The Most Dope
The Most Dope Podcast: Join us on a thrilling journey through life, adventure, and business as we bring you The Most Dope Podcast! Hosted by a dynamic duo with a passion for DJing, MCing, photobooths, and balloon art, we dive into the latest in current events and pop culture. Whether you're an entrepreneur, an event enthusiast, or just someone who loves a good story, our podcast has something for everyone. Tune in for insightful conversations, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and a whole lot of fun. Get ready to be inspired, entertained, and enlightened with every episode of The Most Dope Podcast!
The Most Dope
Mixing it Up: The Chuy's Baja Grill DJ Collective
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Step into the vibrant world of Bakersfield's DJ community at Chuy's Baja Grill, where a remarkable gathering orchestrated by DJ Richie Rich has transformed from casual hangouts into a thriving weekly event. This episode of The Most Dope Podcast captures the authentic heartbeat of a DJ collective where competition takes a backseat to collaboration.
The conversation flows naturally between veterans and newcomers alike, revealing the multi-faceted world of professional DJing. From Arsenal and Lemon's reflections on expanding their musical horizons to Candyman's journey from vinyl to digital, these stories paint a vivid picture of an art form in constant evolution. The DJs candidly discuss the technological shifts that have reshaped their craft – comparing notes on Serato updates, backup strategies using Time Machine, and the ongoing vinyl-versus-digital debate.
What makes this episode truly special is the vulnerability on display. Despite their years of experience playing for hundreds at weddings and clubs, many admit to feeling most nervous when performing for fellow DJs. This shared anxiety creates a powerful bond among these artists who otherwise project confidence behind the decks. They explore the challenges unique to their profession: navigating explicit content in modern tracks when playing school events, handling persistent song requests, and reading diverse crowds at venues like Chewy's where musical tastes span from yacht rock to hip-hop.
The camaraderie is palpable as they discuss supporting each other by sharing gigs, equipment, and honest feedback. In an industry where relationships often determine success, these connections prove invaluable – especially for female DJs working to find their place in a male-dominated field.
Whether you're a DJ looking for inspiration, a music lover curious about the personalities behind the turntables, or someone who appreciates the power of community, this episode offers a fascinating glimpse into a world where beats and brotherhood come together to create something truly special.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Most Dope Podcast! We hope you enjoyed the ride and found some inspiration along the way. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your preferred platform. Stay in touch with us on social media for the latest updates, behind-the-scenes moments, and more dope content. Until next time, stay dope and keep the good vibes rolling.
Welcome to The Most Dope Podcast
Speaker 1What's up y'all? This is the Most Dope Podcast. We're out here at Chewy's Baja Grill. We got DJ Richie Rich out here bringing a mess of DJs to Bakersfield and to Chewy's. Talk to us about it, brother.
Speaker 2No man. So Lemon had a good idea about it. Hey, man, let's make it like a formal invite, because you already know I've had DJs here the last few years I've been here. I invite them out, come out here, spin. We already kind of network, so naturally it was already kind of organically growing like that. So then Lem was like man, let's do a formal invite to everybody.
Speaker 1So everybody knows yeah, exactly, it's just not Rich's friends. They can come out at first.
Speaker 2It's yeah, it's basically my crew, my circle.
Speaker 3What happened to the music man?
Speaker 1I don't know, DJ Candy over there, dj Candy man.
Speaker 2Yeah, Candy man over there.
Speaker 1We can't be over there.
Speaker 2We can't be in two places man, I can't do it all man.
Speaker 1All right, so who else do we have on the podcast today, man?
Speaker 6What's up, guys? It's DJ Arsenal.
Speaker 1DJ.
Speaker 7Arsenal. How sexy. What up my name's, jose.
Speaker 2I'm going to just go off, jose for today DJ Lemon, dj Lemon, lemon, dj Lemon.
Speaker 7Lemon. Yes sir.
Speaker 1Arsenal and Lemon Arsenal. What are you doing out here, brother?
Speaker 6I always pull up on Rich, kind of the same thing. He was talking earlier, just us pulling up and hanging out. All right, at first it was just all his friends, and then people just started pulling up and then yourself, and then meeting Lemon. It's just kind of cool pulling up and meeting like-minded people, you know yeah absolutely.
Speaker 8And then?
Speaker 6getting to hear different kind of music just because the environments that I'm used to in it's nothing like you know. Give it to me, baby.
Speaker 1Yeah, we don't get to play that all the time, you know what I mean. So it's cool to be in a different environment and just live life, you know. How do you, how do you feel about that? How does that? How does that hone your skills, man? How does that make you a better all-around dj, like a open format or whatnot.
Speaker 6Oh, it keeps me really open format. It keeps you on your toes. Yeah, because I pull up out here and I'll play something that I'll play and wherever I'm using a nightclub or something, it won't fly, it doesn doesn't work, yeah, unless they're super young.
Speaker 6But you know, if I come out here and play a random Shania Twain or something, oh it works. Or you know some weird country or some weird old school and they're vibing, you know, and then normally I just would never even look at that at all, you know. So just knowing that that is in my catalog, it's cool to have.
Speaker 1Yeah, you got to expand yourself.
Speaker 6You got. You can't keep yourself in a little niche? Not at all. How did you start, man? What year? Oh, I started in high school for like a year Because I graduated super early, saved some money, bought turntables, but then I just stopped. And then, probably like in 22, a friend of mine invited me to a nightclub or wherever he was DJing. He's like drop a set. So I dropped a set and the owner was like hey, like tell him, if he wants Tuesdays, I have Tuesdays. I was like what the hey?
Speaker 1Just fresh off the bench man come in and they're offering me Tuesdays, literally like Within the next week.
Speaker 6I tried my hardest To like get a One turntable and a mixer and then just Kind of went from there.
Speaker 7Alright, I'm gonna put you on blast right now.
DJ Richie Rich's Collaborative Vision
Speaker 8He asked you what when he came out of high school.
Speaker 7He didn't want to tell us, yeah, he didn't want to tell us His age.
Speaker 6I'm just damn near 30, so we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 7Alright alright, I was wondering. I was like Lemon over here.
Speaker 6With the gray hairs.
Speaker 1Hold on, I was like you look young enough that you shouldn't worry About how old you are, man. Oh, no, no, no yeah.
Speaker 6That was probably like 2010 2011, if I could take a good guess.
Speaker 1Hey, some of us older DJs were getting the grades.
Speaker 6Oh man, I got them all, I got them all but you're excellent. That's kind of my thing right now All right, brother Lemon, tell us about yourself, man.
Speaker 1You came from the OC.
Speaker 7Yes, sir. So I'm from Orange County, a little town called Boynton Park and Fullerton area, fullerton's, where I mainly DJed out of. But yeah, dude, out there, you know, the scene was really live with a lot of DJs. And you know, meeting other DJs was like my favorite thing to do, because back when I started there was no, hardly any DJs. So with that, you know, meeting other DJs just it's a good thing, you know, you can never go wrong with it, it helps you get more gigs or, you know, you network and you just create lifelong friends With this idea.
Speaker 7We used to have this thing called fire poo a long time ago in LA Orange County area, where a Network of DJs used to meet. It used to be like 200, 250 of us and it was sad because after the record back in the day used to get vinyl from from record pools, people would meet up for that now and but it died because of serato. It died because of digital, yeah, because of digital. It died. So there wasn't any space where we could all meet up together and just chop music, you know, talk, you know hang out, drink. There wasn't any of that and so when I moved over here, like two years ago I was like dude, I miss a lot of the.
Speaker 7The dj camaraderie yeah, the camaraderie connection and you know, yeah, I have a family now I don't dj as much in the nightclub scene. I don't really dj in the nightclub scene at all anymore, but it's still good and to have like that same type of environment because you never know when the homie could come out and help you. Like, let's say, if you get a flat tire, let's say you forget your backpack. Let's say your backpack crashes on you. Let's say, if you get a flat tire, let's say you forget your backpack. Let's say your backpack crashes on you. Let's say you know your speakers go out, you know you need, you forgot a cable.
Speaker 6Yeah, dude, all of these things happen in between, right, yeah?
Speaker 2I think I've had every single one happen to me.
Speaker 3How many backup drives do you guys have?
Speaker 2One, I think you know I give a couple copies to other DJs, right, it's always?
Speaker 1there I got my main and then I got the cloud. So if the main gets stolen or melts or whatever, I just download it from the cloud again.
Speaker 7Yeah, you guys also use Time Machine, right? Everyone here uses the Time Machine.
Speaker 1I use Google Drive. I'm an Android guy.
Speaker 7Okay, so what do you use to DJ? What do you use? A laptop? A laptop. What kind of laptop do you use? A MacBook? Okay, so there's this feature in MacBook. I was trying to tell him about it. So it's called Time Machine. It's an app. It's built into your computer. You just put in your external hard drive in there and it mirrors your laptop. So let's say, it's ever stolen, everything will be cloned to your next computer. So you turn on your computer, like I've had this happen before Restored from time machine.
Speaker 7Yeah, like a wedding, like I had a wedding the next day, 24 hours, whatever. I lost my computer. I don't know where it went, and so I had a time machine put it up to my backup computer. Everything was the same, everything. As long as you just time it, you back it up Seamless. It's called Time Machine.
Speaker 6If you don't know now you know you had record on that one right you had to go back to that and be like all right.
Speaker 2What did he say?
Speaker 3again. He totally double checked it.
Speaker 1He was like oh man, like, hey, dude, stop man, we run out of space somehow.
Speaker 6He didn't have Time Machine installed.
Speaker 2That's why.
Speaker 1How about you, gordon? Where did you start off from man? How'd you get started? Mine was about mine was about three years ago, newer um, I missed music. I've been in music all my life. I've been in music since I was in about third grade, playing the saxophone, trumpet in sixth grade, drum line, stuff like that, and, um, you know, pops passed away many years ago and my pops is who got me into music originally, reading music, writing music, playing music, understanding it, genres, you know, and I grew up in arvin so I have a very eclectic. You know, I grew up white in country and poor in arvin. So, um, yeah, somebody tried to bring us food right now, I almost took it. And poor and arven. So, yeah, somebody tried to bring us food right now, I almost took it.
Speaker 2I got you guys in a sapper too, coming.
Speaker 1Yeah, so that's how I got back into it. I needed to get back into music. I got a saxophone at the house too, but DJing just allows me to be my creative side, if you will. I don't really have a creative side because I'm an it guy. I'm black and white. You know it's either on or it's off. It's either black or it's white. There's no gray area, there's no blending, there's no mashups, it's just analog, digital, it is what it is zeros and ones. And music allows me to get out of that box and be a little bit more creative. You know, like you said, from mixing like Suavemente into like Shania Twain or something, you know just genre bending and mixing.
Speaker 6I don't really see genre or tempo, yeah.
Speaker 1So you mentioned that there wasn't a lot of DJs at one point. Lemon, you originally said hey, back when there wasn't a lot of DJs. Do you feel like there's a lot of DJs at one point? Lemon, you originally said hey, back when there wasn't a lot of DJs. Do you feel like there's a lot of DJs now? Oh yeah, for sure there's a ton.
Speaker 7I remember in 2005, I was in college with my freshman year and there was not that many DJs and I needed DJs because at the time there was a lot of parties happening at school and I needed help with them Because I wanted a party too.
Speaker 8I wanted a DJ, but I wanted a good time.
Speaker 7It's college, you know, everyone wants to have a good time and so, um, I remember just meeting one DJ and I was so excited about meeting one DJ and he had turntables, he had vinyl, and I was like, all right, yeah, you know what the hell you're doing. All right, and this guy is still my best friend till this day, to this day. Like what, 20 years later? That's awesome, yeah.
Speaker 7Is he still down south? Yeah, he's still in Orange County. Big wedding DJ. This guy's a beast. Shout out DJ Leo DJ, who His name is, DJ Leo Leo Nice, as in astrology. Yeah, his last name's Leon.
Speaker 1Oh, leon Chilean, what is his.
Speaker 7He's Mexican, even though he's saying gringo.
Speaker 1He's saying gringo hey so how are you guys getting ready when you guys come out here? Are you guys just off the cuff, just no preparation, just coming out here and I'm going to just start playing and spinning, Is it?
Speaker 6organic. I don't really make crates. I have certain crates of things that I like to play, all right, or like I'll know that I, oh, everything's here I can touch, but mainly like just searching, all right, just because the vibe changes so quick yeah if you like, try to stick in.
Speaker 6Oh, I came in here with this set and these are songs I want to play and just don't really read the room. Yeah, oh, it's gonna go so bad so quick, yeah. But also I've seen it go bad for myself where I'm not prepared and I think that I can come off the cuff and have like 30 seconds left. I'm on the outro of the song and it's about to end and I couldn't think fast enough. You've got to find the song and laugh.
Speaker 1And I still can't, and then I've yeah, or have something with a slammer?
Speaker 6Yeah, but just so, it's definitely bit me in the butt. Preparation is definitely needed. Some people need it, some people don't. I don't really do it All right, how about you Lemon?
Meet the DJs: Arsenal and Lemon
Speaker 7No, I'm the worst with prep. I'm the worst. I am the worst. Even when I DJ'd almost every weekend, you know, I had my residency. I never planned it. It was just like he said, reading the crowd. I think that's a big thing that people don't do nowadays. They're like zoned into the computer. No, you got to watch everyone, even when they're sitting down. Oh, they're bobbing their head, are they not? Are they feeling this? Are they not feeling that?
Speaker 1you know so it's just because you can't, you can't just blame a crowd for not being a dancing crowd.
