I asked my mom for my birthday if I could be a DJ for halloween, so she took me down to guitar center and bought me two 1200s, a mixer, and one of those Q-Bert videos. 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.
Probably shouldn't let it get to me, but it still burns me when kids are "learning" to dj on Techs. BITCH! You don't get Techs until you graduate. GO BACK TO BELT DRIVES UNTIL YOU GET THAT FEATHER TOUCH.
It was sort of media for me--I learned about DJing through hip-hop.
Yeah, I realized, upon reflection, that I'm forcing the point too much here to say that media plays no role. I think for cats who got started in the '70s and '80s, before there was a general awareness or visibility of DJs in popular culture, DJing was more of a peer-to-peer craft but by the late '80s and definitely '90s, there was a lot more visibility - both in sight and sound - for DJs.
That said, I do like hearing about all the personal mentors and connections people have with how they got started.
my book (academic) on the mobile DJ scene in the Bay Area
There was a south bay dj named Bubba G Scotch that inspired a bunch of dudes I know to start buying/mixing records. I started listening to him play on KUBO outta Salinas, CA around '82 and he was playing all the hottest shit from NYC. Supposedly he was down with Zulu Nation and he brought Jazzy Jay to Seaside in 84 where I heard he was doubling 'mt airy groove' in a mall parking lot. I know of 10-15 dudes that still dj to this day as a direct result of his influence. Props.
i had always been into playing music i liked for other people and when i started realizing how the dudes on the rap records i was listening were doing it, i gave it a try. this 1984 and one day after school i came home and scratched the "HUH" on frankie goes to hollywood "relax." nasty nes had a weekend rap show and would have a mega mix for the last half hour (along with some mix-a-lot songs before he had a record out) and i thought that mixing songs that like was the shit. i started calling nes on his weekday show and he schooled me over the phone on how to calculate bpms and i would practice that and try to recreate the scratch sounds. also watched whatever hip hip i could find on tv and focus on the dj. one jc penny turntable and one old school joint that i took from my folks and the standard 5 channel radio shack mixer with no crossfader (though i asked for a crappier turntable and the mixer with the fader i got a better turntable and a less desirable mixer). either way, i was on my way.
That's crazy. Its dope Nes was cool enough to give you the game over the phone. He basically raised me on hip hop with Fresh Traxx, Rap Attack etc.
BTW I literally bought a turntable and a mixer and tried to figure it out on some fan shit. Nobody ever really taught me. "Jam Master Jay" was the record that made me wanna scratch though.
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?
damn- i wish i could say that was him. Makes for a better story.
for whatever reason the dj and the samples being used to make the track were the two main things that drew me into hiphop at a young age. Maybe becuase i grew up in champaign, illinois, not the bronx or compton, and I just couldnt relate to whatever was being said.I kept checking the end of songs and album cuts for the dj to get some shine and started to pick up on individual styles.
By 95 I had a deep collection of mixtapes that were recorded from the local community radio station, WEFT 90.1 fm,(I liked them better then the tapes of the big time dj from nyc at the time). The tapes were recordings of hiphop shows by such dj's as dj j-bird (I think he is VP of rhymesayers now), twinkie, d murphy, the bass brothers, and dj espionage (of the twelve inchers blog - and it must be said this guys mixtapes were FUCKING UNREAL). These shows were monumental for me. The music was dope, the tricks were mysterious (i had no clue what they were doing exactly), and it was a classic example of 'edutainment'. I learned a lot from those shows.
in 96 i graduated from highschool. 2 months or so prior to graduation the infamous rap pages dj issue came out. my interests in everything going on in my life ceased to exist and I became singularly focused on djing. It was the first key I had that clued me in on the mysteries of mixing, records, scratching, etc. I would call all the numbers to equipment shops and record stores in the back of that mag just to find someone on the other end that actually knew what I was talking about. I think I was the only person around here that had even heard of the term turntablist at that point.
I started to buy my equipment and just scratched all day long for a whole summer. then I started to sub for espionage on the radio show - but I didnt mix cuz I was not so in to that...I just wanted to battle fools! eventually the show was handed down from espionage to me so I learned to blend to make the show enjoyable for the listener. My rolemodel for blending was Bambattaa. Even though I had never heard him mix I had read descriptions of his sets. I figured they were good so I would teach myself how to blend based on the way I imagined he did it. People liked it and the show was popular. I became hiphop genre director at the station and held that position alongside my hosting duties for the show for 8 years.
in my first year of doing the show I started battling locally. I always placed and sometimes won. It gave me a sense of accomplishment at a time in my life when I was dealing with some heavy health issues. Shoon after I was doing showcases at record stores, in clubs, at museums....then offers to play in clubs came......now its how I make my living.
thats my start basically.
but who taught me? I did. there was noone else around me that knew what I was trying to do so I had to figure it out on my own.
