I learned DJing from...
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
A question for all the DJs here - both casual and professional:Who turned you onto DJing? Was it another DJ at a party or club? Was it "Rockit"? The reason I ask (besides for the sake of a good Thursday conversation piece) is that I'm finally at work on my book (academic) on the mobile DJ scene in the Bay Area and thinking about how all the people I interviewed (and myself included) were first introduced to DJing through another DJ.I know this sounds pretty self-evident but, for example, a lot of folks learn piano or violin because they have to take lessons. Others pick up instruments by involving themselves in a school band. Others see guitarists in the media, etc. With DJing though, I'm wondering, aloud, if this is one craft that - at least back in the '80s and '90s - was primarily transmitted person to person; that you caught the fever for it by seeing a DJ do his or her thing. I know for most of my respondents, they got into DJing because they saw it in a club or at a party. I don't think family played a direct role and not really even media (though, as noted, there's that whole "Rockit" meme that the doc I>Scratch[/i] focused on when it came to scratching).So who introduced you to DJing? For me - it was this upperclassman in high school who was a friend of my cousin. He threw this backyard/garage party in my home town back in 1988...no one really came (at least, that's my memory) but since things were slow, he and my cousin were breaking down what beat-matching was for me, showing me how to adjust the pitch on a turntable in order to bring two records in synch. That wasn't what hooked me onto DJing - that was seeing Beni B rock it at KALX in the early '90s - but looking back, I realized I had this early encounter with the basics of mixing that, for whatever reason, I still remember even though I've forgotten (or tried to forget) most of what happened to me in high school.
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Then when I went to St. Louis for school, I saw DJ Alejan (now in Chicago) spin and I was convinced that this is what I wanted to do. I got a show at the local campus station (KWUR) and would watch J-Grand (now an NYC record label promo dude) and DJ Wade (now doing all the
If anyone knows who was on tour DJing with Luscious Jackson in the Spring of 1994, plaese to letting me know.
There were probably 8 people in the bar, and I was freaking out- i think i saw it as an avenue/community of people i could get into more for the collecting than the deejaying, to me, dj's seemed to have this huge amount of GOOD music knowledge tucked away. Now I know that they are all full of shit.
That, and seeing David Holmes play a set in San Francisco.
I wish he would drop more than just soundtrack stuff these days.
That guy has impeccable taste, no ayo.
Learned? mostly self taught, and still suck. Doesn't really bother me though. DStill taught me how to double breaks and a few other little tricks like 4 or 5 years ago.
But what possessed you to even own two turntables and a mixer to begin with?
I was the same way. I taped a lot of Stretch and Bobbito shows, or Riz and Mayhem, or Funkmaster Flex, or Red Alert. I started to think some mixes would sound better to me with certain records played in different orders, so I started buying records knowing I'd be getting turntables someday. I think I had around three crates before I wound up getting turntables in '96.
Then for a long time I payed more attention to sports and guitar, and spinning records was on the backburner until the mid 90's, when the drummer in my band moved in a block over. He had a set-up, and messing with his decks got me all charged up for it again. Plus this was the era where the first wave of turntablists were starting to get some shine and those vids of the ITF and DMC battles in 1995 or 1996 had me really psyched on trying my hand at it.
OK, my friend Beau .
But my homeboy(Troubleneck Bros.) copped two turntables (different brands) and developed his shit. I would watch him and sometimes copy. Regular techniques and stuff. I never dreamt of DJing cause he was good at it so I do my thing. I always loved music so I would cop records w/ him when we hunted.
Later in college since I had a gang of NYC stuff that the College station didnt have I got my own Hip Hop show. The first all Hip Hop Show and from there I did my thing. Not alot of scratchin and stuff just playin shit that the upstate country bumpkins idnt have access to.
After I graduated, a was living in the EasVillage and my homeboy(same cat) asked me to do a party w/ him.
I told him Im no real DJ, but at that time many EV lounges didnt need a super-technical dj. I agreed to play the Soul/Funk/R&B/stuff and he would do the Hip Hop stuff at like midnight. Shit worked out well and I stayed in the game for a minute. We parted ways at the party and I stayed on and played errythang. It was called Gumbo.
i'm pretty sure you showed me how to make a mixtape on a 4-track
i don't consider myself a dj. i'm actually selling my other mk2 turntable right now so i can lessen the damage of the drum kit i bought and also because i want a moog
:semi-crazy:
Beyond the initial introduction, I have to say everything else I've learned about DJing has come from watching others and practice.
when we first moved to Canada, my parents didn't really know anyone they could leave me with, so they took me took parties with them. they and their friends were in ther late 20's, also with young kids, so it was a mishmash of parents and kids dancing - this was downtown Montreal in the late 70's, so you can imagine. but before that and all the years growing up, they had a lot of parties that usually ended with moving furniture out of the way to folks could dance.
as far as records and buying them in large quantites went, there's a parental link to that, too. once in Montreal, my dad was doing his Masters with some dudes that were heavily into music. we went over their places for dinner a lot and there was always music on and records lying around everywhere. the same guys actually got together and bought us a bunch of records to introduce us to 'Western' music - including Kenny Rogers, Elton John, Bob Marley and Streisand/Manilow (you don't bring me flowers any-mooohhhhre).
