A little more than a week ago, Jonathan Toubin played his Soul Clap set at LA club the Satellite. Two days later, the popular New York DJ was involved in an accident that reads like something out of a movie.
While sleeping in his hotel in Portland, where he was due to perform, a taxi cab rammed into his ground-room floor and pinned him between the car and the room's back wall. The cab was stuck, so three maintenance men lifted its tires and inched the car off Toubin. He was semi-conscious and able to talk but covered in blood as he was rushed to the hospital.
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The 40-year-old Toubin is still in serious-to-critical condition, according to his publicist.
Numerous friends — including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Butthole Surfer's Gibby Haynes, and TV On the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe's duo Stabbing Eastward — are coming together tonight to throw a party at the Brooklyn Bowl to offset his extensive medical expenses.
On this side of the country, L.A. Record and VICE will be holding a benefit at the Monty in Downtown LA. DJs from all over the city will be spinning “Jonathan-style soul and rock & roll” for a suggested donation of $5 to $10.
For a taste of what's likely to go down, here's an excerpt from Toubin's 2009 interview with L.A. Record about his Soul Clap parties:
The Soul Clap is a dance party, and the Dance-Off is the short contest in the middle. I throw killer soul 45s together to get people moving, and somewhere in the middle of the party, numbers are pinned on audience members, five judges take the stage, and I turn on exclusively deep James Brown jams while the audience duke it out for dancing supremacy.
There is a dance-off between the winners of each group and a final dance-off between two contestants, which is, of course, the dramatic climax of the night. After that, everyone's been waiting and watching for a half-hour or so and are itchin' to bust a move, so the records — which have been gradually escalating in speed and intensity for the entire night leading up to the contest — go up just one more notch, and the party really gets going. At its best, it can be like church.
The Monty is located at 1222 W. Seventh St., Los Angeles, (213) 228-6000; montybar.com.
