Ryan Burger: This is Ryan Burger, the publisher of Mobile Beat magazine, and we’re here with the two representatives of Yamaha Corporation that touch the pro DJ and disc jockey pro audio division all the time, Wayne Hrabak and John Schauer. Introduce yourselves, if you could, please, and tell us what you do with Yamaha.

Wayne Hrabak: Hi, Ryan. This is Wayne Hrabak. I’m the live sound marketing manager here. And we are responsible, John and I, who’ll introduce himself in a second, for the marketing and the programs that are associated with live sound products at Yamaha through what we call the MI channel, which would be musical instrument retailers. There’s also a separate commercial audio division which caters to the non-MI channel and they also sell the products that we have, but they also go upmarket with a broad selection of step-up products for the concert and installation markets.

John, you want to introduce yourself?

John Schauer: Yeah. I’m John Schauer. I’m the product manager for the live sound products department here at Yamaha. And I take care of helping Japan develop products after we get input from the U.S. market, especially as it would go down the MI channel, or musical instrument channel.

Ryan Burger: Okay. Well, Yamaha makes a ton of different things. But when it comes down to it, when you’re out at one of these DJ conferences, the two of you are the guys that are demonstrating the products, talking to the DJs like what John mentioned, and getting ideas and feeding it back to the industry.

In addition to DJs, you guys are also touching into what other areas? What other shows do you go to in addition to NAMM and the Mobile Beat show, I guess?

Wayne Hrabak: Well, we attend some of the commercial-oriented shows as spectators, more or less, because the commercial audio group is there representing the product line. So we keep a pulse on what’s going on on the installation side of things. John participates — you might want to elaborate a little bit on this, John — with our band and orchestra division. We’ve made some major penetration into the marching band market in particular, if you want to comment on that, John.

John Schauer: There’s several activities that marching bands have gotten into in recent years. More and more electronics have gotten into marching bands, if you will. Some of the band obviously doesn’t march. It sits on the side of the field or is an indoor event; sometimes done during the winter time to keep the kids busy when they’re not out on the field. At any rate, those shows we attend.

We also do a great amount of work with worship people. We have several initiatives to grow that business also

Ryan Burger: Well, I’m familiar with your products. The first stuff I got when I was getting into Yamaha product was the PS system. You also have the power amplifier speakers. Tell us a little bit about the spread of product and where you see things going in the future.

Wayne Hrabak: Well, probably the biggest change in the market, both on the DJ side and on the MI retail side is the area of loudspeakers. And over the past five years or so there’s been tremendous growth in the powered speaker market. So whereas years ago it was always the passive speaker and a separate power amplifier, as time has rolled along there’s been a much larger acceptance and ease of transport and hookup by using powered speakers as opposed to passive and amplifiers separately. So that certainly has been one of the greater changes in the market as we see it.

John Schauer: Absolutely. I think we’ve seen the size of the cabinets have gotten smaller and lighter, and the output power has gotten higher and higher as we go. But self-powered stuff this year has taken over, absolutely.

Wayne Hrabak: And then also there’s been a transition from wooden boxes to plastic boxes, and that’s basically to answer the desire of many people, including lots of DJs we talked to, that are looking for smaller and lighter.

John Schauer: And much more powerful.

Wayne Hrabak: As they get older, they don’t want to be lugging around large, heavy gear. And I would say that all manufacturers catering to this market sort of have the same or similar goals in mind in terms of achieving their performance parameters as well as the physical characteristics of the products that we deliver.

Ryan Burger: Fantastic. Do you see a lot of the DJs getting into expanding their business, into doing pro sound kind of work in that they’re doing backing for bands and stuff like that? Or is it more the DJs are just staying in their niche, I guess?

Wayne Hrabak: Those that I’ve talked to, I think that they have seen more applications for different kinds of P.A. products. As you know, we penetrated what we call the portable P.A. system market within the past four years, which is a very small, compact, lightweight, complete system. And up until the time these kinds of products came on the scene, DJs really didn’t have something that they could use, like for ceremonies or for other kinds of applications that didn’t require a large system.

