StovePipe

08/05/2024

Super hype to be spinning with Mad Hanna and Eastside Vinyl Collective this Saturday the 11th! I'll personally be spinning in the Annex, 4 - 6 pm, featuring modern & classic rock, plus hella party hits!

18/04/2024

Spinning party hits with the squad on Twitch for the Family Floral Festival! Tune in and talk ish in chat!

https://www.twitch.tv/eastside_vinyl_collective

Spend the whole weekend with EVC! Catch Friday 4/19 at My-O-My, and the whole squad on Twitch Saturday 4/20

https://www.twitch.tv/eastside_vinyl_collective

23/11/2023

Live on twitch with Eastside Vinyl Collective!!

We are a squad of hobbyist DJs with a breadth of backgrounds and tastes, united by a love of listening to records and sharing music.

12/09/2023

This Wednesday (9/13), rock set with me at Mad Hanna!

Next Wednesday (9/20), soul, pop and bonus treats with Apizzle!

18/08/2023

Psyched to be playing party hits this Sunday the 20th at Mad Hanna. All vinyl all night!

06/06/2023

Excited to be spinning a celebratory party set bright and early this Saturday morning at the Rainbow Disco Morning Skate in support of Q***r Youth!

Catch me in rainbow gear, smiling, and full of hope for the kids!

22/05/2023

Playing a rock set at Mad Hanna tonight if you're in the neighborhood!

07/07/2022

On technique, passion, toys, and joy

My first DJ gig was a Halloween party for my Boy Scout troop the fall I was 12 years old. I my had tiny dual cassette boom box from Radio Shack outputting to some terrible plastic speakers, and a Walkman on the side with headphones for cueing. Someone had brought a red police light to spice it up, and I definitely wore my sunglasses indoors all night. I'm not ashamed to say I remember the mix being awesome: I knew every radio hit, knew what songs my friends liked, and had a broad cassette collection. Nobody noticed I had no gear.

More recently I've been practicing with my new controller, and as we explored in my last post, I'm feeling inspired by the focused, streamlined experience. A few sessions later the technical stuff is much easier, and I find myself returning to the true challenge and beauty of DJing: selecting the right music to move the audience, accented with interesting transitions.

This honestly makes me really happy. Modern DJ discussions include a lot of dance music theory, gear & software comparisons, and in-depth explorations of transitions and effects. There's always this footnote that no matter your gear, you have to know your music and your audience, but it's just that: a footnote, rarely central to the discussion.

That's the hidden part of DJing, and I suspect every creative endeavor has a related hidden aspect. To be at all good at this, or to enjoy it, one has to love listening to music, like, a lot. Old, new, familiar, fresh - DJs need to listen to it all without that listening feeling like work. For my whole life I've had an instinct to seek out new music, which over time I've refined into a sense of taste and cultural understanding of which I'm a bit proud. However, it kind of doesn't mean anything if I don't share it, so playing parties, events, and radio shows for joy is the clear path.

And as much fun as the gear is (and it IS fun), all of that is really just toys. Connecting the music and the audience is where it's at, and if the day comes that I've gotta trade my controller and laptop for a cassette boom box and a Walkman to keep playing, well then I've already got 2 mixtapes tucked away for such an occasion.

So friends exploring creative endeavors: what's the part you have to secretly love in order to do what you do? What's the part you could do with little to no gear, but gets facilitated by modern technology?

30/06/2022

On constraints and creativity, plus rig run-down:

Is there anything more creatively intimidating than a blank slate? I shudder to think of creative projects with no limits, guidelines, or constraints. This is one reason I enjoy DJing - I focus my sets on an audience, a setting, or a theme; no mix arises without context.

