DJ Nightstalker: LA Drum & Bass Legend + USC Professor Chris Muniz
Chris Muniz, aka DJ Nightstalker, has been enchanting crowds with his signature sound since the late '90s, where he started alongside heavies like Photek and DJ Rap. From warehouse raves to massive festivals like EDC Vegas and Nocturnal Wonderland, his impact on the drum and bass scene is undeniable.
For decades, he’s been an influential electronic music journalist and essayist and his writings have been published in outlets like Bassrush, Insomniac, URB, XLR8R, ATM and Kmag. He’s also a professor at University of Southern California, and holds a PhD in creative writing and literature. You can find a link in the show notes to his influential essay, How to Talk to Your Kids About Drum and Bass.
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Chris and host Andrew Vontz met in the MFA writing program at CalArts in the late ‘90s where they studied with the storied cultural critic Dick Hebdige and witnessed many interesting acts of music and art. Early in that journey, in Los Angeles in 1997, Chris steered Andrew into his first paid journalism assignment with Vice, gave him his first DJ’ing tutorial on a pair of Technics 1200s and became a lifelong friend.
In this episode, Chris joins Andrew for a discussion on navigating the LA music scene, the challenges of striking harmony between his roles as a professor, husband, father, and music maker.
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Choose the Hard Way is a podcast where guests share stories about how hard things build stronger humans. Sign up for the newsletter to get the story behind these stories updates and more. If you’d like to suggest a guest or say hello, DM @hardwaypod on social or send an email to choosethehardway@gmail.com.
Host Andrew Vontz has spent more than 25 years telling and shaping the stories of the world’s top performers, brands and businesses. He has held executive and senior leadership roles at the social network for athletes Strava and the human performance company TRX. His byline has appeared in outlets like Rolling Stone, Outside magazine, The Los Angeles Times and more.
Today he advises and consults with businesses and nonprofits on high-impact storytelling strategies and coaches leaders to become high-performance communicators. Find him on LinkedIn or reach out to choosethehardway@gmail.com
In This Episode:
Chris Muniz
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Soundcloud | Mixcloud | EDC Mexico
INSOMNIAC: How to Talk to Your Kids About Drum and Bass
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Andrew Vontz LinkedIn
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Chris 1:18
Yeah, that was actually concrete jungle was his Oh, concrete jungle. Yeah, yeah. But concrete jungle was at Spaceland respect, which is, respect still is running. It's one of the longest running weeklies in the United States, ever. I think there's one in like, Seattle that beats it just by like, a year or something like that. But yeah, those are the kind of the cornerstones of the LA Jomon Bay scene. But even before that, right before, because I met you, you were there at the start of DJ knightstalker. But before that, I was like you I was just a fan into music. You know, I had arrived in LA in like, early 90s. Right when the rave scene was kind of kicking off and my girlfriend at the time would take me to these raves in LA and it was just blown my mind. You know, I had no idea what these spaces were. And I grew up in Colorado and then here I am at some janky warehouse in East LA, you know, and at that time, the scene was actually even segregated a little bit right there was like a Latino Eastside scene and then there was a kind of wider West Side scene or in the valley scene. And so it was like Latin underground and DJ Humpty vision and people like that, you know? And it was just like house music techno things like that. And but I think right around 95 is when I think I got turned on to diesel boy mixtape supreme. And I was just like, what, what is this? You know, what is this sound? What is this? I don't even know what this is. You know, it was like everything. It was like reggae and punk and break beats and hardcore and techno all mixed into one big lump, you know? And so, yeah, I just sort of got into it from there and then started, like you said, partying and going out going to, you know, figuring out who these people were with these artists were the UK as the sort of Motherland so listening to all the kind of pirate radio broadcasts and mixtapes coming out of there as well.
Andrew Vontz 3:11
In what was your musical tastes prior to getting to Los Angeles?
Chris 3:17
I think so. My dad was big into music. So we, you know, and he had a huge vinyl collection, which I've been lucky enough to inherit. And so, just growing up, I listened to everything from like, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to you know, soul and funk and average white band and more, and, you know, Teddy Pendergrass, all that kind of stuff. You know, my dad had a really eclectic music taste, as well. So, and his record collection, made me just want to, you know, consume and collect music, too. So, you know, I probably got like, Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation in there, as well as Huey Lewis in the news or something, who knows, you know, like, I was still into pop music. But I loved like those kind of Saturday night, Sunday night dance mixes, you know, to kind of thing and be like, Oh, what's this 12 inch version of Bobby Brown, you know, or whatever it is, you know, you find a vinyl that had like, the club mix of it, you'd be like, Whoa, that's crazy, you know? So So yeah, so when I came to LA, there's a lot of record stores, you know, at that time, even though CDJ CDs technology had taken off for the mainstream DJing was still for a long time until the early 2000s. Mainly vinyl, you know, so you get these special, you know, white label releases out of the UK, you start falling artists and labels and you buy like the middle hits boxset and that kind of thing. You just sort of kind of self educate yourself in a way. You know, you'd hear it in a mixing back. What's that record? You know, I got to figure out what that record is or who that is. And yeah, it just sort of evolved that way.
Andrew Vontz 4:48
In when you were a kid, when would you all listen to music? When would vinyl be on in your house and what was kind of the space that it had in your day to day in your life?
Chris 5:00
Yeah, I had my own little record player, I can still see it's like a little blue record player like a 12 inch would fit, like be bigger than it you know, you get like a little 45 rpm. I mean, yeah 45 RPM, the little 10 inch one listened to those my first you know, like when I would get good grades I get stuff you know so my first record was like the Star Wars theme and then on the back was the cantina song you know, I started that in middle school I got like all A's, or or na on something that maybe I wasn't doing good. And then I got my mom bought me the, you know, I gotta pick the record she had no idea was going on. But it was like, Prince's 1999, double, double vinyl LP kind of thing. So I always had my own music, but it was my mom and dad, they used to go out and dance all the time, right. And in my mind, it was like, they're going out to like a disco and like, I don't know, like in Carlitos way or something like that, like something that looked like New York or something, you know, who knows, though, for the reality now that I'm older, I'm like, really janky bar or something. But they're getting dressed up going out my dad we're putting music on. So we'd always have music, my dad loved to kind of work outside in his shop music always constantly running. Sometimes we just sit down, I remember listening to like, Dark Side of the Moon front to back just sitting there. Like, you know, he loves stereos too. So you'd like to like a kind of, you know, we'd make sure there was stereophonic sound coming in both sides and just listen to the whole thing. And yeah, so you know, that connection to my music kind of goes back to that, that love as well. That's
Andrew Vontz 6:31
one of the funny things about the proliferation of digital technologies. And the digital listening experience now is whatever, you might have a bunch of Bluetooth speakers in your house or you get in your car and listen to it. But most people don't have that. The stereo Yeah, right. Like, like my father in law. He's got in the barn. He's got an old it's probably from the 80s. Like the tall, tall speakers. There's an old record player and their equalizer with like, 25 different things. Yeah. It's just a fun way to listen to music that kid most kids probably aren't getting exposed to anymore.