Speaker 7You can still entertain people, like you said that are sitting down yeah, and you can see them, you know, vibing out to the music, right? Yeah, sometimes that's all you need, like, right?
Speaker 2now Candyman. Right now he's playing. I feel like he's going a little too hard right now.
Speaker 6Yeah, me too. No offense to Candyman, his bands are fire, but it's just a little early for the club.
Speaker 8I came out here playing.
Speaker 6Mac Dre that one day, man, some things are cool, you know, definitely doing a cool.
Speaker 1The bridge was reaching over, hitting the sensor button constantly.
Speaker 2No, that was at the Condor game that wasn't here, oh snap.
Speaker 8No no, no, he had to mix up with the Condor game.
Speaker 6Huge no-no.
Speaker 2He's playing Mac Miller. It was cool at first, you know, and then he talked about weed and smoking.
Speaker 1Hey, I'm going to challenge everybody to play a Mac Miller song today.
Speaker 6I had a radio set yesterday. I had one on there. Yay, there you go, brother. I love Mac Miller. Thank you, man.
Speaker 1Hey, are you doing the Precious? Yeah, his was yesterday.
Speaker 2He was on Precious yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9Mine's coming up in a couple months.
Speaker 2I found a way to sneak him in there, so I did A couple weeks, I don't know.
Speaker 7I got a little bit.
Speaker 10Are you ready? No, I'm not ready.
Speaker 6I lagged so bad.
Speaker 2I did it like the night before. I procrastinated on that one too. Yeah, like a motherfucker.
Speaker 1How did you throw it together, man, I?
Speaker 6didn't Okay. So I went on my search, I put intro clean and I went by play count. Oh, you don't have clean.
Speaker 1There you go, and then Key and B-F-E-R. Yeah, 100%. Arsenal taught me that too.
Speaker 2So if you ever get stuck and have to play on somebody else's computer right, yeah, that's Chico. He taught me the biggest thing the cheat code is go into history and go to play count and you'll find out the best songs on that computer that that DJ liked In their library.
Speaker 6That sounds cool. Go in it. If they don't have it, open up, the play, count and then go from. How are?
Speaker 1you guys responding to 4.0 Serato. Have you guys downloaded the beta?
Speaker 6I hate doing betas.
Speaker 7It's only the beta. I got it on my backup.
Speaker 6I had the STEM beta and I don't really do weddings, but I did a wedding and it crashed so bad.
Speaker 1So I don't really mess with betas until they come out. We got.
Speaker 6DJ Jules coming over here.
Speaker 1What's up, Jules?
Speaker 7It's funny hey tell the people, what's up Yo?
Speaker 5yo what's up man? What's up man.
Speaker 6The funky Filipino.
Speaker 7It's funny how you mention that, because I just updated my Serato to the 3-point whatever 2 it is. And that's exactly why I didn't update it or try any beta because if you're doing high-paying gigs like weddings, corporate parties, like you don't want that stuff to crash on you.
Speaker 1There's a good trick to installing Serato you just rename the folder oh yeah, to get the double.
Speaker 6I don't know about that one. You can run double. I've tried that.
Speaker 7But that time I forgot so I'll just wait nah, it's like updating your operating system when it just comes out. It's too dangerous. I don't even know what operating system I have.
Speaker 2It's on my setup at home so I don't really have to worry about anything if it crashes, but it's cool though I mean I did my research on it I like the way you organize your crates. Now.
Speaker 1It's a lot different.
Speaker 2You can put your favorites up on the top.
Speaker 1I mean that helped me super OCD with my music in my crates. Yeah, like everything is in alphabetical, everything's in clean, and I posted it one day, so you know just to post to show people my library. Yeah, and a couple people mentioned it. It's like holy shit, how did you get it all in alphabetical order?
Speaker 2I said, well, I had to drag them all the way to town. Yeah, drag them all. Yeah, let's sweat in tears. Mine looks like a messy room, bro, but it's my messy room, so I know where everything's at 4.0 has the automatic sort alphabetically feature.
Speaker 1I'm like oh man, yeah life.
Speaker 9Life to me.
Speaker 2You can use emojis on there. You can color code it. That was pretty dope.
Speaker 1Hey, Marion's DJing on turntables now. Oh shit, I try, I try. Come on, she's playing at the house on turntables. I like it I like it. So she's on vinyl, you know just, you know time vinyl, not real vinyl.
Speaker 2Okay, so after this I'm going to get off in a little bit I'm going to have Candyman come over here.
Speaker 8Yeah, so we kind of keep that little flow going.
Speaker 2And if we do get a break, whatever I'm sure, pause it.
Speaker 6And we pick up right where we left off.
Speaker 1We'll pause it for now and we'll come back.
Speaker 2Yeah, you can just keep on going. I can have Jules come over here, and then we'll do something like that though, but yeah, we'll get off real quick. Next man up.
Speaker 7So I'm curious about yourself how long have you been practicing and doing your thing?
Speaker 3I've just kind of since we've been together.
Speaker 1So it kind of just Ever since I started she was playing a little bit.
Speaker 7So how long have you guys Going?
Speaker 1on four years.
Speaker 3Three and a half four years yeah.
Speaker 1Both out of divorces, you know. So we have five daughters. Okay, I've come combined between the two of us anywhere from nine years old to 16 years old does your family play at all?
Speaker 7um, no, my kids are really small.
Speaker 1Um, I have three kids under five, yeah, so wife, girlfriend, fiance, okay, does she ever jump on and try to play some of her music?
Speaker 7no, no, no no I don't honestly I love my wife I love my wife she is perfect for playing like at like hippie events uh because her her music. I mean she can. She can pull it off if she really wanted to, because she's been around us long enough to know what to do. But would she like it? She may, but she's more into different music Natalie Merchant, Alison Krauss oh yeah, Like you know, she goes to Strawberry.
Speaker 4For me if I jump in like say he needs a little break.
Speaker 6That's super cool.
Speaker 4Like to go to the restroom or whatever. You just never know.
Speaker 1So, I'm able to jump on there and like transition something in. So it's bad enough. I refuse to eat or anything at weddings and events. I won't do it Just for the fear that something's going to happen to my stomach, right, and I'm going to have to bounce. That's smart and I don't want to put a free, a free mix on there. I want, I want everything to be organic and, you know, alive as we go.
Speaker 7So are you living with like a medical condition? Is your stomach?
Speaker 6anxiety is that what it is I have a pepto in my car for the same reason.
Speaker 1Stomach anxiety, you just never know yeah, stomach anxiety is scary man, I don't like I may mainly go for the food you know and the cake she'll get a plate and I'll like pick. I'll pick something I should definitely get into dj more.
Speaker 6We need more female djs, for sure. There's a couple here in town that I've met are super cool. Um, there's a chick called case of faces pulled up. I've met here through this place actually, uh, three or four female DJs that I know that are super cool. They're getting booked Through right here with Richie Rich Just him being hey, welcoming Pull up, and then two of them specifically told me that they've been in the DJ environment and don't feel welcome, which I can definitely see happening.
Speaker 1It's a hard day. I don't know if it's just Bakersfield.
Speaker 6No, it's Bakersfield Talking to him when I've gone out of town just meeting other DJs and hearing their experiences compared to ours is just like whoa. And then that let alone on top of being a female DJ. So a female DJ is coming up. I'm definitely for it.
Speaker 1I feel like there's a lot of insecurity in Bakersfield.
Speaker 6Too much.
Speaker 1A lot of DJ insecurity and I feel like they.
Speaker 6There's not enough spots to go around, you know. And then just, I don't know, I found just being humble and being cool and, you know, just making a genuine connection first, you know, and then we can talk all the other stuff later.
Speaker 1We're all the same.
Speaker 7Literally, we're all the same. I believe we can all eat.
Speaker 6Yeah, no, literally, you know. We all have our own little table going on.
Speaker 7I will say this when it comes to private gigs, it's all about who you know. It's all about who you know. They don't know any DJ's numbers. A lot of people don't have that in their contacts. They're going to book a friend, or they're going to book a friend of a friend of a friend.
Speaker 1Somebody that knows somebody.
Speaker 7Yeah, regardless, you can be the greatestj in the world and you can sit on the sidelines on the weekend because nobody knows who you are and I'm out there djing instead.
Speaker 6No, yeah, definitely gotta be able to show face, network, smile, say hi, people know your name.
Speaker 7Yeah, so it's where the mouth goes, yeah because you never know when you know even me. I'm new to bakersfield and sometimes I get inquiries and I'm booked and and I hand them over. Yeah, and I have no problem doing that.
Speaker 1I love being able to hand gigs off to people.
Speaker 6I love it. That's such a blessing right.
Speaker 1There's nothing better than for me to be able to feed somebody else's family. Help them out, do whatever it may be.
Speaker 6And you still have yours, they get theirs, and then you add a love.
Speaker 1And then at you're still taking care of the client that originally wanted you. So you're setting that relationship with that client where you have now gone out of your way. You said, you know what? I know a perfect guy, I'm booked. I'm sorry I'm booked, but I know the perfect DJ for you. And then I hit Lemon Up. Or you know Arsenal, I hit somebody up and say, hey, I got a gig right and let them have it, man, let them eat.
Speaker 6I think we should get a little introduction for Jules. He's just on the side. Hey, jules, over there, hey.
Speaker 1Jules slid in. What's up, jules, it's good man, thanks for having me guys. How you doing, bro, I'm just like snuck in.
Speaker 5No, no, no. You know what I mean. We've all been there, like me, I've been there for so long. I mean I like hearing stuff from new guys. You know what I mean, not just new, because I just met you. It's like I would listen to you, I would watch you. I'm still learning. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1Hey man, I've been a little bit worried about you, brother. What happened? I feel like you've been falling apart over there, man, like you've been having some issues with the hands and wrists and stuff. Man.
Speaker 5Yeah, this is from work, oh is it?
Speaker 6Yeah, it's from work.
Speaker 5Yeah, it's too much scratching. Yeah, that's all it is I'm glad you were able to have a day off to come hang out.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean I've been off for like six months. Nice, I have two, you too, yeah. Wow so yeah, no, I've been off. I mean actually.
Speaker 7I've been off for six months, but I came back for a month and you know like tried it, but it wasn't feeling good, you weren't there yet I wasn't there yet that's smart man, that's good.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3And that's okay yeah.
Speaker 1So hey, are you jumping on today?
Speaker 5I always jump in, Even if it's like 10, 20 minutes because there's so many DJs now you know.
Speaker 8Like before we normally have what we got like at least 30, 45 minutes set.
Speaker 5Yeah or more.
Speaker 6But me, since I'm here every week, I'd rather give it to someone that hasn't been here, because a lot of DJs come and even though they're cool with us, they still feel intimidated to ask or to one-off on, because there's a lot of us.
Speaker 1And it's a hard thing performing in front of another DJ man, yeah.
Speaker 6I've learned to live with it just because you know they're going to hear it.
Speaker 3Just embrace the fact that they know that.
Speaker 6You know it's like a little between us, you learn to live with it.
Speaker 2I don't know about that transition. Yeah, for sure it's kind of good for me too.
Speaker 5I'm that type of DJ where I get intimidated, even though I know that type of DJ where I get intimidated. Even though I know what I'm doing, I still get intimidated. But I'm glad I've been here with them for a while, for a year now.
Speaker 1It's a crazy thing, man. I can DJ for 300, 400 people at a wedding, no problem, right? I mean, I still have my anxiety, you know, reading the crowd and making sure I keep a dance floor, but nowhere near as nervous as performing in front of another DJ man, oh yeah.
Speaker 6Or knowing there's a DJ somewhere in the abouts. Yeah, Like did you hear?
Speaker 1that he hits you up before the wedding man. He's like hey man, I DJ too.
Speaker 5And I'm like, oh shit, yeah, yeah, exactly Just like when we had the homegirl mix, you know, it's kind of like man I know there's other DJs going to be listening to this.
Speaker 6I played in Super Save.
Speaker 5But yeah, you get critique. You know what I mean. So you want to play it safe, but at the same time you still want to drop the set, Well, yeah. I could not.
Speaker 1No way, not my first time on the radio. How do you guys feel about summer as a part of it? What do you mean In general, summer DJing in Bakersfield, possibly outdoors, you know? Yeah, like I'll tell you right now and we were laughing about this before we got here I won't do a summer gig outdoors, man, oh yeah, like that sucks, yeah for outdoors.
Speaker 6Oh yeah, like that sucks, yeah for sure. Or pulling up to a gig, thinking it's one thing and then showing up and it's blazing heat oh yeah, we're gonna stick you in that corner over there because this person wants the one with the shade in it.
Speaker 8Yeah, what the you know so it's.
Speaker 6It's a problem that.
Speaker 2That's kind of one of the reasons I don't like them somewhere. Yeah, yeah if it's not indoors with the shitty corner yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6If you're not there early enough, you know, or they don't care you will be in the shitty corner.
Speaker 5Yeah, but the good thing about my gigs I don't know if I told you guys I think I told you I rode with you one time.
Speaker 7I love how you say my kids.
Speaker 5There's a difference with Mike. The gigs that I do 99.9% of the time.
Speaker 7Oh wait, I know the answer to this. I know the answer to this. You only take gigs from people you actually know it's family.
Speaker 5No, no, it's not even family. It's from a referral from someone that I know. All right, someone knows me that I got referred.
Speaker 1It's not a blind date. It's not a blind date. It's not a blind date no.
