Sound Environments speakers and moving-head Studio Color fixtures whirled multi-colored beams from the ceiling, the atmosphere changed. The floor began to pulse and the synapse-snapping music program took hold. Hands flew in the air and once again Johnny Vicious had made the greater New York metropolitan area safe for trance music.  

But trance is only Vicious’ latest musical palette. As a late-’80s New Jersey club jock, Vicious (née John Coles), like other upfront area jocks, was house crazy. And after he lucked into a relationship that gave him free range to remix the rich Salsoul disco catalog, new creations like “Stand Up,” his techno-flavored Loleatta Holloway houser, fired up dancefloors on both sides of the Atlantic and turned his label Vicious Muzik into a DJ fave. 

During that time, legendary New York DJs like Mark Kamins, Junior Vasquez, Louie Vega, David Morales and Frankie Knuckles rocked his world as Vicious held down residencies at Manhattan’s Palladium and Roxy clubs. He moved into mix shows on area radio (he still hosts his “Sanctuary” show on WKTU-FM) and began to span the globe on DJ trips, his world travels opening his ears to the latest clubland had to offer. And the remix and production work poured in.

In the mid- and late-’90s, Vicious became a favorite among major label dance departments and dance-specific indies, as he handled crossover and underground projects with equal aplomb. He pumped out original productions like the Lula-fronted New York rave anthem “Ecstasy (Take Your Shirts Off)” for Groovilicious and club-ready remixes for pop-dance confection like No Mercy’s “Kiss You All Over” for Arista. He turned new club projects like React’s “Let’s Go All the Way” into chart hits and put a new trancey spin on superstar cuts like Whitney Houston’s “It’s Not Right...But It’s OK.” Currently, Vicious’ name sits with a short list of remixers who get first crack on top projects.

“Johnny delivers a lot of excitement to his mixes that really transforms the original version,” says David Jurman, Sr. Director of Dance Music at Columbia Records. “Johnny is hired to deliver a series of remixes that can work for both the club DJ and the mix show DJ. In addition, edited versions of his mixes can be used in some instances by rhythmic Top-40 radio stations.” 

Arista Sr. Director of A&R Hosh Gureli is another major label exec who values Vicious’ remix contributions. “I can’t say enough good things about Johnny Vicious,” he says. “Not only is he a great remixer and producer, but he is also one of the nicest, hardest-working guys in dance music today. I remember once when I came back from Amsterdam with a few records – I can’t remember which ones now – and I asked Johnny if he could make a record like this and he said, ‘Sure!’ I mean, Johnny can do anything. You give it to him and he’ll deliver.”

Recently, Vicious delivered two new, yet very different projects. For Jellybean Recordings, he re-vamped Marshall Jefferson’s house music anthem “Move Your Body” by stripping the Judy Albanese-fronted groover down even further and launching the double-12 into tranceland. On his own Groovilicious track “Sanctuary,” Vicious injects a building, bludgeoning New York-tribal groove with heady, filtered trance riffs for great late-night effect. (Check the truly vicious “Acid Turbo” bonus cut.) Knowing a hot mixer when it sees one, DJ Times caught up with Johnny Vicious in his home studio on Manhattan’s West Side, kicked some history and had him cough up some studio techniques.

DJ Times: Do you ever reveal your real name?

Vicious: Yeah, when someone has to write a check over to me [laughs].

DJ Times: What are you – in the Witness Protection Program?

Vicious: In the tax protection program. No, really, my name is John Coles.

DJ Times: What made you Vicious? My receptionist thought it was cool that I was interviewing the dead guy from the Sex Pistols.

Vicious: [Laughs] I was just trying to come up with a name that was pretty catchy. It was me and a bunch of friends were sitting down trying to think of names.

DJ Times: Let’s talk about your first big break. How did you get access to the Salsoul catalog?