Chris 7:09
Yeah, yeah. When I was, you know, I can't remember what age I was. But one of my Christmas presents was a boombox, you know, and it was like, two, two cassette player, you know, two cassette decks, side by side, you know, you could record you know, things and play things, but also it had the equalizer. And then of course, I hadn't, you know, in my stereo set, it was like an amp. And then you'd have the record player. And then you'd have, you know, my uncle had like this crazy one that had like, a whole separate, like five separate components and let you know, so yeah, it was it was. It was pretty cool.
Andrew Vontz 7:40
So to fast forward to today. Yeah, you're out there. You're playing in the United States, you're playing in Mexico, you're probably playing other places internationally, you've been part of the Red Bull Music Academy. What role does music play in your life? Today? And where are you at on your journey as a DJ? And I don't even know if you produce or not? Or what's going on with that?
Chris 8:02
Yeah, no, it's been a huge. I mean, it's hard to believe it's been decades, right. So when I knew you, and at CalArts, back in the day, when when a horse and buggies were still around, you know, I had that I had a internet radio show, right? They had to like a slot. I would play records. I didn't know how to beat match. But I would play all those records that I had sort of been collecting. My time slot put me right around midnight on a Thursday in the UK. And so I play like old fototec record, you know, kind of horrible old them that I mean, then it was fresh, now it's old. You can play, play it to the end, and then like just kind of talk over it. And then just you know, just kind of classic no beat matching, nothing like that. But that took off, it took off it took off in a big way. And then yeah, that's sort of led me on this journey to now where I'm like, still considered kind of like an elder statesman, tastemaker or something like that, you know, I did my time writing for a lot of UK mags like knowledge magazine. US mags like herbs, accelerator, those kinds of things back when they were print magazine didn't just go to Tower Records to kind of, you know, figure out what was going on in the music world. And, yeah, now it's, you know, just been able to channel that into being able to DJ, you know, pretty much on a regular basis, I always say, you know, I'll retire when people stopped booking me but I keep getting booked or just played EDC, Mexico. During the height of my vinyl era. I played like Japan and those places that were huge. And played around the United States a lot. But yeah, it's been it's kind of settled into this nice space where I'm doing drum and bass. Perhaps not as often, but bigger parties. And then I'm kind of doing this kind of side thing, or I'm doing like tech house and techno at the after hours here in LA, you know, it's just having a blast with it, really.
Andrew Vontz 9:45
And I know part of what attracted both of us to Cal Arts. We're both in the MFA writing program. It was an interesting program at the time and probably still now because it was in the School of critical studies and it was a hybrid of people doing criticism or theory oriented work, there were some people who were doing pose some pros, some people doing poetry, and some people doing things with pieces of wood, and the program as well, which is cool. I mean, there's a lot of different stuff going on. It was an interesting time and place. But I think part of what you and I both enjoyed about that experience is that we got to study what the Englishman did cabbage, subculture, meaning of style, from the Stuart Hall School of cultural criticism, kind of ground zero for that whole movement. And you're both a practitioner of this culture, and I see you as an anthropologist, a cultural anthropologist, of this culture. And it's really, it's been like that since the beginning. In fact, I would say the reason that I personally initially went down the road of being a journalist, was because of you. I mean, I had been, you know, I had been a journalist and in high school, and you know, I was at her the school paper and stuff. But once we were at CalArts, you were writing for Vice, and you were like, Hey, man, I got paid 50 bucks to write this thing. Yeah. Right. This thing for vice. I was like, oh, that sounds kind of cool. You like kicked me the editors email, who I believe was Suroosh was right. Yeah. Suroosh Alvi, one of the founders of vice, and I wrote my first story, and then it was kind of off to the races from there for the for the first for the next decade. But for you, what have you enjoyed about being both a practitioner and this observer anthropologist? Why does that fascinate you? Or what do you enjoy about it? Yeah,
Chris 11:42
I mean, there's a lot there, right, with all the way from tech haptics to you know, kind of being participants, as well as a scholar in this area. I think one of the things that attracted me to drum bass at the time was, it was this scene that was just kind of starting out in LA, you know, had been around obviously, in the UK for a bit, but la scene was just taking off right in the mid 90s. And I was kind of at Ground Zero, and I was like, Oh, this is like, this is what it feels like to be a part of a movement, you know, kind of to be at the beginning of something. You know, I think people born in our generation, and maybe even later still look back at like the hippies or something like it would have been to have been like, a part of that or something, you know, so it felt like something weird, like some kind of, like, if you were there to beginning a punk rock or something, you know, and you could be part of it. So it was one of those things, and it was like, you know, you know, years went by and it's like, you look around, you're like, Well, I really know, everybody, you know, and I know all these things, and people know me and I have a profile or something like that, but it's something about it fed into I think that kind of decoupage? You know, how do I make sense of this? How do I articulate this experience, the music and just being in Los Angeles at that time, you know, kind of creeping from warehouse to warehouse type vibe, really kind of appeal to this kind of dark aesthetic and cinematic post apocalyptic thing that I you know, that I loved in general, that sort of thing. It's weird. I've only done one kind of scholarly thing with it right now. I kind of tried to keep the worlds different. I'm not sure how to connect them, I think, in one way. But then writing, journalistically has always been my primary outlet in terms of translating the music, trying to sort of articulate what it is about bass music culture in general. I have a piece on Insomniac, you know, how to talk to your kids about drum and bass. That's like the probably the clearest sort of version of like, how of me trying to articulate what the scene is about and everything like that. So
Andrew Vontz 13:39
I haven't read that piece. But I definitely want to check it out and include a link to it in the show notes for this. I have to ask, does it include something about the Amen break? Yeah,
Chris 13:49
yep. All that's in there. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So So all that's was fascinating to me, right. So I think, again, this idea that this music really felt like bits and pieces of culture, really contemporary kind of modern thing, right? There's this this this link, that lineage that goes back to Jamaica, sound systems, right? sound system culture, and rewinds, and the MCS, toasting, and all these kind of things. But then there's like a little thread that when it gets to the UK, it gets merged with like ska, and, you know, hardcore, breakbeat techno and those kinds of things. It just it was just fascinating. The way this amalgam became something new, I think was really fascinating.