I bought my first mixer (realistic) and one belt driven turntable with pitch(a jvc) in 1984 to accompany another belt driven turntable without pitch I had previously owned. One of the influences that got me into DJing was the middle school dance... I was in the 6th grade back in '83 and breakdancing was the craze. I was not a dancer so I gravitated more to the music side. I grew up in San Jose and this cat by the name of Disco Dave did all the middle school dances. He never mixed but I can still remember me and my friends critiquing the musical selection and complaining why he did not play the latest hot joints that we would hear on KSOL. The only cool thing we liked was Disco Dave rocking out the recording of Cameron Paul???s three song mix (the one that used Newcleus??? Wiki Wiki..) From that point on I knew what I wanted to do.
Radio was also a big influence???.Cameron Paul in particular. I would always record his mixes and try to imitate what I had heard. Bobby G (of Soul Disco record pool) also used to mix live on KDIA 1310 am and I could not believe someone could mix live on the radio and just keep on going. The Cameron Paul stuff was dope but I knew it was pre recorded mixing they were playing cuz you would hear the same mix over and over.
The other influence for me to actually go out and buy my primitive set up was older high school kids in my neighborhood. There were a couple of cats that did mobile stuff and had their setups in their garages. I can remember going over and watching them mix. They would never let any of us younger cats around the decks though.
I know a lot of the old school cats point to ???Rockit??? as their most influential record but for me it was Buffalo Gals. I remember buying the 7??? right when it came out and the following week when I finally had $4.25 ($3.99 + tax back then) I had my pops take me over to Leapold???s Records in San Jose to pick it up.
What kept me going when most cats were starting to lose interest in the whole breakdancing thing in the mid 80???s was listening to the Drum Posse (specifically Rock Master Mark) on KZSU and Kut Masta Kurt on KUSP. I remember hearing the west coast vs. the east coast jams on KZSU and Kurt would play shit that I just didn???t hear anywhere else.
If it were not for those influences I would not be doing what I am doing today.
I can't cut for shit but I pretty much taught myself the basics on an old RadioShack mixer and a pair of mismatched can't-even-remember-the-brand belt drive turntables. I fucked around with those half-ass for a long time 'cause I didn't know there were BETTER turntables to use!
A couple years later I read an article on Organized Konfusion where they mentioned Prince Po's setup. I remember them asking him if he DJ'ed and he said something like "no, but you're not a real Hip Hop head if you don't have a Technics 1200!"
Shortly thereafter I bought a brand new pair of just-fell-off-the-back-of-the-truck 1200's for $700.
I'm not at all a 'scratch' DJ, but for me it had always been about collecting records. One day because I had lots of records some people asked me to come play records at their band's gig & it just kept going from there. I just have a bunch of 45s & am lucky to get to play them for people sometimes. Boring story I know.
I got into the whole thing by making an accidental purchase. I was about 15 and I ordered some import cds from a magazine and when they showed up they were records. I was like "hmmm, well I guess I need a turntable."
I already had some records because I would go to Tower and see 12 inches that had b-sides on them that weren't on the cds I owned. I would sneak into my brother's room when he wasn't home and use his turntable (the kind that is attached to the whole stereo, a crappy panasonic) to dub the b-sides onto tapes. I had bought a handful of records a year or so prior to my getting a turntable.
When I bought the turntable (a belt drive technics) I hooked it up to my reciever, which was a hand me down 8-track Cassette player. It allowed me to plug in my discman and my turntable at the same time. I started to mess around with playing two things at once. I made a few mix tapes with almost no blending at all, just overlap. Then I bugged my parents to lend me money for some technics and a mixer. I still use those 1200s and it's been about 12 or 13 years now.
