DJ Lina Bradford on Candis Cayne, Club Kids, Fire Island Reign & more
Hot Takes & Deep Dives
Jess Rothschild
4.7 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2025
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jess is joined by New York icon DJ LINA BRADFORD! Topics: living in same building as Olivia Newton-John, soulmate Candis Cayne... the Linda Evangelista to her Naomi Campbell and how the trans label is limiting. Plus — evolution from dancer > nightclub host > DJ as performance art, 10-year reign on Fire Island, finding her sexual revolution on FI + a lot more!
Jess' docu-series on the history, mystique & lore of Fire Island: Finding Fire Island
IG: @jessxnyc | @thelinabradford
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Hot Takes and Deep Dives. And if you listened to my docu series Finding Fire |
| 0:19.5 | Island, and if you haven't, get into it, you know that |
| 0:22.6 | DJ Lena was featured there. Well, I knew when I was going to sit down with Lena that we were |
| 0:28.1 | not only going to talk about her 10-year DJ residency on Fire Island, but also her entire life |
| 0:34.5 | story. Growing up on the Upper West Side, being an active member of the underground club kid |
| 0:40.0 | scene in the early 90s, opening Barracuda with Candace Kane, why she doesn't like |
| 0:45.6 | using the trans label, and also her DJ mentors, Junior Vasquez, Frankie Knuckles, all of it. |
| 0:52.2 | So here we go with DJ Lena Bradford. Hi, Lena Bradford. |
| 0:57.8 | Well, good afternoon, Cookie. How are you today? I'm wonderful. So a little peek behind the |
| 1:02.9 | curtain. We just went into Lena's doll house where not only does she have obviously the original |
| 1:09.6 | collection of Barbies, but I did identify the 902 and |
| 1:14.0 | oh Barbies, including Brenda, Brandon. |
| 1:17.8 | All of them, yeah. |
| 1:18.7 | The whole gang. |
| 1:19.4 | There's a whole mixed bag up in this gig. |
| 1:22.2 | And I asked you if you had gotten these on eBay. |
| 1:25.0 | All original at the time. |
| 1:26.7 | Yeah. |
| 1:27.2 | It feels great to get stuff, |
| 1:28.5 | especially when they get the likeness of them. You know, I mean, there's so many elements |
| 1:33.0 | that go behind me and my collection, but I mean, of course, you've got to love the pop |
| 1:38.1 | iconic moments of dolls, especially that have really made a difference in society. |
... |
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