Andrew Vontz 14:30
In Los Angeles, to me is I mean, I'm partial to it, I spent, I don't remember how many years, almost 15 years, I think in LA, and you've been there, way longer than the amount of time that I spent there. I'm not even going to say how many years it's been that you've been in Los Angeles because it's, you know, we don't want people to be able to do that. But Los Angeles always struck me as it has many other people who have lived there written about it made art about it as US City upon which people project their fantasies where it has a limitless nature to it that's unlike any city in the world I've ever experienced. And because of its massiveness is a megalopolis, it truly does seem infinite in terms of the access, that you can have two different experiences different subcultures. I was recently back there. In the fall, I went to a warehouse, techno warehouse party, and the man I hadn't been to, and I also went out to moon tribe for the first time and was, like, 1213 years, it's changed a little bit downtown, not so much, right? But it's just, it's crazy that there are all these spaces in places where all this possibility can continue to proliferate. And these things can happen and versus the Bay Area. For example, during the decade that I was there, I moved there at a time when the police were proactively busting every party that happened everywhere, it was their policy to show up, and they would confiscate the sound systems. And that was the way they disincentivized promoters from actually throwing events. And it led to a very stale, intimate, not super interesting scene that really became oriented around Burning Man and kind of hyper affluent tech people who had their own sound systems. There are some cool parties, but not quite the same. How do you see Los Angeles and its place both in the popular imagination as well as within the community? Where you're making? Thanks?
Chris 16:37
Yeah, I mean, to me, they're bound one in the same, it really didn't hit me until I actually kind of left Los Angeles and started playing in places like, I don't know, I'm gonna go play in Albuquerque again. But back in the day, I'd go play in Albuquerque, or Indiana, or some, you know, somewhere where there's like, the scene is super small, and they didn't have a kind of infrastructure, and you'd show up and you'd be, you know, at this club with all the kind of misfits of society, you know, in Indiana, or something like that. And in LA, like, well, this, this stuff is huge, it's mainstream, almost, you know, lets, you know, you can hear some of this on the radio, you have these tribes, you have, there's enough space almost for the weather, it can be multiple parties on a night and a scene can develop, and people can support different events and promoters and all these kinds of things. It's just sort of this magical place that I don't know how you would describe it. It's, it's, it's a place that's harsh, because it can be lonely, right, because it is so huge. And yet, if you find a little tribe within that, then it becomes like this sort of special thing where you're like, the city becomes your own kind of little playground or, you know, these areas within the city or outside of the city, like you said, desert parties become your own little playground. And I think part of that is its proximity to sort of the film industry as well, right, this sort of kind of magical overflow of it. People sort of gravitated there for different reasons. The city itself is a kind of, you know, unfolding of movies and subcultures in general, almost on every corner, you can see these places, clashing, and yeah, it's just I think it's just a sort of fascinating, fertile space for the good and the bad. I guess you could save the party scene.
Andrew Vontz 18:20
When I was back there in the fall, we my buddy, Steve and I, Steve, Allison, shout out Steve, if you're listening, love you, man. We used to go to a lot of parties and events back in the day in the late 90s, early 2000s When I was living in LA, and you know, here we are, a couple of people later in life going to check something out. I mean, I remember thinking, Gosh, it's gonna be hard to stay up past 10pm. Tonight, I got I got two kids back home in Maine, this is kind of past my bedtime. But we went out. And when we were trying to find something to do, it wasn't, this is the thing that's happening tonight. It was this is one of 20 underground parties that are listed on a website. And the thing that kind of blew my mind is yeah, these are totally illegal events that you can go look up on the internet. And for whatever reason, they're not getting busted. My sense is probably because there are much more dangerous things happening down the block that the police actually have to pay attention to. Yeah. And that kind of creates this aporia or liminal space where these fantastic events can exist, but right, because scenes aren't like that everywhere. Usually, there's a lot of surveillance, the police are on top of it. There's no denying that there's a commingling of the music subculture with some other subcultures where there are perhaps some more illegal things going on. Yeah. Right. But why does la have these spaces?
Chris 19:42
I think it goes, you know, the spaces because it's a kind of industrial post industrial city as well. Right. So there's a lot of these spaces. I think it goes up and down or has over the years where police attention has been sort of, you know, shut down things and it's sort of been kind of hard to have party You just retreat to clubs. And you know insomniacs, infamous sort of was at EDC or something, I don't know, one of them that at the Coliseum people I was there, somebody died and that sort of thing. So like, you know, that, that shuts that down, you know, we got to kind of move out to the outside of LA City Limits, you know, it's sort of famously moved to Las Vegas now. And yet, you could still have cascade and dead mouse, you know, taking over the Coliseum for a single, you know, electronic music show, which happened recently as well. So it's like this weird underground overground big clubs, small clubs thing, but I think yeah, I think the attention right now is on, you know, I don't know, fentanyl and drug trafficking. And, you know, these these people get together and sort of race cars and do all that sort of stuff. And, you know, I think violence and and has sort of, luckily, he sort of stayed away from the scene for at least at the current time, right. And I think if something like that sort of starts to emerge, then maybe police police activity will come to, but I think it's just a huge space, that it's just impossible to sort of navigate. And I'm sure on some level, the police are like, people just need some kind of release valve, you know, as long as it doesn't bother the neighbors or something.
Andrew Vontz 21:16
Yeah, and amazingly, for people that aren't super familiar with Los Angeles, the part of it that they probably have heard about most recently in the news, I would say is Skid Row. And skid row are the garment district has dozens, if not hundreds of warehouse spaces, and at night, it's completely abandoned. i There probably some condos down there, but not many people live there. And that means that parties can happen down there at night, right?
Chris 21:42
Yeah. Yeah, it's a huge sort of space. So when you're flying in, you just cannot believe just how long the city is. You know, there'll be like, you know, you look out and it's maybe like San Bernardino or something, it's like, yeah, we're, you know, the pilot comes on, we're 20 minutes from landing, you know, kind of thing. And you're just going over houses and houses and spaces and spaces. And then this whole sort of East side of downtown is just industrial wasteland, and at night, and in the day, you know, kind of thing. So it's plenty of spaces.
Andrew Vontz 22:12
And Chris, with this specific type of drum and bass that you're spending, or that's of most interest to you, for people that aren't deeply familiar with the genres and sub genres and branch genres of that, how do you characterize the type of music that you're spending right now? And then I also know and I'm very curious about I see that you're, you now have a tech house presents like I love tech house, I predominantly love techno. That's what I like to spend the most when I'm DJing. Yeah. But tell us a little bit about the types of sounds that you find to be attractive, how would you characterize them? And why are you drawn to those strains specifically?