Johnny Vicious: I was working in a club in New Jersey and a son of one of the owners of Salsoul came in and I was playing a Salsoul remix and he came up to the booth. We talked and they later hired me to do some promotion for them in New York and I got in really well with Tom Moulton, who takes care of all the master tapes. He was also a big mixer in the ’70s. I was promoting to the Billboard reporters. From there, I saved some money and bought an Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus sampler/keyboard and I asked if I could use the a cappellas and they said, “Take ’em into the studio and let’s make a record. Everybody’s stealing from us anyway.” So I started making my tracks.

DJ Times: What was it like working with that material?

Vicious: Because it was all real musicians, everything flowed from beginning to end. When you were a remixer back then you just cut out what you needed. You just punched in and punched out on the board. When you’re remixing it, you sample it, put it on time with your sampling and time stretch it.

DJ Times: How did you fall into DJing in New York?

Vicious: A couple friends brought me to New York to a club called Mars and I heard Mark Kamins. This was, like, 1989. He was one of the first DJs I heard who was kind of underground. It was an “A-List” crowd – there were all these models in there – but it wasn’t really pretentious. They were going bananas. It was just a great party and Mark was amazing. This really pushed me into coming to New York and getting a job. I kept going to Mars and giving tapes and then I went to Palladium and every week I’d give them a new tape. I had to be persistent. There’s no way you could give them one tape and expect them to give you a gig on a Saturday night. But pretty soon, I started playing the Palladium’s corporate events.

DJ Times: And then?

Vicious: Then I got a call to DJ on Hot 97, when they had dance music. They said, “Larry Levan is on tonight, but we need a DJ to play more of the commercial stuff in case he doesn’t bring those records.” At that time [1990], it was like David Morales’ mix of Stevie V’s “Dirty Cash,” stuff like that. I showed up early and met Larry and – wouldn’t you know it? — I played for an hour. It just happened to be playing with Larry Levan. It was amazing. From there, I did The Roxy for seven years.

DJ Times: How did that early ’90s New York scene influence you as a DJ?

Vicious: I would DJ at Roxy, leave there and listen to Junior [Vasquez] at Sound Factory. I’d come back to Roxy the next week and play what Junior played. I just wanted to DJ like Junior, but I also wanted to DJ like Frankie Knuckles, like David Morales, like Louie Vega. Everybody had something that I really liked. Junior was groundbreaking and his mixing was off-the-wall. You had no idea what he was doing with the record. He’d surprise you all the time. He still does it. At the time Frankie was doing Roxy, his album came out. His whole run of productions and mixes after “The Whistle Song” was amazing. It was pretty. It had vocals. David Morales’ stuff was amazing, like Mariah Carey “Dreamlover,” “Lemon” U2, that whole sound. His productions were just perfect. What I loved about Louie was his whole house sound. He’d go back and play classics. He the best DJ I ever heard for classics. His timing is perfect and his productions are amazing. Danny Tenaglia’s another one. So, I’d listen to all these guys and take a piece of all of them and incorporate it into my sound. 

DJ Times: What do you make of the New York scene today?

Vicious: Right now, the sound is dated. It’s kind of like when it was stuck in the whole freestyle thing. There’s a whole generation of kids out there that just wants to hear new music whether it’s garage or trance or whatever. Now if you’re playing all that New York stuff you’re considered like a freestyle DJ, but you’re playing New York-style hard house. It’s stale. C’mon guys, move onto something else. Change is good.

DJ Times: And on the political front?

Vicious: Mayor Giuliani is trying – but he’s not succeeding – in killing the club life in New York. He might have shut down some titty bars, but people want to dance – and there’s nothing wrong with dancing.

DJ Times: Why do you find trance music so interesting these days?

Vicious: I’m always changing. I even got into jungle a little – I played it on my radio show and in the clubs some. I just love progressive music and I try to stay ahead of the pack. I’ve been playing trance for about four years now. Before, nobody here knew what it was. I got a lot of exposure because I’ve been going overseas DJing a lot. I brought a lot of that sound to the U.S. and it caught on. I’m not saying that I did it because there have been a lot of other people who played it, too. The people who really did it for me were Sasha and Digweed and then Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk. All those guys really turned me on.

DJ Times: So you were checking out those Friday nights at Twilo?

