Interview: Lazaro Casanova

It’s a humid Monday night in the dog days of the Miami summer, and the hidden back room of a taqueria in Wynwood is packed. On the side of the room, a middle-aged man with long hair and a cowboy hat is banging out rhythms on a makeshift drum set. In the center, a stocky DJ with a long beard and baseball cap is controlling the sounds behind the turntables. The man on the percussion is Frank Lords, formerly of the freestyle group Secret Society, and the DJ, Murk’s Oscar G.

The club night is Murk Mondays, a weekly put on by Oscar, Ralph Falcon (his partner in Murk) and DJ/producer Lazaro Casanova. What seems to stand out on this Monday is the mix of generations in the room. Oscar and Ralph, who are both of Cuban descent, started DJing together in the late ’80s and releasing music as Murk in the early ’90s. Lazaro, also Cuban, remembers getting turned on to house when he heard Murk’s “Dark Beat,” which came out while he was in high school.

Casanova was born and raised in Miami. He got his start DJing all-ages parties and playing records at the seminal indie night Revolver. He now produces his own records alongside running his label Pet Food, managing releases for Murk and DJing in Miami and around the world. Catching up with the multi-tasker is difficult, but we stole a few moments with him during the party to chat about all of the above and more.

As a DJ, have you always been playing house music?

I was doing more of the indie band thing in the beginning, playing at Pawnshop Lounge, Studio A and introducing house through a lot of remixes. DFA, Mylo, Felix the Housecat. Those were a lot of the crossover things for me. I feel that’s why so much of the scene here has grown to what it’s become because that generation I grew up with were exposed to house music in one flavor or another, and they got further into it as the years went by.

I was doing the promo record pool thing then and I remember almost on a weekly basis arguing with the promoter. He was like, “Dude, you’re playing too much house.” But that was all of the shit that was coming out in this scene. It was fresh; a lot of those acts were touring and doing good with it.

At 16 I was doing all ages parties, more of the open format thing with this promotion company Dream Team out of Hialeah. They would stack a million of us local DJs trying to come up on a flyer to each play like an hour. Between that time and Revolver, I took time off from playing house. But it’s like when you catch the bug, you hear it and want more of it. Coming from playing open format, house music flowed well, it was fluid. You could keep a certain mood going without jumping around to different things.

What were some of your musical influences growing up?

I grew up in a very Cuban family, some of them were very Afro-Cuban religious. I grew up around a lot of religious drums. That whole drum element, I’ve always liked it. I started incorporating it into my music when I started producing because it felt natural. Hearing what’s happening inside right now [at Murk Mondays], that feels natural. When it comes to a Miami influence or a Miami sound, I don’t think there are a lot of other places that dial into the Afro-Cuban sound like here unless you’re going to the island itself.

The Murk label to me is the first movement here in Miami, growing up that I heard. “Dark Beat” was the first song I heard when I was like 16 years old on the radio. I’m 29. I got into it a lot later. A lot of the kids in the high school days wanted to go to Ultra, that wasn’t my thing. Space was always the thing growing up, at the old location. They would bring in people a lot of different DJs from around the world.

Is there a Miami sound when it comes to house and dance music?

It’s something with the percussion in the music. A lot of us play it in different incarnations. It’s kind of hard to explain it in words. It just has that beat to it [beat boxes]. Even though it’s a different thing, guys like Robbie [Rivera] have that percussion in it, and he’s a Puerto Rican dude living in Miami. For lack of a better word, it has a Latin flavor to it. That’s Miami.

How has that related to your production?

I’m fortunate to have outlets where I can do what I want to do. On my label Pet Food I do more of the deep house thing. Oscar and Ralph have given me a lot of opportunities to release on Murk; I’ve never had either of them tell me, “You should change this.” It all depends on the outlet. I have something coming out on Defected that previously came out on Murk, it’s a vocal track with Dawn Tallman. Obviously Defected is an outlet for vocal tracks that crossover. Some labels I do stuff that are more tech house, like Get Physical. It depends. That’s why I like having my own outlets because it does happen when you shop music to labels they do tell you, “Hey, can you send us something that’s a bit more up our alley?” Which I understand. As long as you’re doing what you want to do, at some point something is gonna break.

So Miami has been treating you well.

It’s a great time to be a DJ in Miami, it’s a DJ market. There are more venues, more than ever. WMC is a powerhouse, it’s not going to go away. It’s like a similar vibe now for Art Basel. I remember years ago it [Basel] didn’t have anything musical attached to it. Now every year more and more acts are being brought down, which is awesome. I enjoy Basel more because it seems a bit more raw, more things outside of the box. The clubs have 5 AM liquor licenses, Space has a 24-hour license, you have an option to party all night.

But it’s like that year round?

People come during WMC and Basel and they think Miami is like that all the time. They don’t know that summer in Miami is slow, tourism is down. We still have parties, but it’s not like that every week. We’re fortunate enough to have DJs flying in every weekend, but I feel like the standards are set really high with those specific two events. It’s like saying you go to BPM in Playa del Carmen and it’s crazy, but that thing is like dead year round.

How do the crowds affect your DJing?

Our Murk Mondays is a dialed in crowd, they know what we’re doing. Other spots, there is definitely a tourist element, South Americans coming to town for the weekend. The good thing about it is, it doesn’t really take me out of my element. It’s mainly Latin people coming from other Latin American countries and they kind of like that vibe that I’m throwing to begin with. If you were playing at a place like Mansion, the [South] beach clubs, there’s more of the outside element. On Biscayne and that whole area, which is my favorite side of Miami now, musically we’re a lot more at liberty to do whatever we want and the venues kind of cater to that. Electric Pickle, Bardot, the stuff we do on Mondays at Coyo Taco is my favorite. With clubs like Story and Trade on the beach shows there’s a market for more underground music. Wynwood specifically, we’re only at the beginning part of this story in this area.

How do things compare from now to the Murk days?

Miami has blown up so huge since then. Danny Daze, Jesse Perez. The guys down here we all interact. It could potentially be a crew that’s recognized of guys in Miami that do stuff together. Prior to now, no one from Miami was really interacting with each other. Obviously, Oscar and Ralph have been really good about getting people in Miami involved. We could each do our own thing, but there’s strength in numbers obviously.