Speaker 5I don't take, I won't take. Blind dates are the worst, like a random call and be like hey, I need you to DJ, I'd pass it.
Speaker 1Hey, so let me ask you about this, Since you have this kind of rule have you had a bad blind date? Yeah, in the past.
Speaker 7Yeah of course.
Speaker 2You've had a bad DJ gig you took. I thought you were batting a thousand. You said 99.9.
Speaker 4We're rocking with a funky.
Speaker 6Filipino.
Speaker 7Everyone's going to dance.
Speaker 4Don't worry.
Speaker 6No one, I think we all have some horror stories. For sure there's a back story to this.
Speaker 7We're on our way to. What city was that? Tehachapi. We're on our way to Tehachapi for a wedding at a vineyard. Where's?
Speaker 1it Sand.
Speaker 7Canyon. It's like Dorner Family Vineyard and this venue. It's nice but it has a noise ordinance where you can't go past like 60 decibels, and if you know what 60 decibels is, that's like one speaker from a home computer, like that's about as loud as that can go. So I was nervous. I was like yo, no one's going to dance at this gig because the music is going to be so soft. No one's going to dance. And he was building me up. I don't know what he was doing, but it worked. He was like yeah, you're rocking with the fucking Filipino. I've never not had an empty dance floor and I'm like dude, I've done gigs where no matter what you play, they're not going to dance you got the next one.
Speaker 7He definitely put his chest up and, yeah, he definitely Stood by his word. Everyone danced the whole night and, yeah, we rocked that party.
Speaker 1Hey, we got DJ Candyman over here. How you doing, brother? Hey?
Speaker 4how was that set? It was good, it was cool. I did a little bit of what I wanted to do. I had to go kind of off script.
Speaker 1but that's just the way it goes when you're kind of here with the crowd and whatnot. So we've already talked about it, right? Yeah, why do you feel that you had to go off script?
Speaker 4I mean you always have a plan and then you come in and that plan just doesn't always pan out.
Speaker 4So sometimes especially when you're djing a different venue that you don't usually dj. You're coming in as a guest. It's like, okay, that's what I usually do, I usually got this set, I usually like to go this way, and then you just come in and it just feels just a little different and then you just got to kind of go with the flow. It's just, you know, years of of kind of knowing what works and what doesn't, and how people just kind of stare at you for a minute and then you're like, okay, maybe this isn't the way to the way to do it so you know, you learn how to switch it up.
Speaker 4So yeah, I mean I I kind of like doing the old school hip hop thing, I like doing the, the stuff that's from the 90s, you know, kind of going that direction. I also like a little bit of the new, but you look at people and they're like nah, they ain't really feeling it so you're reading the crowd. Yeah, let's get a little bit. Let's get a little bit of this stuff on. Let's get a little bit of that stuff on.
Speaker 1That's exactly what we were talking about, man. We've been talking about reading the crowd, man. Yeah, yeah for sure, and Chewy's being a very diverse and a different crowd, if you will, yes, like for me, I always associate Chewy's with like yacht rock or soft rock or you know stuff like that, yeah. And then playing that country, led Zeppelin, whoever you know, yeah. And then trying to get into everything else, like the Jack Harlow, and you know, for the different ages, for the different genres, for the different crowds.
Speaker 4Yeah, for sure. And I come from a club background originally. So you know, when you do the club thing, you know what your crowd is every weekend, you know what they're going to want to listen to, you know what they're going to be hearing. And it's like, okay, I got what I'm going to do and you practice, you're like, all right, this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to do my part. If I'm with a partner DJ he does what he does and it's kind of like you know country, you got people that like english.
Speaker 4You got people that like all this new stuff and then just recently, doing sweet 16s, you got people that like all this new crazy oh, man, and people like sex raid and all kinds of shit man like oh man, and you gotta, just gotta be ready. You could just roll with the punches, all you can do that's the best you can do.
Speaker 1I hate to snitch on myself, man, but I can't stand that new shit. I hate to snitch on myself, I hate to do it because, hey, we have to, we have to play the new stuff that you know, keen says in certain situations and I feel like an old head by saying that I feel like my, my grandfather or my father say why you listen to this shit, right. But now I'm in the same place where a lot of it I do feel is is kind of shit, right, and there's certain artists that I'll jump onto and I'll enjoy, like I enjoy Jack Harlow, I love J Cole, so some of those guys I love. But Little this and Little that and Baby this and Baby that and this. I can't keep up with it, man. It doesn't have a message for me.
Speaker 4Couldn't have said it better myself, bro. I listen to Root Jude. I don't know if doesn't have a message for me. Couldn't have said it better myself, bro. I listen to. I listen to Root Jew. I don't know if you ever listen to him or hear him. He says why does everybody got to have Lil in their name?
Speaker 8Why everybody got to be Lil Lil, this Lil that.
Speaker 2Why can't you just be regular? Why can't you be regular size?
Speaker 4Whatever, why can't we be Big G? Why can't we be big yeah, why can't the big ones? That's funny that you say that. But yeah, you know what's funnier too is that a lot of the time, when you're doing a Sweet 16, you know that the person that's getting the Sweet 16 is just spoiled a little, you know, and they're getting everything they want. They're getting all the roses and the dress and all the presentations. So then a lot of times they come up and they're like I want to hear this, I want to hear that, I want to hear it.
Speaker 3I'm like who the hell are you talking?
Speaker 4about and I'm over there going through my library, like who is this, you know, jumping on Tidal, jumping on Spotify? I'm like, okay, I see the way they're dressed on the cover. I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 1God, yeah, we know what's going to happen new stuff. Man, I have to have my title account and I have to have title ready, yeah, um, and look, I'm not gonna say that I have every song in the world obviously we don't. But title is amazing, man, you know, be able to log in and be able to get a song that's new to you and you get to learn. You get to learn maybe, a new song from somebody you had no idea existed and it might be a banger, yeah, and all of a sudden that's in your arsenal, that's in your belt.
Speaker 4Yeah, I've heard a couple of new songs and I'm kind of like yeah this is actually pretty good and I'll keep it in the pocket.
Speaker 2I hope you guys do too. I'll go dinner and drink some.
Speaker 1We got DJ Richie Rich over here, just ordered us food. Let's go.
Speaker 4We got the podcast.
Speaker 1That's about to eat real good, what a great host.
Speaker 7But, candyman, I want to know about you in a second, but before I get in there I'm going to piggyback off of what you guys said. We are essentially our parents now. We are complaining about the music that is coming out, and I'm a victim of that too. I complain about the new music and it takes me a very, very long time to like the music currently, and I do a lot of proms in Orange County music currently, and I do a lot of proms in Orange County. So from there I have to keep up with that stuff. I have to. I force myself to like the music and it sucks because I don't like it initially. But the new music that I like sounds exactly like the vibes that I like from the early 2000s.
Speaker 7But yeah, candyman, so where are you originally from and how did you start? Because I met you last week and you know that was the first time I ever met Candyman. The Candyman oh, what up. So where are you originally from and how did you start? Because I met you last week and you know that was the first time I ever met Candyman.
Speaker 4The Candyman Candyman, yeah, so the story about my name is Candyman. I go by Candy. Candelario is my name. My dad's name is Candelario, my dad, god rest his soul. He called me Candyman, that was my nickname nickname, so um I started off this. I used to call myself dj trim and that's how I started back. Wait, wait dj. What dj trim?
Speaker 1t-r-i-m-l and it was a play off, a cutting, a play off, a cutting off, a trim right. Right, you're gonna get some trim right.
Speaker 4So I, I had that name for a long time and then, um, I, I kind of stopped djing for a while. I wasn't really doing it too much and I was even contemplating selling my stuff. And then, um, I got a wedding. Uh, one of my daughter's friends asked me to do a wedding and I, and it just sparked the, sparked the interest and it sparked the pocketbook a little bit. So did the wedding just got the bug. The bug bit me again. I reinvented myself as DJ Candyman. So, um, I'm originally from here, I'm born and raised in Bakersfield, so I've been my life. I started DJing about 25 years ago and I have a musical background, so I started. When I was a kid I started playing piano and keyboard, so I'm a musician by trade. My dad played Spanish music. He, he did the club scene here in Bakersfield in the 80s, like.
Speaker 3La Movida, and before that, oh wow.
Speaker 4Condor Matecito Cali. I can't even remember half of them. The ones, all the ones on Baker Street that you're, you'd find your Nina and on.
Speaker 8Saturday night.
Speaker 4You know, he did all those gems and so he did a. He did a lot of that stuff and so, yeah, so I just basically kind of taking this in this footsteps on music and then played, played a keyboard smile also learned how to play drums and then, just you know, I've always had a buck. For a while I also learned how to play drums and then, just you know, I've always had a bug for DJing and I knew DJ Slice when I was 13 years old. He got drunk at a ditching party that I went to one year and he passed out on the couch and I jumped on his table and started messing with him.
Speaker 4And this is back way before Serato, way before digital. So I got myself a vinyl. When I started djing for the first time, I got myself a couple little cheapy stack turntables. They weren't even direct drive, they were the plastic ones with the rubber band. Um, I got nothing but vinyl and so I had I still have the vinyl and I still mess with them from time to time, but I did a I did a not did.
Speaker 4but I went to a party with one of my other dj friends in uh northridge and that's when I first seen Serato and I was blown away. I was like what?
Speaker 8the hell is this? You know, this is all digital.
Speaker 4So then, I started investigating what is this? What is this crazy scientific craziness that they got going on? So then at that point I just it was off to the races. You know, I had you know a little bit of money put away and I just I think I spent about I don't know four or $5,000 on new gear and a new laptop and all that stuff.
Speaker 2Easy to do, easy to do.
Speaker 4Now, that might buy you a speaker, oh yeah, Well, you're talking about vinyl.
Speaker 5I was like tonight I'm going to propose to Richard.
Speaker 7Riggs yeah, bring the turntables.
Speaker 5I'm going to bring a turntable and bring all vinyl set man. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7If you do that, I'll bring my vinyl too.
Speaker 5I'll bring my vinyl, I want two, so I'll bring all vinyl, because I started messing around with vinyl again. I was like man, so this is going to be my first all vinyl set. Yeah, so we can do. It's fun because, like, oh, next week, no, that ain't going to happen. In October, october, yeah, yeah yeah, you know you can't hear what I'm saying, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 5But anyways, like I was messing with it this week actually, and I posted a mix. You know I haven't mixed on vinyl for a long time and, mind you, it's like mixing with Serato right now. I relied so much on the waveforms and not so much with my ear you know what I mean and I catch myself messing up, and with vinyl you have to be on top of it.
Speaker 1You know what I mean.
Speaker 5I heard they say to put a piece of paper on the front of your laptop screen and and take that visual away to hone in on the ears right, yeah, like, like, even though like that's how it started, you know, I mean I, I started djing in 88 and when I started serato, like, my problem was like where's my records?
Speaker 8you know, I mean like your touch.
Speaker 5yeah, I can't even put it up on the actual playlist because it's not the same. Yeah, you know. So I mean, even to this day, I still struggle Like where's my music? Uh-huh, because I'm used to like looking it up like on the crates, you know? Yeah, so, but it's fun because, like, it reminds you of how it started you know.
Speaker 1So we got three vinyl DJs here.
Speaker 7DJs that started started on vinyl. I started digitally. I didn't start on vinyl. So I actually didn't start on vinyl. I had to start on cds because I couldn't afford vinyl. So, um, I I was I was in high school, like 2003 and um, I couldn't afford vinyl. So the dj that brought his equipment over at our house and that's how I started djing because this guy just randomly parked all his dj gear at our house um, he had a little bit of vinyl but but I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know what needles were. I don't know anything about that. It looked like Foreign.
Speaker 7Foreign, like you know, what is this, you know. So I had to start on CDs because I could burn CDs at the time. And, yeah, I started DJing and mixing with CDs because he had CDs that could change the pitch, some like some like new mark thing or something back in the day. But then, you know, vinyl came after, but then vinyl died like three months later, like literally for me.
Speaker 5Yeah, I know like like the good thing about the serato too. When I started I don't know like when when it started like I started with the turntable, also with serato, and I'm glad I didn't. I mean nothing against like cdjs or controller, but but I can't grasp it. I'm used to just touching it, the feel of it. So it took me until 2019. I mean, I started Serato back in 2005, maybe 2004. But I didn't start having a controller until 2019. It took me that long to still like okay, I finally gave in.
Speaker 1You know, See, I went backwards because I started late. I only started three years ago, so I started digital. But then I wanted to feel vinyl. I wanted to experience vinyl. I wanted to know how to play on vinyl. Ideally, I want to be able to go anywhere, whether it's here on the rain, whether it's on to go anywhere, whether it's here on the on the rain, whether it's on 1200s, whether it's on a sr2, whatever, ideally I want to be able to go anywhere and be able to play, yeah, regardless of the equipment that's in front of you. Sure, and I think a lot of the newer digital djs, they can't, they can't do the vinyl thing no, not everybody can.
Speaker 5yeah, because I know djs that are like that. They, they can't, they can't. Go back and forth, yeah, so if you could do it, then you're one of the few. Like, I'm not saying you're on the top tier.
Speaker 1I'm not in the elite status.
Speaker 1I'm not saying that it's just because, like you know, like you have preference, you know what I mean, I feel like anything that you get into that you want to do, right, you've got to pay homage to the original, right. You've got to somehow get back to the beginning so you can experience everything that everybody else used to experience at the very beginning of times, right, yeah. Or else you come into conversations with people and you have no idea about record pools and vinyl and getting together and doing all that. You have no idea. You have no idea about direct drive versus rubber band.