Chris 22:50
Yeah, I mean, for me, you know, especially now, it's just all about big, you know, epic cinematic vibes that, you know, get people dancing, and kind of going crazy, you know, whatever that is, big epic. breakdowns, you know, but I love melodies. I love sort of, again, that journey of push and pull with an audience where you kind of push them to the harder sounds, and then kind of pull back to a kind of melodic, maybe even almost Poppy kind of vibe, get those hands up, get you, you know, almost like, back in the trance days, you know, where you feel like, your heart is gonna break or something, and then, and then hit him hard again, you know, kind of thing. But I think honestly, I think that's, that's what I'm trying to do. And I think that's like, the key of, of, you know, my continued success as a DJ is, is this ability for that journey, right, we hear a lot about kind of the journey of DJing. But it's, some people go in, and they'll go all in, and they'll say, I'm a neurofunk DJ, right, which is like that really techie, hard stuff, and then they just kind of hit that the whole set, you know, so I'll play neurofunk I'll play liquid, which is that kind of what most people is probably a good entryway for non DNB people, you know, next guy and, or even, you know, there's this kind of mixture of stuff, like, I don't know what you'd call it upfront. DNB I think it's sometimes called with like dimensions of focus. It's almost, it'll be on the pop charts in the UK. And these guys know how to sort of use orchestral sort of melodic elements and vocals, and yet it's still, you know, got a nice hard edge to it, that kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, I'll play it all, I'll list I listened to so many promos. Like, you know, and before I set like a big set, especially, I have like 200 tunes, I gotta try to work through that I've already you know, kind of self selected to even download in the first place out of all the, you know, music that sort of coming through my inbox, and then just start to whittle it down and try to figure out, you know, how's this going to flow? You know, where's the big movement? Where's the place to start? That's kind of epic that builds. You know, When can it sort of vibe it out? Kind of almost hypnotized? And then crack that hypnotism with something really big, you know, that kind of thing. So
Andrew Vontz 25:03
what are your filters when you're sitting down to listen to a bunch of tracks, and you're trying to select? Okay, what's going to go into a potential set? And I'm also curious. The way you do that now versus the way you might have done that in Culver City in 1998, when you and I were fucking around with the turntables on the floor in your bedroom?
Chris 25:25
Yeah, no, I think back then, and this is one of the biggest lessons I learned is like, just because it's unreleased, doesn't mean, you play it right. So back, then it would be like, Oh, it's a dope play, you know, no one has this song, I have to drop it, you know, and you've kind of forced music in, or you try to play, you kind of pre anticipate what the audience wants or so I don't know how it was how it was different. Now, I'm a little more selfish, but a little more a lot more aware of what the audience needs in terms of flexibility in terms of where I'm at. Playing at, right, if it's an underground, if it's a big festival, if it's a club or something like that, usually get a sense of what kind of vibes they're into. And the filters are, you know, the first filter is just do I like it, and then I'll, you know, just download it. And then from there, as I start to approach a specific gig, you know, all run them through, I'll try to whittle it down to at least 100 125. Just so it's, I'm not overloaded with too much music. I'll run it through mixed in key, which is a software that puts everything and gives you an idea of the, the, the key, but also there's like this kind of harmonic, which things resonate with other other songs. And then I'll sometimes just, and then I put it in record box and do a kind of run through and start to play around with order of things and which songs kind of go together. Which song sounds like a kind of intro a song, which song kind of feels like, oh, there's that three quarter mark, where you want to kind of hit it hard. Here's a song to take a breath, you know, that kind of thing. And if you, you have like four or five songs to take a breath all in a row, you're like, I gotta trim these out, you know, you gotta figure out which one or two are the kind of best version of this moment, that kind of thing. Some classics, that everyone recognizes new things, no one notices.
Andrew Vontz 27:07
Yeah, you had an Instagram post recently. And you have a very active social media presence, which is great. And if people want to follow you will have those links in the show notes. And I have to imagine that that's probably fun, and also a bit of a burden. Right? I have to do that all the time. But you were you dropped a track. That was the intro from Welcome to the jungle, I think. Right? Yeah. Is that was that a tech house tracker was drummer bass house
Chris 27:36
tech house. Yeah, that's a tech house tune. It's I want to say Cloverdale and DJ Susan bootleg or edit or something like that. And the minute I heard it, I was like, Okay, I know. This is this is what's gonna crack this will crack that audience open. So leading up to that though, right because so this is a good insight into the kind of decision making process it's like why could open with that right when here's my set, I'm gonna I could open with that. Coming off the other DJ. I wasn't quite the headliner. That night, right, there was this German duo that was a headliner. So I kind of wanted to build to it so I actually kind of opened with techno and I opened with kind of just that kind of solid, thumping. Techno you know, Charlotte DeWitt style, where you're just kind of in the zone, you know, you got like a little vocal loop or something that it pulls up for a minute, and then it hits again, and like the hi hat comes in, you know? So just kind of setting that kind of hypnotism, hypnotism, get them in the mood, and then all of a sudden, Welcome to the jungle, you know. And so that was like, that kind of moment of orchestrating that build towards that breaking point that was really sort of satisfying to see, because people went nuts when that thing dropped.
Andrew Vontz 28:42
Yeah, I felt like I would have gone nuts. Had I heard that? Yeah. Yeah. So I can't imagine what it was like, when you first heard that track. And when you heard that, was that released? Or not? Or,
Chris 28:53
um, I remember, I just got a promo like, last week, right? That part of your friend who was this past weekend, so I don't know if it's out yet or not. And it just said white label. So sometimes those things only go out to DJs. And maybe sometimes, I don't know if it'll show up on beatport or not, it seems like might be problematic, because it's a pretty big chunk of the whole song, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Vontz 29:13
I recently came across a remix of California Dreaming that was, like a tech house track. And I, I bought it because I was like, I don't know, I have no idea how it's gonna fit into one of my super important tracks that I'm recording here in my home office. If anybody wants to book me, holler at me. But yeah, I was like, I don't know how this fits on somewhere. But it just sounded quite interesting. Unexpected. And like you said, like, the kind of thing that would? Yeah, definitely lifted crowd up in some kind of way at the right moment. Yeah,
Chris 29:46
yeah, no songs like that are good. And the hard part is, you know, then that video goes, you know, relatively like people. A lot of people see it and it's like, oh, shit, can I play that again? I gotta, you know, now I can't play it again. You know, that can like save that. for another year or something I don't know,
Andrew Vontz 30:01
during the time that you've been DJing, which, at this point again, like, I don't want to dime you out. But we're talking decades of DJing at this point, what's happened with people's attention spans as it pertains to listen, because there's the whole, I mean, I know that you're not in the brostep genre, or not even anywhere close to that there's much more musicality and narrative to what you're doing. Yeah. And there, I think there are a lot of audience expectations, particularly people who aren't heads, who are just like, I'm here to party, they're there for the drop. So how do you navigate that as a DJ?
