{"id":17093,"date":"2013-04-17T11:25:52","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T18:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arizonafoothillsmagazine.com\/aznightlife\/?p=17093"},"modified":"2013-04-17T11:39:28","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T18:39:28","slug":"dj-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arizonafoothillsmagazine.com\/aznightlife\/dj-twist\/","title":{"rendered":"DJ Twist1 Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Twist<\/p>\n

Originally from Phoenix, AZ and djing since the age of 14, Twist1 grew up listening to funk and jazz music. His mother being a composer of sorts, he always had a passion for music.\u00a0Workining with an impressive list of highly qualified artists from The Beat Junkies, DJ Q-bert, Rob Swift, Mr. Dibbs, DJ Radar, Living Legends, Atmosphere, The Visionaries, Jean Grae, Abstract Rude, DJ Drez, Fatlip of the Pharcyde, Wildchild of the Lootpack, Omni, Del the funkee homosapien, The Alkaholiks, and many more, Twist1’s proven ability to rock a party has helped him become one of the most sought after club and tour DJ’s in his genre.<\/p>\n

DJ Twist1 moved to Maui shortly after the turn of the millenium and was voted “best of maui” in 2004 and 2005 by the Maui Times readers poll. Always ready to rock the house, Twist1 never\u00a0disappoints\u00a0and his unique style of mixing up different types of music as well as his keen ability to read the crowd has made him one of the most respected dj’s in the hawaiian islands. Now living back in the states and touring with artists such as Fatlip (formerly of The Pharcyde), Omni (BLX Worldwide), A-Plus (Hieroglyphics\/Souls of Mischief), and a list of others.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/p>\n

AFM:<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>Hi Twist! We are super pumped to interview you about Electronic Dance Music because as a respected DJ in all genres, but most notably in Hip-Hop, you can offer an outside perspective on the EDM scene. That being said, give our readers a little background information about who you are, where you’ve been (musically), and where you’re headed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cool. Well, I started DJing back in 1994 when a friend\u2019s cousin first exposed me to turntablism. I still remember mostly just playing a bunch of old Sugar Hill records like Rapper\u2019s Delight and The Message over and over again while my friends would b-boy on our 10×10 square of beat up linoleum. I started working when I was 14 and managed to save up enough money to buy my first DJ setup. It was two GLI Pro belt-drive turntables and a Lineartech mixer\u2026pretty sure they don\u2019t make either one of those anymore.<\/p>\n

In \u201995 a group of my friends started a label called Fission Records and we started producing music and throwing huge house parties. Performed at a bunch of raves in the mid to late 90\u2019s (when they still played hip hop at EDM parties) and played shows with a few big hip hop names before moving to Hawaii at the beginning of 2001.<\/p>\n

While I was living on Maui, I started a weekly 4-hour live radio mix show on Saturday nights called the Vinyl Lounge on WILD105.5 FM which aired for about 3 years. At one point I was workin\u2019 in a record store during the day, on the radio in the evening, and then DJing til 2 AM at the club about 6 days a week. A lot of work, but it was pretty awesome to be surrounded by music all day, every day. I was also voted \u201cBest of Maui\u201d in 2004 and 2005 before relocating to Kauai to open my own independent record store. Hawaii was very good to me and I had the opportunity to play with a ton of amazing artists and DJ\u2019s that I admired and looked up to as a kid.<\/p>\n

About a year after opening my shop, I came to the realization that if I really wanted to take my DJ career to the next level and be able to travel I would need to live back in the states. So I made the very difficult decision sell my record shop to a friend and move to Oakland, CA. I was only in the bay for a couple months before I signed on as the tour DJ for Fatlip of The Pharcyde and after touring around North America, I ended up back in Phoenix, AZ when I ran into a bunch of my old crew while we were in town for a show.<\/p>\n

AFM:<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>How do you feel about the transition away from vinyl and into CDJ’s? Has the art of DJ-ing lost some of its artistic expression? Or gained more capabilities?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Great question! I guess it\u2019s just a sign of the times. In 2013, it\u2019s pretty clear that we\u2019re living in the Age of Information Overload. Technology has come so far over the last ten years that it\u2019s become almost a necessity to make the transition from real vinyl to some type of digital format. I\u2019m personally still a big advocate of turntables and made the transition from actual vinyl to Serato records a couple years after it started to take off.<\/p>\n

I remember playing a gig at \u201cAdult Swim\u201d in downtown Phoenix a couple years back and had to use CDJ\u2019s to play my set because the turntables never showed up for the event. I was still able to use Serato with the CD control discs and it was fun for me since it was different than what I\u2019m used to. But the most common reason for making the switch that I\u2019ve heard from other dj\u2019s is the benefit of not having to worry about needle feedback from the bass that can be a problem when performing on large sound systems or at big festivals.<\/p>\n