It was sort of media for me--I learned about DJing through hip-hop. I'd see performances, footage, photos, videos, whatever, and there'd be a DJ in there, and as I was learning about hip-hop as a whole, I was noticing that in particular. Like "Run and DMC are really cool, but that dude behind the record players--he's extra-cool!" That sort of thing. Rappers were cool, DJs were cooler.
And then, of course, hearing radio jocks like Red Alert as well. I taped his show every week and besides just bumping it to enjoy the music, I would try to figure out what he was doing on some, "OK, I know this song, and I know this other song, so how did he move from one to the other?"
When it came to actually learning the technical skills, though, I definitely had to lean on other people. I taught myself how to mix (like many, my first setup involved belt-drive turntables, so scratching was out of the question), and Faust and Shortee (particularly Shortee) taught me how to scratch.
So I guess the initial idea came via media, but as far as actually doing it (or at least not sucking at it), that came from other DJs.
I always wondered why I started deejaying. it was never a conscious effort like "i'm going to be a deejay" I guess since I was into rap and there where turntables in the next room it seemed sort of natural. I remember reading an article on some local bay producer in Murder Dog and he said I just started going back and forth on two copies of records that I had. I did the same thing everyday with the few doubles that my brother had I would just go back and fourth for hours (I want to say it was Nubian Crackers or some shit like that...)
What really inspired my brother and I was listening to the late nite mix-shows on KMEL. We had Billy Vidal, Cameron Paul, Joe Quixx and the Latin Prince just murdering it every damn weekend. I have this one tape, which is probally my most cheerished cassette and it's of some of those dudes doing back-to-back mixes but what was real mindblowing was that they where these multi-tracked mixes. It was the first time I heard an intro, blends, and cutting on the radio. That 90 minute orange and purple memorex cassette is probally the most influential piece of music to me, so many classic joints and a lot of current hip-hop cuts as well plus i learned what precise and clean mixing should be.
*sigh*
i had an old radio shack mixer from being in bands and recording stuff at home, and I had a turntable I used at home and someone had given me another turntable when they gave me their records...
i hope this isn't cause what dolo wrote about female djs on his blog post about elise.
Yessir! That was like standard equipment, it seems. Also, the infamous Scratchmaster mixer.
That's where i came in. I didn't start spinnin until '98 (broke up with my girlfriend and thought it was a great way to meet chicks...) and had the records but no tables. So I talked some heads into having me open for them - many train wrecks later - i started getting booked on my own. The DJ's that were so kind to me were DJ Rage, Bloch-la-rock, Neko and Kest. You may not have heard of them- but they still spin around the 5 boroughs on the regular.
I never considered myself pro- but it has been my only source of income at several points in my life. My records helped me out... i think i'm going to cry...
I think I met Neko. He used to get records at Abracadabra on LI? Kind of a stocky italian guy? Had either a chain or a four finger ring with his nameplate on it?
I had played in bands and collected records....having consciously retired from being in bands (due to the fact that I had moved away from the only dudes I really ever enjoyed playing with), I still had the bug to perform in some capacity and also utilize my collection. When I learned of guys like David Mancuso and the Loft philosophy, that kind of cemented my approach to playing records for people. And while technically I guess since I am paid to DJ I am a professional, I still try and retain a bit of the unpredictability that makes it interesting to me after nearly 4 years in the underground club biz.
Biggest influences have been my partners Fatback and DCDigga, but more than them even is probably Neville C, just because of all the cats in DC, he holds true to his own tastes and always tries to give people that flavor that HE KNOWS they will love, but they may not have heard yet. And his fearlessness of selection, be it uber-obscure or 'played-out', he bumps stuff together in ways that always strikes you fresh. He just knows how to hook it up.
I sat in front of the TV looking at that video for DAYS and I still couldn't figure out how he got his hat to tilt that way.
PMX-15!... there was also the PMX-7 Trickmaster... replacement faders were like $35 - 40, and a whole new mixer was only like $90, so when the cross faders wore out, i would always just get a new mixer... years later, i was moving out of a house i had lived in for a long time, and i had 13 of them (some 15s, some 7s) in the back of a closet!... i kept them for a while because i thought it looked cool to have a pile of old mixers in the corner, but my wife shut that down before long... i also had two chairs in the room with BD-10s with the dust covers on as ottomans, but they met the same fate
the town where i'm from had NO hip hop radio, and my family didn't have cable, but i always tried my best to keep up with hip hop through older dudes, buying any tape i could find, etc... this older guy that i used to always talk to about music told me about a hip hop night at a club that i should check out... i was only 17, so i had to get a fake ID that said i was 18... i went to the club and there were two dudes absolutely KILLING IT on four tables, and i was like "oh shit, that's what i'm going to do"... i pestered the shit out of those guys to show me what they were doing, and they were always super nice to me, and let me come over and fuck around with their tables... i'm still friends with those dudes, and one of them is my business/DJ partner to this day
Probably a lil' bit of both.