Anytime your weekend get hits with a dose of Dirtybird there's no denying that you'll be blacking out, this was the case with our first time seeing Sage Armstrong. Upon getting booked for LA based Club House Events, we had a chance to sit down with Sage as he told us about his experience in rolling with the dirtiest tech house crew around.
Down the steps of The Globe, an old Downtown LA theater, led us to the basement room where Sage would soon take the reigns. It doesn’t get more underground than this. After the club began filling in with people we took off to pickup Sage at his loft, 10 minutes from the venue. With a flask in one hand and some notes in the other I interviewed my first Dirtybird artist on route to the club where he would go on to completely murder upon a hot and sweaty dance floor.
2010 was the year when Sage Armstrong picked up producing. After getting to know the resident DJs in his home of Orlando Florida he eventually began creating his own music; rooted in house but revealing a ton of hip hop influence.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/256631622" params="color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]
He was introduced to the Dirtybird crew upon attending their Miami BBQ in 2014.
I was immediate drawn towards their music because of how versatile all of their DJs were. The fact that they even booked Just Blaze hit home for the hip hop head inside of me. I realized that I wanted to be in the same position as these guys and it would take me about a year and a half for it all to happen.
So how does one go about getting on one of the most prestigious of house record labels?
Sage Armstrong sent several demos to Dirtybird without any real response. It wasn’t until the next Miami WMC that he caught papa Claude VonStroke dropping his track What’s Yo Tempetcha? This prompted Sage to chase down Claude afterwards to let him know that it was his.
"Claude told me that he never hit me back because he thought my voice was a sampled rapper. When he found out it was me he was like alright... I’ll put it out on Dirtybird."
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/212741571" params="color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]
Sage describes his sound as “weird bouncy club beats” and is proud to throw his own voice on top of every track. In comparison to other DB artists, he comes off with more bite. The 808 booty bouncing’ bass and nasty lyrics give it all an infectious grit.
He recommends to look forward to more music with the ex-Crookers artist and Night Bass champion Bot, because they get along extremely well in the studio. For now we’ll keep jamming to his collection on Soundcloud in anticipation for the rest of his 2016 releases.