DJ AM - A story and perspective

By: JP SOLIS

I was 23.  Up until that point, I’d been a straight up house dude.  Sasha and Digweed, Mark Farina, Sander Kleinenberg, and Deep Dish meant more to me than a Mark Ronson, DJ Cassidy, Stretch Armstrong, DJ Riz, let alone some guy we had to fly in from LA named DJ AM.  As Assistant Music Director of the hottest superclub in New York at that time, I was a walking musical sponge.  Music and the dancefloor were a full time job. I took it so seriously that I’d be the only person in the club who wouldn’t talk to anybody for hours; listening to DJ’s work the room and watching big crowds of people respond to music instead.

I learned to listen with my gut.  Some DJ’s were good.  Some were really good.  And more often than not we’d get a few special ones, who as Lighting Director Mike D (Twilo) would say, “have that energy.”  And he’d say that with a tightly clenched fist and gesture a punch to your chest.

DJ AM was one of the special ones who had “that energy.”  It must have been around 1:30 AM, as the room was packed – about 1,500 people deep.  It was a regular “Supersize” Thursday night at Crobar in 2004. SMAC captain Bill Spector had just introduced me to Kenny Dope from Masters At Work, who must have been there to check out the space, or maybe DJ AM?

As Eli Escobar recounts on OutsideBroacast, his first gig at Crobar with DJ AM:

“It was for the most part a normal gig until about 10 minutes before [DJ AM’s] set, I looked in back of me and about 15 of New York's biggest DJ's were all standing there waiting to see him go on. He showed up, humble as ever, took over and my jaw proceeded to hit the floor for the next two hours. He worked so damn hard from the minute he started that I really almost felt embarrassed for the way I had been playing before hand. Most importantly though, the energy in the room sky rocketed.”

I walked up behind the lighting booth overlooking the dancefloor to kick it with Mike D and was like, “Yo, this dude is nice.  Have you heard him play before??”   To which Mike dryly replied, “Nope, never heard of him.”

Well, that was about to change as he certainly got our attention.  It was the first time in my life I had heard ACDC to “Livin’ on a Prayer” to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to Blur’s  “Song #2” mixed and blended so creatively (USING VINYL RECORDS), with enough PUNCH and momentum to get 1,500 sweaty people reaching for the ceiling, screaming in tandem.  It was a pretty sight.  Moreover, it was an indescribable feeling.  You could almost feel the vibration of excitement in the air. It was like an invisible pulse of energy tingling at the outer layer of your skin.  Every song he dropped felt like a punch to your gut.  You couldn’t help but move. That night I learned what Mike D meant by “energy.” Punch. Momentum.  Flow.  Progression.  And a highly developed sense of timing: knowing when to pull the trigger, when to drop the bomb.  And once you’ve pulled the trigger, never letting up until it’s time to go home.  DJ AM did that so well, using music everybody knew, which made his sets all the more powerful.

No matter what, he will always be an inspiration to me.  He is the most successful non-producer DJ to have ever emerged from the special events industry, with an estimated asset value of approximately 3.9 million dollars at the time of his demise.  Life’s blows do not discriminate. By default, nobody is ever insulated from the range of positive and negative emotions which define everyday life; although one may so willingly choose, and undoubtedly pay the price. Michael Jackson, DJ AM, John Belushi, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Elvis Presley…

As they have it plastered for the Tennis Champs at Wimbledon, “To face triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.”

And as the Original Roc Boy once said,

“[One] must ever be careful to avoid the temptations which beset him, to choose carefully his associates, and give attention as well to his spiritual and…mental and material interests.”
-John D. Rockefeller, Sr