And I’d say that I’ve seen this trend toward having multiple systems of different sizes and characteristics to meet different requirements. Certainly some of them have also gotten into karaoke, in talking with many of them. They have the same kinds of needs in being able to easily carry product around and set it up and take it down quickly without breaking their backs doing it.

John, do you have any observations about that?

John Schauer: That’s absolutely right. I think that we’ve seen the DJs themselves branch off; at least the DJs that do wedding receptions and things like that, have seen a need to offer something more. And so they’ve come up with these smaller systems to use for the ceremony, that sort of thing; or the little town meeting or the small thing that they may be involved with where they only need speech support with a little bit of music behind it, that sort of thing; or some single person playing a piano in the background. That’s the sort of thing where this portable sound system has really run through, because they realize that for the cost of the system, a few rentals and they’ve paid for it.

Ryan Burger: You have a very well-established product line. There’s nothing revolutionary except for constant improvement of the products that are out there. Can you give us — is there anything in the pipeline that we should be looking for from Yamaha in the next six months to a year that you can tell at all about? Or you don’t want to let the cat out of the bag as to what revolutionary new stuff you’re doing, but just constant improvement? Is that what Yamaha’s been going after in the next couple years?

Wayne Hrabak: I would say so. I think that our goals are always to try to stay on the leading edge of what’s happening in each product group. And when a product gets old enough that it maybe isn’t as quite as leading edge as it once was, then it’s certainly time to replace it. And we also monitor what’s happening in the market with products that we don’t currently have an answer for, and determine if Yamaha Japan is interested and/or willing to venture into new areas and to expand our market.

But generally speaking I would say we have been extremely successful in the sound reinforcement/live area with what I would call high-value products. And that’s what we’ll basically continue doing, is introducing products of like kind to both replace the ones we have at some point, and as I said, expand into some areas that we’re not currently involved in.

Ryan Burger: Fantastic. Is there anything else from either one of you that you want people to know about Yamaha, yourselves, the whole connection before we wrap this up?

John Schauer: We work hard to try to come up with products that we know the market’s been asking for, and we try out best to come up with them at a price point where people can afford to use them, and that we’ll continue to work for them throughout a fairly long life as a rental product or as something that’s going out and being used every weekend. We get a lot of compliments on the quality and longevity of our product.

Ryan Burger: Fantastic. So once a Yamaha customer — keeps with the Yamaha product line because it’s something that’s going to last you a long time. It’s not something you have to replace every couple years like some of the other stuff that’s out there.

Fantastic. Wayne and John, thank you for joining me. Wayne and John from Yamaha — see them at the next Mobile Beat show or one of the other national disc jockey conventions. Thanks, guys.

Wayne Hrabak: Thank you very much.

John Schauer: Thank you.

Ryan Burger: This is Ryan Burger, the publisher of Mobile Beat Magazine, and we’re here with Jorgen Hedberg. The name might not mean a lot to you unless you’re in the know in the way of MP3 software in the last 10 years or so. But he’s come back with a bunch of people that he’s worked with in the past and they have put together GizmoLabs, and they’ve got some great new software coming out.

Jorgen, introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about how we get up to the current day and the current incarnation of the GizmoLabs crew.

Jorgen Hedberg: Well, I started a little over 10 years ago and we’ve been working with MP3 all that time, actually. And I would say that now for the first time we’ve got our own package together that we’ve really wanted to do from the very beginning and are in control of everything, which feels nice.

What can I say? All the stuff that we’ve learned over the years in terms of what people use, what they want, and what we’ve seen them use and how to use it has gotten to this stage, that I think we’ve got a really good package together.

Ryan Burger: You guys have always been in the background developing products that were then OEM’d out to other companies.

Jorgen Hedberg: Yeah, exactly. We’ve done development for [inaudible], Peavey and [inaudible] Audio and others. So we have of algorithms and DSP and DSP card and in-the-guts kind of thing running in products — thousands of products right now. So our technology and stuff that we’ve developed, it’s in the market. It doesn’t have our name on it because we’ve OEM’d it. So a lot of people are using our stuff without knowing it.

