N.C. Raves: Making the vibe
What is a rave? : Making the vibe (4 of 10)

 

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Audio: When the deejay "takes the crowd on a trip"  

 

A good deejay seamlessly mixes the beat of one song into another, and controls the mood of the crowd through the selection of music. James Vaughn (DJ One Drum), 19, a N.C. State University student, gets into his set at a rave in Fayetteville. MORE
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Copyright ©1998 Jim Webb. All rights reserved.


Interacting with the crowd, rather than just performing for them, is the hallmark of a good deejay. "The energy live adds a different element, because there's the deejay-dancer dynamic," says Todd Morman, a long-time partygoer from Raleigh. "When a good deejay is on, it adds something to the music." TOP

While many deejays establish themselves as proficient in one particular kind of techno music, like house, trance or jungle, the best deejays often experiment, mixing genres and including unusual elements. "It's all about the flow. It's all about seeing what kinds of things I can do that are completely unheard of, like mixing in The Cure," says Jodie Webb (DJ Mizar), a jungle deejay from Chapel Hill.

Interacting with the crowd doesn't necessarily mean playing only popular music. "I like hard music -- anything that bangs," says Greg Glasby (DJ Audio Pimp), a North Carolina deejay originally from Detroit. "My job is to take them on a trip, take them on a ride." But during one of Glasby's recent sets in Durham, the floor cleared of dancers as he spun clattering, discordant hardcore music with beats much faster than most techno. "I think some of them were frozen in fear from the music," he says. "The stuff I like is really hard, and the people down here [in North Carolina] haven't really gotten into that yet." Still, Glasby plays his own style, in hopes that the exposure will make it more popular. "Hopefully, they'll walk out of here thinking, 'That was a little different, but it's kind of cool.'" TOP