Speaker 5Belt drive.
Speaker 7Belt driven, yeah, like belt driven.
Speaker 4That's how.
Speaker 5I started too. I started with both.
Speaker 4I said that because when I finally took the table off and I seen there was nothing but a rubber band holding the ladder.
Speaker 10What the hell is this?
Speaker 3I was like what in the heck is this.
Speaker 5Mickey Mouse thing that I've been using Did they take this from mouse thing that I've been using this for my car, that's what it's called and back in the days those are the cheaper ones. You know what I mean. Like I, I couldn't afford a turntable like a techniques. I have a techniques, but it's still a belt drive, you know.
Speaker 7So yeah, my hercules t7, my hercules t7 that I was telling this guy about, um weighs like 11 pounds. That that thing is a belt drive and it's like basically a rain one. It's a rain, it's a rain one with moving platters only weighs 11 pounds.
Speaker 4It's gnarly I gotta say, one of the things that bummed me out when, when I was doing the club thing in here uh, bakersfield, the last, the last places that I was doing was que pasa, I did both que pasa at the mall and the marketplace um, when I got out of it and the reason I got out of it, because that was around around the time that controllers started becoming the thing for DJs and especially for people that were trying to be DJs. And to me it's like if you buy something that doesn't cost too much, I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 8You know, I started off with cheap equipment.
Speaker 1We all got to start somewhere Right?
Speaker 4But what was happening was you started getting what we refer to now as free Js. I don that's what happens in Orange County, but what happened, like here in Bakersfield, is a lot of these youngsters would buy these 100, $200 little controllers, start cutting and they would just undercut DJ. So like I was DJing with DJ rec, we did que pasa and then it would get slowly like just less and less. Like the promoter I was working with, he was just like okay, we do it for 100 bucks. It got down to that.
Speaker 8I was like nah, I'm not doing it for 100 bucks?
Speaker 4you know, because I I still I did serato, but I took my techniques, my big, heavy techniques, out in there, uh, you know my, my flight cases, yeah, and I would set up, I would put my my needles on my uh and my shirt and 44 sevens on there and I would still use uh, my needles. And that's how I did that. I didn't do controller, I didn't do any of that. And you know, it was like I didn't knock any of the DJs. They were like, oh, I, you know, I use a controller, I use this, that's what you do.
Speaker 4But what kind of was a bump? What bummed me out and what got me completely not completely, but mostly out of the club scene here was people would do it for $100 and drinks. Sometimes they would just do it like, oh, just put my name on the flyer. You know, and it's like you, you wanted to be more known and more famous than have a heart. And that's true with rappers nowadays. Look at how many rappers. They just want to find the next viral song. They don't want to go do all the work, like when you had to shop a deal. You had to shop your record around to get people to want to listen to it or buy it. You know, like NWA started out, they dealt their record from the trunk just to get people to hear this stuff. Now, a couple of you know 20 dollar mics and a soundcloud account and a tiktok video man you could be. You could be world famous in a couple of days, you know, and just a clever little hook.
Speaker 5So but you know what shout out? Those are all the like the new djs, especially like like recently, like last week. I don't know if you guys guys, follow the dmc, yeah rc3.
Speaker 7Yeah, shout out to dj islo. He's only been a dj since 2023 and it's.
Speaker 5It's been in a uh, it's been in a competition two years in a row. Wow, check that out. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1Like yeah yeah, but that that also a lot of old heads won't like this, but that also says that years of experience isn't always everything yeah, if somebody's talented they're talented, I mean.
Speaker 7True, but when it gets to that level you have to work so hard. Yeah, no, to be that good at scratching he's with the right people.
Speaker 5Yeah, his circle was the beat junkies you know, I mean like yeah, so like you can't go wrong with that. Yeah, that's number the right people. Yeah, this circle was the beat junkies, you know. So, like you can't go wrong with that yeah that's number one right there.
Speaker 7So and you have to have the time and oh yeah, I mean when you're that young.
Speaker 5I mean everything that you grab, like everything that you learn, like you want to try it right away. Yeah, you know what I mean like limit limit?
Speaker 1I was gonna ask you, man, you said you mentioned a lot of proms and things like that. You know in the newer music that you're playing because of it, what's the what's the struggle, what's the balance with music nowadays is more explicit than ever.
Speaker 7Yeah.
Speaker 1I mean you don't drop your coochie to the floor and do that you know all of that shit Right? That doesn't fly at proms, man. Everything has to be clean. So it seems like a struggle to be able to take today's music and strip out all of the raunchy and explicit content and still have a song to play.
Speaker 7You bring up a very strong point and, like a year ago, the biggest song in the world for the youth was Carnival by Kanye West. You guys know the words to that right. You ride your bike at Carnival, so to know the words to that right. Ride your like a carnival. So to play that at a school. How much pressure is that when the kids want it? The principals don't Exactly, but you know, if you play that song it's going to take off like a this Is how we Do it, or a Suavemente, and these kids will moss to it and I play it. I play it, but I make sure that there's clean versions and there's super duper clean versions. And then there's an extended clean version that you can do with stems where whatever song part you don't like you can just stem out the vocals and you're good to go.
Speaker 7So yeah, there's a lot of songs like that that are out there, because they like a lot of the Travis Scott stuff and you know the little gutter trap songs, you know. And you know the little gutter trap songs, you know. So it's all about getting the clean versions and okaying it. I don't even know. I don't even know. I'm the wrong person to ask because I will. My friend will be like I'll never play Carnival at a prom and I'll be like dude. I'm tiptoeing that line.
Speaker 1Because then the kids will think I'm a badass. You're a bad or a bad DJ. It's one or the other. You're a shitty dj and you play shitty music, yeah.
Speaker 7Or you're a great dj and you make it work and you make it happen, but the principals are going to be upset and they won't book you again, and that goes bad with the people who booked you to begin with.
Speaker 1That's the rock and hard place that I'm talking about, the rock and hard place of of keeping the gig coming back but also making those kids happy with their trap music. Yeah, here's the next part. Man, my memory is terrible. How do you memorize where that you need to to censor that or or stim it out, or do you? I mean, how do you memorize all these shitty lyrics, man? You?
Speaker 7just got to know music, man, you just got to know music and if you have the clean version you know, you pray that the clean version that you have is truly clean and on some parts.
Speaker 4like I said, you got a lot of backspins on all them songs. Well, I forget what was the shortcut for backspins. Was it like the space bar or something I remember like something you had to do.
Speaker 7I was space bar or something I remember like something you, you had to do, I was like I don't even know.
Speaker 1There was a shortcut man you made it better like command space bar or something. Oh yeah, there's a.
Speaker 4There was a ton of shortcuts before, like these new controllers, got all these, uh, the buttons that do all that for you now?
Speaker 7I remember they used to sell the keyboard.
Speaker 4You remember the keyboard yeah, yeah, yeah, the little sheet they had, yep back in the day I was like what is that is?
Speaker 1that? Oh, the one that lines the keyboard itself. It lays over it.
Speaker 7Yeah, it lays over it. It has all the yellow, it has all the yellow sheets on it.
Speaker 4But you can still do it.
Speaker 5On your Serato you have the question mark yeah, just hit that and then boom. But I'm lazy. I like everything that I can control on my own, absolutely.
Speaker 4I got to say it's tough doing those types of gigs. I'll pass on a prom if I could. If I can't afford to pass on it, I'll pass on it because I do. Sometimes I do like the events for, like the, I just did like an event for a dental company here in town and they had a ton of kids and, like you, couldn't even play. I don't know I forget what song I accidentally put on. It was like a cardi b song, but it was a clean version, but it was so.
Speaker 4The subject matter was there. You knew what they were talking about, you know what she was referring to, even though they didn't say the actual word, that they actually came up and said, hey, hey, can you please change that? Because it's still, she's still talking about, even though she ain't saying the actual word. You can still kind of like oh, shoot, let me do that. So yeah, and it's the innuendo, yeah, yeah, so it's like. So I'm like, shoot, yeah, I better. I just didn't think about it. But it's just tough because what, like I like. Going back to what I said earlier, like you know, you kind of have your, your, your game plan out and how you want to, how you want to mix everything and all the songs. It's like it's well, I can't play this song over there after all. I can't play that song over there after all.
Speaker 8I guess I gotta play baby shark and and coco melon the whole time and it's like it bums you out.
Speaker 4I mean, yeah, we djs we have to. You know we do. We do cater to our clients, we do cater to the people who are paying us, but there is a sense of enjoyment that you have to get from it. You can't be just like, okay, I'm gonna go and do a bunch of gigs that I gotta just be super clean, can't play anything I don't like gotta play to play all these baby shark songs and all this stuff. And it's like okay, this becomes like all right, this is more of a job than anything.
Speaker 7You got to enjoy it. You're not going to play WAP at a five-year-old birthday, or what Heck? No.
Speaker 1I might play no Fun. So I think everybody you know through I've talked to Jules before. Jules has been on the podcast just talking to you guys. Everybody has mentioned some to some extent about taking a break. There being a hiatus in their dj career from when I was djing took a long break and then I came back. How are you guys balancing djing and passion and love for djing and not losing it again to where you're having to take another break?
Speaker 7I'll go first with this one because I think about this stuff all the time. Like I've been DJing consistently for a long time and when I the pandemic forced me to break, I used to. I used to be a resident DJ and I used to be the entertainment director where I would book DJs, but the pandemic brought a whole stop to that, to everything. But we had I had a baby on the way, so it changed the dynamic. Now, you know, I take care of a baby, I take care of a family, I have three kids now and like for me it's like, um, I'm happy with my family and like my wife supports me 100 with this dj stuff. Like I'm not playing at clubs, I'm not getting, I'm not trying to play at those night scenes.
Speaker 3There's a line.
Speaker 7Yeah, unless, like my friend hits me up and he's like yo, you want to come rock with me? Then I'll be like yo, I'll come out, you know. And coming out here, when I met Richie, I met him at NOM and he was like, you know, just come through, come DJ the Condors. And that was a perfect gig for me because my kids could be there and I played all their songs, you know. Going back to what you said, you know you were playing for like kids at a party and like I played for them. That was an enjoyment that I got playing for them.
Adding DJ Candyman to the Conversation
Speaker 7So it's like, how did I handle the break? I don't know, man, I missed it from the aspect of do I still have what it takes to be able to control a room? And that's the biggest part that I miss is like, well, I know I can do it, but I miss having to do it like the way I did it before and I know it's not going to be like that anymore, but like it sucks. But I'm happy with my family, but I still get the thrill of it every now and then, but it's for me. The itch has never gone away and even though I have a family I have loved ones.
Speaker 7Even tonight, like my heart, I text my wife. I was like my heart is home, like I felt bad leaving. Yeah, she puts the kids to bed at seven. But like in the back of my mind, I told Richie, I was like I don't know if I'm going to come, but it just all depends on how my wife is feeling. You know that's a big thing for me because family is a priority. But yeah, you, I have the passion to still want to do it, but right now it's like it's a big burden for me to do it, cause it applies so much pressure on my wife to take care of the kids and be be there present, cause for for her it's not easy to have three kids. So I go on a tangent. But anyways, it's just very difficult to manage and the break is very hard, especially because you still want to do it and your heart, that's your passion.
Speaker 4But, um, yeah, it definitely gets easier when your kids get older yes, it does.
Speaker 7That's where I'm at my our our 16 yearold daughter goes with us.
Speaker 3It definitely gets easier.
Speaker 4They come help set up the photo booth set up the.
Speaker 1DJ booth. We don't have to tell her what to do. She knows what she needs to do. She knows how to hook up XLRs and everything.
Speaker 3It's nice. Our 12-year-olds will be like no, we don't want to go, we're too lazy to go today.
Speaker 1We also pay them, though they're working, but we're paying them so they can learn the value of work and getting paid and learn that exchange and everything. Okay, hey, we're going to take a break real quick, we're going to eat and we'll be back y'all. All right, y'all, we are back, we are live. Who do we have at the table today? Tonight we got John Cota, jc, jc.
Speaker 10Cota knows All sound music. What up B? How you doing man, hey, dance floors DJing Whatever else.
Speaker 1I can get away with, man, anything you can get into, right.
Speaker 10It relates we're Pretty much Special events, weddings, corporate events, and then it's the ASM dance floors. It took a life onto itself, man, but I'm blessed brother.
Speaker 1I'm happy and blessed. It's almost like the. It's dangerous to say this, but is the dance floors has it?
Speaker 10outgrown. Look, there's months yes, exactly what you're saying right now. There's months, and those are the hot months. People don't stop partying, and they have. Usually their events are in the backyard, or whatever the case is. They can't dance on their grass, or at least you shouldn't dance on your grass, yeah, and so that's a quick IG check. Oh, this guy rents dance floors and it's olfacto. It's like oh, but I also DJ, so you can't, as a dance floor rental company, you can't forget to still present the DJing. Yeah, 90% of the time they have somebody that's already talking for them, but what's that? 10%?
Speaker 7Yeah, why?
Speaker 1not, not one gig. Yeah, and the man does it right. The man has sub floors. Thank you, brother, he does it right, he has a sub floor. That dance floor is level, it's smooth, it doesn't tear up your yard, your grass, your lawn.
Speaker 10Learning from my mistakes. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 4Anytime somebody asks me for dance floors, I go right to him.
Speaker 1Oh, I see We've seen him on all of our dance floors too. Every single one of you guys, I really do, who else?
