That time I was a club & rave DJ for 10 years.
Hi, I'm djSpiral.
Or at least, that was the name I went by for the decade I did it. I still like to play, but it's a pretty rare event these days. Maybe on the order of about once every 1-2 years. Previous to that, between about 2002 to 2012, I played pretty regularly. At least 1 to 2 times a week on average - more or less - and publishing a perfected mix and giving it out either online or on pro-printed discs with graphics I'd designed for them about once a year. I started with a lot of progressive house and breaks on vinyl, and as the times changed, so did I, both in musical taste and the gear. Along with trading up to CDJs instead of vinyl, I moved over to harder breaks, and eventually made my way into electro house, tech house, and even made a few downtempo mixes as well (a couple of those turned out a lot better than I thought they would).
This was during the same time I did all my event photography work (as seen in this post).
At one point in the middle, I even paired up with a friend and did the gimmicky 2-DJ thing for about 4 years and went by the name Double Helix, which was fun.
We played so many house parties and overnight events, we gave out several mixes. We even had a weekly internet radio show called "Proper".
We had some pretty big crowds from time to time, but we played to a lot of empty rooms just like anyone else. Click here for mixes by Double Helix.
My close friend and fellow podcaster, @giftedgaia , was in a similar boat while answering to the name DJ Phi, and even did the 2-DJ thing with another mutual friend like I did, going under the moniker This Guy That Guy.
The reason I wanted to write this post is two-fold. First, because I wanted give a callout to any other fellow DJs and EDM producers on Steemit. I know there's others besides myself and @giftedgaia , such as @kevinwong & @jamesc . Yeah, you know I saw those pics of you guys tearing it up at SteemFest! Also, I've been seeing dubstep posts recently by @stealthtrader who is a co-worker of mine, and who pointed me to Steemit in the first place back in July.
And the second reason for posting is because I want to promote the music. I've had an itch to start putting together a new mix for the first time in a couple of years. I've fallen pretty hard for deep house in the past few years. Ever since I stopped really playing and going to all the downtown joints where those events may or may not still happen, I've backed off of the higher-energy music, and deep house is perfect. So chill, so funky.
There's been (very brief and vague) talk of a park party in our area, and I've got a soft spot for park parties. That chill kind of music is made for events like this. We rent the pavilion at the park, we bring all our gear, we bring chill music, and rock out for 7 hours. It's always good fun.
To wrap this up, I'm going to leave you with a few mixes to sink your teeth into.
This is my most recent mix, "Thinking & Driving", which I put together in 2015. Good deep house. By far my most popular on Soundcloud. A great one for that road trip you've been meaning to take.
Here's "Blooming Beats", named after the park party event that it was created for in 2014 (put on by @giftedgaia ).
I'm particularly proud of this one. This is "The Winery Mix", so named for the event at which I played it, which was at a vineyard in Defiance, Missouri. That was a fun one.
Wow! Great post and thank you for sharing your music with us all! Looking forward to hearing it all over the course of the night.
All for one and one for all! Namaste :)
Nice post, very interesting from the point of view of providing insight into an unusual profession.
ColdMonkey mines Gridcoin through generating voluntary BOINC computations for science...
Love it man ...
The dream would be to have a semi-public pool open-space to play in every afternoon til night :), been quite some time that I played in the clubs. simply prefer chilled out music for pool parties these days.. not many avenues to do it here though.
Sounding good, gonna load it up in my car :)
About 6 years ago, I found my ideal pool party along those same lines. A friend of mine in St. Louis, Missouri invited my fiance and I to an invite-only rooftop pool party. It was such a crazy experience to be able to swim in a pool, look around, and see the tops of huge buildings in downtown St. Louis.
10/10 Would do again.
Click here for the full photo album.
Thanks for sharing this! It's so cool to get a little insight to one's past. As a musician, I can safely say it's something I will never regret doing. I've also got several friends who DJ (not members of Steemit) and they've tried retiring but it's a scratch they can't stop itching.
That's awesome! Love the pics and mix.
Thank you. :)
Great tunes and awesome story, I love EDM and used to be DJ during my student time? Long ago, miss it 👍😎🎹🔊
sweeeeta' upvote
wow, nice thanks great blog
thank you