They warn you about this kind of stuff in grade school.

Start sprinkling your DJ set with Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Martin Denny and Nancy Sinatra, and soon enough you're mainlining breakbeat hip-hop with French and Italian new-wave cinema soundtracks. Heaven help you when you inevitably score some cheap Esquivel and bossa-nova records in a Miami secondhand store.

"I remember DJing a drum-n-bass party ... and in the middle of this jungle set dropping some kind of French 'ye ye' Jacques Dutronc track just as a goof. And people kind of liked it!" recalled turntablist Alex Gimeno, laughing. "From there, it all just kind of began mutating in a weird way."

Goodbye, acid house and rave! Gimeno had found both his career calling and his DJ alter ego: Ursula 1000.

A decade later, Gimeno is arguably the kitschy-kitschy coolest exotic electro-lounge turntablist on Manhattan's club scene. When not holding down a longtime Saturday night residency at the Soho Grand Lounge, he travels the world, blending should-be disparate international and decade-spanning music styles into seamless dance-floor mixes.

Ursula 1000 (the name is, in part, Gimeno's fan-boy tribute to a certain Ms. Andress) returns to NextDoor tonight, a couple of months after his first-ever Honolulu gig easily sold out a hot August night there.

"A lot of the wave of '50s and '60s exotica, world music, bossa nova and merengue ... always made it into my mom and dad's record collection. Big band and jazz was always in the house," said Gimeno, recalling the background music of his childhood that would one day inspire him.

Gimeno was a "pop and rock 'n' roll kid" who began collecting records — all kinds of records — as a teenager and never stopped. DJing, at first, seemed an inspired way to cash in on the eclectic collection.

These days, Gimeno's 10,000-plus collection takes up an entire Brooklyn apartment room not occupied by his wife's collections of vintage lunch boxes and Pez dispensers. He also still raids his parents' vinyl collection.

Gimeno has released four supremely listenable CDs as Ursula 1000 since 1999. His resume includes "electro-lounge" remixes for Quincy Jones, Felix da Housecat, Hawai'i's own Don Tiki, and for film and TV projects like "The Incredibles," "The Powerpuff Girls," "Sesame Street" and "Sex and the City."

A must-have he carts to every Ursula 1000 lounge gig?

"I have this really great drum-n-bass version of Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots are Made for Walkin,' which is just really ridiculous, fun and funky. ... I'm never tired of that song."

BEGINNER'S URSULA

No Ursula 1000 in your CD collection? Start with these two.

'KINDA KINKY'

ESL Music (2002)

A relentlessly entertaining collection of jet-set bachelor-pad electro-lounge originals guaranteed to shake up the cocktails at your next home mixer. Gimeno's funky melding of exotica, bossa nova, world beat, hip-hop and a half-dozen other grooves all but demand an accompanying dance party. Shake up a strong gin martini for the kicky "Beatbox Cha Cha." Bust out the Pernod and ice for the space-age jazz lounge pleasures of "Smokebomb." A CD cover designed by lounge-happy pop artist Shag completes the retro mood.

'URSADELICA'

ESL Music (2004)

A collection of Ursula 1000 remix projects shaken and stirred up as a nonstop party-ready mix album. Gimeno coaxes sweet coherency out of a Detective John Shaft-ready bass line, Depeche Mode-reminiscent synths and German chanteuse on HAL 9000's "Bay Bay Bay." Tasty breakbeats meet cute with campy jazz on a remixed Nasty Tales "Come on a My House" cover. The night closes with a turn-the-fugu-lamps-down-low remix of Don Tiki's "The Other Side of the Moon."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.