Speaker 8do? We got here. My name's Mike Sanchez. I'm an up-and-coming DJ. I come out here to choose. This is my fourth or fifth time, so I know a lot of these DJs. The guys ask me hey, what's your DJ name? And for many years I've always said you know what? What can I call myself? Because everybody has some crazy names. I wanted to keep it simple, so I've always, anytime I talk to another guy for some reason, I always call him Mr. So, whatever your name is, I call you Mr, and then I say your name.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's a respect thing.
Speaker 8And so I said you know what I'm going to call myself, dj Mr Michael, and it's simple, it's nothing too crazy, but you know I'm going to roll with it and see what it does for me Right now.
Speaker 8Probably for the last year and a half I've been collecting a lot of equipment and just doing backyard stuff for now and I've met a lot of intelligent and good DJs out here in Bakersfield and I guess when you come out in the scene intelligent and good DJs out here in Bakersfield I guess when you come out in the scene you'd be surprised how many DJs are out here in Bakersfield. It's crazy, and I get to see them firsthand here at Shoes and I met a lot of respectable guys out here, so it's cool. I haven't been in Korea. One of these days I will. I'm picking their brains, I'm chopping it up. Hey, what do you have? How do you like to do this? And I think I'm asking the questions that I need to know because then I can go back to my equipment and I can play with it and go from there.
Speaker 1So you're new.
Speaker 8You're newer. Yes, I've been doing this for like two years, but I'm not as good as these guys man, None of us are Time brother, it's just time there's always somebody. Man, I hear these guys play and man these guys. Hey, none of us are Time brother, it's just time. There's always somebody. Man, I hear these guys play and they rock, they rock. So I respect all these guys and, you know, one day I hope I can be as good as them.
Speaker 4Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, man, I think after 20 years, 20-plus years, even if you think you're always going to find somebody better than you, you're always going to see oh, that guy's good, I like what he does. He's doing some good stuff.
Speaker 1And here's the thing, man If not, iron sharpens, iron Amen. You have to play against the best you have to DJ with the best you have to. It's not comfortable. It's not comfortable to have an, an intro to djing skill set and then you've got these other cats out here that are they're scratching and and doing all the techniques and everything else that they got going on. That's great and it's a beautiful art form right, it is um, but it is.
Speaker 1It is about surrounding yourself with a good people, which I'm glad you found good people already. I I did, because some of the some you know Bakersfield DJs they're, they're alone, almost right. And or they're shunned by some of the other DJs in the community right they're, they're like just here's another DJ. You don't get no love, you don't get no respect, but out here you have no egos. Well, at least I don't think you have any egos.
Speaker 8I've heard some crazy stories, but you know what, I guess, once you meet these people in person, you know who the real ones are. That's how I see it. I try to keep all the politics with all that.
Speaker 8There's a lot of it, man, stay away from it and it's crazy because you wouldn't think it is. But you know what I think? Why I respect the DJs more is when they don't bash the other person. What they do all you do this and that, and being out here at Chewy's I haven't seen it and I respect these guys and that's true. You know I'm going to continue asking questions. You know, just one day, maybe that button or that switch might do it for me.
Speaker 1You know what? I'll tell you what we talked about this shortly before you got here, man and I was telling them about. It's not a fear, but the nervousness that comes behind. Djing in front of other DJs, like for me, I can get in front of a wedding party of three, four hundred, I can get on the mic, I can do what I'm supposed to do, I can guide the wedding, I can do everything. And while it is still a little nerve wracking you don't want to mess up, it's somebody's special day, whatever it may be, it's nothing compared to the pressure that I feel djing in front of goddamn rich or jc or anybody else. Man, I don't like it. I don't. I.
Speaker 8I never thought about that because the couple the times that I came up here I've had other ds tell me, hey, you gonna get up there, and I mean it's I want to. But to be honest with you, I'm nervous Because, just like what you just said, you're going up against other DJs that I've seen that man, they know how to work.
Speaker 1You see, here it's a judgment-free zone, if you will Like. Everybody here is just honing their skills. That's Rich's whole idea about having everybody come out to Chewy's so they can keep the DJing and the performances in front of people, Maybe when we're slow during the summer or whenever else. Right, we're still able to get out in front of everybody.
Speaker 1We're still able to DJ in front of everybody. We're able to keep those skills as sharp as we can and or grow them. And the intangibles like reading a crowd, reading a Chewy's crowd we talked about that too. Chewy's is pretty eclectic. You can go anywhere from soft rock to yacht rock to hip hop. You can go all over the place with Chewy's.
Speaker 10Right. I mean you got everybody there, from, I used to say, from the diapers to the Depends, yeah, pretty much what you have in front of Chewy's, yeah, and that's Mexican, you have Samoans, you have Filipinos, you have white guys, you have black guys, it don't matter. And music, in the end, music is music. You know good music, you know how to throw down, you learn how to blend, you pay attention to the crowd. Like gordon said, you get that the dj's superpower, being able to read the crowd. And man, it's, it's lights out and I'll tell you what the adrenaline is. Unlike any anything I've ever tried, I've never. I've never had a high like getting a dance for it, just having that dance floor go on on every whim, every cut, they start singing the songs. The educated crowds are. They're the hardest but they're the best. Yeah, because they keep you sharp, they keep you accountable, because if you mess up, oh, they're going to let you know what's up. G yeah, Hard fucking.
Speaker 6You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 10On top of that, the educated crowds. They're the sing-along crowds, candy. You know what's up with that man, that those? There's nothing better, bro, when you have that awesome crowd that's just rocking the floor and there ain't enough dance floor because everybody's hitting it.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's beautiful yeah, and I'm and I'm thinking back off of my mindset right here about, like I think and this is not to insult anybody's generation, you know you're thinking this way, our generation here, like you know myself, john Richard, you know all these guys Raleigh, we started at a time when everybody was kind of like very, very like we didn't care. Like you know, can I get behind you and check you out? Yeah, absolutely. I remember my first experience with the DJ community here in Bakersfield was when I don't know if you guys remember Club Azul used to be downtown. Yeah, I met a dude named there, named DJ, dj Ironies Ronnie, and I asked him. I said, hey, can I just get behind you and watch what you're doing? He said come back, man, come on. And he didn't.
Speaker 2I was right behind him and I was just watching him, watching him, and this is when I was real green and didn't know nothing nothing, and it was just like yeah, you know, I, I'm not better than anybody but that's some pretty priceless experience, right, and you always remember that.
Speaker 4You always remember you know, like everybody, who's like nobody here thinks they're better than anybody. And I, I might have years experience experience on him, but this guy over here has got years of experience on me and we're all on the same plane. We're all throwing each other gigs, throwing each other business. Hey, you want to come out and just hang out and do a set? Come out and just hang out with each other, just chop it up. And that's what's really cool about our generation, at least in my opinion.
Speaker 4I think that maybe it gets lost in translation. If you know, you're just trying to do it because I just want, like I said earlier, you know, oh, I just want some beers, or I just want 100 bucks. Put me on the flyer, yeah, and I'll take, I'll do it for free. I think that we kind of still have that class and that I didn't say, like you know, we, we really kind of respect not only the crap, but we respect each other, we value, we value everything that we've all kind of went through and we all lift each other up whenever you know, whenever we need something or, you know, for whatever reason. You know, and that's what I like about this generation for sure.
Speaker 10It hasn't always been like that. I'll tell you what, because I started DJing in about 85. So I'm older than you cats, raleigh and you know Jules in the Bay Area, but Arsenal, yesterday he was on Precious for the hometown DJ throwdown that they're doing Drewski. I mean, it's just awesome. That kid's been doing it for like less than five years and his skill set is like crazy. Is he from Bakersfield? Yeah, he's the guy in the white hat. He's a resident DJ at I Me Pa too, but I just bring him up also the cat that's on right now. He's been DJing for less than five years. So you'll see cats that just get it.
Speaker 10It's a combination of love and probably a lot of good music played around the house when they were kids and whatnot, and they just get it. And the technology and everything that is at the fingertips from the youtube tutorials and everything else in between. This is how you use this suado feature. This is how you do this. This is how you do that. Everything's dissected and broken down.
Speaker 10It's like as a older jock. Instead of hating on the younger generation, my responsibility is to keep that generation right here, man, and then eventually I'm just going to see them like damn okay and ain't nothing wrong. It's like all of us are parents, right? You want your son or daughters, you want them to have a better career, a better job, more money, a better house, better cars, more stability. And it's the same basic thing when you're in love with the business, like a lot of us are here career, better job, more money, a better house, better cars, you know, more stability. And it's the same basic thing when you're in love with the business, like a lot of us are here. We want to see those kids. We want to see them take it to the next level. For sure.
Speaker 8That's how I feel For sure as a newbie by picking these guys' brains. I make sure that I ask my questions because anything and everything that I know I learn on my own. I haven't had nobody say, no, do it this way, do it that way. So it's just like what you said DJing in front of somebody else and let's say, the way I talk myself another DJ. I'm thinking in my head man, why is he doing it that way?
Speaker 6So I have that mindset.
Speaker 8But, again, I respect these DJs that can sit there and they give me funerals and that's what I'm out here for. I feel I can be a fast learner. Right now, a lot of what I've learned as a newbie is watching YouTube and there's so many different videos, there's so many different ways. What I try to do is just put it together on the equipment that I have and it'll be easy for me because you know, I know that if I played good at a gig, if one person can come up to me and say, you know what?
Speaker 10Hey, that's priceless man, Especially as a younger John, absolutely.
Speaker 8And I had that one time at a birthday party and it got me another gig and then it got me another gig after that and it got me another gig and then it got me another gig after that. And, like all that does is, it influences me to get out there even more. So I have to push myself. You said that you have to kind of get there and kind of challenge yourself. Yeah, I like challenge, but I don't feel I'm ready to get right by. These guys Like you hit it right on the money and I'm picking their brains. I'm looking at what they're doing.
Speaker 1You know, the cool thing about the mess of DJs, the cool thing about Chewy's, the cool thing about this little brotherhood, if you will, is like we've all talked about. There's somebody that's been doing it longer. There's somebody that's been doing it maybe better, right, and they've all heard or they've all made the mistakes that they're hearing us make when we go up there, right, they'll hear something and they'll hear hey, you didn't bring it in on the one one, or you juggled a little bit, or echo out at a half beat instead of a full beat, or whatever it may be in the future. Right, it's because we've all, we've all made those mistakes already and somebody's educated us or we've learned or we've been taught to to do it a different way, and all of that information trickles downhill. It trickles downhill and it just it eventually gets to you, especially when you're exposed to a, a big group of djs. All right, like when you're at your house by yourself.
Speaker 1If sometimes I I kill my turntables, I just turn them off and I'm like I'm not practicing with the right amount of focus that I should be practicing at. I have lost it. I'm just throwing shit on there. At this point I'm not even fucking trying right. So when I practice, I make sure that I'm very focused for that one hour or whatever it may be, and I'm analyzing everything that I'm doing and you know the tempo, the key, the BPM, the genres, everything else and seeing how it fits and seeing how it works and feeling it and knowing to make those adjustments, Because when you're alone at home, nobody's there to critique you.
Speaker 1Right, Nobody's there to say hey, it sounded pretty good, but I would have threw a reverb and pulled my mids and highs out, or whatever it may be, and that's a cool thing, is it?
Speaker 10we we have, most of us have a way to record ourselves. So, like I had a couple mixes and I have dj homies and I'll throw in the mix, jules is brutal to me. He don't, he don't play with me. He's like oh, that's pretty good, but you should have done this.
Speaker 10With the accent and everything, man, I'm married to a Filipino, right, candy, we can do that, right? Yeah, so that's the whole thing is that you can't be afraid to maybe not afraid, but you can't be too gun shy, right, because you're not growing at that point. You're not growing because you're not allowing yourself to grow. So if you slid me a mix and you said, because you got to open the door, hey, Gordy, listen to this G, tell me what's up, pull the covers back bro and go ahead and show all the ta-da-da-dums.
Speaker 10Let me know what's up. If you have time, make some notes and shoot them to me, bro. I don't want, I don't want anybody to be soft on me with this one and I got I got homies around you. So you know, obviously we're not, yes, men around here, right? We, we want you to be better. We'll answer your questions.
Speaker 10So, whatever it is that you have to ask, as a younger jock and any younger jocks out there, man, if you get somebody that's willing to answer your questions and they have some seasoning and gray hairs and some longevity in the business, they're doing something right. They've done something right. So, absolutely by all means, pick their brain, man, but not only pick their brain. Gather that information and go to work and do something with it, man, you know, turn it into a skill for you and if it doesn't quite work at four, turn it up to five or turn it down to 3.5. Whatever works for you, there's always a flavor that's going to work for you, but there is.
Speaker 10I will correct something that was said earlier there is the right and wrong way to do certain things. There's the creativity and there's the freedom to do whatever else in the mix and everything else in between. But there is a right and wrong way to work. A microphone address a crowd, do this, do that. You know there's a variance of everything. I can stay here for hours, but man, I I love just hearing that you're I'm picking their brain, but don't forget to go back to the lab and put it to work.
Vinyl vs. Digital DJ Methods
Speaker 8Right, right, and as a newbie knowing stuff like that because, like what you said, I don't have nobody watching what I'm doing or hey, you need to do this I wouldn't take it as bad criticism. You know, I would want somebody hey, do it this way, Mike, See how you like it, how it sounds, but I don't have nobody to do that. So I think I'm starting just fresh. I'm starting fresh and, to be honest with you, if anybody DJs, I think it's hard to do. Anybody can just get that fader and have one song playing and just slide it over and do that. But there's so much equipment out there that's so advanced, it's crazy. And, like you were saying, if you want to do that extra, you have to learn it.
