February 5-11, 2004

music

Going Steady

SPUN GOLD: "It's the feeling that soul music gives me that I could never outgrow," says Moss. "It makes me feel good."

Pete Moss came to Philly and found love in a soulful house.

by Sean O'Neal

During the early '90s, at a wildly popular after-hours club in downtown Boston called The Loft, the beats pumped fiercely until the sun came up. Sweaty people danced frantically like they were possessed. Boston's own DJ Bruno and a b-boy college kid named Armand Van Helden kept the energy level peaking with deep, floor-shaking house bursting with soulful vocals. As morning set in, the crowd would start to thin out. But there was young Pete Moss -- happy as a clam -- still movin' and groovin' to the soulful house music all the way down to the DJs' very last record.

"I went every weekend for years," Moss reminisces. "The place was always very dark and mobbed. ¨ Eventually, Bruno put me on the decks one morning. I'll never forget that he gave me that chance."

After that, he began DJ'ing around Boston and Cambridge, at clubs like Paradise Café and Axis. Then offers for raves in other cities starting pouring in -- including Philly's legendary IT parties -- and Moss was suddenly a traveling DJ.

But DJ'ing was hardly enough for Moss. Along the way, he gathered gear and began producing tracks of his own, overturning the rave/club community with rich, soulful house music.

Moss' music is alluring because it's as simple as his lifestyle. He loves his dog. He loves to unwind. He loves walking around the city on a warm, sunny day.

"As a kid, I didn't get to relax much [because of] divorces, family madness, etc. Now that I'm older, I just like to enjoy myself and smell the roses," he says. "It doesn't take much to keep me at peace, really."

Every cut Moss produces is based around the sexy and sensual sound of soul, which he embraced early on. As a kid, he tooled around with instruments and keyboards. And once he started producing his own music, he found a battery of influences to work from.

"My dad was a huge music fanatic," he remembers. "He loved soul music of all kinds, and that's what I grew up listening to. ¨ It's the feeling that soul music gives me that I could never outgrow. It makes me feel good."

By August of '97, Moss was frustrated with how stale Boston's music scene had become. He relocated to soul-laden Philadelphia, where he had already made friends during his DJ excursions. "Philly always struck me as the perfect place for me to pursue the music thing," he says. "I like being surrounded by other producers and DJs in my hometown."

At that time, Moss was releasing 12-inch singles on his own label, Recline Records. Six months after his move, he signed a three-record deal with Josh Wink and King Britt's label, Ovum Recordings. A massive discography rapidly developed.

"I started working with [other labels] shortly after my first release [the Relocation EP] on Recline. Sure, I sent demos to different labels and had pretty good luck with that method starting out. Then it became more important to me to stick with only a few labels that I could grow as an artist on rather than spread it around too much."

After two years of living in Philly, Moss and Sean Thomas launched a weekly at Fluid called Steady Saturdays, where they and guests like Miguel Migs and Julius Papp would ride the unspoken dialogue with the crowd while smoothly maneuvering from one deep, soulful house track to the next. "We had a loyal following of people who came every week and packed the place, and I was able to experiment a bit more with my music." Still, by 2001, the party had burned itself out and it was time to move on.

Moss found himself spinning all over the world: London's Ministry of Sound, Ibiza's Pacha, Barcelona's Terraza and N.Y.C.'s CentroFly.

In the studio, Moss also works with live vocalists such as Denise de la Cruz for Ovum and Terra Deva on "After 2" (Definity), which made it to No. 3 on the Billboard dance charts. "I have a hard time just making tracks now because with my vocalists, I'm able to achieve song format: verses, bridges, harmonies, etc."

But it wasn't until late 2003 when he finally saw the release of his first mix-CD, Erotic Moments in House Vol. 2 (Dessous), and his debut album, In Your Dreams (Alola/System), which was all tech-y, floor-pumping house beats and soulful vocal snippets.

"It took forever to be released," explains Moss. "I kept switching up some of the music. I needed the project to flow together properly, so I just kept working on it until I felt it sounded right."

Once again, Moss returns to Fluid -- now every second Wednesday of the month -- bringing back that soul-oozing Steady vibe.

"I hope I can achieve the same type of crowd as before -- just happy clubgoers that love the music."

Pete Moss spins Wed., Feb. 11, 10 p.m.-2 a.m., $5, Fluid, 613 S. Fourth St., 215-629-0565.