Ahead of the latest edition of their Boat Trippin series with house music legend Derrick Carter, we had a chat with Love & Logic alongside Gettoblaster about the event and lots more.
Pioneers, visionaries, and trendsetters – when it comes to the history of house and dance music as a whole, few names are more prominent than Chris Love & AB Logic, aka Love & Logic. An integral part of New York’s vibrant music scene, the celebrated pair have hosted the city’s finest parties for over three decades – on land and water.
Powered by The Ticket Fairy and slated to go down on the 21st of this month, the Boat Trippin voyage will have its upper deck stacked with Derrick Carter, Love & Logic, Gettoblaster. While the lower deck of the boat will host some of New York’s finest up-and-coming talents.
With a lifetime of experience behind the turntables, Love & Logic have dished out their vast knowledge in dance music through their SOUP NYC (Support Our Underground Properly) parties alongside Chris Love’s Stuck On Earth enterprise. Bringing a variety of styles to their shows, Love & Logic have been the name behind New York City’s largest and most successful events over the last two decades.
While Gettoblaster, ever since their debut, have been the epitome of innovation, efficiency, and harnessing the raw energy of electronic music. Heavily influenced by the sounds of Chicago and Detroit’s underground scenes and blending their own forward-thinking approach, Gettoblaster have been at the forefront of the jackin house movement.
With releases like ‘302,’ ‘H O U S E,’ and ‘Future Funk,’ to name a few, Gettoblaster have released some of the scene’s most seminal numbers. As part of Love & Logic’s Boat Trippin parties, the duo, alongside Gettoblaster is all set to welcome one of the most influential artists of electronic music Derrick Carter for a night of some serious crate-digging music over the Hudson River.
In anticipation of a dazzling night, we had a chat with Chris Love, AB Logic and Paul Anthony from Gettoblaster about what they’re looking forward to at the latest edition of Boat Trippin, how their famous parties came about, their music, and lots more.
Kickstarting our chat, Paul Anthony from Gettoblaster shared his thoughts about looking forward to playing alongside a figure like Derrick Carter with the picturesque setting on offer. “I’ve heard nothing but great things about the Boat Trippin series. I can’t think of a better experience to have in my repertoire but with my good friends this time; I’ve known Derrick and Love & Logic since the Gramophone Records days in 1995, so to have the homies on a boat with this amazing influential city in the background, it’s going to be incredible.”
Chris Love then spoke about how he looks forward to the summers, which allow him to host epic parties like Boat Trippin. “I look forward to it every year because I get to see all of our friends that we don’t usually get to see during the cold months, so the summers are highly anticipated. And with our tight schedules, we don’t get to go out to other people’s events as much as we used to. These parties allow us to see all our close friends, locals, and regulars attending our boat parties annually. So it’s like a reunion of sorts, you know.”
And AB Logic shared his excitement of witnessing the finest music from a heavily stacked line-up that includes the finest tastemakers. “From a musical standpoint, I’m most excited for this lineup over any of the ones we’ve ever done. It’s not about who is the most popular act or who is the most trending. We’ve always focused our brand around talent and who we think are the best DJs.
Also, for anyone serious about house music and being a DJ, Derrick Carter will probably be in their top five. He’s played countless other shows for us at different venues. For years, we’ve been trying to get Derrick to play the boat. So, to finally have Derrick’s music on our boat, we’re pumped up for it.”
Love & Logic and Gettoblaster’s groundbreaking music and their exploits behind the decks pushing jackin house have made them one of the key players of the genre. It is also a sound we’re now witnessing being adopted by producers across the house music spectrum.
We asked Love & Logic and Gettoblaster to roll back the years and take us through the time when they began pushing the sound. “So, I was trying to figure out a way to make the music go from the small room at the rave to the big room to the big one,” Paul (Gettoblaster) said.
“I took all the big buildups they do in EDM, and then it dropped back the Jackin House; that’s how I took our sound from a small genre to the prominent one.” Paul Anthony continued to speak about how the jackin house sound caters to every generation of listeners. “My buddy in Indianapolis who books me for his club. He goes, Man, you know what I love about booking Gettoblaster? You get the 40 and 50-year-olds and 21-year-olds out on the floor. You’re the only artist that’s got the kids on the floor and the old people on the balcony raving.”
That’s the beauty of Jackin House; it’s stripped back and refreshing with its funky influence. In fact, I have seen more tech house-driven labels adopt the same approach and dive into the Jackin sound.”
Taking a leaf from Paul’s words, Chris Love also exclaimed about the importance of different sounds making a comeback in dance music. “I think I think every type of sound recycles and mimics the sound that was hot 20 years ago. If you follow the timeline, there’s always a resurgence of a sound that was popular 20 years ago. So, you know, in about another, I’d say six, seven years, maybe a tech house is going to be very popular again.”
In our previous question, we went back in time, and with the next one, we asked Love & Logic and Gettoblaster how they envision the jackin house sound moving forward. Drawing parallels with the electro house boom in the early 2010s, Paul from Gettoblaster said, “I really like how it’s going back deeper right now. It’s now veered into almost EDM, and that’s how Electro House was in 2009. It was purely underground, and then everyone did it, and the sound became commercial.