Speaker 10It all starts with knowledge of music, man and genres and everything else in between. It all starts with the music period.
Speaker 1Taking a break. Yeah, we're going to take a break. We're going to go take a picture with the mess of DJs, all right, all right, y'all. We're back. We're going to get into a little bit of food, since we're here at Chewy's. We're going to get into a little bit of food and we're going to start rating some tamales, and I'm not saying brand-wise, I'm not saying location-wise.
Speaker 10I'm saying rojo verde, queso.
Speaker 4Yeah, queso puerco, yeah, I like the chicken. They even do chicken.
Speaker 1How about the dessert tamales? I don't like dessert tamales.
Speaker 8Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that. My mom's always made cheese and jalapenos.
Speaker 10Oh man, you ever had cheese, jalapenos and beans.
Speaker 8No, I haven't, I haven't.
Speaker 10I haven't, that's some weight-gaining music right there bro.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4Which one's yours, man, are you talking about my best?
Speaker 8tamale, yeah, for me it's always pork, always pork, because it's OG pork is up.
Speaker 4It was always been the og. That's what the tamale is. My grandma used to make like mountains of them for for easter, fourth of july, christmas, thanksgiving. We just go over there tuesday, wednesday pretty much, bro. It was like, okay, here you go, like she'd have them all in her foil packs. All right, you grab yours, you grab yours in there. You know we always got puerco pork, so that was my go-to my wife.
Speaker 3She doesn't like pork. She.
Speaker 10She doesn't like beef, she only likes chicken, and she's Filipino. She's Filipino, bro, and she doesn't eat pork. Don't tell Jules that.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's always been kind of weird.
Speaker 1Maybe it burnt out on her from childhood Might have been. She's done with it.
Speaker 10We don't eat pork at my house either.
Speaker 4Funny thing is, though stuff so like, they'll do like.
Speaker 1Don't tell me, raisins man no not raisins. Well, they might have.
Speaker 8My mom does that, and she'll give us bags of tamales.
Speaker 10I'd flick them at her. Oh, that's a sweet tamale. It has raisins. Yes, yes, yes, she'll put some pineapple in it as well.
Speaker 8Yep, I just give me the straight cheese, the straight old cheese.
Speaker 10Let me ask you a question, though. Everything else is done, but the sweet tamales are there and you're hungry.
Speaker 8You're going to eat them I have. I'll eat them If I'm hungry.
Speaker 1I'm going to eat them. I'm not going to eat them. You're not going to eat them. That's how much I don't. Gordy b is not gonna crack. He's also white I'll go, hey, I'll go, hey, if I run out. So he's got a little tan.
Speaker 10Now, hey, I'm, I'm more mexican than this, right? Hey, when I do a wedding, I'll do a wedding and say the guy's name is jeff wilson. I tell him, I said, look, let me just break it down to you, jeff, after you get married, you're married latina right here. She's a strong-minded latina. Your name is wilson from now on, so I have some fun with it. Man, yeah, but it's true though.
Speaker 4Yeah, 100 true, that's funny because me, me and john know all the filipino cuisines also so, and then we know how they get mixed. So it's like oh, my mother-in-law's banana lumpia ever had a banana lumpia I have my mother-in-law is a top shelf.
Speaker 10Is it banana or?
Speaker 1is it plantain? No, banana Plantain would be like Guatemalan.
Speaker 8Okay, yeah they're the ones that and.
Speaker 4I've had a Guatemalan tamale, all right.
Speaker 1They're wrapped in banana leaves.
Speaker 3Yeah, they're good Salvadorians, yes, salvadorians also.
Speaker 10The Salvadorian pap. Those are the best they are.
Speaker 8I don't even think I've eaten. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1What is it? The Filipino? I like panse.
Speaker 10Oh bro, I just had some panse before I came here. My mother-in-law Mama.
Speaker 10C she's a top shelf Filipino food caterer. Yeah, she makes food. She just doesn't have the storefront or anything like that. But she she has the same thing my wife does. My wife cooks something. It's ruined a bondigas. I'll never get it at a restaurant again because my wife's a bondigas is 10 times better. Yeah, any filipino food and I'm not really big on filipino food but any filipino food has got to be for mama c, or else it don't taste the same yeah, yeah, like my wife.
Speaker 4okay, I don't want to knock her, but she, she just barely started cooking, so she, she's getting better. But I'm the cook in my family and so is my father-in-law, the Filipino cook, and when he gets down he gets down right. And so one day she wanted I can't even think of the name, it's the soup. It's kind of sour with the tamarind. Oh, I get it, and it has salmon in it, or you could get fish, or you could do chicken whatever. And she said can you make this for me? And I was like I don't know.
Speaker 4so I googled it I grabbed the mix, I just threw it all in there and I got down and it was like tasted she's, like, it tastes like my dad's oh, like she better not tell her dad, so google, that's what it's called my mother-in-law makes that. Yeah, it's like a tart tamarind soup it's got cabbage and it's got different—.
Speaker 2They make it with beef too.
Speaker 4You can do beef, you can do anything, and she wanted salmon, and so I just threw it together.
Speaker 1I thought you were going to give me a horror story where it did not come out.
Speaker 10I was waiting for it. I was waiting for it.
Speaker 4I've been cooking since I was 12. My mom and dad used to work till like eight, nine o'clock, so me and my brothers, we used to have to cook for ourselves, yeah, so we would get in there, like all right, mommy gonna come home and cook, so we go grab the, grab the steaks out of the freezer or something, and we figured it out it was so different man we used to walk home from school lock the door, don't answer it for anybody, don't let anybody in right and your parents will be home at eight o'clock at night or something.
Speaker 10Bro, I walked all over Santa Paula I was born and raised in Santa Paula Walked all over. I mean all hours of the night and nothing, bro, and that was every single day at all ages. I walked to school as a kindergartner and first grader. We walked together with some homies and whatnot and that was fun, you know, you had nobody to trip if you'd walk by yourself, you know, or throw rocks out or whatever, but you can't do that now.
Speaker 10We just did oh no, you get snatched up quick. Oh, and a funny thing about that is and parents will, will they'll echo this what we did? They ain't no way in sam hell that we're gonna let our kids do the same thing. No, you're not gonna go down to the river and jump in. No, no, no, no, you're not walking over there. No, no, you're not walking across the street.
Speaker 1Yeah you're not gonna go to a party or a friend's house and go get drunk in a field instead.
Speaker 10Oh and if I couldn't get drunk in a field, let's just never mind.
Speaker 4Yeah yeah, and I'll be like and I'll be like, because you used to do that, like, yeah, that's exactly why that's why I'm not letting you do it, I know what happens that's why I can see him coming this five miles away a few times right
Speaker 10like bro I was this close to death doing some of that shit sometimes, yeah, and I'm not gonna let my kid do it yeah, yeah, yeah no matter how much fun we had, it ain't gonna be fun if your daughter's doing so hey, I side note man, I love the smell of gas everybody I love gas man, all these hot rods out here you can smell the raw fuel.
Speaker 1It's not electronic fuel injection. It's just dumping fuel out the tailpipe you ever go to the.
Speaker 4Famoso races or the ones that used to be in LA and they used to have the drags. You can smell it so bad the rubber. I took my wife to a NASCAR race one time in Vegas. First time she went and she got all dolled up with makeup.
Speaker 8I'm like why are you doing all that?
Speaker 4I just want to look pretty for you. We take pictures. I'm like you're not going to regret it and we sat like three rows up. Next thing, you know, I'm looking at her and she looked like somebody sprayed pepper all over her face. I said it was the rubber from the tires that come up and it was sticking to her makeup or makeup. That's why you don't wear makeup to these things. I got something similar.
Speaker 10My wife wore heels, heels, oh no to disneyland.
Speaker 1And live to tell about it. Oh no, did she eventually go barefoot? Did she carry them out? I don't think she did.
Speaker 2Oh, my, her slippers. What's wrong? Yeah, you didn't buy her some mickey mouse shoes or something my.
Speaker 10What did I just do to myself?
Speaker 5You know, daisy Duck has some heel slippers right.
Speaker 10I have the princess sets for all three daughters.
Speaker 4Yes, I do know that. Yeah, we went to a club one time and I think my wife had heels on and she said that was a mistake.
Speaker 1She took them off and barefooted it back to the room. Hey, is that not? One of the best compliments on a dance floor, though, is to see people barefoot, see women barefoot.
Speaker 10See a pile of shoes somewhere.
Speaker 4Yeah, they're not even going to stop dancing, do you?
Speaker 10guys say something like that, I do. Do you have the heels joke? I do put it out there. It's time to kick off the high heels, ladies.
Speaker 1Let's it and spin it, make it your own. It works. That's one of those silent um compliments. It's a silent compliment that's one of those.
Speaker 10Yeah, just the, not a nod to the dj. That too, yes, yes, or when?
Speaker 4they're gonna go ready to sit back down, and then you put the next song on and they turn.
Speaker 10That's a huge compliment too. That's good because and I always try to lock eyes with them, because I want to laugh with them, yeah, or I want to wink, or I want to like, I want some reaction and it just all it does is just it fills the gas tank up.
Speaker 1I've been pretty lucky man that sometimes I'll get somebody that comes up and requests something. They request a song that you know they want to hear, or whatnot, and I already have it queued up.
Speaker 10It's going to be the next song I'm about to play. That is the best.
Speaker 1And people have that intuition where they kind of know where a song fits in with another song, even though they're not a DJ.
Speaker 10Have you done that? Uh-huh, yep, it's next. You're going to play it, it's next.
Speaker 1It's next, it's next up. They don't know the program or anything, so it's like yeah they might have thought, you just looked at it's like no I was actually gonna play that next. Oh it's already on the deck. It's already on deck a. I'm I'm ready to transition to it. Right, right, it's not in my prepare, crate, it's nowhere. It's already on deck a. Man, it's already there, I'm beat man, I'm gonna throw.
Speaker 10In fact, you better hit the floor right now. I'm gonna go. Yeah, that's a big compliment right there.
Speaker 4Yeah, I had I had a dude, a youngster, at a party or actually not a party, a Sweet 16 that I did and he was getting ready to come up and ask me to do something. And then I just kind of gave him that, you know, just a minute, because I was right in the middle of the mix and as soon as I transitioned out and threw the next one on, I don't even remember exactly what it was.
Speaker 1He was like never mind.
Speaker 4He said I'm going to. I got a little bit big-headed at that point.
Speaker 2It's a best feeling, man.
Speaker 4It is, it is and I think a lot of these guys are kind of knowing, like they know what they're doing. They know what they're doing. We'll maybe once in a while ask for it. I mean, you still get your gigs where, like, everybody's coming up and everybody has a request.
Speaker 1Or the same female is coming up five or ten times. Play this one, play this one. It's like look, I'm a DJ, not a jukebox, that whole thing, right. I was about to say that. However, I welcome requests to a certain extent. I don't want 20 of them from you, but bring me a couple. Bring me a couple requests, because I might get educated tonight. I might learn about a song I had no idea existed and or that was as popular as it is with people, and then a, and then it's added. It's over.
Speaker 10That's the best right there, all right so you know, let me give you something.
Speaker 10Let me give you something. Um, I I stopped using the term request list and I say suggestion list. Oh, and there's a reason why it separates it's. It definitely separates. What it does is it puts the ball back in our court. Because I'm flat out, it's like okay, gordy Marion, just so you know, this is a suggestion list. Right here, I'm going to play what I played. It's not going to, because people will think sometimes, if they give you a list of 20 songs, they'll think that once the party starts, one is going to lead all the way down to 20. And you have to tell them like that. I always say you have to tell them that water is wet and the sky is blue. So you tell them that. But the whole thing is, you also tell them and you have to say it kind of like this whatever works for you, we remain with full creative control as to how we play, when we play, really everything.
Speaker 8I had a DJ. Tell me, remember. You're in control. I have a buddy that he says when he does requests, he says he'll do it for the last hour of the gig. What do you guys think about that?
Speaker 1It really depends. I mean, it depends on where I'm at genre, genre wise, bpm wise, energy wise, like there's a lot for me that I I put into it as as a as a thought process as to when I'm gonna play that particular song. If I'm in within the bpm range and I'm within the same genre, I'll squeak it in, not, not a problem. But if I'm on country and they're asking for you know, little wayne or something, I'll tell and I'll educate them and I and I.
Speaker 1That was going to be one of the next things I talked about with you guys is do you ever educate your, your clientele? You have to. So sometimes I do and I try to explain people bpm and I'll show them. I'm like, look, currently I'm at 120 bpm. The song that you want me to play is at 87.
Speaker 1It's going to be a little bit before I can get down there and I try to educate them and I try to be as nice as possible, right, but I do the same thing. To a certain extent. It's still a request or whatnot, but I tell them I'll try to get it in. I'm going to be honest with them. I was like like I don't know if this is gonna be the crowd for this song. I don't know if it's gonna work. I don't want to kill the dance floor. I understand you want to hear it and I understand it's big for you, but I got 70 other people on the dance floor that I gotta keep in mind right, like look this, I know you like that song and that's cool and I like it too.
Serato Updates and Clean Music Challenges
Speaker 10it's cool when we're cruising or whatever the case is, or you're cleaning the garage or you're working out and it's cool. But it's just not going to. And here's where I'm 100%, completely honest. It's not going to work for the floor. Good said Lemon, it's not going to work for the floor and you've got to be flat out with them, because if you're not, guess what, they're going to come back. So don't do the. Oh, I'll play it in five minutes, I'll play it in a little bit. When you have no intention of playing it. Just be flat out with them. But be respectful. Though you know, be respectful, that always comes back and bites you in the butt.
