PRINTSpinning hype
DJs plug into a growing genre
John Hook
Karl Giddens mixes beats on Monday and Friday nights at Tonic. His mash-ups blend together disparate genres to create one danceable musical mutant.
August 14, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Psychology is not a word normally associated with DJing, but for those who spin records, it’s everything. With a slight turn of a knob, DJs control the mood of an entire crowd. With their musical decisions, they can make you sweat, scream and, when it’s boring, leave.
DJs who play electronic music are a major element of the club scene worldwide, but large cities boast the majority of the talent. However, as pop incorporated elements of electronic music in the late ’90s, the two fused and gained popularity in small towns, too. As a result, there is a growing scene for this overlooked genre, even in a place like Columbia.
Related ArticlesGeneric has “Techno Tuesdays.” Hemingway’s Wine and Bistro changed its weekend entertainment from live bands to DJs who spin downtempo beats. Tonic features mash-up DJs who splice radio hits from many genres. Sake and Forge and Vine also feature electronic music nights. This means you can see a DJ perform six nights of the week.
“We’re trying to bring something new to people,” says Jennifer Rothchild, Hemingway’s DJ. “If you want a piece of that urban element or that music you can find overseas or in the city, it’s here.”
Spinning at Hemingway’s proved to Rothchild that there are ways to get unacquainted audiences interested in electronic music. She says that getting 30- to 50-year-olds to listen to electronic music in Missouri is a difficult task. Her mixes of minimal beats and pop samples enhance the chic atmosphere of the restaurant while exposing guests to a new genre. “It’s easy to play stuff that has samples that people recognize,” she says. “If you can grab a piece of something that someone will like, you can grab their attention.”
Bernard Jones, resident DJ at Generic, says the way contemporary pop music mimics dance music is exposing more people to the genre. “You can look at Ne-Yo or Rihanna, and everyone is switching to a house beat,” Jones says. “They’re taking house music and turning it into pop music.”
Jones’ passion, house music, is an electronic genre that layers soul, disco and jazz samples over a steady drum kick. He established himself by performing internationally; he even had a track on BBC radio overseas. But like any good DJ, he knows he has to play what the crowd wants, and that means mixing top 40 hits. “I have no qualms with being a techno or house DJ internationally and being known as a hip-hop DJ in Columbia,” Jones says.
Living a musical double life is one way to stick to your roots and still get gigs. But some DJs are combining mainstream music with their own styles to get attention. At Tonic on Mondays and Fridays, DJ Karl Giddens blends genres into one musical monster called a mash-up. “The mash-up culture is fun, and it’s ever-changing,” Giddens says. “It requires the patrons to open their ears and listen to what’s being done.”
To create a mash-up, a DJ must synchronize several songs in the same key and tempo, which can be difficult depending on the genres that are being united. Such artists as 2 Many DJ’s and Danger Mouse revolutionized the genre in the early 2000s with help from new sophisticated mixing software such as Ableton Live and ACID Pro. Giddens specializes in mash-ups of classic rock, ’80s pop and hip-hop, and he says the mixes are a good way to get people interested in electronic music.
But will Columbia tolerate this seemingly foreign genre? Generic co-owner Will McCaskill thinks so, but only on a small scale. Although he originally opened Generic in ’05 as a dance club that strictly featured electronic music, McCaskill discovered that the Columbia crowd mostly preferred a mix of popular music. So he switched; now his club only plays house music on Tuesdays.
“There’s a demand (for electronic music) but not a big enough demand to make it a mainstay,” McCaskill says. “We rode that horse about as far as we could.” He says that dance music isn’t that popular because it doesn’t make it on Columbia’s radio waves — and patrons want to hear music they are comfortable with. “They turn on the radio to get ready, and they go out, and that’s what they want to hear,” he says.
So a merge with pop culture — through mash-ups, weekly events or even gigs at chic restaurants — might just be what the genre needs to explode in Columbia. “We’re always trying to find that next song that everyone wants to hear,” Giddens says.
