From the turntable to the roundtable: One room. Eight local DJs. Countless opinions.

by Heather Bouzan, 04-07-2008

REPEAT AFTER us: a DJ is not a jukebox. If there’s anything that echoes in our head on a recent Friday afternoon, as we sip beers around a table in the back room of the Boston Billiard Club, it’s those six words. At the table with us: eight of the city’s finest DJs, for a discussion covering everything from their pure, infectious enthusiasm for their craft to persistent problems in the industry. Our panel features Charlie and Eli of DJ duo Soul Clap; veteran DJ Bruno, who runs UtopiaBoston.com and has been spinning in Boston for more than two decades; DJ Melee, who describes his sound as “breaks, beats, and basslines”; DJ Knife of Fresh Produce at the Good Life and Marinate at the Milky Way; Ms. Thang, who spins hip-hop, reggae, funk, soul, and house; and DJs Die Young and Baltimoroder, both known for their work at hipster parties like Make It New and Thunderdome.

Q: I’ve never met a DJ who wasn’t absolutely passionate about the craft. Why is that?
Eli: I just love music, first and foremost. I love to dance, so DJing allows me to bring both of them together, and actually share that music and dancing with other people. That feeling, when you play a song and everyone goes crazy, even if it’s just one person that you connect with and they can get down to it, then it’s perfect. That’s what I love.
Die Young: When I was, like, 16 years old, I started seeing videos of DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, those guys, and I didn’t have good enough turntables to do the stuff that I wanted to do. You see the videos of them and you see how hyped their crowds get, and you just want to be a part of that and be the catalyst for making something like that happen. There’s nothing more exciting than playing a track and
people pop off. There’s nothing
better in the world.

Q: What do you consider the biggest misconception about DJs?
Bruno: That we’re prima donnas. That we’re divas. That we don’t care about the music; we just do it for the fame. I think a lot of DJs do. They do do it for the fame, but those guys last about a year. But we just do it strictly for the love. Like, I have spun for free, [for] 25 bucks. I’ve spun for food, you know? A lot of guys say, “Well, I’m not going to spin unless I get paid.” [But] I’ll do it strictly for the love.
Eli: I just have a quick one on that: that we’re jukeboxes. The point of having a DJ is because you don’t want a jukebox, ’cause you want that dynamic.

Q: What’s the biggest problem that DJs in Boston face?
Charlie: I think our toughest problem is the radio. I think that it’s warped people’s perception of what’s good music and what you should expect to hear when you get out. That’s been a problem here for a long time. It makes our job very difficult, because we like to play things that you don’t usually hear on the radio.
Knife: I think that one of the things is the competition for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, especially for good venues. And then the other thing is, requests and people being super, super pushy about them.
Die Young: I think a big problem right now is getting people out. You go to New York and there’s a huge crowd for every niche genre there is. Two-step, speed polka, whatever. And you come here, and you’re playing great house music or whatever, and people are like, “Eh, I’ve gotta take the T... .” There’s a lot of problems in terms of public transportation, getting people out, and just general malaise of the Boston crowd. But I think that’s turning around in a big way, absolutely. The fact that we’re all sitting here and talking about this means it’s all turning around in a big, big way.
Ms. Thang: I definitely think there’s a lack of venues and a general narrow-mindedness with a lot of the crowds that go out. There’s definitely groups of people that go, but there’s only a couple of places for them to go out, and you know where they are. I mean, the Middlesex, and how many people can you fit there?
Baltimoroder: I believe the reason why there are a lack of venues is there’s this really sort of weird liquor licensing thing that’s unique to Boston. There’s only a certain number of licenses, they don’t increase them, and they’re all doled out in this weird sort of backroom way that none of us really understand. So it’s not so cut and dry to just open a space as it would be somewhere else.