Speaker 8So my question to you guys have you ever had somebody get mad at you because you didn't play All the time? How?
Speaker 10long have you been in the business? 20 years, 40 years? Probably over a decade? Oh, bro, come on To answer your question oh yeah, all of us.
Speaker 1Now let me ask you the gender, because mine have been majority females that are not happy that I didn't play something.
Speaker 10Here's the issue with that. I want to preface this by saying my wife's hot Ain't no thing, but the the prettier, the more attractive the female dead bang, the more obnoxious they can be.
Speaker 1It's almost like they have the heart to be to be entitled and obnoxious.
Speaker 10Well, yeah, I'm 100 if it's a female. And also we all know this as men. Look, you can't talk to the females the way you can talk to the cats. It's like, bro, come on man. Sometimes you can just say come on man and they'll blow it off. Some guys will be obnoxious, depending on what they've had to drink or whatever the case is, but yeah, 100% bro.
Speaker 4The females, oh yeah. You'll get the people that want you to plug their phone into your mixer and they say like oh hey, can you play it? Off YouTube. I'm like no, so you know.
Speaker 10That's a good point.
Speaker 4And you got to be grateful with it. Or the guy that paid said I could do this.
Speaker 10No bro, no Sorry no.
Speaker 1What's up? We got DJ JY over here. Jy, we got Nonsense. Richie Ridge.
Speaker 10We got some people coming in man. We got some people coming in Corey and Marion. I just want to say thank you so much, yo. I have a blast every single time bro, you're awesome.
Speaker 1So, yeah, hit me up up anytime you need me to come by the pad and do this again. I got you guys. Thank you guys, yo, yo yo.
Speaker 9Oh wait who we got there, dj Nonsense, yo, this sounds a little dope.
Speaker 1Hey, it's not bad right, you can hear yourself talking in the headphones.
Speaker 9Yeah, yeah, that's dope.
Speaker 1Hey, we got DJ JY. What are you doing, brother? I'm just chilling right now. How you doing man.
Speaker 3I'm good, I'm good, good brother, dj Rich Rich, he's always invited me to come out here, but it's like you know how it is. Yeah, I get busy and it's hard to make it out here You're going to have to get close to the mic, brother. Yeah, DJ Rich.
Speaker 1Rich always invites me, but I haven't been able to make it, but today I was able to make it. That's awesome, man, and it's your birthday. Tomorrow's my birthday. Hey, happy birthday, brother. Happy birthday, I overheard it. That's the only reason I know, man. I ain't stalking you, man. I overheard it. Hey, nonsense man. So how was your set, brother? It was cool, you had fun.
Speaker 9Yeah, I was just messing around, just, you know, just experimenting. Yeah, that's what Richard was telling me. He's like this is spot to. That's all it is. That's all it's here for man.
Speaker 1It's not necessarily to perform for other people, although you do by default, but it's for you to hone your own skills. Yeah, talk shit to some of these other DJs, get some information back and forth, learn.
Speaker 9Oh yeah, I learned so much coming here. I came for about a month and missed one week, but man, even meeting you today and then going backwards, I got lucky. I was like man. I met so much people and it's super crazy. It's a dope night tonight, yeah tonight I think I met the most. I think it's the most I've seen since I've been here, and notable people that are handling a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1That was a pretty big picture we took. Yeah, there was a lot of djs over there, man.
Speaker 3yeah, it's a pretty big picture yeah, I noticed that I wasn't even expecting that, I just came like to visit, but that was a great photo. Rich, rich has been growing this thing, man.
Speaker 1He's been trying to bring everybody out, trying to include everybody. Originally it was kind of like rich's friends, right, like if you were directly friends with Rich, that's who everybody thought could come out. But it's always been A. Every DJ can come out, man. Rich does not discriminate. Man, yeah, he don't. I don't know if Rich has any enemies.
Speaker 3I don't think so.
Speaker 1In the short time I've known him?
Speaker 3Nah, I don't think so. I think I would have heard about it, yeah.
Speaker 9Nah, he's a good guy. He's a good guy. No, one time they tried to take his tip jar though. Oh what, yeah, he'll tell you though, hey, but then he like yeah, they got it back.
Speaker 1Hey, you're going to have to jump in here, man. We just heard something. What did you hear? I heard somebody tried to take your tip jar once.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, man, I was feeling good that night too. And yeah, some guy was already kind of being annoying out here. He was already kind of like bugging the ladies.
Speaker 1They were kind of like being hey, but who's ballsy enough to take another man's money, right you?
Speaker 2know, and it wasn't like I know he was. I think he was trying to be funny, but he never even made eye contact with me. You know what I mean? He felt like, like, like if I'm looking at you and this is your tip jar, right, and I'm like this Lamar, none of that. It was just like, and he put it real close to his chest and to his stomach. I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa and I yeah, he was already being annoying to the girl he was dancing to random ladies, right that he shouldn't have been dancing to like that.
Speaker 9So he has no enemies. But one time some dude was tripping.
Speaker 2Try to take a step, jordan, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't have enemies.
Speaker 1Hey, jay, how long you been in the game, brother, since I was 14. So I've caught up with you on social media. I only know you from social media.
Speaker 2This up with you on social media. I only know you from social media. This might be the second time I've ever met you in person. Um, big b-boy hip-hop, big b-boy hip-hop.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah he could dance on his head right now. He could spin. He could do the head spin right now. Yeah, I actually. Uh, I started off as a b-boy and then transitioned into a dj, all right.
Speaker 1Yeah, all right, I mean, but that was pretty hand-in-hand right. It's not too far apart, they're kind of synonymous right DJing and hip-hop and b-boying.
Speaker 3It's part of the four elements. Same culture Okay, yeah, all right, same culture. There's the same dynamics, whatever you practice. And who was your crew? Boys in Style BIS? I think they're a whole crew. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to give them a shout out. Come on, baby.
Speaker 2Shout them out, brother.
Speaker 1I asked because I knew, but I'm giving you the opportunity to fucking put it out there. Man, yeah, nonsense, man. When did you start, brother DJ yeah.
Speaker 9Oh, probably like 2019. I started doing it like I bought a little controller and then during the pandemic I really uh that's when I started trying it honed in on it. Yeah, I learned I was trying to do videos on the side and then I started djing because I'm 33. But when I was in my 20s I used to make beats, all right record on pro tools and shit like that and um. So, yeah, yeah, the hump met my uh, my baby mama's uncle had a DJ controller at one of the parties and he said, hey, check it out.
Speaker 9I looked at I was like, oh, this is pretty dope never crossed my mind ever all right. And then, sure enough, you know, I just got like a little Serato. What, what was?
Speaker 1the hook. What hooked you, what? What made you fall in love?
Speaker 9honestly, when I did my first wedding and I realized that I could play music and make a living and I made a little bit of money- yeah. And it was like you know, I used to work at McDonald's and I worked for the school and I was like bro, I was like whoa, I was like because I love music, and I never realized why. And then so when I started DJing, I was like maybe this is why you know, and then it started working out.
Speaker 3I don't even speak Spanish.
Speaker 9So my first wedding it was a small one in Wasco and I had to play Spanish music I pulled my baby mama's family and I was like everybody sit down, we're going to write down all the songs, like we're going to figure this out, like what's this? And I was trying figure it out and that's what I did from the beginning, just like writing shit down, and and it just kind of snowballed, you know. Then I started doing like pop-ups during the pandemic. Um, you know, when they did pop-ups and there was a lot of uh like little businesses selling shit, everybody was doing their thing in the parking lot yeah, and I would pull up like hey, y'all need a DJ, do it for free.
Speaker 9Next, the next time they're like well, you know, we want you back, break me off. I was like pay me 200 bucks yeah, you got Break me off. I was like pay me 200 bucks yeah, you got to break me off. Everybody pitched in and that's how it kind of started.
Speaker 9And then I was handing out cards and I was like fuck, this is how I'm going to do it, you know, and even then I didn't think it was going to be a forever thing. And then, sure enough, me and my baby mama split, because of the DJing because she didn't really like it.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's a hard thing, man, it's a hard thing.
Speaker 9I looked at her in her face. I'm like yo, I can make money off this and I think it could really work. Yeah, and she wasn't feeling it, you know, and I was like we didn't break up because of that. But for me I was like yo like so when I was single that's what I thing.
Speaker 1How, how, uh, something, uh, I'll even call it traumatic right. Losing somebody in your life, right, somebody that you planned on being with your whole life, or whatever it may be, um can lead to something that you hang on to, like djing or the passion for it, or because it was there for you when nothing else was. Yeah, it was there for you. It was always there the controller, the music was always there in the house for you to jump on and start playing and do something with.
Speaker 9Yeah no doubt, yeah. So to have that escape, you know, because you know we all listen to music. But then say, like, when you start doing gigs, and then you're playing these gigs and then you're ending the night and you're alone and you know how the DJ life is, so you start, you just start, you start learning how to live with your emotions and how do you put your emotions into the sets and how do you, like, feed into it. You know, and I, like I always watched, I was watching Quentin Tarantino. I like him a lot, and he said that a lot of his movies in the beginning, even now, I guess. But he would put in whatever's going on in his life. He would kind of somehow tie it into the movie where he released it.
Speaker 1In that sense, it makes it more real for him. Authentic, yeah, so when?
Speaker 9I seen that I was like, okay, I like that kind of art in that sense. So I was like, let's do that with the gigs You're playing this country what's that one?
Speaker 1the Neon Moon? Oh yeah, neon Books and Gun man, neon Moon.
Speaker 9And I didn't know these songs. So I started DJing, sort of learning all these different genres, and I'm like whoa, this is a lot of good music. And it started speaking to me. I'm like yo, these songs are hard. I'm like, okay, now I know what's going on. Even at the end of the same things you're going through and you just gotta like figure out how to like bring it, like make that connection, I guess yeah, hey jay, where are you at nowadays, man?
Speaker 1what are you doing? Where can we, everybody find you at, man well, so this is what I told rick.
Speaker 3Like people don't see me these days, you don't even see me post on my normal feed anymore, because I I told him I'm in the underworld.
Speaker 1No, I only see stories from you. Every once in a while I'm in the underworld now, you already know what, what industry that is.
Speaker 3Yeah, uh, but you can find me at teaser, pleaser. All right, yeah.
Speaker 8But you can find me at Teaser, pleaser. All right, yeah.
Speaker 1So, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3Like I can't post that stuff on my feed.
Speaker 1Ain't nothing wrong with that brother, nothing wrong with that man. That's a little lit what you work at.
Speaker 9Teaser, pleaser.
Speaker 1That's lit. All he sees is TNA every day, man Well you DJ there right yeah, dang. I'm going to go say what's up next time? I know him now. How about you, brother? What are you up to man? Where can people find you at man?
Speaker 9They can find me on Instagram at All Raw Music. That's my little company. You can find me at the Clark County Fairgrounds at the end of the month with Cardinales Unidos, we're doing a car show. You can find me at El Portal on Fridays from 10 to 2 in the morning.
Speaker 1Is Eddie over there?
Speaker 9No, okay, no. No, I met Eddie before, but over there it's like T-Flow on Tuesdays, fucking DJ Flush right now on Thursdays. Oh yeah, flush, that's who I meant. I meant. Flush, they're both clean-cut dudes so I can see how you got that yeah, and I always see him at Costco man.
Speaker 1He works over at Costco so when we're there I see him, I'm like, hey man, what's up.
Speaker 2Yeah, flush is like one, for sure.
Female DJs and Bakersfield Scene Issues
Speaker 1This dude too, JC man, he's all over here hobbling around. Man, he's going to listen to this. Later I'm going to be making fun of him hobbling in the door right here with his crutch he has like a nice sheepskin cover on the thing so it doesn't hurt his underarm.
Speaker 9Yeah, it just makes you think, you know, like now, like you do dj-ing, and I didn't think like you got to protect your hands, you got to protect like getting hurt, like if you can't stand then like your hands, your wrists, yeah, yeah and I never thought about that and then I started seeing things happen.
Speaker 1Other people I'm like oh hey, you see jewels over there with a goddamn wrist brace on and I'm like hey, those are your money makers, man yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9So I was like no.
Speaker 1So it's weird, like I said just things that you don't think about, yeah, and you start realizing like, oh, these all play factors take them for granted a little bit when they're, when it's there, and then when it's not, you're like, oh shit, it's like your pinky toe. You don't think anything of your pinky toe, but once you've stuffed that motherfucker or something, man, you be hot, you be limping All that matters, for sure Under balance.
Speaker 1What else do you got going on, jay, you growing, you doing anything extra man? What are you working on, brother?
Speaker 3Pretty much the same thing. I work at Cheez-It Pleaser like four to five days a week, seven hours each shift, so I'm pretty occupied with that Every once in a while I'll take an outside gig. All right If the money's right.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely. You understand what I'm saying. Yeah, if it makes sense, are we PG Dollars and cents? Nah, we can say whatever the fuck we want to say. Man, I'm not going to fucking take no shit.
Speaker 9You know what I mean.
Speaker 1Like you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 9yeah, like I just hey, no, I appreciate you being, but I appreciate, but we're good we can say whatever the fuck we want to say on here, man.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, if the money is right yeah, it has to be man, dollars and cents, it has to make sense. Yeah, yeah, it's all right, man. What do you plan on doing in the future, man? What do you see in in five years, man?
