On Being A DJ
The most fascinating thing to me at a house party in college was the bright lights, colors, and buttons of my friend's DJ deck. I took to DJing fast. What started as a lesson on how to work the board turned into back-to-back sessions that lasted hours. I was having so much fun that I reached out to a venue to see if they'd let me play.
My first gig was in the basement of Fenway Johnnies, now closed, in Boston. I was hooked. Over a few weeks, I made my way upstairs, and moving up, both literally and figuratively, got other DJs noticing my sets. I started reaching out to other bars and began playing across Boston, connecting with DJs and management just to get booked. Under a year into my career, Big Night Event Group ran a contest for a shot at opening the biggest venue in town. Pushed by friends, I submitted a mix. I didn't win, but I caught the group's attention, and not long after, I became one of their resident DJs, playing huge clubs for big names.
While at Big Night Event Group, DJing got a lot harder. It became less about the transitions of the music, a defined skill shared across all of their DJs, and more about the curation of the night. I was an opener at these clubs, and my job was to get the crowd excited for the headliner. Each venue and headliner had a different energy, so every set was different too. The first hour was always about reading the room and seeing what music stuck. I learned a lot about reading a crowd, thinking on my feet, and knowing when to change course. By the end of every night, I got everybody's hands up.
What I submitted to the competition
Full set on SoundCloud ↑