Claude VonStroke Beware of the Bird
Initial reactions to Claude VonStroke and friends’ first parties and music releases on his own Dirtybird label were not, it’s fair to say, great. Their signature sound of bleeps, bloops, and bonkers bass failed to capture the imaginations of the local San Francisco dance music scene.
“We got zero respect,” says VonStroke. “Everyone is like, ‘What the fuck? This isn’t cool’. We got 10 people to our parties. But, we didn’t give up on this dream.”
While all the happening clubs on the West Coast were bumping the smooth sounds of labels like Naked Music Recordings, that lot were obsessed with Playhouse, Klang, and the bumpier, dirtier sounds of forward-thinkers like David Duriez and Derrick Carter.
“Also, I was from Detroit, so I had that side to me,” says VonStroke. “And the label was in San Francisco, and we were all jungle-heads, and had seen how that scene ended up going down to that extremely dark, tech-step thing, with rooms just full of dudes. We wanted to get the party going again.
“So, we said, ‘Let’s get jungle, Detroit, Derrick Carter, and Green Velvet all into a house label, while still sounding like friendly West Coast music, with a touch of hyphy’, which was also massive.
“That’s where my head was at as