Q: How did things change for you when the city cracked down on 18-plus nights?
Eli: I think that the biggest thing is that there’s not younger kids coming out as much. Sure, there’s a few 18-plus nights like Paper, but that’s one very specific message these kids are getting. There’s one thing that they can get, and they’ll take what they can get. When I was growing up, I was going out when I was 16 with a fake ID that said I was 18. I got all these different experiences. It’s a lot harder when you’re 16 to pretend you’re 21, you know? So kids can’t go to clubs. I don’t know what they’re doing, but it means we have this huge void of a generation of people who would be into our music. And that’s a big reason why people don’t go out, is they don’t know. They were never educated.
Melee: It made things weird because [Mayor Tom] Menino had said that the reason why, or, from what I understand, the reason why is because of the violence that was happening outside of clubs on particular nights in particular areas of Boston. For them to do that and make it 21-plus, it just seemed really stupid in my opinion. What that did was it took all the college kids who were going into a controlled crowd where there was bouncers and protection and people being checked at the doors, and now they’re in the streets or at house parties where there’s probably more sexual abuse going on, more over-drinking, more people being hurt, more ODs, more fights, whatever.
Eli: I’m really curious on Bruno’s perspective on this one, since you were established before any of this happened. When I was growing up and you were DJing, I could go to the clubs that you were playing at, whereas now kids can’t go to the clubs that I’m playing at.
Bruno: The club scene, now, I think is dead. Especially in terms of the bigger venues. I think that the bigger venues attracted a lot of the 18-plus crowds. Smaller venues, the lounges now, I think attract more of an older crowd. The 18-plus crowd only has the radio to basically learn [from] in terms of music.
Baltimoroder: And the Internet, and TV, and friends.

Q: What will it take to bring the club scene back? Or is it even something that can be brought back?
Bruno: I think they would have to start up the 18-plus nights again, personally.
Melee: It’s weird because when I look at it from when I was 17, 18, I used to go see Bruno play back when I was that age. [Now] most of those kids who are 18 can’t go hear Bruno or hear any of us play. So it changes things a lot. Like, if I didn’t hear Bruno when I was that age,
that’d be kind of weird now. [I] would’ve never been exposed to it.
Eli: Or a list of, you know, a hundred other DJs that were so influential here that we would have completely missed.
Melee: Exactly! Whoever’s got the most blingiest MySpace page would be really what they’re exposed to now, right?
Die Young: For what it’s worth, I think that 18-year-old kid is going to find a way, no matter what. He’ll just become friends with somebody. You’ll get in, if you’re that devoted. It’ll happen. Maybe it’s just the DJ in me talking, but I did anything and everything I could to get into where I wanted, because it was do or die.

Q: How do you feel about the rise of the “amateur DJ”? You know, the kind of guy who comes armed with an iTunes playlist and thinks he’s a pro.
Knife: We all probably look at it differently depending on our age groups. You kind of have to accept that technology is going to change and that you have to change along with it, and if people are passionate about it, you have to accept the fact that they’re going to possibly be the next generation. The only thing that I can’t stand is when they have serious attitude problems. But other than that, I think it’s a good thing.
Charlie: I just wanted to say something that kind of bridges the last question and this one. The other thing that’s missing from the picture — being young, not being able to go into a club, or the young iTunes DJ —where does the record store fit into all of this? Because that’s a place, if you’re underage and can’t get into a club, that you can go and soak up the culture. You hear all the music, you meet all the DJs, there’s social interactions going on there. And with no vinyl and no record stores except for LAB, then you talk about the kid who thinks he’s a DJ because he has an iTunes playlist but never had any of this. It’s like a ritual to go through these experiences, learn from that, meet everybody, and then become a DJ because you’ve gone through [these] rites of passage. Then if you’re standing in a DJ booth and commanding a crowd, you get the respect that you deserve.
Knife: People, back in the day, would dig for years and years and years to get their record collections; now a kid can come along and download that entire record collection in one day. So a part of it is lost. For myself personally, I’m trying to preserve some of the traditional aspects of hip-hop DJ culture in the city; I feel like that’s pretty much our mission right now.
Die Young: Yeah, I went to Satellite Records before I came to college at BU, and then all during it, and I don’t know what I would’ve done without it. Because when I was in high school, I liked Mixmag. I would buy Mixmag, or I would buy any of the European DJ mags. They would always have free CDs in them, and I would pick out my favorite tracks and I would go to Satellite and I would try to find them, or someone would hand me a stack of records and be like, “I know you personally, you’re going to like these.” And there’s nothing like that anymore.
Eli: I mean, you can go to a blog and get someone’s certain perspective, but it’s different. They don’t know you. Maybe you can find blogs or websites that have new music [and] you know you like most of the stuff so you can trust them, but it’s different than when you get a whole stack that’s handed to you by someone who knows what you’re into. And then also, on the technology thing, yeah, I think it’s really powerful and you can do a lot of stuff with all the new technologies, but if you don’t understand how to mix a record, how to mix two things together, you can’t really DJ the same way as somebody who understands that. It’s a totally different thing.
Die Young: Then you’re just a jukebox.
Bruno: That’s a very good point, too. Also, technology, it kind of forces you to stay home. Like, all day you are just sitting, downloading music all day. You’ve got to go out into a scene, into a club, and see how a certain song makes the crowd scream or see how the song works, you know? A lot of guys just think it’s all about mixing — it’s not. It’s all about setting up a tone, setting up a vibe. And a lot of these guys coming up now, they just think, “Oh, this song just goes good with this.” It’s not. You’ve just got to set a mood. And that is how I think it’s about spinning.

