Born in Bayonne NJ, Mike Simonetti grew up a hardcore punk kid in the New York hardcore scene in the mid 1980s. Through friends involved in the club scene, he began going to nightclubs during the heyday of NYC nightlife- the late 1980s.
By 1989, he landed a job at the legendary club Mars as a promoter. During that time he became friends with the djs and club promoters of the day, and it was then he got his first taste of djing- going out and working at clubs like Palladium, The Tunnel, Save The Robots, Soul Kitchen, The Red Zone, Building, NASA, The Limelight…After Mars (and pretty much all the nightclubs in NYC) closed, Mike started Troubleman Unlimited Records - releasing seminal releases by Unwound, Erase Errata, Glass Candy, Black Dice, Death Comet Crew, Wolf Eyes, Pixeltan, Chromatics, The Walkmen, Devendra Banhart, and over 170 other releases spanning every imaginable genre and format.
The label is still going strong with flagship bands Glass Candy, Growing, Chromatics, and Wolf Eyes taking over the world. In 1998 Mike started his first weekly party in NYC at the Knitting Factory called "Contort Yourself" focusing on reviving old disco and post punk.
During that time Mike was a resident DJ at the infamous Happy Birthday Hideout loft parties in Brooklyn. The HBH parties were known to pack in over 600 people a month and sometimes go almost 12 hours straight into the next afternoon.
In 2003, Mike and Chris Catalyst, his partner from Happy Birthday Hideout, started "Aerosol Burns"- a weekly party at the very tiny bar Boogaloo in Brooklyn. The party was intentionally small, and lasted a year.
It has since gained legendary status. Bands like Glass Candy, The Fall, The Gossip, Excepter, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs all played surprise shows in a venue that holds under 100 people, and the party was known to stay open after hours and go long into the morning- (until the cops raided the place at 10am!) The party then ended forever.
In 2005 Mike and Dan Selzer released Crazy Rhythms mix cd- which showcased a mix of all genres of dance music ranging from Italo to post punk. It went over pretty well, and sold out pretty quick. In 2006, Mike started a sub-label based on a blog that was started as a joke, sort of.
Italians Do It Better was meant to be a fun disco record collectors blog- but that turned into a serious full time sub-label focusing strictly on limited run cdrs and 12"s by his favorite producers, groups, and remixers.
Mike is a regular at Rubulad and Motherfucker, and was a resident at Justine D's Aktion party at Lit. He still maintains a loose monthly at Lit when he's in town.