I got into it all by accident, but then when my curiosity was peaked I caught on to the whole turntablism scene. I watched lots of DMC videos, Turntable TV, and listened to the Wake Up Show every Friday for about 4 years. I learned a lot from hearing people like Joe Quixx, Prince Ice, Dj Aladdin (his Billie Jean juggle made me flip out), DJ Homicide, Babu, Rhettmatic, and Kut Masta Kurt (I always loved his sets of originals vs. hip hop). I never became much of a dj, but those guys opened my eyes to new music and techniques. I was always curious to learn how things were done, so I think that's why I got into production. I was so curious about how I could make the things I was hearing.
I remember the beginnings of hip hop in the late 70s early 80s, Rapper Delight and Kurtis Blow, etc. PDX's first important DJ was DJ Vitamix. Saw him explaining scratching on the local morning show. While I loved the music I never bought any. Went to a whitey high school where classic rock pervaded. But I started making mix tapes. That's where I really learned the essentials of Djing, pacing, mixing obscure with known and looking for fresh new things.
When I started collecting in the early 90s, I would dj a set for my wife with one turntable. I kept making lots of mixes for friends, usually getting very positive response. It wasn't until the late 90s that I actually got a chance to play out live. I remember my friend, who was quite well known in Portland, invited me to play with him. I brought all my hottest shit that I had been collecting for almost a decade. After stumbling around the mixer for the first few songs, I dropped some serious heat and the place went bananas. My friend sat there with his jaw hanging out like he was watching a 3 year old violin prodigy blow up a Bach Concerto. Afterward he came up to me and said "where the fuck have you been the last ten years". I grinned and said, "practicing".
My brother started deejaying when I was in the 6th grade. He got one fucked up gemini belt drive turntable and later had enough guap for a 1200. He didn't get another one for a very long time, so we would mix with one turntable and just do fade-ins and fade-outs with other turntable. I also think his first 12''s where Poison, Janet Jackson, and a old Sway & Tech 12'' single (Follow for now).
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.
I started djing in 84-85 and when I first started my influences were local cats in Sd like Dj Candyman and Dj Black who was my first dj partner in a moble dj crew. There were other dj crews out like Party Boys, Music in motion... Dj's like Grandmaster LSD, King Arthur, Dj Jam, G-rok, Ricky Rick, Geechi Dan(who I never heard, but back then I heard so many good things about this cat.) Master Rocker Joe Rodriguez, Dj Gil, Super Jock Cool T, etc.....
In 86 is when I first discovered KDAY and the mixmasters. No one in sd was doing the shit that they were doing. Not as good at least so that was a HUGE influence on me. I also started getting Red Alert, marley, and chuck chillout tapes that opened me up to the east coast underground hip hop stuff. I also started checking out John Lelands singles column in spin where he used to review all kinds of new hip hop singles and the stupid def colunm that P-fine, Dr Funkenklien and Hank Shocklee used to write for DMR. No mix show djs in sd played the stuff that the Kday mixmasters, Red alert, and marley played. You might get lucky and hear some juice crew stuff but it wasn't the norm like on LA and NYC radio(Craig Frazer had a college radio show at the time but college radio in sd was only available to listeners who lived on or by the campus)
The main thing back then was that if you wanted to learn you did it by listening not visually. We didn't know about BPM's or shit like that.
Basically if I had to narrow it down I learned djing from Dj Black, Red alert, Marley, and last but not least, the KDAY mixmasters(all of them except Curtis Harmon, no disrepect).
I started Djing around 1997 and I was especially influenced by jungle/drum&bass tape packs and the various parties/raves in the previous years. Especially Doc Scott, Andy C and Kemistry&Storm were my faves. There is little to learn when it comes to Djing drum&bass though
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
It was a bunch of things for me. I was always fascinated by my parents' collections of old jazz & swing 78s (dad) and Sinatra and Trini Lopez albums (mum), and as I got older I spent whatever spare cash I had on records of my own. A guy I knew used to DJ at a lot of local youth clubs, and when he had too many bookings, he'd put some work my way because he knew I had a lot of records. Eventually, me and my friends began to throw parties of our own at local function rooms and neighbourhood centres, and I'd usually end up spinning for a big part of the night. It was real "anything-goes" shit; we'd play new wave stuff alongside old James Brown, early rap, rockabilly, swing, disco, punk, funk, reggae, whatever. A lot of the old punk-funk/electro-disco shit that's hot for a lot of people now was shit me and my boys were playing at parties when we were 20, 21.
