TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF…USC LIFE…MAJOR…INTERESTS…AND HOW YOU GOT INTO DJ’ng/TECHNO??
Kyle – bachelor of architecture
Andy – graduated 2008, bs in music technology
Joint set Djs – first set of show
ANDY – To me, this genre of music is synonymous with love. The community around it – outside anything I have seen in other genres of music. Very positive energy that flows around it. A lot of negative press about it lately because there are people who overdo things. There are bad apples in everything. It annoys me that it has become synonymous with bad things.
I met Kyle at a show 2 -3 months ago, and we have been are doing a show tonight and we have worked incredibly hard on it and it is the funnest thing I do. AND SHARING YOUR TASTES and your personal musical journey with people is just sacred to me and it is the most powerful thing I have encountered out of love.
KYLE – To me, it is interesting because going back and not even realizing my first job in high school was working at a cd store and I began to love music, I was very broad in what I liked and when I got to college I started hearing electronic music here and again I have never become immediately passionate music as electronic, it definitely touched me. I went to Hard 2009 and it was my first live electronic music and going to a live show and hearing it live was one of the most powerful things I ever experienced
ANDY – My first show was Daisy 2009 and right when I stepped onto the field of the coliseum, to a Trojan it was just magical to me to be able to step on the field, and that effect
KYLE– hasn’t happened in the last 10 years.
ANDY – I stepped on the field and I saw 90,000 people just dancing as hard as they could with one man on stage, wielding just insane amount of power. But in a way that was so positive…I’ve seen this at Trojan games but it takes a staff and team and years of tradition…but this was one man’s mind sharing himself with a group of people. One of my fave quotes is “turn your back on the dj” about communal happiness and release keeps you going for the rest of your day I listen to this music when I wake up, go to sleep, when I am stressed, brings you back to a place of peace
KYLE – At Hard Halloween, I WAS WITH a group of friends and none of us were into the music…just decided wanted to go to it…it’s not for everyone…and so I went with 3 other friends. And 2 of them didn’t end up following it electronic music…and me and the other person just fell in love with it. It consumed my life for the next year. And before that kind of music, I started DJ’ing. My job in high school, music was always being played. To me there are so man by art forms – I am in achitecture – I respect all of it. Music evokes emotion more than any other art piece – that fact that uou have that much power to evoke someone’s emotion. I have used songs to bring a friend out of a funk.
We have literally worked on the set for 2 months and actually structured the set and looked at how people will feel when they hear that song, when you work with mixing music, you want people to feel really excited and take them on a journey. We want to make sure people have a good time, enjoy music, play it to a point they are touched by it. If they go home tonight and all they can say is I enjoyed myself with my friends, it was fine.
HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN TECHNO TOMMY? WERE YOU ONE OF THOSE WHO TRIED TO ARRANGE IT LAST YEAR?
KYLE– So I was the first guy to come to staff and they all knew that I dj’d at Traddies before, I got a few gigs before 8 shows in the fall. What happens is I got to know Ray who coordinates the events here…she slots everyone in…we originally we had planned an end of semester party – it got cancelled. The list was about to 400 people … and so the bar closed 3 days early…what did was I took that event list and as soon as Ray said she was planning to have ane electronic night and bunch of Djs..I have transferred the event of the end of semester party into Techno Tommy…
ANDY – To me the problem is larger concerts and larger electronic events and they have rave associated with it and because of negative press…I wanted to express to best to fans what the event was going to be…people who know electronic music know what rave is. To them a rave is not an excuse to do drugs. They know it is a meeting of a bunch of people. I wanted it to become a big group and enjoy a specific music type. After a couple weeks it was getting attention at university because it was getting so much heat, I was told to change the name. I didn’t want the event to be cancelled because the campus was following the negative publicity…I didn’t want the event to be cancelled because of semantics. I sent out message to people….please come and enjoy
DO YOU THINK ANY ISSUES WILL ARISE B/C OF NIKIAS’ LETTER…HIS FEELINGS TOWARDS “RAVES”?
K YLE– NO COMMENT FROM EITHER
IS THIS THE ONLY TIME TECHNO TOMMY WILL HAPPEN…OR TRY TO DO IT WEEKLY/MONTHLY?
KYLE – Saturday event put on by later DJs – we are not playing but we would love to go…I KNOW WE worked so hard for so long and didn’t want work to go for nothing. Like Andy said, we are doing it tonight for free. We are not doing this for money. We have a passion for music. If I can make someone happy with music. This is not work, this is a hobby, this is for fun. For me, I want to see people dance. Most DJs just play music but at an event like Traddies I can interact with the crowd. It’s tangible.
ANDY –More interaction with audience. I hope we can continue this. We sent out a latter to everyone just saying having fun and don’t get rowdy and don’t be the reason this can’t continue and go on and be a regular thing. Everyone loves this music now for good reason – best most creative stuff out there in my opinion. Breeds a community where people can talk to strangers. Forge friendships off electronic and after.
KYLE– I met Andy at one of his shows and we are DJ’ing together 3 months later…we have a group of friends who like this music…we call ourselves team…and we literally say team, we all go out, love music…and when 7-8 can go to show together, it is the best time we can ever have, we are all together. We are there for the music.
ANDY- there for music
KYLE– I have never had such close friends there
ANDY – Music is the most beautiful thing on earth
KYLE– I’m glad to see so many people want to come to this event – it shows how strong it is. It is the biggest event the venue has ever seen and the biggest event the new campus center has ever seen.
This is where we can get the most insane place to enjoy this music.