Chris 30:37
Yeah, I think, you know, things have changed. I'm kind of one of the last of a dying breed of people who are just like, probably DJs. First, and, you know, the love of music came first before you know, and the other things just kind of fell into place. Nowadays, a lot of young producers will produce first and then get gigs. And then of course, emulate whatever it is they see on YouTube, or whatever. So a lot of my you know, like car clocks and these kind of old school. And again, Charlotte DeWitt, like, as a contemporary, I just love these mixes where things, you know, drawn out, sometimes I'll listen to these mixes, I'll be like, there's no way I could play a tune for like, seven minutes, and people would be into it, you know. So that's the trade off, but I do love layering things, right, that's sort of what I pulled from that. But the mixes do have to be faster, right? So to keep contemporary audience's attention, you know, two to three minutes per song is probably a lot, even, you know, sometimes you only get like a minute of a team. But sometimes I'll slow it down, I'll let a song kind of drop, roll through a drop come through. And then I'll have like two or three songs stacked up where I'm just sort of dropping really quickly into them and stuff. But, you know, there's this trend where a lot of these jump up guys will, you know, that double drop, triple drop, like the In other words, there's, there's, they're, the drops are sort of on top of each other, and you're hearing live different elements of it, or it starts to build into a familiar song. And then they pull back into another song, and then jump into it and things like that, right. And for a long time, I felt pressure, like I have to double drop, I have to double drop, but just didn't feel authentic to me. And you know, and I'll still double drop, but mine's a little more. I don't know what you like techno style or something, who knows what how you do? type thing. But there's, you know, there's pressure, especially rhythm and dubstep. Those guys are just, you know, cranking through 30 seconds on a tune at a time. As Drum Bass DJs, we will go online and say, Yeah, you know, they'll brag about I went through, like 100 tunes and an hour or something. And I'm like, oh, you know, that's crazy. On my playlist, I'll try to have, you know, 60 tunes, which gives each song a minute, but even then I won't get through all 60 teams here.
Andrew Vontz 32:45
And again, for people that maybe aren't as familiar with the technical side of DJing when you pull up, and you're going to do a set, I don't even know if you get to soundcheck or what but is there a lot of uniformity to the gear that you're using an interoperability? Or are you ever pulling up? And you're like, Man, I'm not super familiar with the system that I'm playing on tonight?
Chris 33:10
Yeah, and I mean, ideally, right? The Pioneer CDJs. Right, the kind of Nexus 2000s. And up pioneer mixer is pretty standard across the board. Right? So that's so if you can sort of pull up and one of those and you know, I'm comfortable. If it's a different kind of mixture, sometimes I get thrown off. The worst actually, for me was and, you know, I power through everything because I just go back to the underground days when it was like you got to deal with everything, you know, sound going out wind, whatever it is needle skipping. But the worst for me is like a controller, right, which is a lot of these smaller kids will bring you out to like, I don't know, Riverside or something, you know, and then you show up and there's like a controller and you're like shit, I don't know how to use this thing. You know, I've never practiced it. And it's like, there's like one screen in the middle. And I don't know all kinds of buttons and stuff. I don't know. Yeah, so it's like one of those things where if you want to stay on top of it, I always thought I gotta go to like Guitar Center and just see if they'll let me play with all the equipment or something.
Andrew Vontz 34:09
And when do you play? Are you playing two channels, four channels sampler, like what do you run
Chris 34:14
for is ideal, right for me for CDJs if anything, just so I could set up where I'm going and how fast I can sort of get there. I have hot hot cues on almost every song every song I'll run through anything I play right we'll go through mixing key and then record box so record box allows you to set cue points. So I don't have to always play the beginning of the song sometimes I'll drop right into the middle sometimes I'll drop you know really fast so I only need like 30 seconds and you know I could just hit that cue point and get right in there. A little bit sometimes I'll use like loops and things like that but I don't try to get too crazy. I'll use like filters and echo and and that kind of stuff. For me. It's more about like, songs kind of gelled together, I actually like it really seamless, one of the sort of best compliments I could get is like, I don't know, when one tune ends, and the other one begins, you know, that's sort of cool for me. So
Andrew Vontz 35:12
how much time do you put into preparing for a set, and how much of it is pre planned in terms of track to track or movement to movement within the site.
Chris 35:21
So movement is really what I'm concerned not concerned about, but what I was foremost in my mind, so I'll have a playlist, let's say, I don't, you know, I almost never have time to do a complete run through my CDJ sit there gathering dust half the time, you know, most of the time and just do it in the computer just going, these are gonna go well with this, and this is gonna go well with that. And, you know, sometimes you get there, and you look at the clock, and you're like, oh, shit, I'm going too fast, like, I just burned through 20 tunes, and, you know, I still got 15 minutes to go, or whatever it is, you know, or sometimes you're going too slow. So you have to be able to sort of move past iTunes around to so that kind of flexibility is built into what I do, where it's not necessarily pre planned. But I do put a lot of work into cultivating a playlist that will work almost no matter what if that makes sense, right? So so the important part of being confident going in there is going just trust the system, all this work that you put into this, the songs are going to fit in some way these all these little puzzle pieces will fit in some way. And it I mean, it's ongoing. So you know, got a gig in a week or something, I'll still be going through promos now. But then like, especially if it's a big show the day before, two days before, it's just like it could take hours just trying to sort of decide what music is actually going to make it in, you know, I'll have like a folder and I'll call it like EDC, Mexico raw, you know, it'd be like all the tunes that are up for consideration and then trim those down into like, the EDC, Mexico final playlist or something. Yeah. Yeah,
Andrew Vontz 36:51
what's been the gig that you found to be the most challenging to navigate as a DJ? Because there are probably other gigs in life that have been challenging as well. But yeah, I mean, in the long, multi decade career, you've had now been your biggest like, Oh, shit.
Chris 37:08
Yeah, I mean, you try to, you know, erase those, it's it is the nature of this. You know, for me, it's still kind of a hobby, right? I have a real career as a professor, if anything, that's the real challenge is balancing this with being a professor and being a parent of two kids and a husband. You don't that's the that's the real challenge. We could come back to that. But honestly, just being hard on yourself, and, you know, fucking up right in front of in front of people, like whether you screw up, or, you know, these people brought me out here, they paid me a lot of money and I just and that just was not a good set. I was tired. You know, that guy before me was way better than me. And he's a local, you know, there's all these things you know, you know, when you don't do great, the crowd leaves. That's I think that's the worst is when you clear the floor back in the day, especially right when Drum and Bass still wasn't quite as old open, right? Or, you know, people weren't as open to it unless you're a hardcore drum bass head and in this like, you, you come on, and then there's two people out there. I've had that recently, actually, you know, you go play this giant festival. And then you come and do some like San Diego party and there's like a techno dude upstairs, who's, you know, going on at the same time as you and suddenly the dance floor clears out and you're like, Oh, you're sad. It hurts. My Twitter reach isn't a good y'all make fun Twitter, you know? I'm not gonna pay no. $8 for blue check. Instagram is good, though. But yeah, it's every time I go on Twitter, my hearts broken. I like Oh, I got two likes or something.
Andrew Vontz 38:40
Have you ever had the power go out? Or have your computer fail in the middle of a sock?
Chris 38:43
So so I just I put it on USB? I'll put I'll bring two USBs right. So I'll have a backup USB in case there's a problem with that. Okay, so here's a good specific story. EDC, Vegas, it was me back to back with the group called consoles. I can't remember what year was this pre pandemic. And, you know, so we're the first ones opening the festival or whatever, like, you know, on a Saturday or whatever it is. And for whatever reason, all of the, the CDJs just kept going into emergency loops. Like you know, you build up to a big festival you're like, This is gonna be a dope said, Here's my, like, 10 minutes and then they're gonna do 10 minutes. I'm gonna do 10 minutes, you know, back and forth. And you'd get through like two three songs and it was like, it just it just sucked. It hurt the whole time. The sound guys like yeah, you just got to like, give it a second. I guess it was some kind of weird timing issue with whoever had used it last like they had their I don't know their Serato or something and it had to screwed up the timing. We were like, We were turning things on and off. Anyway, that was a that was a horrible set. But by the end it kind of worked itself out.