On the technical side, I remember a friend of mine coming back from his first visit to NYC with tapes of Tony Humphries and Shep Pettibone on KISS-FM, and I was fascinated by how they did what they did. Around the same time, the likes of Flash, Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, Whodini began to visit the UK, and I knew I couldn't rap or breakdance or anything, but the whole DJing thing seemed within my reach. Not long after that, I started going to clubs in a big way, and I'd spend almost as much time checking out what the DJ was doing as I would dancing.
Also, and only the older UK cats on here will remember this guy, there was a guy called James Hamilton (RIP) who did an invaluable "disco" column each week for the now-defunct Record Mirror. The bulk of it consisted of painstakingly detailed, descriptive reviews of every new soul/funk/disco/r&b (and, later, rap, electro and house) release of the week (imports and domestics), with every single cut BPM'ed for its entire duration. This was how I (and probably every other DJ in the UK) was introduced to the concept of BPMs and beat-mixing, which I eventually got to grips with after a lot of trial and error. Hamilton himself was a fascinating character. He DJ'ed at The Scene, one of the mod hangouts in 1960's London, organised James Brown's first UK tour, and even dated Dee Dee Sharp (before she became Dee Dee Sharpe Gamble). He died in 1996 after being diagnosed with bowel cancer a couple of years earlier. His influence on DJing in the UK is massively understated. The long-absent-from-this-board ladyboygrimsby over at djhistory.com really ought to do a piece on James Hamilton for his website.
My family was always into music. My Grandma played the organ and my mom played the piano (very, very well). I played the piano and pick up the guitar around the age of 11 when I started collecting records. My friend and I used to record fake radio shows where we talked and played records. A couple years later RUN DMC was everywhere and I was hooked. I was in the middle of Kansas so I didn't hear a lot of hip hop, but obviously Rock It was the "oh shit what's he doing with that record" moment.
I never heard a mix tape but I used to make pause tapes all the time thinking I'd invented my own thing. Didn't hear a mix tape until I was 25. I was always anoyed by gaps in records and on the radio and felt the music should keep going. As hip hop grew I started to see more DJ's on TV, but never in person. Even that was just MTV video's, so you didn't really know what exactly was going on. Finally moved to Seattle when I was 24 and started buying equipment. My first real DJ show would have been the X-Men before their frist LP. So that was a pretty good start and made me realize hwo much you could do with it.
Never really know another DJ and tought myself everything. I did a party with another DJ once, but I was off smoking during his sets so I didn't really learn anything.
Didn't really set out to be a DJ's. But, music was my hobby so it just felt normal to get some nice decks and a mixer so I could keep the music going for myself. Just snowballed from there and people would ask me to do parties and art openings. I still just do it for fun because I have a good job that takes care of me and I really don't want to work in bars with lots of smoke and betty's.
A question for all the DJs here - both casual and professional:
Who turned you onto DJing?
freshman year ('96-'97) i had the graveyard shift at my college radio station on thursday nights. nobody played hip hop, but the station got 12" promos from every label and had been for years. i spent an entire semester stashing everything i wanted (and then some). that summer i went on the aol message boards (ha!) and found a guy selling 1200s and a mixer.
So who introduced you to DJing?
unfortunately, nobody. when i was on breaks, i'd tape a ton of mixshows off of philly radio, especially when 103.9 got started. in the boston area, there was no rap stations, except emerson college on weeknights, which for us, was like stretch and bobbito.
Fresh Prince & Jazzy Jeff - Live at Union Square blew my mind as a little kid in Ohio. I somehow knew that records were involved, but I couldn't figure it out.
Fast forward ~8 years to:
Kid Koala - Scratchcratchratchatch & his Betalounge set. I taped the RealAudio and played it for years. At that point, I understood a little more about what was happening, so I started buying records. The big pop station in Cincinnati (Q102) used to advertise 'Great New Music, without the rap!', so internet and Yo! were my only inputs. Bought a Trickmaster from a thrift store in Columbus, hooked a drum machine up to one channel and some random turntable to the other and never looked back.
In college I was roommates with Kid Koala (right before he got signed to Ninja Tunes). I was digging at that point, but I had never really considered djing. I'd sit in the living room with the bong and watch that dude do his thing.. and I'd be like "coooooool man! Woooaaaaaah!!" Somehow I never asked him to teach me.. Though I do have some pretty wacked out recordings of him scratching and me trying to rap..