Ryan Burger: Yeah. And the whole key is getting the algorithms correctly, getting the software correct in the front. And the backgrounds — you can put a pretty interface on anything out in front of it, but what actually does the work is all the code in the background. I know that from my little bit of experience in the area.

The old team is all back together; the bank is back together. You’re a smaller group. Tell me about your group.

Jorgen Hedberg: Well, the group we have now is the people from the same group that we started out in ’99, with David and Eric and Chris and Ken. So it’s kind of a déjà vu. It’s really nice. What can I say? It’s people I’ve known a long time and we know what we want. Yeah. It’s great.

Ryan Burger: Who kind of gathered this whole group up of getting you guys back together? Was it something in your mind of just wanting to do what you want to do more, have control over the situation? Or was it David? Who got the group together?

Jorgen Hedberg: Well, when the whole thing started with PCDJ, I wasn’t in that company for very long; about a year and a half or two years, maybe. And I had a vision. When I came to the U.S., I had a little board with some buttons on it and I could hook it up to a computer and I could press a few buttons and play and start. And I told them, “Look, this is what I want to do. I want to hook up to a computer that can play music.” And that was the idea.

And then they started to do a lot of other activities. It was a crazy IT age; the IT bubble with Internet and Napster and banner ads and all that. And they were more interested in that kind of area and I figured, “Well, let’s just do this.”

So what I did, I quit from VisioSonic and started GizmoLabs. And this was in 2001. And at that point I just started that myself. I kind of just stepped out of everything that I was doing and said, “Okay. Let’s start again and see how this goes.”

And after a while, Ken and Chris, they wanted to come along with me. So they quit Visio and they came to me, and then we started working. And we worked together since 2001 until now, and when David and Eric Zhao [ph] came aboard. So it’s been kind of a two-step process in terms of getting the bank back together, if you know what I mean.

Ryan Burger: Okay. Well, let’s get up to current stuff. For those of you that are listening to this later off of the Net, GizmoLabs.net is the Web address. The product is RPM. Tell us a little bit about what RPM is and what short-term plans you have that everybody’s going to be able to see.

Jorgen Hedberg: Well, RPM is all-types DJ application that you can DJ with, and we have a whole suite of products coming out. It’s based on technology that we developed for a long, long time in terms of record case management, DSP algorithms in terms of time stretch, looping, and all that stuff that we perfected during the years. So we have a lot of stuff coming out and this is the first product in that series of products that’s coming out.

Ryan Burger: What’s different that people are going to see about RPM than some of the other products that have been there? I’m looking at the screen a little bit. It seems very detail-oriented. It seems like you’re getting a ton of different streams of audio going at one time. What are you able to do now that you were on your own that other people were limiting you on in the past?

Jorgen Hedberg: Well, first, we can do what we really wanted to do and go in the direction that we wanted to do, which means that we are making DJ software. We’re making things that we want to do that we would buy, if you know what I mean. We’re not trying to chase the dollar in terms — “Oh, that looks profitable so let’s go that direction.” We’re doing stuff, products that we would like to buy, and hopefully that other people would like to buy, too. So money’s kind of a good by-product out of that. That’s the biggest difference.

Also, the whole creative process of going into stuff to do that is really fun developing in terms of, I wonder how you can do this and that, and also for things like — we have a record case that learns how you play. So as you play, the more and more you play, it gives you suggestions of how you can mix. That’s kind of a new way of looking at things. So the tool will learn how the DJ DJs and help him.

Ryan Burger: Some artificial DJ intelligence. I look at this smart view. You’ll be able to make suggestions on what songs go with what you might be currently playing. So it’s keeping track of your old playlists.

Jorgen Hedberg: Exactly. So when you select tracks, it gives you selections of things that — you can mix with this because this you’ve done before. And it also gives you that list in the order of, oh, you’ve done this most. So you get it like in a prioritized order as well.