Vicious: Yeah, it really caught my ear. But moreover, it confirmed my ear [laughs]. I was into it, but they really pushed me to go into that vein of music.

DJ Times: As a DJ, what’s the trick to playing trance?

Vicious: It’s not all about playing the best songs that just came out that week. It’s about playing the best songs of that genre of music. I can go from playing the newest thing that came out or something that’s not coming out for six months to “Age of Love” that came out in 1989 because it has the same sound of what I’m playing right now. Some people will recognize it – because this whole trance thing happened before – and some will think it’s a brand new song. When you’re mixing it, you want to keep the same key of the music. It’s very important to keeping the same flow of the music. When the key changes, you have to change with it. You’re not just matching beats. You’re matching the whole feeling of the music. You’re matching strings. You’re matching arpeggiation. You’re going from one bassline to another bassline in the same key where nobody’s even going to tell that you’re mixing. That’s the beauty of the rhythm of trance.

DJ Times: When you’re playing trance to, say, a suburban crowd like in Sayreville the other night, how do you try to win them over?

Vicious: At Hunka Bunka, it took me an hour and a half to get people into the trance mood. I mean, they were like, “OK,” until the last five songs. Then they went nuts. We got hands in the air. It’s a challenge to do something like that, but you’ve got to create a mood and get their heads out of hearing the Amber and Veronica and Whitney and Venga Boys and try to make them forget about it. Then an hour later when they’re a little buzzed they’ll start getting into the music. It’s all about creating a whole vibe. Once you got that, just take it and don’t let it go.

DJ Times: How often do you DJ?

Vicious: It depends on the month, depends on whether I’m going away. I’ve been to Australia, Japan and Russia all in the same month. Then I had gigs in the U.S. between that. I can be booked from Thursday to Sunday one weekend and be off the next weekend.

DJ Times: Favorite clubs? Best experiences?

Vicious: My favorite? It wasn’t even a club. I did EuroPride in France and it was in a park with 40,000 people. They had nowhere to go except to dance. That was actually the biggest gig I’ve ever done. The most amazing? There are two places. One was in Estonia at a place called Vibe NYC, which was an old coal refinery. They had these five huge engines on each side of the room. People were up on top of them just dancing around. There were valves and pipes, totally industrial. If Giuliani were around he’d shut this place down in about 20 seconds [laughs]. They had TurboSound in there with 18s in each cabinet with a quad system. It was amazing. The other was the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia, where they had the Keith Haring exhibit. It was in one of their main rooms right in the middle of the museum. They had to actually cover the floor and take out insurance just for the carpet. There were 40-foot ceilings and in the morning when the sun came up they had shades that came up and people were dancing on the windowsills. That was amazing.

DJ Times: You must get inspired by your trips to Europe.

Vicious: When I come back it makes me want to remix or produce right away. It makes me want to produce what they’re making out there or produce something that they’re going to want to make out there. The U.S. is a little behind in the whole trance scene right now. It’s getting more musical now. But it’s hard. Over here, y’know, you just have to read your crowd. That’s the only thing I can recommend to DJs.

DJ Times: Which producers really have your ear now?

Vicious: Tiesto from Holland. He’s awesome. Ferry Corsten. As a producer, I like William Orbit. He does amazing stuff. Lanch. Paul Van Dyk. I like the sounds that Paul Oakenfold has been playing as a DJ.

DJ Times: What’s your perfect DJ booth?

Vicious: Looking at Junior’s booth is pretty comfortable [laughs]. Basically, my own bartender [laughs]. My own bathroom [laughs]. A lot of Red Bull because you know I’ll be DJing for 18 hours. No, really, three Technics, the UREI mixer, a three-way crossover – because I think the five-way is a little too much. I’d use the Denon CD players, although I also like the Pioneers 700s. I’d bring the Korg DL8000R processor because it has really cool effects. I’d use any kind of monitors, as long as they’re big, loud and they don’t pop. I like the Technics DJ headphones because it has amazing bass and it’s very clear.

DJ Times: Do you have a general approach to DJing?