It wasn't until a couple of years later in college that my man DJ Hebegebe blew my mind. The way he rocked the crowd and seamlessly mixed all the tracks just killed me. I don't think I'd be a dj if I hadn't met him. He also turned me onto electronic music, which I had never taken seriously before.
in 8th grade i was friends with some rave kids, so after one of them got turntables i thought it would be cool to get american DJ CD players and a mixer. i learned how to beat match and mix pretty well with those and i would blend trance beats forever so that put me up on mixing. after i left for highschool, i learned that i knew nothing about rave music without my old friends. My sister bought a used copy of beats rhymes and life and didnt like it so she gave it to me a few years earlier and i was feeling it much more than rave beats. so sophmore year of highschool i sold enough pot to buy myself 1200s. and started going to amoeba every weekend picking up hip hop 12"s. A friend and i Started throwing jams in this local youth performance space and we did pretty well doing those. Later in high school i met this dude DJ AMEN, who later went on to DJ for KMEL. He put me up on all kinds of music, scratching, and mixing tech.
for me it was definetly friends. Much of the drive to get decent at it came from me and having friends that DJed at the same level that i did to push the level in a competitive way.
Comments
Probably shouldn't let it get to me, but it still burns me when kids are "learning" to dj on Techs. BITCH! You don't get Techs until you graduate. GO BACK TO BELT DRIVES UNTIL YOU GET THAT FEATHER TOUCH.
I often contemplate how much better (not to mention cooler) a world we would live in with less Parises and Lindsays and more Audamns.
Yeah, I realized, upon reflection, that I'm forcing the point too much here to say that media plays no role. I think for cats who got started in the '70s and '80s, before there was a general awareness or visibility of DJs in popular culture, DJing was more of a peer-to-peer craft but by the late '80s and definitely '90s, there was a lot more visibility - both in sight and sound - for DJs.
That said, I do like hearing about all the personal mentors and connections people have with how they got started.
There was a south bay dj named Bubba G Scotch that inspired a bunch of dudes I know to start buying/mixing records. I started listening to him play on KUBO outta Salinas, CA around '82 and he was playing all the hottest shit from NYC. Supposedly he was down with Zulu Nation and he brought Jazzy Jay to Seaside in 84 where I heard he was doubling 'mt airy groove' in a mall parking lot. I know of 10-15 dudes that still dj to this day as a direct result of his influence. Props.
That's crazy. Its dope Nes was cool enough to give you the game over the phone. He basically raised me on hip hop with Fresh Traxx, Rap Attack etc.
BTW I literally bought a turntable and a mixer and tried to figure it out on some fan shit. Nobody ever really taught me. "Jam Master Jay" was the record that made me wanna scratch though.
damn- i wish i could say that was him. Makes for a better story.
By 95 I had a deep collection of mixtapes that were recorded from the local community radio station, WEFT 90.1 fm,(I liked them better then the tapes of the big time dj from nyc at the time). The tapes were recordings of hiphop shows by such dj's as dj j-bird (I think he is VP of rhymesayers now), twinkie, d murphy, the bass brothers, and dj espionage (of the twelve inchers blog - and it must be said this guys mixtapes were FUCKING UNREAL). These shows were monumental for me. The music was dope, the tricks were mysterious (i had no clue what they were doing exactly), and it was a classic example of 'edutainment'. I learned a lot from those shows.
in 96 i graduated from highschool. 2 months or so prior to graduation the infamous rap pages dj issue came out. my interests in everything going on in my life ceased to exist and I became singularly focused on djing. It was the first key I had that clued me in on the mysteries of mixing, records, scratching, etc. I would call all the numbers to equipment shops and record stores in the back of that mag just to find someone on the other end that actually knew what I was talking about. I think I was the only person around here that had even heard of the term turntablist at that point.
I started to buy my equipment and just scratched all day long for a whole summer. then I started to sub for espionage on the radio show - but I didnt mix cuz I was not so in to that...I just wanted to battle fools! eventually the show was handed down from espionage to me so I learned to blend to make the show enjoyable for the listener. My rolemodel for blending was Bambattaa. Even though I had never heard him mix I had read descriptions of his sets. I figured they were good so I would teach myself how to blend based on the way I imagined he did it. People liked it and the show was popular. I became hiphop genre director at the station and held that position alongside my hosting duties for the show for 8 years.
in my first year of doing the show I started battling locally. I always placed and sometimes won. It gave me a sense of accomplishment at a time in my life when I was dealing with some heavy health issues. Shoon after I was doing showcases at record stores, in clubs, at museums....then offers to play in clubs came......now its how I make my living.
thats my start basically.
but who taught me? I did. there was noone else around me that knew what I was trying to do so I had to figure it out on my own.