Ryan Burger: Okay. You guys had mentioned some of the information I received in advance, working with some of the different controller companies; the Denons, the other guys like that. So I’m assuming very compatible through those kinds of connections?

Jorgen Hedberg: Yes. We have an approach of making everything as possible auto-detectable and auto-connectable. So it’s very hard to map out the controller. Even if you have a good mapper, it’s very hard to get the mapping really good. So we’ve done out input plug-ins in a way that they can detect what controllers you plug in. And we worked really hard on making those support really excellent.

And we worked for many years with Denon, for instance, for making the controllers really, really compatible. And we have the best, I think, Denon controller support for the DJ programs, for ins and out, the displays, the platter support, the scratch support, and so on.

Ryan Burger: I see from your site people can download a demo of RPM and play around with it a little bit. What are the limitations of the demo? You’re only talking a $59 product, is what you guys are selling it for. So what kind of limitations are there on the trial that people can play with this a little bit?

Jorgen Hedberg: The demo is not limited. The only thing it’s limited at, it operates only in chunks of 30 minutes at a time. It doesn’t have any limitations in terms of functionality. And the $59 is an introductory price. It’s not the real full price. That price will go up.

Ryan Burger: Understandably, though. Yeah. Obviously you’re not totally in this just for the money, but you’ve got to make a living; got to get something for what you’re worth. Fantastic product.

Anything else you want to tell everybody before we wrap this up?

Jorgen Hedberg: Probably a ton of stuff once we hang up. That’s the way it always is. I can talk for hours as long as I get started. You should see me at the trade shows.

What I can say — try it out and keep working with it for a while and I think you will like it, because it’s in the details that you will find the smoothness and how well it works. It’s all in the details. That’s all I can say.

Ryan Burger: As it says on GizmoLabs.net, “RPM was designed and built to meet the needs of the working DJ.” Check out GizmoLabs.net and download the software; purchase it at that special $59 rate, which probably won’t last real long. Check it out and post on the chat boards what you think of it.

Appreciate you joining me, Jorgen.

Jorgen Hedberg: Thank you.

Ryan Burger: I am Ryan Burger, the publisher of Mobile Beat Magazine. I’m here with another interest disc jockey that caught my attention, this time at the Mobile Beat Las Vegas DJ Show this past February. I’m here with Charlene Mortillo of Popular Party DJs. Tell me a little bit about your story how you got into this.

Charlene Mortillo: Well, Ryan, I started in college. I was actually going to be an accountant and ended up landing as a disc jockey. I started in college radio. Eventually became a local jock at a New Jersey/New York metropolitan area radio station. One of the DJs there I got involved with he brought me into his company, and within a year I opened up Popular Party DJs.

Ryan Burger: So you were going to be an accountant. I couldn’t imagine that just from talking to you.

Charlene Mortillo: I know it’s amazing. Yeah.

Ryan Burger: So I mean, we don’t want to totally date you, but how long have you been in the whole mix of the disc jockey world

Charlene Mortillo: Since 1985.

Ryan Burger: Okay. Cool. Tell me a little bit about what makes Popular Party DJs different than everybody else that’s out there.

Charlene Mortillo: Well, our uniqueness is that basically I have been married myself at one point, and I find that being that I was that myself, I can understand the bride’s concerns. I can go through the experience with them on a personal level and I can focus on what they want and I can tailor their weddings to what they’re looking for. I can help them go from each step of the event, and I can bring together what they want and work with them on a personal level.

Ryan Burger: So you’ve got that female advantage that us male DJs can try to do and try to connect with the brides, but we just can’t connect as tight as you can.

Charlene Mortillo: I think that’s pretty much what it boils down to, yes.

Ryan Burger: Okay. I mean, you talked about weddings there, but do you get into corporate events, other types of events, or is weddings where you really try to stay?

Charlene Mortillo: Yes, pretty much. But I do, do the corporate events. Yes, I work on all levels with the coordinators at different companies things like that also. But, yeah, I pretty much focus myself on weddings.