Q: There’s also a flip side to the whole technology issue — you can get your music out to infinitely more people. And with that change, a whole new kind of DJ has evolved, the one who sort of made himself or herself on the Internet as opposed to in clubs. What’s your reaction to that?
Baltimoroder: The same revolution in desktop publishing that occurred with people being able to Photoshop and all those things has come to music production. It’s really come into fruition within the last five, 10 years. The ability to set up studio-produced tracks, make a mix while you’re waiting for your rice to boil, is just kind of amazing. And it’s led to a lot of production, and it’s led to a lot of crap. The things that I think computers do are actually very easy — you can teach someone to beat match fairly easily if they sit down and learn, but the things that you talked about, Bruno, like sequencing, and selection, and pacing, those things come with time. And so you actually have to get out there and talk to people, learn what they like, and then play that at the right time just as they’re putting on their coat, and they’re, “Oh, shit, I have to throw off my coat and run back to the dance floor.” So I think ultimately a DJ is a diplomat of sorts, and technology doesn’t really help with that, at least in the live performance space. But online distribution, being able to connect to people, ultimately it’s a net positive for any and everything I do.
Eli: It’s hard not to embrace the technology on some level because it helps in so many ways like [Baltimoroder] said. I think the problem is, it gets frustrating when people don’t actually take it and then use it to push things to the next level.

Q: Ms. Thang, I want you to address this first: why do you think DJing is such a male-dominated industry?
Ms. Thang: Well, for one thing, it’s Boston, because in other cities, there’s a lot more females doing this — if you go to New York, or LA, or San Francisco, Montreal, wherever, there’s a lot of females. Boston is just a traditional city in so many ways, and it’s so hard to break out of the mold. But you know what? There’s not really much of a difference. The only difference that I can think of is that I might get booked just because I’m a female, but I won’t get asked back unless I’m good. People are curious; I’m a novelty here. But I still have to prove myself, because people are listening to my blends and they want to know if I can actually spin, and rock a party ... and I can. Guys never hit on me when I’m DJing, ever ever. Which is really nice. And definitely people, guys in particular, like to try to tell me what to do and offer their suggestions. Sometimes they’re helpful, and sometimes it’s totally not necessary and they don’t know what they’re talking about. But I’m the same as everyone else.
Die Young: It’s so perfect what you said — you’ll get in the door, but you won’t get asked back. We’ve got Volvox; she is an amazing DJ. I think, in a year, she’s going to be killing every party, and she puts her heart and soul into her craft. And I think if you show that you can hang, who cares what gender you are? If you’re a good DJ, that’s all that matters.

Q: How do you reconcile playing what you want with playing what the crowd wants to hear? You’ve already talked about how requests can be so frustrating.
Knife: For me, personally, once I get into the groove of things, I play songs really, really fast. I try to play maybe about seven or eight different genres of music throughout a night. So I’ll probably play something from the early ’90s and then play a commercial song and then play like a mash-up. I generally try to go in an ascending tempo that just keeps getting faster and faster so I can move into other genres of music like house music and stuff like that. It’s just all about having a lot of music at your disposal and really listening to how things work with each other.
Die Young: It used to be that you would carry a crate, maybe two crates with you at most. You would have maybe hip-hop or a little bit of house music. When I used to go to house parties, it was that; it was like a hip-hop crate and a house music crate. Now, you have Serato and you have indie, ’80s, you have your dance, you have your classic dance, you have your disco, you have anything at your disposal, so [when] you have someone coming up to you and making a kind of left-field request, I feel like I’m more apt to play it now, just because it’s there. As long as it fits with the vibe of the party. Unless it’s something outrageous and you’re really being a jerk. I mean, it’s nice to play some requests sometimes.
Charlie: I hate requests. Eli and I, there’s two sides of us. There’s when we play to a crowd that will eat up whatever it is that we play, and then there’s … we’ll play a gig in a place that’s maybe a retail setting or a hospitality setting or something like that, and then you’re going to get people that aren’t really exposed to DJs, thinking that they can ask for anything. I can’t stand it; it makes me angry. I learned from DJ Kon how to deal with people who make requests, and how to just be stone-cold, just a real asshole to them …
Die Young: Can you send me those tips?
Charlie: ...so they feel like they don’t want to make any requests, ever. DJ Kon, and I’m going to throw him in here because he’s not here ...
Baltimoroder: I’ve never seen him talk to anyone [for more than], like, 10 seconds.
Charlie: The most drop-dead gorgeous girl in the club, when she is making requests, he won’t tell her the time of day and will send her packing. And it’s a beautiful thing. I hate requests, and I hate people who make requests. There was a time and a place where the DJ set the tone of the night, and he was in charge of what’s going on. And that’s why you’re there, ’cause you trust the DJ.
Bruno: I just say, “Yes, it is coming up soon.” And never play it.
Die Young: What do you do when they come back, though? Because they do. And they will.
Bruno: Then I say, “Oh, shoot. I’m sorry. It’s coming up next. I promise, it’s coming up next.” And by that time, they’re too drunk and they’re like, “Oh, you’re so great, I love you.”