Radio was also a big influence???.Cameron Paul in particular. I would always record his mixes and try to imitate what I had heard. Bobby G (of Soul Disco record pool) also used to mix live on KDIA 1310 am and I could not believe someone could mix live on the radio and just keep on going. The Cameron Paul stuff was dope but I knew it was pre recorded mixing they were playing cuz you would hear the same mix over and over.
The other influence for me to actually go out and buy my primitive set up was older high school kids in my neighborhood. There were a couple of cats that did mobile stuff and had their setups in their garages. I can remember going over and watching them mix. They would never let any of us younger cats around the decks though.
I know a lot of the old school cats point to ???Rockit??? as their most influential record but for me it was Buffalo Gals. I remember buying the 7??? right when it came out and the following week when I finally had $4.25 ($3.99 + tax back then) I had my pops take me over to Leapold???s Records in San Jose to pick it up.
What kept me going when most cats were starting to lose interest in the whole breakdancing thing in the mid 80???s was listening to the Drum Posse (specifically Rock Master Mark) on KZSU and Kut Masta Kurt on KUSP. I remember hearing the west coast vs. the east coast jams on KZSU and Kurt would play shit that I just didn???t hear anywhere else.
If it were not for those influences I would not be doing what I am doing today.
M SMOOTH
A couple years later I read an article on Organized Konfusion where they mentioned Prince Po's setup. I remember them asking him if he DJ'ed and he said something like "no, but you're not a real Hip Hop head if you don't have a Technics 1200!"
Shortly thereafter I bought a brand new pair of just-fell-off-the-back-of-the-truck 1200's for $700.
and dolo can suck a D.
I already had some records because I would go to Tower and see 12 inches that had b-sides on them that weren't on the cds I owned. I would sneak into my brother's room when he wasn't home and use his turntable (the kind that is attached to the whole stereo, a crappy panasonic) to dub the b-sides onto tapes. I had bought a handful of records a year or so prior to my getting a turntable.
When I bought the turntable (a belt drive technics) I hooked it up to my reciever, which was a hand me down 8-track Cassette player. It allowed me to plug in my discman and my turntable at the same time. I started to mess around with playing two things at once. I made a few mix tapes with almost no blending at all, just overlap. Then I bugged my parents to lend me money for some technics and a mixer. I still use those 1200s and it's been about 12 or 13 years now.
I got into it all by accident, but then when my curiosity was peaked I caught on to the whole turntablism scene. I watched lots of DMC videos, Turntable TV, and listened to the Wake Up Show every Friday for about 4 years. I learned a lot from hearing people like Joe Quixx, Prince Ice, Dj Aladdin (his Billie Jean juggle made me flip out), DJ Homicide, Babu, Rhettmatic, and Kut Masta Kurt (I always loved his sets of originals vs. hip hop). I never became much of a dj, but those guys opened my eyes to new music and techniques. I was always curious to learn how things were done, so I think that's why I got into production. I was so curious about how I could make the things I was hearing.
When I started collecting in the early 90s, I would dj a set for my wife with one turntable. I kept making lots of mixes for friends, usually getting very positive response. It wasn't until the late 90s that I actually got a chance to play out live. I remember my friend, who was quite well known in Portland, invited me to play with him. I brought all my hottest shit that I had been collecting for almost a decade. After stumbling around the mixer for the first few songs, I dropped some serious heat and the place went bananas. My friend sat there with his jaw hanging out like he was watching a 3 year old violin prodigy blow up a Bach Concerto. Afterward he came up to me and said "where the fuck have you been the last ten years". I grinned and said, "practicing".
pirate radio, rock n roll, what else could a youngster want?
and of course...
whats really real at the Rolladium?
In 86 is when I first discovered KDAY and the mixmasters. No one in sd was doing the shit that they were doing. Not as good at least so that was a HUGE influence on me. I also started getting Red Alert, marley, and chuck chillout tapes that opened me up to the east coast underground hip hop stuff. I also started checking out John Lelands singles column in spin where he used to review all kinds of new hip hop singles and the stupid def colunm that P-fine, Dr Funkenklien and Hank Shocklee used to write for DMR. No mix show djs in sd played the stuff that the Kday mixmasters, Red alert, and marley played. You might get lucky and hear some juice crew stuff but it wasn't the norm like on LA and NYC radio(Craig Frazer had a college radio show at the time but college radio in sd was only available to listeners who lived on or by the campus)
The main thing back then was that if you wanted to learn you did it by listening not visually. We didn't know about BPM's or shit like that.