Andrew Vontz 39:46
But it's painful. It was painful. The crowds stick around for that one. Yeah.
Chris 39:50
I mean, you know, they stuck around you know, but that wasn't like the best set that I go back to or anything
Andrew Vontz 39:56
like that. What has been your best
Chris 39:59
eye Uh, EDC Mexico is always just epic. I mean, like the crowd down there is insane, insanely supportive for one, but they're also just so into it. I've been down there about four or five years now and even the first year when I just went down there, I just made like fans that year that just stuck with me until now. So this last time I played, you know, we had a meet and greet and had like this huge line of like, people I didn't know, but a lot of the kids from that first year, who like, you know, they do do art, you know, if you they, they made their own kind of flags with my name on it and that sort of thing. And so it's just hugely sort of rewarding to, to connect with people, I guess, on that level. But then, of course, the show itself was just like, oh, like you just, you know, when you nail it, and you're like, and you're in like a state of flow. And you're like that was that was a good set was my best festival set, probably this last DTC Mexico set.
Andrew Vontz 40:53
That's awesome. And you have that set up on YouTube now, right
Chris 40:57
up on YouTube, and then I'll probably, you know, I'll probably just rerecord the songs, and put it on SoundCloud or something like that, let's like figure out how to sort of isolate the sound from the YouTube YouTube got like to put links in there that got dinged for copyright. So it's like silence. You know, if you're listening to the YouTube and it goes silent for like, three minutes, that's because YouTube said the songs not allowed or whatever, you have to mute it.
Andrew Vontz 41:24
I have no idea. I haven't been I mean, I never went to like EDM stuff. That was never my thing I did go to. I mean, I went to Electric Daisy Carnival when it was in a field. It wasn't in Valencia, but it was somewhere up north of the city. I have, I have photographs on like physical photographs from that event. I went with the photographer I was working with a lot at the time when I was a journalist. It's grown a little bit since then. But within the context of an event like that, where does Drum and Bass fit into the overall mix? Is the genre grown in popularity? Is it kind of like peeked out, like what's going on?
Chris 42:08
It's still, you know, the bastard child of EDM, right? So mainstream stuff, obviously, your TSOs and your Armin van Buuren, and things like that Technos up their house is always up there. Dubstep still reigned supreme, you know, or bass music in general, because it's kind of pushed into liquid stranger's, like freeform bass. And then like, I don't know, what would be sub tronics or something like that. It's like kind of maybe more straightforward. Dubstep or the Newt and kind of new school version of it. But you know, drummer bass is being played by a lot of those guys. So it's like one of those. We're at one of those weird inflection points where, you know, you'll see a dubstep guy, go on YouTube, say, Oh, I made this drum and bass banger. And then everybody's like, Yeah, that's awesome. And then, you know, nobody comes out to a drum bass party with real drum bass DJs or something like that. Yeah. There's people like Reaper, who are somewhere in between, right? Someone who's been influenced and who's kind of network is the space music scene, who plays a kind of different style of drum and bass than maybe the UK forebears did kind of thing you know? So it's, it's, it's there. It's popular. And it's one way a lot of people because of those people who are playing it Resco used to be is a dubstep pioneer, right? went full on playing drum bass. Right, so now he only plays drum bass in his sets. Whereas back in the day, it used to be everyone's playing drum bass and dubstep comes along and then everybody ditched drummer bass to go play dubstep.
Andrew Vontz 43:38
It's been an interesting evolution. I even remember I mean, brakes were huge from probably like 2001 to maybe 2007 I remember going to warehouse after hours I don't remember what year maybe like 2004 2005 Downtown LA and DJ Lauren would be there playing breaks who then became bass and actor right. And a lot of people just kept branching off and different forks and a lot of everything kind of like kept moving in the direction of bass music or dubstep for you Why have you been writer died Drum and Bass Why did you never become a Why did you never become a like a bass music person right and in what happened to brakes brakes were cool and totally gone man disappeared
Chris 44:27
Yeah, I don't know to step right UK garage I guess is what most of that that energy probably went into. But it's definitely not as big as it was back then. You know, and this is you my wife when I was telling you to sell out and just make Dubstep and things like that. Two things one
Andrew Vontz 44:45
good advice
Chris 44:46
because I was there from the beginning. So that's one right these are all my people drone base is like your your tribe. And then the other thing is, you know, in the midst of all this, I got a PhD in things you know, I just I couldn't you know there's there was a point And it's probably around the time my son was born, where I was, like, you know, I'm still conservative at, at the core where it's like, you know, do I produce music and be a DJ, you know, producer for, you know, elevate this to be big, maybe right? Or do I get this PhD and go, you know, be a professor, which seems a lot more you know, I'll have a retirement as it I'll be stable, I could buy, been able to buy a house and things like that. There's DJ, and you know, a lot of those people that I that I come up with, who are still DJing, and like, Man, I don't know, what these guys do as their side hustle, you know? Or, or what are we going to do, or 60, or, you know, that kind of thing. So balancing those two worlds, for me has always been kind of an eternal struggle. You know, in terms of production, and that kind of thing, putting in the effort into a PhD kind of pulled me away from that. And drum and bass has always been where my name was made. And, and you know, how I was known in the world and that kind of thing. So, and honestly, I never, I just, I like all like some dubstep, but I can hear, you know, I can't do it for a whole hour. So
Andrew Vontz 46:07
I agree with you. I sometimes I'll actually go on to Spotify or SoundCloud or Mixcloud. Yeah. And I'll just, I'll have an open mind. I'm like, I'll give this a try. I'll, you know, go to the Beatport top 100 dubstep tracks or whatever. It's so infrequent that I find something I like. Whereas if I go back to like, ltj book or something like that, like it's always it's always on, right. Yeah. But, I mean, some of those sounds have persisted and others have faded away. But Chris, can you say more about this tension between having more or less like a normal life, and like going out and being in this world of nonstop partying stuffs going all night? And a lot of people probably have something of an idea of what that DJ lifestyle is, like, what's what's it like? What are the tension points?