Q: Do you think that Boston is attracting higher caliber DJs than we have in the past?
Bruno: I think we are bringing in the same people. I mean, how many times are you going to bring down [Paul] Oakenfold, you know? It’s the same people over and over again.
Eli: But it’s just the big clubs. I mean, Knife with Fresh Produce — they’re bringing a ton of great hip-hop acts that have never played here, hip-hop DJs who have never played here. Plus innovative new ones. If you look at Hearthrob, they’re bringing people who are doing totally new stuff. Make It New is bringing people who are doing techno. [Melee] has always been pushing to bring in breakbeat DJs that no one hears. We’re trying to bring in techno and house DJs that are innovating and creating new stuff and also bringing in people that have been doing it forever and have really established sounds but that maybe have never been to Boston before. And also Utopia, bringing in new deep house acts and new deep house DJs. I feel like we’re all working really hard. And we all have to live these two lives: first as DJs, and then as booking agents and promoters for our events. So we have to be thinking about it all the time.
Knife: I moved here in 1998, and the last four years in Boston have been amazing. There is something to do every night of the week; there really is. I mean, they’re not all great, but there literally is a ton of options out there, and I think that there are a lot more good nights and a lot more things to look forward to than there ever have been.

Q: You’ve all been saying that the club scene in Boston has died off, but do you see it more as a continual deterioration or as an opportunity for you to do something that’s truly innovative?
Bruno: I think it’s died off for the 18-plus scene. But for us, I think it’s slowly getting better. ’Cause I think a lot of us are starting to work harder.
Eli: Everything’s going back underground; that’s what I’ve been seeing. It’s all little venues, little bars, warehouses, loft parties. Wherever you can do something that’s different and that’s exciting to you musically.
Melee: We’re taking it back!
Eli: So it’s back underground, which is what it was like in the ’90s.
Knife: For DJs in the past, I think that there was this mindset that you start off in these little clubs and that someday you’re going to make it to [bigger venues]. But I think this is better now. I mean, I think that we all kind of have our own spots, and we can really take those nights and run with them. It’s good for the bars, it’s good for us, and we have more of a sense of ownership in small, intimate venues.

Q: What’s it like playing in Boston versus other cities around the country or around the world?
Charlie: Eli and I went to Europe last summer, and we got a chance to play in Monte Carlo, and when we were there, people were just standing, awestruck. Like, “This is amazing.” Maybe this was a very unique situation, but they couldn’t understand; it was just, like, mind-blowing for them.
Eli: Obviously, electronic music, techno music is bigger there, but I think we all, especially being from Boston, we all work that much harder because there are so many fewer opportunities here to be so good at what we do. I feel like the experience we’ve gotten here, being forced to work that much harder, has really helped going to other cities and really taking it to the next level for them.

Q: So why stay in Boston?
Die Young: Because we love everybody.
Eli: There’s something to be said for being successful here, because it’s so hard. There’s so many people who I know who have been trying to do it or have done it and stop doing it who are so jaded, but if you can stay positive and doing things in Boston, that’s, like, a really a huge accomplishment.
Charlie: It’s a perpetual attempt to put Boston on the map, and it’s, like, almost about to happen, always.