Ryan Burger: Cool, cool. I mean, you’ve got that connection with it. You personally are a disc jockey in the company. You’ve got a couple other people that work for you that you kind of found that share the same philosophy?

Charlene Mortillo: Yes, I have a few DJs. I have a few dancers, but, yes, I definitely do a lot of — I do most of the weddings myself. But, yeah, I do have three or four DJs that work with me that work in my company that take care of the corporate. They also take care of the mitzvahs that specifically sit down with our coordinators to do that also. So we have a very open group of people that take care of a little bit of everything.

Ryan Burger: I guess I know your neighborhood, but tell us how far you’ve traveled, and where you’re based out of, and that kind of information.

Charlene Mortillo: We’re based out of central New Jersey, but we travel to New York, Eastern PA, and Connecticut.

Ryan Burger: So you do get around. If someone’s heard of you locally at a friend’s wedding and wants you travel a little bit farther, you don’t mind, I’m sure?

Charlene Mortillo: Oh, no, no, no. We have no problem traveling anywhere. I’ve traveled as far as Florida, depending on who and the word of mouth where we go. I go pretty much almost anywhere.

Ryan Burger: I remember a disc jockey telling me before we did these interviews and stuff about how a bride really wanted them to come out, and they were having a destination wedding in Hawaii. He, for some reason, didn’t complain too much. I imagine you take those kinds of gigs as quickly as they come in, right?

Charlene Mortillo: Oh, absolutely. I have no complaints there.

Ryan Burger: Very cool. You said a little bit of your approach, having the female advantage, the chromosomes being different than the rest of us. But in the entertainment style how does that come out when you’re actually at the wedding reception?

Charlene Mortillo: Well –

Ryan Burger: Threw you for a loop there. I’m sorry.

Charlene Mortillo: I’m sorry.

Ryan Burger: I threw you for a little bit of a loop there, but yeah, tell me how you are actually at the events.

Charlene Mortillo: Oh, I’m extremely outgoing. I find myself that me personally I’m extremely upbeat. I find that my parties are more dance-oriented. I find my style to be a high-energy person. I dictate my event by the participation level. I don’t jump to change the level unless the dance floor changes, and then I have to, of course, change the level of the party. Most people at my parties they want to dance. They don’t want a DJ that’s constantly talking. So I find that I vary it by what goes on, but I like to be high energy all the time. So if things slow down, of course, I have to pull something out of my sleeve to pull the party back up. I think everybody had their own niche, but I beat mix. Not a lot of DJs seems to — female DJs beat mix. So I find that that brings my — it’s almost like you had soul train going on at your party, and you have men that beat mix. There’s not a lot of female DJs that do beat mix.

So I think everybody has their niche. That’s what I do. So I think that’s how — everybody does something different. You know, personally that’s something that I do. Of course, I learned from other DJs how to do this, and that’s how I watch the floor. I keep a constant eye on what goes on, on the floor, and I determine which way the music goes by what I see.

Ryan Burger: On with beat mixing and moving into a little of the equipment you use, where did you learn — I mean, you said you learned to beat mix from other disc jockeys. Are you doing this on computer? Are you doing this on vinyl? Are you doing this on CD? Tell me a little bit about the gear involved in your shows.

Charlene Mortillo: Oh, okay. Well, currently I carry Rain mixers, Rain and Pioneer mixers. I carry more than one system, because I always carry backup everywhere I go. But I use Rain and Pioneer mixers. I use DBX equalizers. I have Pioneer and Denon CD players that I carry all the time. Everything that I carry microphone wise, I use Shure. I use JBL and Neon and Mackies, Fermin, Compaq and HP computers. I carry a mix of everything because you just never know. You have always got to be prepared for whatever. So pretty much. That’s pretty much what I carry with me all the time. I’m a big believer in back up equipment no matter where I go.

