DJ, turn it up

The pulsing room of sweaty bodies intermingled with sexual tension carried by a bass line was suddenly interrupted by a burst of water from a broken pipe that swung into the crowd from the ceiling of the eroding basement. It would seem to be an exclusive scene as water flooded the dancers reflecting lights and only hyping the music’s climax — but the DJ said it happened every time he played there.

“The essential question is: what kind of night can you create?” sophomore Thomas Goodwin, who performs as DJ Jester Fjord, said. “We get to see everything, and when we see people let go, it’s beautiful. It’s moshing, griming on each other, and it’s pure sexual energy.”

The orthodox role of the DJ is to set a mutual relationship of reaction between the music and the audience, and it is up to the DJ to watch for the crucial cues: head nods, bobbing bodies and the occasional thumbs-up.

Brenden Eade, who stages as DJ Eade and graduated in spring 2011, said he believes a DJ should not be viewed with a rock star status but instead viewed as a public servant.

“We play a tough game of reading a crowd,” Eade said. “I can’t start with Waka Flocka and expect people to accept it if there is no energy present. I have to use diversity to build that wave.”

The genre of the tracks and the style of the DJ define the method of this process of building the wave.

Eade said popular genres such as dubstep and house are characterized by beats per minute. With house music, the tempo is about 128 BPM, which gives it that electronic pop-dance vibe. Dubstep, which is a newer genre first expanding beyond tiny local scenes in about 2005, averages 140 BPM.

It requires a little more apprehensive appreciation from people to enjoy it, because it’s driven by a simpler concoction of bass and drums, Eade said.

“Hip-hop, techno, house, dubstep. There are literally hundreds of genres,” Eade said. “But the style of mixing them together in a particular way makes limitations boundless.”
Ben Jackson, who graduated in 2005 and now DJs full-time as Action Jackson, said styling can be hours of practicing a weird scratch or searching for a certain vinyl to add to the collection.

“There are no boundaries,” Jackson said. “Mix Lil Wayne (with) Hall & Oates, and then blend it all with dubstep. You have to get loose and just play music to find your style.”
Jackson, who plays anything from R&B at The Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis to Euro-house at a Grand Prix party, said he can remember when DJing meant lugging around 100 pounds of records. Also, he said people don’t recognize all the work that goes into the craft.

A part of the newer generation of DJs, Fjord said his set includes a classic turntable, mixer, sampler, sound equipment and recording equipment.

“Producing and DJing are a common duo but entirely different things,” Fjord said. “When I produce, I can create the sounds I have in mind.”

Fjord produces mainly dubstep with an occasional side of house, and he said he can spend up to 18 hours simply tweaking synthesizers to create dance music.

“It’s usually three hours of preparation for every hour of music,” Fjord said. “It’s something I pour my heart into, and I’ve had no response before, but there’s nothing like dropping a track and seeing people bounce up and down.”

Part of DJing is having to walk a fine line between ego and giving the crowd what they want, Eade said. However, he said a major role is also introducing something new to an audience in a perceptive way. Though production can be an element in this introduction, other DJs share new music in different fashions.

Alex Goulet DJed at IU for three years before graduating last spring and moving to Boston. During his time at IU, Goulet, known as DJ Goulet, was able to go abroad in London for a year where he continued to DJ.

“Bloomington in comparison to Europe is obviously completely different,” Goulet said. “With the exception of major cities, Americans tend to be more close-minded, and so you have to present things in a different way.”

Though Goulet does not produce, he introduces new concepts through unique scratching techniques. Goulet said he likes to mix new media with old and said his favorite thing to do is to play doubles, which includes playing two of the same records on two turntables and then alternating between the vinyls to mix the song.

Goulet has also coupled with local emcees such as Two Mics and a Kit, and he said has a strong respect for the Bloomington DJ scene.

With everything from top 40 tracks at Kilroy’s Sports with DJ Unique, a house party with Topspeed, a Rhino’s hip-hop night with Wally Wonder or a dorm room with the next generation of the scene’s DJs, Bloomington has a little bit of everything to offer.

“You can’t reciprocate the college scene Bloomington has,” Goulet said. “I’ve played over 100 parties here, and no matter where I end up, there will always be something very raw about that cruddy, basement, sweaty-as-hell scene.”