Wow, it finally happened…my first (and second) performance at CityWalk! To bring people up to speed, I was recently given the opportunity to meet with a talent agency who books DJs for CityWalk. My name was given to them by a friend and mentor, DJ Lu-S of which, I am extremely grateful. After a brief meeting, they had me on the schedule to perform on July 8th and 9th.
Wednesday, July 8th, rolled around and there I was…on the main stage, warming up for my first performance. I was equally nervous and excited. As I began to throw down the first few tracks, I see two of my friends in the audience who surprisingly came out to show their support. Seeing a few friendly faces out there definitely helped ease the nerves a bit and honestly, only made it that much more exciting. It’s nice to have friends who are so supportive. Mark and Chris….thank you! They also took some really great pictures!
Wednesday night went really well for a first performance. I eased up on the controllerism (aka live remixing) a bit because more than anything, I just wanted a nice smooth performance with as little risk as possible. Toward the end of Thursday night, I was feeling pretty good about everything so I decided to turn up the remixing a little bit during the last 30 minutes of the show. There is some inherent risk when remixing live, because for one…it’s LIVE – any and all mistakes will be heard. Secondly, the fancier you get with the controller, the more taxing it is on the software, computer, peripherals, etc.
Nevertheless, I went for it. I gradually brought the tempo from about 124 BPM up to just over 130 and closed out the night with a bootleg remix of Salt n Pepa’s “Push It.” This version is not well known, and because it’s a 12″ vinyl rip with very little information on the label, I have no idea who produced it. While that was playing, I experimented with a bit of cue point juggling using another 12″ vinyl rip of a track called, “This DJ.” This layered various samples on top of “Push It.” Next I cued up one of my 12″ vinyl rips of a scratch weapon record (a track dedicated to various samples commonly used for scratching) and did a little live scratching on the last couple of drops. I’m no expert in scratching, but it’s fun, challenging, and if nothing else, it proves that what I am doing on stage is 100% live.
Warming up a bit
Stage flooded with guests from Argentina
Thursday night performance
Fireworks on my first night!
My next performance is on July 17th from 7 PM to 11 PM. Come on out, grab a drink, and have some fun! Parking is free after 6PM. DJ Lu-S will also be performing at Rising Star until 2 AM so check him out afterwards!
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