New York. The 80s, and early 90s. Despite the onset of gentrification, our City That Never Sleeps hadn’t quite shaken off the 70’s rough edges. The groomed-to-the-gills fantasia was still decades away.
Tougher, grittier, yes. Also softer, more innocent. Money was a thing but not everything. Artists could still live and work and experiment; even the dissolute could find a way to get by. Uptown and downtown cavorted, went home together unaware (at least in the early years) that AIDS was already on the prowl.
And at the center of it all: the clubs.
Those sounds. The sweat. The smell (weed x Opium x …). The whole-body groove. The heat. The submission. And the formula that captures the essence of the era:
And now, it’s all just a set of hazy feelings wrapped in hazier memory.
To remind themselves of other times and memories, some will collect objects, talismen of a lost age. But for others, objects aren’t enough: their memories demand to be fed in ways more visceral, transportive, immersive.
Coming of age in that heady 80’s and 90’s underground club scene, Joseph Ternes is one of these “others”. Inevitable, then, that his obsessions revolve around the only medium powerful enough to make those memories real enough to feel them: music.
Fan-turned-connoisseur-turned-collector-now creator, this music culture geek and self-described music hoarder is the mixmaster/DJ behind Boogie Down Reductions, an emergent, growing set of hand-mixed edits built around the vibes and sounds transporting us to those nights at the clubs.
If you’ve been reading Certosina for a while, you’ll know the arc: whether it’s Shaker tables, 20th Century Murano glass, or Civil War silver, connoisseurship and serious collecting share a common path. Fascination. Immersion. The slow accumulation of knowledge that can only come from handling the thing itself—again and again until your eye (or in this case, your ear) becomes sharp enough to distinguish the sublime—the profoundly, viscerally, wonderful—from the merely good. Music is no different. Same process, different medium. Same devotion to discernment.
For Joseph it’s not about the records as objects though he’d be the first to admit there’s pleasure in that gorgeous album cover. But that’s not the point. The point is what they embody: a moment, a feeling, a night you can’t get back except through the music and the mix.
This is material culture at its most visceral—not something to look at behind glass, but something to feel in your body, to move to, to let rewire your nervous system for four minutes and thirty-seven seconds, for hours. The archive isn’t dead; it’s alive. And it demands to be experienced, not just preserved.
Boogie Down Reductions is a labor of love.
“Boogie Down Reductions is for the disaffected, essentially anyone who is bored by generic playlists and is searching for new songs and artists to get excited about again. Or those who’ve never been exposed to underground club music, so giving these mixes a try might open a new world of appreciation. But ultimately, I’m mixing and sharing for the already initiated, the old-school party people who got to experience some of what I reference and want to relive just a bit more of that amazing time.”
Thoughtful, opinionated, Joseph has a lot to say about music. And DJs. And clubs. The importance of systems in that journey from connoisseur to serious collector.
But there’s also the art of paying attention, the nature of freedom, culture at large, the importance of intoxicants, the shape of pleasure. Which is to say, all the really important stuff. There is so much wisdom here.
…Read on
If all this is a bit rich for a single serving, here’s how to take it course by course.
Part one, the starter.
You’re reading it.
Part two, the main.
Joseph’s journey from fandom to obsession to collecting to creating
Part three, the dessert
How to listen. Plus speed round, resources, and that iconic 80s track.
You can read them in order (but then I’m biased), or you choose your own adventure. Each part stands on its own, but they’re better together, the way a great meal—or a mix in this case—is more than the sum of its parts.
Damn, haven’t had this good a time since … Thanks for the incredibleness @Joseph Ternes