Ryan Burger: You don’t want to have to be scrambling by any means. I mean, that seems to be the big key. If something does go awry at a wedding reception that the bride never knows that it happens, and that you are able to take care of it. So you have everything on site there ready to go with you.

Charlene Mortillo: Absolutely. I’m a big believer in four computers everywhere I go and four hard drives wherever I go.

Ryan Burger: Four computers, gees. Okay.

Charlene Mortillo: Yeah, and I’m very big in that two are always ready on the table, and two are always sitting in a bag right by my feet. So yes, I’m big in carrying things that — most people don’t carry, I do.

Ryan Burger: So how do you get your business? I mean, all disc jockeys get it word of mouth, but do you do the bridal fairs? Do you go out and shake a lot of hands, kiss a lot of babies — well, you wouldn’t be kissing babies in the bridal business — but I mean, how do you find out — how do people find out about Popular Party DJs?

Charlene Mortillo: Well, of course, the Internet is pretty much the biggie right there. Being the fact that I have the Internet, and, of course, you said word of mouth. A lot of the things that I do — I do a lot of advertising through friends that I do some — I used to do value packs. I find that they are not very big anymore. The wedding sites that are out there — there’s quite a few of them that I advertise through, anything from We DJ to whatever. There’s a bunch of them out there that I’ve used over the course of the years, some of them with great return, some of them with not so great returns. But I lately have been just word of mouth that just keeps coming around again and again. And I think it’s a wonderful thing, because word of mouth is your best customer. So that’s pretty much what I go through and then what I do. So I mean, I’m sure most DJs are the same way.

Ryan Burger: Understood completely. The word gets around about a good disc jockey there’s no doubt about it. It seems to also get around about someone that’s not doing things right, and they don’t last in the business for long. I mean, you’ve been in this business for a long time, so the word’s definitely gotten out about yourself. Where do you see things going? I know when we were talking and by the time this profile comes out in a magazine, you will have rejuvenated your business, and putting a lot more into it, gotten a lot more hands in, and done a lot with your website. Where do you see the future of Popular Party DJs going? Do you see yourself as a 70-year-old DJ doing wedding receptions still for people when you get way up there in age? What do you see as your future, I guess?

Charlene Mortillo: I guess what I kind of see that’s going to be happening, like I said, is I’m going to be more customer focused. Being the fact that we’re going to be splitting the company into two parts, we’re going to align it and realign it, so to speak. Popular Party DJs is going to become Popular Entertainment New Jersey, and we’re gong to have two sections. One’s going to be wedding, bar mitzvahs, and corporate, which will be Popular Entertainment New Jersey. That’s going to be very customer high end focused. And the Popular Party DJs is going to become the family entity so to speak where that’s going to be your sweet 16s, and your anniversaries, and whatever.

But I am really going to be doing the high-end focus for myself and for a couple of my other jocks to take care of just being high end. I mean, taking care of entertaining pictures for people. And setting the situation up to make sure that they’re happy, and they’re party planning is done from start to finish, and make sure they’re totally focused on what the customer needs are. And then other one, the other side of this spectrum, with Popular Party DJs will be there for the customer who’s looking for something that is just very low end — not low end so to speak but midrange where they can enjoy themselves, and have a good time, and not be spending the amount of money they’d be spending on a wedding but still enjoy themselves.

And where my daughter has now come into play, and she’s now at the age where she’s playing parties every single weekend for me too. And she can take over that part of the business, which would be great now to become a family run business. It’s not just me. It’s now my daughter also. So it’s become more than just a single operator. It’s a big thing now for us. So it’s become a good thing.

Ryan Burger: I know we talked about your daughter and had a little bit of fun with some stuff related to her out at the Vegas show. And she seems, just like mine, she seems just a little bit more outgoing from everything I get out of it. But, I mean, you’ve got to plan for the future, and obviously you’ve got a good amount of that already in the line. So understood. Wrapping things up, tell me a little bit about you that maybe this hasn’t come out with any of the questions that I planned for. What are you all about? How will people know it’s Charlene coming down? How will they know you if they see you at one of these conferences.

