Riz Rollins' 70 ish Birthday Bash

++Riz Rollins' 70 ish Birthday Bash+

Come join us as we celebrate 70+ years of one of our city's most beloved musical curators, Riz Rollins.

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Friday, January 31st

10pm-4am

++Loft Stage++

Nayiram & Friends (Global Bounce Presents)

https://www.globalbouncepresents.com

Wonder Twinz (Ms. Artiz & Julie Herrera)

https://www.facebook.com/DjWTwinz/

Your Mom b2b Short Stack (OHC, Massive)

https://on.soundcloud.com/AqcFD4rAyBiFS1B69
https://on.soundcloud.com/Ex2Dt4VMiJeQk9nVA

Riz & Rob
https://www.kexp.org/djs/DjRiz/

https://www.instagram.com/leandergreeny/

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21+ | 10pm-4am

*By entering this event, you are entering an area where photography, audio and video recording may occur.

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Here's what Jas Keimig via Cascade PBS shared about Riz last summer...

"The dance floor and church aren’t all that different.

Both serve as places of community, connection, personal enlightenment and poetic beauty. Electronic music and gospel speak to the spirit, and souls are lost and found on the grimy club floor just as often as they are between church pews.

No one understands this better than Riz Rollins, 70, who’s been DJing in Seattle for nearly half his life, serving as both parson and disc jockey for devotees of his club sets and KEXP radio shows. As a queer man who grew up in a religious family on Chicago’s South Side during the ’60s, Rollins knows more than a little about hellfire, devotion, divinity and music. But before he took up the mantle of DJ in the mid-’90s, he thought his life would turn out a lot different.

“I’m supposed to be a preacher,” says Rollins. “That’s what everybody expected in my grandmother’s church. They expected I was gonna be not just a preacher, but a pastor.” However, he was certain his sexuality would get in the way of that. “I knew when I was a young boy that I liked other boys — but I wasn’t supposed to,” he reflects. “I wanted to go steady, I wanted to have a boy I could go to the movies with."

For three decades, Rollins has been behind the DJ pulpit in clubs across Seattle as a venerated fixture at gay, hip-hop and electronic dance music parties, including “Flammable,” the world’s longest-running weekly house night, which started at Re-bar and is now at Chop Suey. Regardless of what he’s playing — be it funk, soul or house — whenever Riz is on deck, the dance floor turns into a place of communal liberation: Dancers aren’t simply two-stepping to the beat, they’re moving and grooving through whatever emotions or experiences they brought to the club, together."

Watch the documentary here:

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About Riz Rollins... In his own words:

"I've been a dj since i was um about ten. A record player, a spindle, metal for the big records, and this circular pyramid for records with the big holes. I am from chicago, but not the chicago, you're thinking of. I live in seattle, but not the seattle you're thinking of. I like rock, hip hop, soul, gospel, funk, but not the rock, hip hop, soul, gospel, funk you're thinking of. My moms played jazz, but not the kind of jazz you're thinking of. I only remember my dad liking, miles and sinatra. but then he left. I was in a gospel group in bible college, but not the kind of bible college you're thinking of. I bought records, because nobody seemed to know how, at least not the people i lived with. I have played music on turntable, transistor radio, teevee, 8 tracks, cassettes, reels, cd's, usb's. I've hummed whistled, sang hooted, hooered music, but maybe not the music you're thinking of, in bedrooms ( lots of bedrooms , more bedrooms than i can remember). Basements, alleys, libraries, church basements (but prolly not the kind of churches, you're thinking of), barns, in the woods, in the desert, on the ocean, in cities, villages, and lots and lots of clubs. For as few as 2 and as many as thousands. All my life but when my best friend John suggested that I be a dj at a radio station for a living, I told him, 'I couldn't possibly, because i didn't have the skills to do something as joyful as that and then, maybe 2 years later, I joined a radio station that was almost thirty years ago. I been there since. I love to eat and to kiss. Music is not my first second, or even 3rd biggest love. When I’m down I pray. When I’m up I pray too.

Words to live by:

A shy ho is a broke ho.

Life is sweet and then you die.

The greatest of these is love!

Thanks for listening and saying so,

Love,

Always,

Riz"

Host or Publisher Shameless NW