Every now and then I get a lot of emails or questions regarding how to start DJing. There really is no right or wrong way to do it so I’m going to just blurb about how I did it. I’m going to split this up in many categories but keep in mind that it is not in any particular order. This article isn’t a tutorial, but more of a general outline and my personal advice I would give to my own friends if they considered becoming DJs themselves. But first I’ll let you in on how I first got started.
Johnny Plastik 101
I think it was 1997. I was introduced to my crack-cocaine called MP3′s by my good friend Vang Lor. “What? You can download music.. get the f@$k outta here you muthaf#$%a”. Exactly. You can download music. My very first track was “Bone Thugs In Harmony – 1st of the Month”. Yeah I was pretty thuggish back then. Sike. Now during this time I was also a poor student, floating my way through college down at Mankato State University. I had no idea what MP3′s were or even why they existed.. I mean come on man, CD’s were illin’! That is what I spent a lot of my money on… until I hijacked my first MP3 off the internet. On a 14.4k connection of course, which took literally 30-40 minutes to download a 3 minute track. It didn’t matter to me though, I was hooked. Badly.
In about 3 months, I had over 400 songs, most of them hip-hop, 80′s and early 90′s rock ballads and of course, remixes and remixes and remixes. I still had no idea what DJing was at the time because to me I just loved collecting music. I was introduced to my first DJ Mixed CD by my friend Lue Yang. It was DJ Markski’s “Eurodance Ski Mix 7″. I was like.. “whaoh.. this dude mixed track after track after track… I didn’t know this could happen..”. After listening to that CD non-stop for the next 6-7 months, I started to mess around with my music collection. I downloaded Acid’s Soundforge and started to mix my own CD’s on the computer. I made many many many wack mix CD’s for my friends. I mean really wack.
Fast forward a few years, I met up with a friend named Bob Vang. Bob was rocking bad-ass house/trance and alot of grooving tracks. I was just playing cheesy vocal stuff because I haven’t found my nitch yet. We gigged at little pubs and bars locally for a few months and it was a blast. Now, I didn’t say I was good or knew how to beat-match, I just played records, haha. Then in the summer of 2001, I met my buddy and mentor Ville Thao. He had a pair of turntables and I was like WOW! We fed off each other and kept ourselves busy. We hunted records together at Vital Vinyl (now called Vital Culture) and toured through the Midwest and west coast under the code name KIND BEATS. And that’s about it. The rest is history.
Kind Beats circa 2001 - Club Metro
I’m leaving a shitload of details out because if I told you the whole store, you’ll be reading for days, and we’ll never get to the main point of the article. Ok.. so lets get the ball rolling! Let me remind you that these sections are in no particular order. My first section will focus on equipment.
Section 1 – Equipment
Pioneer CDJ2000
Nice Information!
Bob vang from medtronic?
Great Post! I personally really like vintage recievers. This is some of the best sounding audio gear around. Especially if you go with the old stuff. I like the seperation you get.
Good shit JP! BTW – Thanks for the Love!
I am glad that I stumbled upon your site on Bing. I really enjoyed your post. If you are interested in swapping links with each other’s sites, let me know. I’d love to get on each other’s blogrolls. Here is my site: Lose The Back Pain Scam.
@ KB_Founder, Ha. I knew you would get a kick out of this article.
Have you ever considered adding more videos to your blog posts to keep the readers more entertained? I mean I just read through the entire article of yours and it was quite good but since I’m more of a visual learner.
Nice website. Great read.
Aint it the truth, I truley share the same views as the author and could not agree more.
i almost died reading this soo inspirational dude you are really living a dream come true. i am so happy for you. the one thing that i love most in all my life is music, but i’ve never found the door. i did just purchase dj eqpt today.. we’ll see where that goes. thank you for your story. ps/if you had written your whole life, i would have read it. XD
Hey this blog is great. I’m looking forward to reading more.
A – That’s really cool. What did you buy? Well if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask! I’m not a pro or anything but I’ll gladly help out if I can.
Hey good ups to you man I enjoy KB at the events in MN and try to attend when ya spin. It was nice hearing that you also went to Mankato State University lol.
Law,
Ha, yes I went down there. It was one of the best times of my life. Used to do nothing but listen to music, basketball, and fish. Ha. Thanks for the support. I truly appreciate it.
Lol funny thing is people down here are still doing the same ol thing…hoopin, and fishing
Always wanted to DJ. But I chose photography as a path. Maybe one day I’ll pick up on being a DJ. I’m sure it’s never too late. Inspiration is the best, and I like how you’re story is!.