Vicious: When I play, I try not to introduce myself as a DJ where you stop the music and go, “J-J-Johnny Vicious!” I like to keep going from what the DJ before me was playing and develop it into what I want to play. Whether he’s playing some soulful or tribal, I can come out of that and slowly progress into what I want to play. But if you’re starting out the night, you don’t go right into your peak-hour stuff.

DJ Times: Let’s talk about your studio. Tell me about your sampler.

Vicious: I use a Roland S760 because it has more memory than most samplers and it has really cool filters that you can trigger with a touch of a keyboard. It has stereo samples and it can hook up to a monitor, so you can see the samples on a TV. You can do your cutting and looping and splicing just by looking at the TV.

DJ Times: And your sequencing program?

Vicious: I use Opcode Vision, but I’m going to learn Logic soon. When I first started out, I didn’t know much about computers or sequencing. I only used my EPS 16 Plus as a main sequencer and I’d have everything else triggered from that. Then I met Satoshi Tomiie, who taught me how to sequence from Vision. I love it because it does everything that I’d want, as far as putting a track together. It does quick volume level changes to get a gating effect that a lot of other sequencers can’t do. You can make the vocal cut in and cut out or do it on the speed of a hi-hat. You have a hi-hat going on a 16^th of a note, then you can have the vocal get louder and lower on that same 16^th of a note and it has a gating effect.

DJ Times: Your board?

Vicious: I have a Mackie D8B digital 8. Boards that are not digital are good for people who are just starting out. I used my [Alesis] X2 for about four years, but the problem was that there was no way to save the EQs or level changes. But with the digital 8-bus you can save all your EQs, go work on another track and come back to that first track. It’s better than writing down all the EQs.

DJ Times: What special treatment did you give to Whitney Houston’s voice on your remix of “It’s Not Right…But It’s OK”?

Vicious: I used two Korg processor units, the DL8000 and AM 8000, on her vocals because they have really cool sounding pre-programmed effects inside of them. They have phasing which actually filters and delays her vocals. I also used the Sony MP5, this cool car-radio-looking effect unit and the Zoom. I also used the Alesis Wedge for reverb sounds. I used an Avalon compressor/EQ, which is a tube compressor that makes vocals really warm and the compression on it helps brings the vocal up to the front of the track. On the Whitney mix, her vocal is the most important thing on the track and I needed something that would complement her vocal. My engineer Kenny [Lewis], who works with a lot of vocalists like Diana Ross, came over and EQed the vocals. Then Guido [Osorio of Razor N’ Guido] came over and EQed the track. So I had the best of both worlds. On the rest of the track, I also incorporated some of the effects that I used on her vocals into the percussions. Everything flows better.

DJ Times: In your remixing process, you had to take an R&B song and make a trancey house track. How do you time-stretch a recognizable voice like Whitney Houston?

Vicious: Nowadays, it’s easy. You take the original track and record it into the computer and time-stretch that to the beat of your tempo. Simple. I do it in the Vision program. A lot of people do it in Pro Tools or whatever, but for me since my sequencing is in Vision I have the audio of the original track going with my track from beginning to end. The only thing that can screw it up is if they edit the original track and their edits are off. So, I’ll try to follow a beat that’s not in sequence to begin with. I usually take the first minute of the song and make sure it’s on beat. I find out exactly what tempo the song is in my sequencer – because all sequencers have different tempos that are off milliseconds – and I match up the beats from the original song and I stretch the song to the new tempo that I want. I make sure that tempo is exact with the original song. Then I take her a cappella vocal and stretch that from the original tempo to the new tempo. Sometimes you have to take a little bit off on the tempo, like 133.22 just to have the exact vocal on all across the board.

DJ Times: Why do you think that mix worked?

Vicious: It was different. I just wanted to make a really trancey track underneath her vocal, but something that was radio-friendly. I don’t think commercial radio responded to it, but the mix show DJs did – because it was still underground and it didn’t hit the radio and it didn’t go as commercial as the Thunderpuss 2000 mix did. They had an alternative to play. Everybody wanted to be progressive and underground and I was right at the head of it here for the U.S.