Chris 46:58
I mean, the biggest tension point is having a family right, so if I was a single guy, this would be a breeze a lot. I don't know if it'd be a lot less tension, a lot less friction, how's that? So, you know, I gotta get up, take the kids to school, I got to put the, my, my daughter's four years old to bed every night, you know, I got to be present. You know. I got to show up for my students, I got to grade papers, I got to you know, still have my shit together on that end. And then the weekend comes and it's like, Okay, I gotta, you know, oh, my time slots 3am 4am Let me put the baby to bed, then take a nap or something. And then wake up, go to this thing. Do it come back. They get up the next day, you know, act like nothing ever happened? How was last night? Yeah, it was cool. You know, I got like four hours sleep or something like that, and then just go back into this normal life or my students? Like, how was your weekend? Yeah, it was fine. You know, I don't usually tell them till the end of the semester. Most, I think the older students, we, you know, I teach advanced writing also. And those students usually are more aware of what my alternative life is, but not a lot of people know, especially at the freshman level. I think they're just kind of caught up in their own world. And I'm just a professor who's part of another in their eyes, they're kind of parents world or something. Who knows? And then when they find out they're like, what, you know, what is this other double life you got going on type thing. So I mean, honestly, and I think, you know, I told you that sleep is like the hardest, the most important thing to manage my energy and and to not show a pirate for a gig, right? Is as the number one I've noticed, you know, in the past, that's when the gigs suck, because if you don't have the energy, right, even if the tunes are fired, the audience just picks up on that. And then trying to you know, still be a good dad being a good professor being there for my students. That's the first thing that goes is grading I'm like, fuck that grading you know?
Andrew Vontz 48:53
What are your kids know about what you do? It's not like you're like in the adult film industry, but you have this like, weird alternate life that, you know, like I bring, I'm not you, I bring my kids up. I let them play with the DJ controller. We have a lot of music stuff around the house. What's it like in your house,
Chris 49:11
my son, you know, grew up, he's 16. Now he grew up listening to all the promos in the car, because he would, you know, go with me, I'd drive him to preschool or whatever. And he listened all the music. He had good music tastes, he's got his own kind of, I went through like a low five stage. And then like, he's kind of in the indie. I don't even know what it is what kind of stages you know, he'll listen to like music. I have no clue as to what it is. So he has his own musical tastes, but he appreciates what I do. And all that sort of thing. But, I mean, he doesn't seem too enamored by it. My daughter. I was able to play a community party in Monterey Park, right and it's, it was like all ages, family friendly type event. And so my daughter was finally able to see me DJ and she was like, just so jazzed and so she sees me on like, looking at on Instagram. And we're trying to figure out what video to post your song. She's like, Oh, there's Daddy You know Daddy the DJ. But yet she she's down with music to show she'll have favorite songs that you'll you know, a four year old you rinse out a song over and over again and then she's like, Oh, now put on Felice Navidad or put on Elmo or something, you know. Random songs. But she has good taste. She has a good taste.
Andrew Vontz 50:22
She wants a techno track that's got like the Daniel Tiger opening.
Chris 50:28
She loves she loves that. That John summit tune. You know, that new one? Was it? Where were you are your I don't know what it is. It's a big dude right now. Yeah. So what kind of John somebody, she'll be like, she calls a party music, all this put on party music. She wants to party and she loves to dance and stuff. So. But yeah, I mean, she to her, she's asleep. You know, I put her to bed. The next day. I'm there. And it's like, unless I got to travel, you know, she has no idea what just happened that night kind of thing?
Andrew Vontz 50:57
And how many days a year do you end up gigging? And how do you navigate that? Or what's your agreement with your wife?
Chris 51:05
The so back in the day, you know, I used to gig probably every weekend, you know, non stop just all the time, this is probably before kids type thing. And it would just be as long as I'm, you know, as long as we still had our time to go out and do things and you know, I don't know, the gases in the cars and, and that sort of stuff. And I'm not like, coming home wasted or something, you know, it wasn't too big of a deal. Now, it's like, you know, there came a point, because back then when you're first starting out, you're like, Yeah, I'll do you know, this gig for 50 bucks or 100 bucks or so it's now she has to kind of be my manager. And it's good leverage for me, because I'll be able to tell a promoter, you know, my wife's gonna ask how much I'm getting paid. So so as long as I'm getting paid a decent amount, she's cool with letting me out of the house. But I make a very conscious effort to make sure I put a lot of attention to the family. And, you know, include them in it. It's not like it's this other thing, I don't party as much as I used to. So that's probably a big plus as well, that I'm basically normal the next day not coming off some acid trip or something, who knows? Be a different story.
Andrew Vontz 52:14
Do you have a specific set time that you aim for? Or are you open to anything?
Chris 52:19
Um, I mean, obviously, everyone wants to be the headliner, right? So especially like these after hours, clubs is like the sweet spot that's maybe between two and four. But I've played for to close. Three o'clock. seems really nice. Two o'clock is nice. For a regular club night, you know, 12, the two is a great time, that kind of quality to closing. A lot of times you get an hour, but I would love I love, love it when promoters give me an hour and a half, two hours, get a little more time to breathe and just kind of do your thing. Yeah, now openings, hard, like when you do a festival, because you're not sure how hard to go, you know, like an EDC, Vegas or something like that. Mexico is nice. It opened at two, there's like, you know, four or five people before us and then us. So that was a perfect time, I would have preferred just a little bit later because I would like it to be night. You know, it was like right at sunset, but I would have liked it to be Night.
Andrew Vontz 53:17
Night definitely seems like the preferable time I feel people's imaginations. And like their, the experience they have is significantly different.
Chris 53:27
Yeah, you're able to let go, I think you know, that kind of anything to induce that kind of dream state. Right. And I imagine this is kind of what filmmakers think about and writers and artists, as well as if I could just get my audience to just kind of forget themselves for a bit, right and just kind of give themselves over to the experience. That's the highest kind of form of what I hope I do.
Andrew Vontz 53:48
And Chris, in today's culture, creator means certain specific kind of thing. But they're also before that there were people who made things. And for you, you're somebody, you're a writer, you've done a lot of different types of writing, as you mentioned, you've done journalism, that's encompass cultural criticism, a lot of reviewing of new tracks, which I have to imagine is probably really hard to do to come up with new and different ways to describe different tracks. Right? Yeah. And then there's what you're doing as a musician, DJ, what do you get out of different modes of creation? And what do they bring to you? That's different.
Chris 54:37
I think I mean, it's gonna sound a little hokey or whatever. Or what is Tim Ferriss say, like foo foo, or whatever he says. But it goes for me, it goes back to like this, this kind of shamanistic impulse, you know, in my undergrad days, reading Carlos Castaneda or something like that. And just this notion again of the world as a magical place, maybe even trying to capture those kind of magical moments when I first started going out and was just like, you know, what is this, not just this music, but when you're in a kind of environment with other humans listening to this, and you're just like, overwhelmed by the experience or spectacle of it, and something you feel deep in your body, you know, not just sort of intellectually or in your ears or something like that, you know, that's sort of what I was trying to capture. Whether that's a story or not, you know, writing short stories, writing, you know, novel, whatever, working on poetry, writing a music review, you know, in a way, they're all kind of explorations of rhythm, but also just part of being part of this community, this tribe of humans and trying to sort of connect with them on some level, and make them feel something. You know, I think that's a convexity for me.