Anytime you listen to a Kanye West record, or you listen to Cardi B or anyone, they’re always influenced by the beats of underground records. So, the more it goes underground, the more it regenerates for the new versions of pop music. So, I don’t know where pop music would be without the underground. That’s why I feel the sound has to go back underground.”
Chris Love continued, “It will always be an underground sound. I don’t think it will ever get to a level where major radios constantly play it. I don’t see it ever getting to a commercialized level or a level where there are millions of Spotify streams. It’s an underground sound that only a few can really appreciate. You know what I mean? And I am glad to be a part of those few.”
After a candid chat about jackin house and how they foresee the genre’s future, we hopped back on the boat party where Love & Logic and Gettoblaster will be playing alongside one of the greatest names of dance music.
As AB Logic mentioned before, if you are serious about house music, then Derrick Carter should be in your top five artists of all time. A pioneer of the Chicago house music scene, Derrick’s greatness spans over three decades. The strings Love & Logic have pulled to finally get him on the boat with them, making this event a must-see for house music enthusiasts in New York City.
Chris Love fired up the time machine and returned to the 90s, “I was booking Derrick since the late 90s; then we had him over the years at different residencies in New York. That’s when our relationship bloomed because every time he played in New York, we’d be playing with him.”
AB Logic further elaborated, “He appreciated our style; Derrick would always be selective about who is on the lineup with him. And we were people he approved of, so people naturally put us together.
We’ve had Derrick for numerous nights, but the one thing he hasn’t done that we’ve been doing for years was our Boat Trippin series; that’s why we’re so excited to have him this year. He always delivers, rocks the party, and educates the crowd by playing tunes they might not have heard. He’ll touch on some classics. And it’s always just a great vibe.”
Love & Logic have been successfully running their Boat Trippin series, bringing the finest seasoned players and up-and-coming talent. We were, however, keen to know how the name ‘Boat Trippin’ came about. Answering the question was Chris Love, the man who incepted the name.
“When we first started doing the boat parties, it was called High Tides. We were working with certain people that we no longer work with. And then I said, you know, we need a new name. Something fresh, new designs, new artwork, basically a complete aesthetic makeover.
Boat Trippin is just one of the names most of the event names come to mind. It won’t come to me under pressure. When I’m randomly out doing something, I’m out to dinner, I’m watching a movie, I’m just at the beach, whatever it is, and something reminds me of something, and then the name will just jump into my head. I’m like, oh, there’s the name. That’s how it happened.”
A similar tale was narrated by Chris Love about his ‘Stuck On Earth’ parties, which were the force behind NYC’s largest and most successful events over the last two decades.
“‘Stuck On Earth’ came from a song I was writing on guitar with a friend in our house. It started when the rave scene was budding, and we were stuck on the rave scene in the 90s. It’s an entirely different scene; some people had broken homes, people that didn’t have the greatest upbringing, you know what I mean? People were looking for an outlet to reach out to support from other people who were like-minded people and people searching for underground sounds. That’s what the rave scene was about and people that respected each other, no matter how they looked.”
Gettoblaster’s music is all about bringing energy to the jackin and the funky sounds they enjoy playing with. Their penchant led them to make one of the most emblematic tunes of the genre with ‘H O U S E.’ Featuring Missy and released on Superfett Records, the tune sat on top of the Beatport chart for seven weeks, over 15 weeks in the Top 10, and over 350 days in the House Top 100 & currently with over 1.5 million streams.
It is also Beatport’s 6th biggest House Music record over the last 12 months. For a mammoth achievement like this with ‘H O U S E,’ we asked Paul Anthony from Gettoblaster how his experience was while working on the tune and his reaction to the response it got.
“It all started off as a challenge. Bad Boy Bill and I were having a conversation; he told me, you need a chart-topper that will change your career. We were coming out of the pandemic, and me and Missy looked at each other. And I was like, go wake up, Zach (another half of Gettoblaster); we need to work on a track. We worked on the tune and signed it to a small German label catering to our sound.
It got played over 90 times on BBC Radio One. Diplo played it 100 times, and it was starting to get crazy support, the biggest support I’ve ever seen. We also got an award from 1001Tracklists in 2022 for being the most-played record. But yeah, that record is impeccable for our career.”
After an intriguing conversation with Love & Logic and Gettoblaster about Boat Trippin, their time working together, and what they look forward to when they share stages with Derrick Carter, we asked how the rest of the year looks for them. From the sneak peek given to us, there’s so much to look forward to.
Starting with Love & Logic, “We’re looking forward to the shows that we’re playing in the coming weeks at Brooklyn Mirage and the Circle Line. Then in September, we have the drum & bass boat party that we’re doing. We have a collab coming up with Gettoblaster, and we’ve got some stuff in the pipes with them that we’re really excited about. We also have a hip house collab with Born that’s in the works now. Fascinating few months coming up.”
While detailing Gettoblaster’s plans for the coming months, Paul Anthony has dropped a hint on something special that’s coming from the duo. “It’s funny because we’re going in the opposite direction. We’re trying to keep more stuff on our own label. We’re actually getting ready to do a festival next year. We’re doing more events with our record label brand. We’re dropping an album in September. We have remixes from people like Innercity. We’re bringing back some classic Jackin House guys we’ll be working with on fresh music.”
You can find out more about the latest edition of Love & Logic’s Boat Trippin – HERE
