If you haven’t been to Splash for happy hour (4 to 9 p.m., two-for-one drinks) or you haven’t stopped in at all recently, check out the all-new look with renovations downstairs, including new video screens and a DJ booth. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is DJ/VJ Max Rodriguez, who has been playing the greatest videos of yesterday and today at Splash since it opened nearly 20 years ago.
Almost four years after we launched Get Out! magazine, we finally got Max on the cover with an exclusive interview in this issue with the help of Wilsonmodels. I had just started Get Out! and wanted to put people on our covers that have touched my life in one way or another. Max is one of those people. When I first moved to NYC, my friends and I hung out at Splash almost nightly after work. It wasn’t just because they have the best club/lounge/bar in town, or the two-for-one happy hour drinks or the hottest and friendliest bar staff in the industry. We also came for Max, who was always there for happy hour playing the best current videos as well as classics and hilarious skits. Even the bar staff are always entertained, watching the screens and making requests along with the customers. Max is one of, if not the only, DJ/VJ in the industry that can play any genre of music and have you hooked on watching the screens.
I once tried to get Max to give us a top ten VJ/DJ list, but it is nearly impossible given that he plays so many genres of music from so many artists that even he can’t pick his favorites. That is because he is watching and feeling the crowd and giving them what they want to hear, not what he wants them to hear, and he doesn’t just play only what the record companies set out to make us listen to. In true Max form, there is always something for everyone.
After almost two decades, nothing has changed: Max is still at Splash playing the greatest videos of yesterday and today. He is a humble, down-to-earth, quiet type of guy who generally sits back and plays your favorites rather than publicizing his work, so it took us a while to get him to agree to the cover. We are glad to have him. Check him out live at Splash on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for happy hour, once a month for F Word on Fridays and most other Fridays in the “video lab” downstairs after happy hour.
///BY Michael Todd, Publisher
