He makes it all sound so easy. But how would you fare, wedged in a smoky, vibrating DJ booth for 12 or more hours, pushing your body, your craft and your senses to the very limits? And how do you even prepare for such a thing?!
"I've lived here all my life," says DJ Boris Inzhin, from his home near Times Square, in New York. "I wasn't born here, but I came here when I was 2." Boris' parents left St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1973. "At that time in Russia it was all communist, so it was really difficult to improve your life. Over here, of course, it was the land of opportunity," he says with not the slightest trace of an accent, unless you count the one he developed growing up in Brooklyn. There, Boris' father drove a limo and eventually owned a restaurant. Mom became a successful computer analyst, making the Inzhin family one of the first waves of those in the 1970's who went straight from oppression to becoming a two-income family.
Since he began DJing, Boris has played Moscow, though he admits he's never been back to St. Petersburg. "It's a smaller scene there. It's not like it is here in the States. ... It's either money, or no money—there is no middle class."
Generally, Boris flies out nearly every weekend for work. The rest of the time he spends in the tri-state area at Crobar, Show and other renowned clubs. Show won Best Party for the second year in a row at Miami's Winter Music Conference this year for their weekly party, the curiously named Asseteria, where Boris holds a residency.
Boris has built his reputation on being the Marathon Man, satisfying his fans with sets lasting 12 or more hours. "It's really a New York thing. Most New York DJs, that's how we're brought up, we're taught to play for many, many hours," says the pupil. And the teacher?
"It was always Junior Vasquez. He was the first guy who really did the whole afterhours marathon thing. And then from there, everyone did their own thing in their own way." New York-based Vasquez has enjoyed a career spanning three decades, emerging on the scene in the late '80s. "He was kinda the original. He was the guy back then." For as deep and gravely as Boris' voice is, it still gets a little sentimental when speaking about one of his predecessors.
"For me, the whole marathon thing is a journey. Basically I call it telling a story; you take people through different chapters. You take 'em up, you take 'em down, you take 'em back up again," which would also describe his schedule, a constant ebb and flow of work and rest. The new week begins on Sunday afternoon when the previous week ends. "Then I'll take a few days to recover. And like Wednesday I'll start preparing for the weekend. I'll start getting new tracks ready, going through music—I call it 'doing homework.'"
Boris claims there's little he can do to prepare physically for a long set, though he does frequent the gym. "Me, I'm used to it. It takes a toll on your body. Your ankles start to hurt, your back starts to hurt. Everything!" Stamina is the name of the game. "As far as the mental state, I've been doing it so many years—the whole marathon thing—that it doesn't faze me anymore. But it takes a lot of preparation during the week. If you're playing for 13 to 14 hours—that's a lot of material."
But not all of Boris' sets are of the extended variety. Though this trip to Vegas will have him spinning at Empire Ballroom's Late Night Empire on Saturday, May 27, from about 3 a.m. to 11 a.m., he would have loved to have continued till noon but he's booked in the Hamptons from 10 p.m. Sunday to noon on Monday. Outside of his gigs in the tri-state area, Boris most enjoys his time spent in Japan. "Tokyo is fantastic. They're very receptive." Domestically, Boris counts among his favorites Boston's Rise, Stereo in Montreal and Therapy in Rhode Island.
Promoting his new CD, Boris describes Believe as "a tour through one of my nights at Crobar. I've tried to incorporate a marathon 14-hour set into a mix CD of 74 minutes." He says the CD is doing very well, selling in the top five in New York, and at the time, No. 24 in sales by the Virgin label. "The marketing people were like, 'It's the closest CD we've ever heard to being an actual club.'" Fans may not have even realized they were fans, what with Boris being the mastermind behind club standards such as the remix of Missy Elliot's "Lose Control" and numerous other dance remixes for Pink, Britney Spears, Janet Jackson, Depeche Mode and others.
Believe is a thumping, bumping, surge through the veins of New York's club scene, evoking imagery of a hot, breathy interlude on the impromptu dance floor of a Matrix-style warehouse party; "dark, progressive, tribal, techy... that's more or less my sound," he agrees. All that's missing from the clanging, industrial soundscape is the endless, undulating sea of wildly dancing partiers, and you best believe that Vegas will provide that this Memorial Day Weekend. As it says on Track 13, "The freaks come outta nowhere."