Nicky Siano

Sobre

b. 18 March 1955, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. Siano got into DJing very early and at the age of 16 could be found trying to talk his way into The Loft where David Mancuso played a mixture of funk, fusion and disco to a very gay and very intoxicated crowd. In 1972, Siano enjoyed his first break when he and his brother opened The Gallery in an old garment factory on West 22nd Street. The club was largely gay but with an emerging chic crowd of people in the know who would party hard to Siano’s amazing mix of disco and soul. Siano used the area’s multicultural mix to inspire his now legendary sets. Over the ensuing years Siano became friends with disco luminaries such as Mancuso, Larry Levan and Arthur Russell, and future house music heroes François Kevorkian and Frankie Knuckles. The pinnacle of Siano’s career so far was when Steve Rubelle of Studio 54 fame asked Siano to be one of the original resident DJs at the club, where he witnessed Bianca Jagger parade around the club naked on a white horse. By 1982, Siano like many others had left the 70s with an unhealthy drug addiction, and with the advent of the AIDS epidemic he decided to hang up his headphones and devote his life to helping people with the disease. It was only in 1998 that he was coaxed back onto the decks for Levan’s Birthday celebration at Body And Soul, re-igniting his love for DJing. Siano has not released a huge amount of music (around 20 singles in total), although he is a prominent remixer and was instrumental in Arthur Russell’s Dinosaur project, releasing the club classic ‘Kiss Me Again’ in 1978. Soul Jazz Records released a compilation of Siano’s work in 2004.