Pietasters - Strapped Live (1996) - Who is D.J. Poopypants Hurricane Aladdin?

I don't usually post the Pietasters because I just assume you would already have this but, for the few of you who don't, here you go.

 

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At the end of track 12 "Dollar Bill" Steve (vocalist Stephen Jackson) thanks a couple of bands (Ruder Than You, and The Instigators) and then mentions that "D.J. Poopypants Hurricane Aladdin" has a ska night "every Tuesday at the Poseur's Club". The Poseur's Club was a club in Georgetown that closed in 1989, many years before this show was recorded, so that's funny unto itself, but who was D.J. Poopypants Hurricane Aladdin?

I did a bit of serious hard-hitting investigative journalism and found the answer.

(Okay, that's not true, I was having a conversation with a random stranger online about ska music when he mentioned that he was a promoter and D.J. from DC whose biggest claim to fame is that he was mentioned on this Pietaster's CD.)

His real name is D.J. Ian Fenn. Aside from being a D.J. he promoted shows in and around Washington D.C. and elsewhere along the East Coast. Punk shows. Hardcore shows. And he was one of the pioneers of ska shows in the region. He met several bands along the way such as The Skunks, The Checkered Cabs, The Pietasters, and even Etch-a-Sketch. 

On the way to a gig on a military base in Virginia Todd and Steve from the Pietasters were talking with Ian about how so many DJs have stupid names. They suggested "DJ Ian Finn" wasn't catchy enough and eventually settled on "DJ Poopypants Hurricane Aladdin". Ian did not care for the name and never actually used it. As you can see:

I asked several questions and he was kind enough to waste a bit of his time by responding. 

In his own words:

"In high school I was friends/skated with this guy John. We’d occasionaly go to ska shows in DC, typically at the original location of the 9:30 club on F St. I already listed to ska, punk and hardcore. I’d go to Dischord shows at Ft. Reno, but going to see ska bands at 9:30 club with John was really my intro to the ska scene.

After high school he started playing sax with a local ska band. Most of the members when to Montgomery College inn Rockville, MD. Occasionally I’d tag along to band practice with John. Incidentally, I had also been in high school with their drummer, Sean, but he had transferred out to a different school in Germantown, before junior year if memory serves. I digress. 

Some years later, I was backing up deejay in DC several nights a week. It was primarily dance club venues, so mainly goth/industrial nights, and the occasional ‘80s night. I eventually ended up starting a ska night at Club Asylum in Exile on U street. It started off pretty slow. There were a couple skins that came every week. Will and Dustin. Will and I had actually met years earlier, but as far as I recall, neither of us remembered that. Will played the trombone for the Checkered Cabs. Will and Dustin were in the BSSC, and they ended up getting other BSSC folks to come.

At some point during that period, I started working door at Black Cat (the competing club to 9:30 club, started by Dante from Iron Cross, Dave from Scream/Nirvana and several others). Black Cat was typically a Dischord and Positive Force hangout. Anyway, I started deejaying in between bands at ska shows at Black Cat on rare occasions where a ska band got booked. So basically, one day I got a call from Steve from the Pietasters. Usually at their shows, their friend Sean (DJ Selah, who also toasts on some of their songs) would spin, but he wasn’t available for that gig at the military base that I mentioned before, when 'the name’ happened. Their contract for to provide 2.5 hours of entertainment (or something), so they needed someone to spin in between sets (back then I don’t think they had enough songs anyway. I seem to remember there being two sets, and some songs got played more than once). Steve’s wife Caroline picked me and my gear up from my place, and drove me to where the band was in VA, and we went from there. So, I knew that band from working in the scene before, but this is how we really got to know each other."

 

But every good thing must come to an end. Ian had promoted a Checkered Cabs show at the Black Cat in which a huge fight broke out and ended up being the last ska show at the club and one of Ian's last moments in the dying ska scene. 

 

His days of modelling are behind him.

...and gone are the days of being called a 'punk rock piece of shit' by Nick Welsh of The Selecter...

...but you can still catch his ska night every Tuesday at the Poseur's Club.

 

 

 

If you have any questions or comments for Ian Fenn here's his Twitter.