Charlene Mortillo: Well, of course, I’m the one laughing all the time. I am the one with the little bit off-beat New Jersey sense of humor. I think I’m fun-loving. I’m driven. I always want to have a great time. I’m a stickler for detail. People that know me know that. And I’m determined to have people have a great time at their events, and people that know me know that that’s the way that I am. I just like to have, and I want it to come out my performance. And I want people to see that. And I want people to understand that DJing is part of you. It’s not you, but it’s part of you. And I just want DJs to understand that it’s not about money. It’s about making people happy. And that’s pretty much it. You know, it’s not a job. It’s part of you.

Ryan Burger: Oh, understood completely. That description fits perfectly. Hopefully we’ll see you at another one of the conventions sometime soon.

Her current website is at PopularPartyDJs.com. By the time this publishes there will be a new site you can bounce off of and see a little bit more about Charlene and everything she’s got going in central New Jersey. Thanks for joining.

Charlene Mortillo: Thank you.

Ryan Burger: This is Ryan Burger, the president of Mobile Beat Magazine. I’m here with Jim Paetschow, the president of Sound Productions, another disc jockey service that I want all of you to know a little bit about and maybe learn a little bit from.

Jim, introduce yourself and tell how you got into this whole business.

Jim Paetschow: I’m Jim Paetschow. I started Sound Productions back in 1980 in junior high school, and just kept after it and kept going and things just kept growing and growing. We currently have 28 systems — 28 identical DJ systems. We play music all over Michigan, northern Ohio.

The company is into so many different things today it’s just kind of — we’ve adapted to what our customers’ needs are; photo booths and large event production shows. We’ve got a crew and we’re on our way to Texas currently today, and from there they leave to go to Atlanta, Georgia because if we do production work for AFLAC insurance, so that takes us all over the country anymore.

But our main focus is wedding receptions, and we do about 2500 of them a year.

Ryan Burger: Fantastic. When you first started, I imagine it was just yourself and then you started growing from that point. How long ago did you go full-time with the business

Jim Paetschow: Oh, geesh, 20 years ago.

Ryan Burger: Okay. So it’s been a full-time occupation for you for the majority of that time, no doubt about it.

Jim Paetschow: Yes.

Ryan Burger: How many full-time staff do you have in there? I imagine the rest are part-time weekend warriors for you, right?

Jim Paetschow: Yep. Realistically there’s six full-time staff and another 35 weekend warriors.

Ryan Burger: Fantastic. Obviously you had said weddings are your biggest area. What percentage of your business is within weddings, whether it be the photo booths, DJs, or whatever you do for a wedding? What percentage is in the wedding area?

Jim Paetschow: Probably 60 percent.

Ryan Burger: Okay. You big into the bridal fair scene? How do you get most of that business?

Jim Paetschow: Word of mouth is the best. We do a lot of bridal shows. We do about 23, 24 bridal shows every year and that’s gotten to be part of our production stuff. So all these — like in Michigan, the Amway people own DeVos Center and we do all the production for all their bridal shows. Not only do we have a booth there, we do the stage and the sound and the lights and video and the whole shebang. So that’s the ultimate way to advertise at a bridal show.

Ryan Burger: Now, are you — this time of the year, we’re recording this in the first quarter of the year. I imagine it’s bridal fair season. You got a couple of them going every weekend, I assume, or how crazy does it get?

Jim Paetschow: We have three to five every weekend.

Ryan Burger: Fantastic. We have one this weekend. I’m trying to come up with staffing to cover all the stuff. So I can understand. You send a couple of full-time staff to each one, a couple of your DJs –

Jim Paetschow: Yep.

Ryan Burger: — and then you’ve got to have the tech side of the things, because from what you’re telling me, the vast majority of them you’re technically involved, not just setting up a little 10′ by 10′.

Jim Paetschow: Right. It’s all hands on deck.

Ryan Burger: Describe the style. Everything started with yourself, obviously, and all the DJs are a little bit different. Where do you put yourself in the way of the style? Can your DJs do everything from sitting behind and pressing play every five minutes to wacky-crazy, or do you have kind of a niche?

