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noiZe Magazine Music Reviews

How To Be a DJ

Written by Steve Weinstein

Can DJ’ing be taught? It’s the kind of Socratic question that can create an argument among dance fans. It also leads inevitably to a second question: Is DJ’ing an art or a science?

The history of turntablism would imply that it’s an art. After all, the first DJs to do more than act as human jukeboxes began by experimenting with layered beats on 45 singles in the mid-‘60s in clubs like Sanctuary in New York City. The real profession of DJ, however, began when Roy Thode invented the EP on Fire Island. It wasn’t long thereafter that Disco, the first DJ-dominated music genre, took over. DJs at the premier celebrity disco, Studio 54, remained fairly anonymous. But at gay clubs, the DJ was becoming as important as the recording artists themselves. They also became power brokers, as the major record labels realized that they could break a record to the public by wooing club DJs rather than radio program directors, thus removing an ecosystem that had been in place since the 1940s.

The big gay clubs or club nights or the 1980s, especially the Saint and Paradise Garage in Downtown Manhattan, codified gay or gay-friendly DJs as major talents. Larry Levan, Junior Vasquez, Frankie Knuckles, Thode and Jim Burgess moved between the dance floor and the recording studio to become sought-after producers as well as DJs.

Today, the cult of the DJ is alive and well on the Circuit, with producer-DJs like Tracy Young, Tony Moran, Junior, Peter Rauhofer and Victor Calderone appearing “above the title,” as they say in Hollywood and on Broadway. In the wider world, DJs like Paul Oakenfold, the Freemasons, Tiesto and Armin van Buuren have become bona fide superstars. Perhaps the biggest difference between gay and mainstream DJs is in their fees: A big-name DJ can earn into the high five figures for a gig at a corporate event such as a product launch or runway show. The widespread media coverage of DJ AM’s death earlier this year showed how much DJs have moved into the public’s consciousness.

If there’s any doubt how much money a big name can get paid, consider this: In a side comment in a New York Times feature on Madonna’s current squeeze, Brazilian model Jesus Luz, the reporter revealed he is receiving $15,000 per gig. What’s so shocking isn’t only the amount of money, it’s his experience—Luz has only begun his second “career” very recently.

Luz has been studying at Dubspot, which was the world’s first, and remains its premier, DJ school. Located in Downtown Manhattan’s painfully trendy Meatpacking District only a few minutes’ drive from the long-shuttered gay clubs like the Loft, 12 West, the Garage and the Saint that gave dance music so much of its flavor, Dubspot was founded in 2007 by Dan Glove.

Computer, Yes, But Also Turntables

Glove remembers being inspired by Vasquez at his Saturday night residency in Chelsea’s megaclub Twilo back in the late ‘90s, when he pioneered laying down three tracks at a time, and “doing what no one else was doing.” Glove jokes about how he would go in with a group of male friends to pass inspection from the bouncer. Glove was a working DJ when he decided to found Dubspot after he tried to move from straight-up DJ’ing to producing.

“I didn’t know where or how to begin,” he recalls. “Private lessons and manuals put me to sleep; there was no plan or curriculum. I realized no school for this existed. DJs say they have trouble connecting the dots and making their own music. That’s why we started—a lot of DJs share the same obstacles I did.”

Instructors—all of them working DJs—don’t specialize in a style of music. Rather than “what” of music, programs and equipment, they teach the “how” and especially the “why.” The technology, which has gotten advanced and fairly technical, is only part of what they learn. If, in learning the plastic arts, students start by studying direct representation before branching into abstract forms, similarly, all students at Dubspot begin with turntables, because that’s where the music starts. (There’s also the scratching, not so popular in gay clubs, but an essential part of most DJs’ performances ever since Grandmaster Flash.) Besides, as Glove points out, many DJs today still prefer to work on vinyl, or at least a combination of vinyl with a computer.

Still, students have to study Ableton, Traktor and Logic Pro, as well as drum machines, synthesizers, looping and a lot of other programming techniques that make the contemporary DJ seem as much of a computer geek as a music aficionado. But the emphasis is always on love of the music. “Technology is one element of what we teach,” Glove says. “We expose them to all these different tools.”

People can still come out of their bedrooms after long sessions wearing headphones and experimenting on two Victrolas and become great DJs. But, Glove says, Dubspot can open them up to all of the controllers, mixers and other equipment out there. Such tools separate the weekend mixer from the pro. Besides that, the best way for a DJ to make a name for him or herself is to produce—either a totally new song; or barring the connections, money and talent pool for such an undertaking, at least remixing a song to put an original imprint on it and get it played in clubs. DJs like Hex Hector or Young certainly have paid their dues in clubs, but it was their remixes that helped make them that much hotter as headliners.

Turning It Into a Career

Students enroll in courses for as long as a year or as little as three months, depending on the subject. They can also stay around and keep studying or take what they have and venture into the club world. They are all encouraged—forced!—to go to clubs and listen music. “They have to go out at least once a week,” Glove says. “That’s their assignment.” And here you didn’t know all those years you’ve been doing homework!

The school has been doing surprisingly well in the current recession; the belief is that many people laid off from other jobs are following their dream. Any one of us who goes to a lot of clubs (and I count myself among them) has probably dreamt at one time or another of laying down music to get an adoring crowd on its feet.

But these days, there’s also more competition than ever for spots even at restaurants or small lounges. I’m old enough to remember when every teenager wanted a guitar and to be in a rock band. Today, kids beg for a set of turntables or programs so they can program their iPods.

Guest DJs give workshops as inspiration to Dubspot’s students. Students know that they won’t be making the leap that Luz made, from newbie to $15,000 a night. Glove acknowledges that “there’s so much bad music out there because it’s so easy to produce.” He’s moving toward more music theory of the kind taught in a conservatory. Still, he’s optimistic that there’s room in the world for a steady stream of graduates. He’s beginning to experiment with workshop tours around the country, to expand Dubspot’s mission and geographic reach.

In the end, he believes that anyone who wants to should be making music, whether on instruments, on turntables or in the studio: “People are expressing themselves, and that’s a good thing.”

If you think you’ve got the potential to be the next Manny Lehman or Susan Morabito, go http://www.dubspot.com for more information.

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