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noiZe Magazine Music Reviews

Twisted DEE AND Phil B

Written by J. Montgomery Buchanan

With August here, you can look forward to one of the month’s big events — the party that you have been waiting for since last August. Now in its fifth year, Fire Island Pines’ “Ascension” has grown from a single beach party to an entire weekend of parties, performances and events with something for everyone. Of course, the main attraction remains the main beach party, which starts at noon on Sunday, Aug. 15. But the night before, at 6 p.m., the tradition of High Tea will take on a new life with the addition of two faces already familiar to the Circuit.

DJ Twisted Dee and DJ Phil B will take their positions at the turntables and turn the traditional Tea into a four-hour dance party that will effectively serve as the opening act to the main party. Like a runner who carbo-loads the night before a marathon, our dynamic duo will set out to energize the partygoers and give them a warm-up for the events to follow on Sunday morning. In other words, hire someone to cook dinner that night because no one in your house should miss this event!

Two years ago on July Fourth, tragedy brought together two talents who had admired each other but had never worked together before. Cary Stringfellow was a mutual friend to both Dee Martello (DJ Twisted Dee) and DJ Phil B (Phil Bhullar). After Stringfellow’s untimely death, Dee (who is based on the East Coast) and Phil B. (who is based on the West Coast) met and were immediately booked to spin at Splash Days in Austin, Texas, over the Labor Day weekend. Stringfellow, a well-known and much-loved DJ and club owner from Salt Lake City, was originally slated to headline the event. The pairing of these bi-coastal DJs can only be categorized as serendipitous, and will remain as the legacy of his unfortunate death. The joy they create together is a tribute to Stringfellow and the 36 years he lived.

I spoke to both DJs individually by phone, and they both emphasized the impact that Stringfellow had on their lives personally and professionally. “Cary brought people together in his personal life as well as on the dance floor,” Martello says with a bittersweet tone. “Without Cary Stringfellow, there is no Twisted Dee and Phil B partnership. He was one in a million.”
“I cannot imagine my life without him in it,” Phil B says. “He will be with me every day of my life.”

Opposites Attract

It is a well-known and accepted notion that opposites attract but rarely do they complement and balance one another like these two.

Dee Martello was raised in the Long Island suburbs — in Commack, N.Y. She attended Hauppauge High School, not far from the Great South Bay, the body of water that separates Long Island from Fire Island. She looks back nostalgically about the place where she first became interested in turntables and the dance floor: “My dad owned the Sting in Smithtown, one of the first discotheques on Long Island. So when I got out of school, I would go over and help the bartender and cut fruit. One day after I finished, I walked into the DJ booth. I never wanted to leave.” When the club closed a few years later, Dee inherited the DJ equipment and vinyl: “At that point there was no turning back.” 

Bhullar’s own road to the DJ booth started early, when he was about eight years old. His family was living in England at the time. “From a young age, I remember being fascinated by dance music,” he recalls. “Every dime I had was spent on records.” His first 12-inch single was Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lets’ “Get Dancing.” “The disc wore out long ago but I have the cover framed,” Bhullar jokes.

He has been working throughout the world as a DJ for 22 years and has spun at most of the major U.S. Circuit events at one time or another. “I have always been fascinated by this country, the politics, the culture, the diversity,” he says. “I was living in Australia when my career really began, but I soon realized what a small place it was and that I would have to move to another country if my career was going to grow.” So he moved to San Francisco, where his career really took off.

Mutual Admiration

Since that first gig, the duo has played close to a dozen events together. “Event producers like to call it ‘dueling DJs’ to set up the intrigue of competition,” Bhullar says. “But we really don’t duel; we balance each other’s style.” After all, how can you dual with someone you admire and respect so much?

“Phil is phenomenal. His music is totally different from mine in so many ways, but I love what he does,” Martello exclaims. “He has the ability to work the most docile dance floor into a frenzy.”

Ditto on his part: “The first time I heard Denise spin I was amazed. Her mixes are seamless and sexy and energized. Any major Circuit event is incomplete without Denise as far as I am concerned. But I may be biased.”

Each member of the pair attributes their success spinning together to communication.

“We just played Avalon in L.A. on July Fourth, and during the nine-hour event, except for restroom breaks, we stayed a few feet from each other and kept an unbroken line of communication,” says Martello, who describes her style as “sexy tribal,” whereas Bhullar claims to be more “mainstream with an edge of techno and trance.” He reiterates her praise: Working with Martello is such a joy because her style challenges him to take greater risks, he says.

“Denise has much bigger balls than I do,” Phil B enthuses. “Sometimes she makes choices that are so unpredictable and risky, and I am always left thinking, ‘How did she make that work?’”
Martello is especially relieved to be working with Phil at an event so “he can play the Lady Gaga. Don’t get me wrong,” she hastens to add. “I love Gaga, but I feel a responsibility to bring new music to every event. I don’t want to play something that we have already heard three times today.” Martello reiterates the importance of the sexual energy in her tracks: “I like to tap directly into people’s emotions, make them feel joy, nostalgic, happiness and above all, sexy.” She related a story about a recent event when she looked down on the dance floor to discover three guys fucking right in front of her. “My job here is done,” she remembers thinking to herself.

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