Funky Tech Is Not a Joke
How the Dirtybird founder built an empire on not taking himself too seriously
Listen to the Interview
Claude VonStroke with Sara Chen
Twenty years is a long time to run anything. Twenty years in dance music is an eternity. The fact that Dirtybird Records is still here, still releasing music that people care about, still throwing events that sell out months in advance — this is not an accident. It is the result of a very specific set of decisions made by a very specific kind of person.
Claude VonStroke — the artist name of Barclay Crenshaw — has been making those decisions since 2005, when he founded Dirtybird in San Francisco with a handful of records and a party series that nobody outside the Bay Area had heard of. The label's early releases were rough, funny, and completely unlike anything else being released at the time. They were also, it turned out, exactly what a certain kind of music fan had been waiting for.
The Dirtybird sound — if you can call it that, given how much it has evolved — has always been defined more by attitude than by genre. There is a refusal to be boring, a commitment to craft that coexists with a genuine sense of play, a willingness to release records that make you laugh and make you dance at the same time. This is harder to achieve than it sounds.
We spoke to VonStroke in Los Angeles, where he has been based for years. He was, as always, in the middle of several things at once — finishing a record, planning an event, listening to demos. He is constitutionally incapable of doing one thing at a time, which may be the secret to his longevity.
Twenty years of Dirtybird and I still don't know what I'm doing. That's the secret. The moment you think you know, you're finished.
- Claude VonStroke
In Conversation
It means I've been doing this long enough to make every possible mistake at least twice. Seriously though — twenty years is a long time in any industry, but in dance music it's an eternity. Most labels don't survive five years. The fact that we're still here, still releasing music that people care about, still throwing events that sell out — that's the thing I'm most proud of.
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