Q: Are DJs from different cities viewed differently within the industry because of what they’ve been through, because of the differences in competition?
Bruno: Boston, we are not known as a club city. I have spun out of here; I have spun in New York and New Jersey. Those are big house towns. And they are shocked, or were shocked, that Boston has played house. And I was like, “What did you guys think?” They’re like, “Rock.” Boston was just known as a rock town. College rock. And that’s it.
Melee: We’re like the suburbs of New York, that’s what everybody thinks of us.
Knife: On the flip side of that, the one thing that stands out is that we kind of get to be the kings and queens, so to speak, of this city. I mean, if we went to New York, I think a lot of us would be small fish in a big pond. I think everybody here kind of has a solid name or a solid product that people know them by, and I don’t know if that would transfer as well in a place like Los Angeles, a place like New York, San Francisco. That’s one of the positive things about it.
Eli: It’s a great home base. There is so much talent here. There’s so many people, we all have relationships with each other on some levels, and there’s another group of another 20, 30 DJs that we all can work with on a regular basis that are super-talented and will teach us something and we can learn from all the time. The DJ group is so tight-knit here. Sure, many people have problems with one other, but in general, everyone knows one other and there’s chances to interact, whereas, if you’re in a bigger city, it’s not going to happen as much.
Bruno: When you think of Boston, you think of the Celtics, the Patriots, the Red Sox. When you think of music, Aerosmith, New Kids on the Block. You really don’t think of a dance scene, like a dance culture. And I think a lot of us are trying to change that. I’m telling you, everywhere I go, I mention Boston. I’m like, “Yeah, the scene here, blah blah, so on and so forth,” and they’re like, “Yeah, have another drink.” I mean, throw us some love.

Q: So what’s next for Boston? What do you see as the future for DJs and nightlife here?
Melee: I can tell you what I’d like to see. Collaboration — I’ve always really been about all that. I think working with other people is key. Boston is tight-knit, so why have tension between different crowds and people and promotional groups and DJs? Rather than being sharks fighting over the same food, people actually working to push towards one goal? I had started up recently a Sunday meeting for DJs and producers to get together. The first thing that one person said to me was, “Wow, Satellite left, but now we have a spot to meet up, and everybody talk, and everybody kind of get together.”
Charlie: One way that we can all have a unified sound is a record label. More record labels in Boston would allow that particular sound that everyone can understand culturally.
Ms. Thang: I think everything’s kind of mixing together. There’s not, like, set genre DJs the same way there used to be. People expanded, and I think they’re doing a lot of things that the crowds, for the most part, seem to like. I think they’re open to a little more variety. But what I would like to see is, yeah, more communication, but also more venues, better venues, and more places to go do our thing, whatever it is. And yeah, no more hating on whoever is doing what. Who cares?
Baltimoroder: I see more people jumping in, not through DJing, but through production. Like, they’re not actually starting with records and not actually starting by getting up in front of people, they’re cutting EPs and their own mixes and putting them up online before the kids down the hall know what they’re doing. So they’re developing a fan base that’s distributed and wide and varied before people locally know what’s going on, and by the time we catch up, they already have these aspirations beyond just DJing, or other things. I don’t know what that means; I’m not going to lay a value judgment on it. I think it’s actually really cool that more people are producing.
Bruno: Technology is making it easier for you to learn things like how to make a track.
Baltimoroder: I would also say, we need more venues desperately. I can count the number of places I enjoy playing on one hand. And I can probably cut off a few fingers, too. So I’d like to see more venues, more liquor licenses, more moneymen taking a chance. I would love to see bigger venues come back. I think there is the talent and the promotional capability for any of us to be able to pull off bigger nights than what we already have. But the options simply aren’t there.
Eli: I want to shout out to people who have money and want to fund culture and want to be doing stuff. Boston is stuck with this old culture. We have the MFA, which is a great museum; we have Boston Ballet, which is amazing; the Wang Center. All these places where you can go and see old culture. But it’s new, young culture that’s being completely forsaken here. And sure, the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the city government’s doing it a little bit, trying to bring in movies and video games, but what’s up, where’s music and where’s young and cutting-edge art here? We need people to fund this stuff and to give us a space, pay for a space that we can rent and throw a big party all together.
Bruno: My final word: fight the power.
Die Young: Whatever that may be. @

[Photos by Michael Diskin]

Dj Bruno said:

DJ Melee said:

Eli/Soul Clap said:

MS THANG said:

Crush said:

Paul Foley aka No Request said:

Laura DeLuca aka D-Lux said:

DJ Knife said:

Claude Money said:

PJ said:

Boston DJ Roundtable + Party | Soulclap! - House. Techno. Dance. Music. DJs. Boston. said:

DJ Melee said:

B. Rich said:

Dj Bruno said:

Augustine said:

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