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Abe Duque is the DJ who's been everywhere and done everything. He was one of the key promoters at Peter Gatien's notoriously wild Limelight in New York, and has also been part of the US's notoriously regimented Marine Corp. He was performing live chilled electronica in techno supergroup the Rancho Relaxo Allstars when the majority of today's electronica acts were still sucking their thumbs, but he's also talks about returning to DJing in 2010 because "it's time to go back".

He's had an equally ambivalent relationship with image. Most of his output this decade has been anonymous, vinyl without logos and one side etched with track names and secret messages, for the underground only.

But before that Abe was part of one of dance music's most visual "brands", Abuse Industries, a 90s New York phenomenon that had him and designer Andy Orel working with Helmut Lang, museums and the Goethe Institute, doing joke borderline porn tshirts and being given five pages in Raveline to "just do what you want".

As 2009 ends, where is Duque going next?

"Right now," he says, "I'm in my studio in Queens, New York. Blake Baxter is staying with me and we're working on some new tracks.

"It's been a big year. I released my third album Don't Be So Mean in May and we're still rolling out remixes. DJ Hell, Tigerskin, Joey Beltram, Marc Romboy and Max Cooper are out, but there's more to come from Jay Haze, John Digweed and Oliver Huntemann."

I've been missing running a club. I loved it in the 90's but it burned me out. Now it's like the planets have aligned & it's time to do it again...

He's also been keeping a video diary of the stranger dates of the Don't Be So Mean tour. "I restarted my tour videos this year," he says. "They're pretty simple. The videos are the lunacy of touring as DJs see it. I take a little camera on tour and keep it running. It's so small people forget it's there."

The  videos have taken on a life of their own, but then so did the tour. "In the last year I did Panorama for DJ T's 40th, Tresor a couple of times, Moscow, Holland, Japan, London, Australia. I played about eight times in Spain, all over Europe, three times in San Francisco and twice in New York. I'd like to play Brazil and South America a bit more, and I'm starting to play in the US a lot more. This weekend it's Rote Sonne in Munich for You Can Jack on the Friday and Catzmuzik at East Village in London on the Saturday, then New Years in Rome."

And then it's 2010, when he starts again with the Abuse... As Duque says, "I've been missing running a club. I loved it in the 90's but it burned me out. Now it's like the planets have aligned and it's time to do it again. So we're restarting Abuse Industries in March at Love in New York on the 20th, then Hell and I will be abusing the audience at WMC at Nocturnal on the 27th. As well as Nocturnal, we're also playing at WMC at something called Goldrush. I don't know what it is - it's a stripjoint or carwash or something that runs 24/7. When I asked Hell when we're playing, he said ‘whenever we walk in there'."

But whatever other gigs Abuse Industries does next year, the night's spiritual home will always be New York. Duque sees the scene as springing back to life after a long period of enforced quiet.
"The scene in NY has been really shit for about 15 years," he says. "But you can see new shoots sprouting up now - it's definitely coming back. I hope so. I've had my hopes up and then my hopes dashed a few times over the years."

Now NY really has changed, Duque says. "I really see it coming together with promoters like - well, Blake's been here a few weeks and we've been going out. Two weeks ago we saw Marc Romboy play at the Sullivan Room for Sleepy and Boo's party Basic NYC, then we went to the Resolute warehouse party in Williamsburg with Mirko Loko from Cadenza, Alexi Delano and Alland Byallo. Then I played Cielo on Sunday for Biatch Corp. It was a big weekend. And there's real local talent like Gene LeFosse & Maria 909 playing and putting on parties every weekend. 

NYC used to be the most amazing party town," he ends. "The things I saw in the Limelight - well, I left a little before it was shut down. [The Limelight was shut down by the City of New York after a series of scandals including tax evasion and a murder detailed in the film Party Monster.] But what I saw really changed me." 

Can he talk about it? "Not this time," he laughs. "My mother has just started getting into the internet. She reads my interviews now. I even had to unfriend her on Facebook because I wasn't sure I wanted to know whether Mrs Duque liked some of the stuff on there. All I can say is that we had to stop before we burned out completely..."

Next dates
12.12.09 - London, UK - Live set @ East Village
31.12.09 - Rome, IT - Dj set @ Lost 4 Music @ Country Club Castelfusano
06.01.10 - Berlin, DE - Acid House Dj set @ Killekill @ Berghain Kantine
08.01.10 - Salerno, IT - Dj set @ Irokocontent

www.myspace.com/abeduque | www.abeduque.net | www.facebook.com | www.processrecordings.com