Speaker 3um, aside from djing, because you know I've been in this for a while now. Yeah, I'd like to teach, oh, wow, abroad. Okay, what is your nationality? Um, I'm filipino.
Speaker 1You're filipino, yeah, all right. So is that what you're thinking about going to teach?
Speaker 3no, uh, they got this thing called a tubble program and you can teach English abroad and you get to travel to different countries. So that was my way. That's lit. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's lit as fuck.
Speaker 7That's a way of traveling brother.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's a way of traveling is teaching English abroad.
Speaker 3So, after this whole DJ game, I think that's what I'm going to lean into.
Speaker 1That's awesome Nonsense. How about you, brother? What do you see in four or five years man?
Speaker 9In five years I'll be what? 37? I see myself doing a lot of weddings, a lot of quinceaneras, making good money off that, elevating my equipment game. I see myself putting my brand out there and becoming one of the top peoples out here in Bakersfield and then hopefully be able to branch out to LA or Fresno or different places and just keep the snowball, just keep it going to see how far it can go. You know how it is life's not promised, so I'm just like you know I'm at the point of no return.
Managing Requests and Reading the Crowd
Speaker 1I got, I got, no other, uh, you know I work to fall back on, yeah, I work at the school.
Speaker 9You know I'm a, I'm a lunch man. You know I'm an assistant manager, so I use that for the benefits. But besides that, um, so I'm just trying to figure out what I can do. You know where I fit in and and what else is out there.
Speaker 1That's good man, that's wise brother, that's wise Like. I work for a healthcare organization, I work for the hospitals, I do programming and IT, and then I do this man, podcast, djing, whatever. Just have fun with it, man, but always trying to have something, multiple streams of income. I just don't trust anything, man, and so I feel like if one area is down, another area will be up. So we're good, you know, just have something going all the time. Man, what do you think? What is your plan to expand into other counties? So what is your plan to get into Fresno County and, like Oxnard or you know other places? Social media seems the best way right off the bat. Everybody has access to it. We can join Oxnard Wedding Group, oxnard DJs you know any of the other pages, right?
Speaker 9How are you trying to get out there into these other communities, just the same way? I came out here just just networking and you know, in every situation, everywhere you go, there's always things that you don't know, unwritten rules and people you don't know. And but not just that, but just you know social media is a big part of it and putting out what like, so like my image online where, like, if you push hard enough, hopefully, and be creative, creative enough that it'll be undeniable, it'll be like like there's a lot of clubs and stuff that I feel like that should have got me and you know I'm saying like. I feel like if I push hard enough and showcase what I do and keep elevating everything, not just just the DJing that one day they have to hit you. It has to happen, you know.
Speaker 8But yeah, I realize social media.
Speaker 9Like I've been on TikTok a lot lately and I've been going through the Chicano route more and I noticed that crowd really fucks with me. So I've just been trying to push for that, yeah. And I've seen a guy say you've got to go where you shine, and I feel like that's where I shine in those kind of lanes. So I'm just trying to, you know, eat up that lane, all right. And you know, I'm saying like a lot of it is just who you know and it sucks, but that's really how it is what what genre do you think you're?
Speaker 9you're weak in uh, my weakest genre is like corridos and banda but besides mine's definitely zapatillados, yeah, well, that one's easy. Yeah, I can't even say it, but it's, you just gotta know those key ones. But those other ones though, but everything else like yeah, you're pretty good.
Speaker 9Yeah, I feel like um you know I do a lot of the old school gigs. I like that a lot. That's why I like playing here, because you know I can play anything 80s you could. You know I'm not saying you can go anywhere you want, yeah. And it's amazing because a lot of other spots are just, you know, cumbias, reggaeton, hip-hop, top, whatever you know. It's like you're limited, you know. And then my thing is I like to get songs that are not on the record pools, yeah people know, though they're like oh sure you know so that that's one of a dj's jobs and duties is to expose people to new music.
Speaker 9Yeah, it's tough nowadays, though, because you know um, I hear djs that are veterans, you know, and they tell me, before pandemic, it was like a whole different world and where you could do more of that.
Speaker 9And then now you know, so I, I don't know, I wasn't there yeah so I wonder you know, because I see now how people are, where you can be playing the song they want and they're still putting it in your face you're like bro I'm playing it right now it's on and they don't realize it. You know it's so weird. How about you, jay?
Speaker 1it's crazy what. What's your favorite genre to spin and your?
Speaker 3least I'll tell you right now if you want to make it in this industry, you have to be diverse. Yeah, open format. You'll never make it being one-dimensional, I don't give a fuck if every DJ hates me right now.
Speaker 8That's why I'm here.
Speaker 3Everyone wants. This interview right now is going to be valuable to everybody, even though they're not going to like me. You have to be diverse to make it Like in Delano. If you can't spin in Spanish or Asian music, you're not gonna make it there. Yeah. I'm from Wasco, so I feel you on that I'm from Arvin, but that's the approach I always took. Like in the beginning I was kind of one-dimensional, like back in the day. But then you gotta be like diverse if you want to. You have more opportunities that way.
Speaker 3So you got to ask yourself like I feel bad fucking saying this shit right now now do it. Do it if you want to make it, you got to be diverse because there's so many people that only have one set, like a one set genre. There's only one.
Speaker 1Steve Aoki and one Dylan Francis, and you know one Marshmello, and that's their genre and that's it, and they have made that successful. But that's very, very few and far between. It's very rare you have to.
Speaker 3The probability of you getting gigs. You gotta compete with all those people.
Speaker 8Yeah, that just have one genre, you know what?
Speaker 3I mean, yeah, but if you expand yourself, then you know the sky's the limit. You know what I mean? Yeah, I'm gonna be honest right now, like the thing that I do is like if I have a weakness, I listen to whatever station or whatever it might be, wherever my weakest point is, and dive into it, yeah, and learn it. Pull through things that people don't want to do, does that make?
Speaker 1sense? Yeah, because it's not fun for them or enjoyable and they want to stick to the genre that they know and it's hard to go listen to a bunch of country music that you may not enjoy very much, but you need that in your belt, exactly, yeah, and that opens the doors for a lot of things.
Speaker 3That's all I can say. I'm not going to say it's a secret, but if people think it's a secret, but you know, if people think it's a secret, then I'm revealing it right now.
Speaker 1That's the way.
Speaker 7I do it yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think that's how most of these DJs here are. I think most everybody here is pretty open format. That's good. That's good. Hey Lengu, we got some gummies from her.
Speaker 3Shout out to her Thank you, girl, appreciate you, yeah, cause I don't really see a point If I already Like I know, you know I love this song by the way, yeah, we all know it, but I know it already.
Speaker 8I don't need to practice it. Yeah.
Speaker 3You understand. Yeah, if I already know it, then I'm gonna go practice something that I don't know, that you don't know, and then I'm gonna, because, if not, you're not going to get any better.
Speaker 1Exactly, you're already there. You've already played this song. You already know how to mix it. You know when to mix it in, when to mix it out. You know all the details about it.
Speaker 3You get stuck is what I'm saying. You get comfortable, yeah, you get comfortable, and you get stuck, and then years pass by. You could have used those years to yes, to expand your horizon.
Speaker 1I'm going to get hated for this fucking interview.
Speaker 3I love it.
Speaker 9I'm dropping gems, y'all. I'm a sponge.
Speaker 3I call myself SpongeBob, but I love all these songs, though, but there are so many DJs out there that you'll go listen to their set and they're just playing the same shit all the time.
Speaker 1Oh, it's regurgitated Constant.
Speaker 3Yeah, you know, like you know the ppms and everything, what what goes next, like it's. You know what I mean, but uh, it really depends on whatever the crowd is and the atmosphere and all that stuff.
Speaker 9Yeah, that's what I learned too is, you know, because everybody is playing the same stuff, you know the same music. Everybody you know knows, and so it's like how you play it, that's how I realized, but some of the great ones even like locally, you know, I mean it's like they play it their way and it works for them and I feel like some of them go into their history folder and they play the exact same shit on a certain date and they just fucking play.
Speaker 1They just they don't think about it, they don't try, they don't put any effort, they don't try to sprinkle anything like like pop it up, it's the same.
Speaker 9It's the same repeated, set over and over, especially when they have a residency at some spot, and you know, and because I had one one time and I got to experience that for a little bit and I was like, oh, some girls like you play the same shit all the time. I was like, oh, you're right, and then from there it was something that had scrambled my brain for a while, Like you know, and then like, so, like we're seeing, like Regulator, Like you know, I've watched him a lot of times and what I see him do is like he can play Blow the Whistle a different version every night, with some kind of extra bullshit.
Speaker 1A different remix on it.
Speaker 9Where he either goes out of it a certain way or whatever Late work plays or whatever so I've seen people do that. I'm like that's smart too. You know where it's different, but you're still going through, or even a cumbia remix or some shit.
Speaker 1Like me, I don't play, Not Like the original version but I'll play the cumbia version because I feel like it still has the sing-along factor, and it has, you know, everybody.
Speaker 9It has a cultural factor for multiple cultures yeah, absolutely things like that. You know. I notice like how do you like you know?
Speaker 1make it like fresher, I guess, and it really does seem like mashups and shit have become all the rage. I love that?
Speaker 9yeah, I love that. I love that, yeah, especially when it works.
Professional Networking and Supporting Others
Speaker 3What it is is Okay. Can I say it? Yeah, you can't get comfortable with sets. I have no set. Like you start off with sets, it's off the top. Yeah, you start off with sets, but ultimately, like the way I was taught, basically you have to drop the right songs at the right time. Yeah, that's what it is. Absolutely you have to drop the right songs at the right time. So it doesn't matter what category it is. Whatever's in front of you. You don't need a set, you know no.
Speaker 3Just drop the right songs at the right time. That's facts. Read the crowd. That's like the second phase, when you first start DJing. You'll have the set and this is where you can tell. This is where you can definitely tell it's not a set. I could look at someone right now. I'll know. Whatever they're looking at, it's like okay yeah, he knows. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1That's facts. Who's your favorite DJj in bakersfield? Who's your favorite bakersfield dj other than yourself?
Speaker 9right. Yeah, oh, my favorite bakersfield dj this period is my boy t flow. Okay, I think t flow low key like I, so whenever ever. You know, I took my story earlier, my story how I got in, so I'm got my teeth whitened by this girl and then I told her her boyfriend was a DJ and he knew the night scene and I was like, how do I get in the night scene real quick, so fast forward? That guy's like hey, you want to get in the night scene?
Speaker 9Koda El Portao, meet my boy T-Flow, named Trevor. You go over there and he'll tell you what to do. You go over there and he'll tell you what to do and I go. He doesn't tell me anything. I just stand there for a whole night and I never used to go out, so it was new, but I watched him. I see every DJ in Bakersfield from the beginning to end. You know what I mean. And my favorite is T-Flow. I feel like it's not that he's good, but the crowd follows. Am I because he's young? I don't know, because I'm a little older than him, and so it's weird. But it's a weird dynamic, you know, when you're with your peers partying, so you know of course it's going to turn up, so it's crazy. But my favorite, though, is T-Flow.
Speaker 1How about you, jay? Who's your favorite DJ besides yourself? Man?
Speaker 3Myself number one. I mean we all have to love ourselves, yeah.
Speaker 1I love me, I love me, I would like to thank me first and foremost.
Speaker 2I've got a lot.
Speaker 3It's hard for me to say because I feel like, if this is heard, I might be missing someone.
Speaker 5Yeah yeah, throw some names.
Speaker 9Gordon's just trying to get somebody in trouble.
Speaker 3Send people up. I've always liked DJ Radeem and he knows this. He's an. Og and he knows what time it is. I like Richie, rich, I like you, I like what you're doing. I appreciate it, man. No, because I like watching people that are like me that know how to fucking hustle yeah, I'm saying get shit done, you know hey, are you still playing marbles? I haven't been, but I think I might still be a great.
Speaker 2I was watching practice man yeah, but there's a lot of. I think every DJ that's in the scene though is great.
Speaker 3Everybody's got their own style and stuff. But well, going back to your question though, like I like what you're doing. I like what Richie Rich is doing Because you understand that. You understand how to make it.
Speaker 1You know what I mean. It's a lot of work. Yeah, I think I'm going to put this out there, man, a couple of my favorite DJs Got to be Dos Muchos. Love that dude, I love Dos. I love his tablism. I love his abilities. I love the art he's a cool dude. What Babe.
Speaker 9Dynamite.
Speaker 1I enjoy Dynamite.
Speaker 8I enjoy Dynamite too, man, I enjoy.
Adding DJ Jules to the Conversation
Speaker 1Dynamite man. I enjoy at this point in time, you know, other than people's music selection and stuff like that. I like the artistry, I like the tablism, I like all the flair right, the showmanship. I'm into the showmanship at this point. You know we can all play music, we can all blend music pretty well. I like the showmanship. You know Rich is doing great things for the DJ community, I think you know, bringing people out here to Chewy's and bringing them out to the Condors and letting them DJ at the Condors, opening them up for the Condors, Even Eagle Mountain. Rich will let you go up to Eagle Mountain and DJ. He gives people a lot of opportunity to play in front of different crowds. So I like what?
Speaker 9Rich is doing.
Speaker 1All right man, I think we're going to wrap this podcast up y'all. We're at an hour 56 long podcast.
Speaker 9I see a girl on the dance floor. I'm trying to go real quick.
Speaker 1Love y'all.
