By Dan Martino

EVERY TUES. STARTING 7/15

HOW DID THE DJS who played in roller rinks and small underground clubs in the tri-state area during the early 80s become international superstars? What's so hard about playing other people's records?

Like in other arts, there's a certain myth and mystique surrounding these early club jocks. Mostly, their aura was built by a few enterprising British music hacks who traveled across the pond to document what they saw. As we know, the British love their DJs. They grew up dancing at clubs and burned-out industrial warehouses, soaking up Motown, Staxx, funk, blues, jazz, reggae and obscure northern soul records. They love black American music. Maybe it's life in soggy England that makes record-collecting such an exciting escape.

Only recently have Americans grown to accept the DJ as artist. Still, for our big rooms, we import the talent from Europe, which is rather sad—we have some of the most talented record-selecting knob-twiddlers in the world. What's more, hiphop, one of the most influential musical genres to have emerged in the last 30 years, is from New York City. Where would we be without the quick-cutting techniques of Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaata and Kool Herc? These pioneers really learned how to use turntables as an instrument to whip crowds at Bronx block parties into a frenzy by cutting and pasting tunes back together again.

And there's Larry Levan and David Mancuso, two underground DJs who ran their own clubs in New York City, Paradise Garage and the Loft, respectively. These two clubs helped to define the community of club culture in all its weird and wacky stylings. As for Tony Humphries, he did more to popularize modern house and dance music than maybe any other DJ. With his eclectic mix shows on KISS fm in the late 80s and early 90s, breaking local artists like Chaka Khan, he played a soulful gospel sound that inspired almost every DJ to come after him. Hiphop DJs like Pete Rock name-check him as the artist who got them into collecting records and paying attention to the groove. And Paul Oakenfold, before he was playing all that bad trance Ibiza crap, was among the devoted.

Humphries has been playing all over Europe and Japan for the past few years, but he now returns to the city with a new weekly residency at Discoteque. Joining him on the decks is Allen Jefferies, the founder of For the Record, one of the most popular record pools in the city. Even if you're not a fan of dance music, Tony Humphries is worth checking out, because he continues to champion the sound of new American soul.

Discotheque, 17 W. 19th St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-352-9999, 11, $10.