Andrew Vontz 55:51
Are you the kind of DJ who is going to go get on the other side of the speakers when a DJ you enjoy is playing? And are you going to dance? Or are you going to stand there with a beer?
Chris 56:03
I will, you know, I'm getting spoiled by always being able to be VIP and backstage, so I'll rarely be upfront, getting crushed by everybody else. But I will definitely show my appreciation for other people and you know, slap tables, and, you know, if I'm in range, you know, be like, ooh, if it's a club, where I can manage my way to the front of the guy up there going, Yeah, you know, kind of thing. Definitely, you know, try to build other people up as much as possible, especially up and coming DJs. And things that I see that are just like, you can just tell they love it. And it's like, you know, give them as much gas as you can to do what they're doing.
Andrew Vontz 56:43
And Chris, I remember in the late 90s, I don't remember if you were writing for herb at the time or not, but it seemed like, specifically within drum and bass like Raymond Roker was the man. Right? Yeah. And, you know, now, as you said, like, you're kind of an elder statesman, of this scene. And as you think about what you've done, and what's ahead of you, what are like spaces in places where you want to show up? Is there something that you've dreamed about doing as an artist a gig you'd like to have somebody like to do a back to back with what do you want to do?
Chris 57:17
Yeah, and in a weird way, right? People like Raymond, Raymond Roker, the publisher of herb and Pascal Rotella, you know, the founder of Insomniac and stuff, they're in a weird way. They're my contemporaries as well, right. And so part of me feels like, oh, you know, I never achieved as much as they did or something in this space. Obviously, I can always go back and look at my PhD on the wall and go, Ah, there you go. That was that was worth it, or something. I don't know. It doesn't quite work. But still. So for me, it really is, you know, I think what I would like to get, and starting to get deep into production tech house has given me this new life this this past year, right, this crew just looking at IP that sort of do does these after hours, this guy Dylan, who founded that reached out to me about a year and a half, two years ago, and just said, I want you to play one of my parties, I'd never sort of expressed that, you know, that this is sort of how I got into the scene. This is where I started with house and techno back in the day. And I was just like, oh, man, I'd love to and it just sort of took off. It's pure, no one really knows who I am. You know, it's just the obviously, it's kind of more mainstream, the drummer base, so people show up, the crowds are crazy, and that sort of thing. So it's given me a lot of push, and confidence. And you know, I'm my PhD is done, you know, teachings becoming a good rhythm. My kids are older now, right, four years old isn't the same as having a two year old or something like that. So I really want to produce some music before this journey is done, you know, get something out there that's that I can go okay, I have a legacy that I could leave behind and not just, you know, be a memory like, oh, yeah, that That dude was a dope, DJ back in the day or something, you know, kind of thing. But I definitely don't want to get into throwing parties. I've tried that. And that's no fun. Say more about that. It's a lot of work. I don't know how these guys like respect, man, every week for decades, can you imagine, you know, bringing people out organizing and showing up to I can't even go out to the club every week, you know, just for fun? So yeah, so it's a huge commitment. And a few parties that I have thrown back in the day. Were just like, these huge, I imagine is the difference between being a screenwriter and a director, you know, there's just like, the whole different ballgame of trying to be on that side of it and trying to organize people and, and logistics and all that sort of stuff. This the pleasure for me is really just performing I think and and making something out of Scratch really, you know, I think that's where the pleasure comes from me. I'd rather have someone else have the whole infrastructure setup and I just step into it.
Andrew Vontz 59:55
How is what you've done with tech house in the last year, both in terms of Vi Crowd music. How does it I mean, as you said, that's where you started? Yeah. But what do you enjoy about that genre? And the vibe? And in what way? Is it different?
Chris 1:00:11
I think there you have a more, there's more room to let a song play out. That's number one, right? vibes are important that baseline is groovy, I don't know, there's just something about the way in which if you can craft a good set there, you can get a crowd to really be responsive, even when they're not expecting, you know, in other words, they didn't come to see you because you don't have name recognition, like some big DJ, right? But people just go out to have a good time. You know, you'll go out and Pomona right on a Tuesday night, I just played this this spot called Space taco. And it's like, holy cow. It's like all these people out on a Tuesday night. Just vibe and going crazy. You know, your drummer bass on a Tuesday night would be a hard sell was a hard sell, you know? So the music's do a lot more people are open to it, it does kind of have a more mainstream appeal that kind of fall on the floor beat. The elements, I think that people are able to reference are a little closer to maybe what they're used to consuming, you know, if they consume mainstream radio music or something like that. But yeah, something about it still has a nice power.
Andrew Vontz 1:01:25
Yeah. And you mentioned Charlotte DeWitt, it seems with Charlotte To wit, Amelie lens and other some other artists and DJs. in that genre. It's it's been interesting to see this melding of kind of a minimal tech house sound, almost like, like hardcore, or GABA, and the limits of that, and like hard techno and it's and it's somewhat melodic, and it seems to become really popular globally. I personally, like I didn't see that coming. Yeah,
Chris 1:01:51
Yeah, same. So I think so I think it's at that nice inflection point where I feel I'm not bound to be a purist and play only house or something like that, um, I can mess up techno tech house, you know, some kind of big vocal Chicago style house thing, you know, go into some drop, that's like kind of a hardstyle. Just anything in that 128 to 132 BPM range seems to work for me to just experiment and the people, you know, people enjoy it. So it's been fun to sort of figure that out. I guess.
Andrew Vontz 1:02:26
It's fun. As long as you can be up to make French toast at 630. The next morning. That's
Chris 1:02:30
right. No, luckily, my wife will let me if it's at Lake extra, let me sleep till 10.
Andrew Vontz 1:02:36
That's, that's a great partner. So Chris, thanks so much for joining me today. It's great to reconnect after, probably like definitely more than a decade. We'll need to talk again before another 10 years pass and it feels just like old times, like we're loading into the Mustang making, making sure we don't bottom out over the speed bumps and going against the Rams,
Chris 1:02:59
some burritos and downtown. What does that Valencia or whatever.
Andrew Vontz 1:03:04
Yeah, yeah, definitely. But yeah, so thanks for joining me here today. And if people want to check out your music or want to follow you on social media, book you where should they go?
Chris 1:03:16
The best places are the most active places by Instagram. So at DJ dot Night Stalker. You know, I'm on Twitter, I'm on all these on Facebook and SoundCloud, and Mixcloud and that sort of thing as well. But that's probably the main hub right now, for me getting information out about future gigs. And, you know, there's just, you could just DM me, or I think there's an option to email me there as well.
Andrew Vontz 1:03:41
Awesome. Thanks so much for joining me, Chris. This has been a blast.
Chris 1:03:44
Yeah, it's been a blast. I can't wait to you know, next time you're in LA and I'm going to take you to one of these events.
Andrew Vontz 1:03:49
I'm definitely taking you up on that. And I will be there sometime soon this year. So that'll be a lot of fun, man. Thanks.
Chris 1:03:55
See ya. Thank you, brother.