Basically if I had to narrow it down I learned djing from Dj Black, Red alert, Marley, and last but not least, the KDAY mixmasters(all of them except Curtis Harmon, no disrepect).
There is little to learn when it comes to Djing drum&bass though
On the technical side, I remember a friend of mine coming back from his first visit to NYC with tapes of Tony Humphries and Shep Pettibone on KISS-FM, and I was fascinated by how they did what they did. Around the same time, the likes of Flash, Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, Whodini began to visit the UK, and I knew I couldn't rap or breakdance or anything, but the whole DJing thing seemed within my reach. Not long after that, I started going to clubs in a big way, and I'd spend almost as much time checking out what the DJ was doing as I would dancing.
Also, and only the older UK cats on here will remember this guy, there was a guy called James Hamilton (RIP) who did an invaluable "disco" column each week for the now-defunct Record Mirror. The bulk of it consisted of painstakingly detailed, descriptive reviews of every new soul/funk/disco/r&b (and, later, rap, electro and house) release of the week (imports and domestics), with every single cut BPM'ed for its entire duration. This was how I (and probably every other DJ in the UK) was introduced to the concept of BPMs and beat-mixing, which I eventually got to grips with after a lot of trial and error. Hamilton himself was a fascinating character. He DJ'ed at The Scene, one of the mod hangouts in 1960's London, organised James Brown's first UK tour, and even dated Dee Dee Sharp (before she became Dee Dee Sharpe Gamble). He died in 1996 after being diagnosed with bowel cancer a couple of years earlier. His influence on DJing in the UK is massively understated. The long-absent-from-this-board ladyboygrimsby over at djhistory.com really ought to do a piece on James Hamilton for his website.
I never heard a mix tape but I used to make pause tapes all the time thinking I'd invented my own thing. Didn't hear a mix tape until I was 25. I was always anoyed by gaps in records and on the radio and felt the music should keep going. As hip hop grew I started to see more DJ's on TV, but never in person. Even that was just MTV video's, so you didn't really know what exactly was going on. Finally moved to Seattle when I was 24 and started buying equipment. My first real DJ show would have been the X-Men before their frist LP. So that was a pretty good start and made me realize hwo much you could do with it.
Never really know another DJ and tought myself everything. I did a party with another DJ once, but I was off smoking during his sets so I didn't really learn anything.
Didn't really set out to be a DJ's. But, music was my hobby so it just felt normal to get some nice decks and a mixer so I could keep the music going for myself. Just snowballed from there and people would ask me to do parties and art openings. I still just do it for fun because I have a good job that takes care of me and I really don't want to work in bars with lots of smoke and betty's.
freshman year ('96-'97) i had the graveyard shift at my college radio station on thursday nights. nobody played hip hop, but the station got 12" promos from every label and had been for years. i spent an entire semester stashing everything i wanted (and then some). that summer i went on the aol message boards (ha!) and found a guy selling 1200s and a mixer.
unfortunately, nobody. when i was on breaks, i'd tape a ton of mixshows off of philly radio, especially when 103.9 got started.
Fresh Prince & Jazzy Jeff - Live at Union Square blew my mind as a little kid in Ohio. I somehow knew that records were involved, but I couldn't figure it out.
Fast forward ~8 years to:
Kid Koala - Scratchcratchratchatch & his Betalounge set. I taped the RealAudio and played it for years. At that point, I understood a little more about what was happening, so I started buying records. The big pop station in Cincinnati (Q102) used to advertise 'Great New Music, without the rap!', so internet and Yo! were my only inputs. Bought a Trickmaster from a thrift store in Columbus, hooked a drum machine up to one channel and some random turntable to the other and never looked back.
It wasn't until a couple of years later in college that my man DJ Hebegebe blew my mind. The way he rocked the crowd and seamlessly mixed all the tracks just killed me. I don't think I'd be a dj if I hadn't met him. He also turned me onto electronic music, which I had never taken seriously before.
for me it was definetly friends. Much of the drive to get decent at it came from me and having friends that DJed at the same level that i did to push the level in a competitive way.
I'd post em, but I think he'd probably kill me.
I think you played some of that stuff for me one really faded late night D!
Shit was F-U-N-N-Y!