DJ Times: What’s it like for a remixer to get your hands on a Whitney Houston record?

Vicious: It really depends on how long you’ve been a remixer. When I was first starting out, if I got my hands on a Whitney vocal I would’ve chopped it up and made the most amazing track that I could. When I did get it, that’s how I felt. But I took my knowledge and did the best I could. Getting a vocal like that, I mean, if you don’t do something spectacular with it then don’t do it at all. You’ve got to turn it out. You have to make it fit. You have to have the strings in there to work with the vocals. You have to have the keyboards in there to change in the keys that she’s changing in. That really makes it work. I sat there with my keyboard player Michael Nigro for hours, going through different chord changes that went with her vocals and finding the best one that fit exactly with what she was doing.  

DJ Times: React’s “Let’s Go All the Way” – what was that song when you got it and what did you do with it?

Vicious: When I first got it, you know, it was a boy song, like a New Kids on the Block song. I basically wanted to turn it around to a New York club record – something that I’d play or my friends would play. Eddie Baez was really into it. A lot of people were into the vocals. I thought it was a good song and it would work for the dancefloor, so I did it. What I did at the end of it – the dub – was what I really wanted to do. At the end of the day, if there’s a song that’s good, but not something that I’d really play as a DJ, I’d make a dub to it so that I would play it as a DJ. There are a lot of DJs out there who are into the rave scene, for example, and I know they wouldn’t play a vocal like that during a rave. But if I do a dub, there’s a chance.

DJ Times: So what do you do with your dubs?

Vicious: I try to make my dubs not like any regular dub. I make ’em like an anthem. I’ve learned from people like MK, where he’s taken dubs and dubs were the main song. The vocal was good, but the dub was the song. My whole formula is to give the label a two-in-one. That’s my marketing plan to the record company – remix the regular song and do a dub. But it’s just not a dub – it’s a mix. It’s a whole new entity, something that doesn’t sound anything like the original. Usually dubs are just cut-up pieces of the original. I started that idea with Hosh Gureli of Arista when I remixed No Mercy “Kiss You All Over.” I started making the dubs from that.

DJ Times: So what was the process with React?

Vicious: It took me two hours to do, basically. I sat down and found some off-the-wall sounds that I could use in the song. I sat at the [Roland] JP-8000 synth for about a half hour and made that riff sound that’s in the song. I bugged out for a while with my headphones. When I’ve got my headphones on, I’m in a different universe. I was also on about 33 hours with no sleep. I was kind of hallucinating [laughs], and that’s when it came out. The bass line came out and that’s when everything matched up. Since I don’t really play keyboards, I have my keyboard player put dots down on every key that’s in key with the song. I don’t know how to do chords. I can probably figure it out, but it’ll take me about two years.

DJ Times: How do you two work?

Vicious: He doesn’t even know, but I’m recording him half the time. I record him and keep it. I come back later on and listen. He’s like, “Whaddya mean? I just did a couple of riffs there.” And I’ll say, “No, you got a lot in there.” I just sit in the studio and bug out to what he’s done. I chop it up and change it around. A lot of times he comes back and has no idea what I’ve changed or what I did.

DJ Times: Why do you like to use guitar pedals and effects in your mixes?

Vicious: Guitars use a lot of phasing and flanging and that makes percussion sound really cool. You can put a guitar through it and it’ll make it sound like you’ve got a Marshall stack right there. But if you take that sound and put percussion sound, it’s just amazing. You can get some sick sounds. Then you sample that and put it through another effect. It’s endless what you can do. Sampling just makes things endless. But back to the guitar effects, all the pre-programmed modules from the factory are really cool. For example, the producer Hani has a T.C. Electronic G-Force and it’s great. Look in some old second-hand stores and listen to some stuff. Read the boxes.

DJ Times: You were also telling me before that you’re a real filter freak.

