Jonathan Toubin at the Waldorf

Talk about a comeback: New York–based DJ Jonathan Toubin is playing the Waldorf on Saturday (September 8), but less than a year ago he was at death’s door. When Toubin was in Portland, Oregon, last December, an out-of-control taxi slammed into the hotel where he was staying. To be more specific, it crashed into his room—onto his bed, in fact, where he happened to be sleeping. Toubin’s skull was fractured, his ribs were broken, and his lungs were crushed. But he survived, and five months later he was back behind the turntables again. It’s a hell of a story, and it has probably already earned Toubin all the PBR he can drink, but what impact will it have on the music he plays? Given that his specialty is spinning obscure rock and soul 45s that came out a decade or two before he was born, probably not much. On the other hand, you just might hear him play some of those romantic car-crash songs your grandparents loved—like the Unifics’ 1968 classic “The Beginning of My End”, which contains lines Toubin can no doubt relate to: “I wasn’t too sure at first, just what the doctor meant/When he informed me that there had been an accident.”