Club Kid Kim
From Hollywood nightlife to life in the Catskills, music producer, singer and DJ Kim Anh has been slowing down since last March lockdown. “Being in the slower pace of mountain life gives one the space to explore deeper meaning – in work, creativity and ego.” She remembers her teenage days and nights in NYC queer scene and how it shaped her future. “I’ve always strived to create a space that honors our queer history and give the next generation of kids a place to feel like they belong.”
Photos by Kim Anh
NOUVEAU YORK: Tough times. How have you been?
KIM ANH: Like everyone else, I guess I’ve been hanging in there. Being an artist comes with being in an eternal existential crisis. Some days are highlighted by acceptance, some inspiration and some days are filled with angst and fear.
NY: Since March, You’ve been sharing your time between Brooklyn and upstate New York, but before that you’ve been based in LA and been a key player of the club scene there. What brought you back on the East coast?
KA: NYC has always been in my heart since first arriving downtown in the 90s. I grew up on the East coast and NYC was the place to be if you were a young queer/artist. I started hosting parties here in 2008 and through music and nightlife I built a beautiful community. In the last couple of years I’ve been in New York more often because my partner works in fashion and is based in NYC full time. Upstate was our weekend getaway house, but we moved here full time in March as soon as NYC went on lockdown. We naively thought we would be back to normal in a couple weeks.
NY: Your last EP was recorded in Hollywood, but your new studio is Upstate New York. Catskills Vs. Hollywood, which one wins?
KA: California is such a special place. It is exotic and beautiful. LA’s queer and underground nightlife has held me up, given me a voice and the opportunity to transform my love for music into a vehicle for progress and change. Comparing LA to the Catskills is like apples and oranges! Being in the slower pace of mountain life gives one the space to explore deeper meaning – in work, creativity and ego. I’ve grown so much as a producer in these months, fine tuning and catching up on new technologies. I’ve recorded new material that I’m really proud of. In LA, pre-pandemic, I was distracted by meetings, dinners, ideas and the discussion of ideas. The Catskills is a wonderful place to focus inward and it has been invaluable. Both LA and upstate have scenic nature, but the environment is different. LA is bustling, diverse. The Catskills are private with clean air and water.
“It felt like I might find more weirdos like me in NYC.”
NY: From LA’s nightlife to the life in the Catskills, it is a perfect sign of times, isn’t it?
KA: How apropos. I was going 100 mph and suddenly I derailed from the tracks. There wasn’t much else to do but pick up what remains and go at it on foot.
NY: About quarantine, you said “I try to look at this time as a privilege, a deep meditation. I let the music keep carrying me.”
KA: Living in America during a pandemic and having a roof over your head, having good health and food in your stomach is a privilege that many don’t have right now. Being able to center and find presence in the enjoyment of music also feels like privilege. I’ve noticed my relationship to music is shifting again. Much like when I was a teenager, I can listen to music with no agenda other than pure enjoyment. I don’t have to consume music in relation to my gigs. It is quite bewitching to patiently spend time with so many genres of music.
NY: You grew up in the South and on the East Coast and you always admired New York. When did you start fantasizing about it?
KA: I don’t know that I can pinpoint it but it definitely started with nightlife. Friends who were older than me would come back from NYC with these wild stories. I was really into house music from the age of 13 or 14 and so many DJs and producers I was obsessed with were coming out of NYC. It was the 90s, the age of the club kid and MTV was in almost every household. I always felt different from most people, like an outsider. It felt like I might find more weirdos like me there.
“It was the drag queens that helped me get my confidence as a queer youth looking for acceptance.”
NY: Can you describe the first NY experience that really had an impact on you?
KA: I used to stay in LES with some queer boys and we’d party hop with fake IDs. I remember going to Body & Soul and the music connecting all the music I’d ever loved into one long stream. Seeing Junior Vasquez at Twilo made me want to get my own turntables. For the longest time I only had one Technic 1200 because I couldn’t afford a second one. My neighbor had a pair and I would ask him tons of questions on how to mix. I guess that’s how it all started. I never imagined I would be doing it as a full time job ten years later.
NY: How did your early experience of queer nightlife and culture in New York shape your involvement in the LGBTQ+ community?
KA: NYC taught me how to stick to my roots. I think my career has been defined by staying the course and keeping an authenticity to the music – which isn’t always easy to do in “Hollywood”. DJs who play underground or independent genres in LA have to work ten times harder to create our own spaces. I was always a club kid at heart and it was the drag queens that helped me get my confidence as a queer youth looking for acceptance. I’ve always strived to create a space that honors our queer history and give the next generation of kids a place to feel like they belong. I live for all the stunts and antics. NYC nightlife had all the drama!
NY: What does the future look like?
I think in the immediate future we have a lot of growing pains. All of our systems have been strained and many people are suffering under the era of late stage capitalism. I hold some hopefulness that the work being done will maintain and weave itself into our society. Ideally we would come out of all of this having learned many things. I want to see artists valued and protected. I want to see opportunities flowing for underrepresented communities. I see artists taking back their spaces and building them from the ground up again. I see a renewed appreciation for our right to congregate in shared ecstasy. I see relief on the horizon and in the meantime I see us supporting one another until that day comes.