Vicious: Filters change the whole sound of the mix, in the middle of the mix. These filters that I’m using – Filter Factory by Electrix – are great. As a DJ, it’s a really cool tool because you can tap it and it can go on beat and you can use the LFOs and synch up how the filter is opening up and closing while you’re mixing. You have to play with it a little bit to understand, but you’ll get it. If it’s in your DJ setup you’ll learn how to use it. The [Electrix] Warp Factory is really cool, too, as far as using it as a Vocoder. I use it as a weird siren. It has this button that freezes the sound that’s going through it and you can turn the order and the robot pitch that gives the low-to-high siren sound and it’s really warp-y. It’s a cool thing to have. As a DJ I would use the Filter Factory; as a producer or remixer I’d have the Warp Factory.

DJ Times: Give me an example of when and how would you use a filter.

Vicious: Well, in my remixes, I’m using it as a crossover. For example, when a vocal that you really love comes in, you can turn the bass down when you really want the vocal to shine. Then at the high point of the vocal, you can bring the bass back in. That’s something that you can do with Filter Factory. You can really, really take the bass out. There’s no hint of bass whatsoever. You can go all the way up into the high end where the highs are just screaming and there’s nothing else except for the highs and it’s amazing. During my productions now, I’ve been using the Filter Factory…I would send all the instruments, except for the vocals through the Filter Factory, then filter the song while I’m producing. Actually while the sequencer is recording my changes in this Filter Factory, it records everything that I touch on the Filter Factory. But when you’re DJing, you use the tap. Of course, everything is in real-time because you’re not using any MIDI while you’re DJing. When I’m remixing, I’d use it on “Do It Properly” – the collaboration that Victor [Calderone] and Peter Rauhofer did – and most recently on the Judy Albanese “Move Your Body [House Music Anthem]” record that was put out on Jellybean.

DJ Times: I notice you named a couple of the mixes on the Judy Albanese single “Filter Factory Mix” and “Filter Factory Anthem.” How did you use the Filter Factory on that one?

Vicious: I have two of those and I put one on the whole rhythm track – the drums and bass line – but I left the pianos out of the Filter Factory. The way you do that is to bus all the instruments into the Filter Factory and the pianos and vocals are left alone. Then I put another filter onto the pianos so I can change the filter of the pianos at a different time, then I can change the filter of the track. Again, this whole time the vocals are left alone, so she doesn’t sound filtered at all – and that’s the beauty of the track. When you hear all the instruments cutting out and you hear the bassline coming in everything is going through the Filter Factory and I’m just filtering the shit out of the track. The filter also lets the bass get really, really subby and go really low. It has a really cool effect. It might blow some woofers, so watch out [laughs].

DJ Times: For a DJ/remixer who has been doing it awhile, what’s it like to see so many companies targeting this remix market now?

Vicious: There’s a lot of stuff out there. The ones that are staying and hanging in for the long run are the sound modules that have a lot of thought put into them. They’re not just thrown together and they have really cool sounds. These companies have looked – like Roland has – in their own libraries and they found out what they did with, like, a Jupiter 6 and why it worked and they put the same knobs on the new gear that they had on the old gear. Producers love to screw around with buttons and knobs and find their own sounds. Even though a lot of it is digitally reproduced, you can really screw around with sounds, which is really cool. A lot of the new kids that are coming up don’t really know how to do it and it’s going to take them a couple of years to actually understand what an LFO is, how to use it, how to change it, how to change the rate. I’m still learning. It’s takes me awhile to mentally figure out what I’m trying to do sometimes.

DJ Times: What’s more creative for you – original productions or remixes?

Vicious: My original productions come from inside. I know what I want and that’s the easy part of it. And when I’m working with a vocalist, it takes a lot longer because I have to record the vocals in. I mean, that’s not so hard. If Whitney Houston came in the studio and wanted to record vocals, I’m sure we could bang out 30 songs, you know [laughs]. It’s actually really amazing how the other producers – and I’m not at that level yet – have a lot of harmonization going on and the background vocals are singing this while she’s singing that and doing ad libs. It’s like, “Wow!” The creativeness in these producers’ minds is amazing and I haven’t gotten to that level yet. I’m getting there and hopefully one day I will be able to produce something like that with her or someone of her caliber.