*2 paragraphs just for interested tech and DJ nerds*

My home rig is powerful and versatile: it's intended to make a variety of digital and analog instruments easily accessible. Centered around a pair of Technics 1200 turntables and an Allen & Heath Xone:23 mixer, this rig also includes a low-end Win 10 refurbished laptop with Traktor audio interface, a Kontrol X1 mk2 for DVS control, a Kontrol F1 for remix deck control (seriously FUN), and a Machine Mikro Mk3 for live beats & homebrew grooves. Traktor Pro 3 includes 40 effects, all customizable, and the F1 gives me access to 16 samples at a time from a bank of 128. It's a lot, and it's fun to explore the space, but I never use it all. Honestly just learning about effects gets real tedious real fast, as does sample exploration. I'm just not that kind of nerd, so I use a lot of default settings and prerolled sample packs.

In contrast, my new mobile rig is just a Kontrol s2 mk3 and a high-end Win 11 gaming lappy. Same software, so the UX and settings are consistent, but the controller includes just four effects and 8 samples total, the latter of which share a keypad with the hotcues in a very nice hardware space optimization.

*end nerd section*

Recently I was playing a practice set to try to push my mobile rig as far as it would go. My real power remains in song selection, 3-band eq, and live looping, all foundational to modern digital mixes. However, the tiny effects selection on my mobile controller means I'm well familiar with each effect, and appropriately inclined to use them sparingly, and the small sample bank incentivizes me to consciously choose the best samples for my audience and set context.

These two constraints inspired an upbeat and surprising set, as I felt more courage to try the effects and samples in different places. I'm exploring a smaller sonic space than my professional counterparts, but keeping my eye on serving the set according to both my skills and my passion. I love the way limits inspire creativity.

More details coming soon, but my new mobile rig is all about playing out and about. I'm prepping hard for a wedding set in August, and am scheming on both a private in-person set and a public streamed set before then. After that I'll be on the lookout for spontaneous and/or guerilla gatherings looking for some amateur but full-hearted open-format jams. Never for money, always for love.

11/06/2022

I had a moment of musical magic tonight, and I hope it inspires you to take regular time for your creative self.

A friend invited me to play music at her wedding late this summer, and I'm taking the opportunity to develop my DJ skills to the next level. So I've been practicing with digital vinyl and Traktor, but the learning curve is steep and I've felt plateaued for some time.

Until tonight. After a session full of trainwrecks, off-beat drops, out-of-key samples, and feeling like a bumbling beginner, I dropped Z-Trip's "Revolution (STR Parts 1+2)", and cued up Afghan Whigs' "Right Hand on my Heart" on a risky whim and a BPM guess.

For the very first time the master clock, hot cues, platter speed, my ear, and my hands came together in harmony, and the universe rewarded me with a perfect mashup. The a capella section on track A matched perfectly with the instrumental intro on track B and I created a solid 16 live bars that the world has never heard before.

I'm inspired to keep playing to see what else emerges, and I hope you're inspired to follow a risky artistic whim. May it all come together for you, and may we all celebrate and embrace the 99% perspiration it takes to get there.

PS: Watch this space for exciting party news!

27/04/2021

Excited to share that I'll be collaborating with DJ DB (David Bradfute) of Swarm the Floor Collective on an all-vinyl set of heavy music this weekend: Metal, Punk, Stoner Rock

Saturday May 1, 6 - 8 pm Pacific on Twitch.

Virtual Dance Parties, Musical Happy Hours, and Mini-Ragers streamed live!

10/04/2021

Silent disco changed everything last night.

I pulled the RCA cables off the mains and plugged them into the radio transmitter set to channel 1. The music stopped save for the tiny tinny beats coming directly off of the vinyl.

The dancers put on glowing blue headphones, and in an instant the gathering changed from a micro-house party (4 of us total, outdoors, distanced, mainly masked) to an intimate, inward adventure. One jumped on the swings and got lost in the rhythm. One went down the driveway and danced for the whole neighborhood. One browsed the record collection like it was a secondhand bin. We stepped to the same beat.

Sharing the same feed on personal headphones is a powerful balance between an individual experience and a shared one. We get to set our own level of stimulation, and step in and out of it as we please. Every space sounds great, so we can dance wherever feels good to our bodies. As a clubber it felt like stretching out on a couch all my own: a nightclub just for me, but magically just right for the homies, too.

Special shoutout to Platinum Records Lights and Sound for the A&H mixer, my first brand new mixer ever.