Jim Paetschow: We never sit down, number one. There’s no chairs. It’s forbidden to sit at your show. We’re a lot more interactive. And with 28 shows that are all identical — I mean, every single piece is identical, right down to the Ultimate Sports Dance. Every piece of lighting’s all identical. So everybody knows the same thing and you can give them all the same identical music and they’re go do totally different shows.

And the beauty of having so many people is you can teach each other. We have what we call a “hidden video.” We have 28 systems, so we have only 14 hidden video packages. The hidden video package, we record and we actually sell it to a bride and groom; sell it for $175. It’s just a DVD handed to them that night. Whenever those aren’t all out, we bring those back and we watch them and we can, whenever we have a meeting, we pull all the great ideas off them or the not-great ideas off them. And we watch it as a company and learn from them.

Ryan Burger: Fantastic.

Jim Paetschow: It started as a learning tool or kind of a training tool, but then brides and grooms started to want to buy it, and so it just kind of evolved from there.

Ryan Burger: So your staff’s in constant training. I mean, do you have something — I imagine a new DJ program is going on all the time. You constantly have to have people coming up the lines.

Jim Paetschow: We do. Training is neverending. Training’s expensive. It’s very time-consuming, very expensive, but if you’re going to be successful in this business you have to spend it or you just won’t make it.

Ryan Burger: Okay. Obviously you work with a ton of equipment. You said it’s identical across the whole system. Give us a little bit of a lowdown of what the average DJ rolls out with from you guys.

Jim Paetschow: We have all the trucks. We own 17 trucks. They come here, they get in one of our vans. Astro Van is our van of choice. They get in their van, they know where they’re going. Hopefully they’ve already talked to their bride and touched base with them. We really push for that. And everything’s got a Garmin in it and you go to your show and set up and do your thing and come home.

All the equipment’s loaded for them. They don’t load anything. There’s guys here that just load and unload vans all week long.

Ryan Burger: Oh, wow. So are you guys Pioneer guys, Denon guys — what kind of parts?

Jim Paetschow: Denon. Actually, Denon dual-CD. We’ve got a brand new system coming we’re just introducing this year, and it’s computer. We went to computer a few years ago with DJ Power and nobody liked to use it. It was boring. So we went back away from it.

We have some party buses, too. We have three buses and those buses all have computers on them just because you can’t really run a CD player cruising down the highway.

Ryan Burger: Understandably. DJs are always bragging about the rate stuff that they charge. What is the average rate in your market and what do most of your guys go out for? Do you have different wedding packages? How is it done?

Jim Paetschow: Yep. There’s three different wedding packages. We start at $750. An average wedding for us is $1100. We’re in rural Michigan. The city that we’re in — it’s not a city; it’s a town — of 3,000 people.

Ryan Burger: You’re probably the biggest employer in town, then, right, or pretty close?

Jim Paetschow: Well, no. Everybody who says you’ve got to be in a big city to be successful is full of it, especially in this business because you have a service and you’re taking your service to the customer. So we literally are on Mackinac Island all summer long. We leave two systems up there all summer. And we in as far south as Toledo, Ohio, and everywhere in between.

Some of the big metro markets like Detroit and stuff, we don’t even advertise there anymore. You’re just lost in the sea of DJs, so you’re kind of a nobody. And like I say, the word of mouth is great. And down there, people don’t seem to talk and have word of mouth like in other parts of Michigan. I would suspect that’s true in any big city.

Ryan Burger: Yeah. Wow. So I guess I never asked you. What part of Michigan are you in? You’re obviously in rural. How far out from Detroit; what direction? I’ve been to Detroit. That’s about the only part of Michigan I’ve been to.

Jim Paetschow: About two and a half hours north of Detroit; right in the center of the lower peninsula.

Ryan Burger: Gotcha. Okay.

Jim Paetschow: Mount Pleasant’s our closest big town; CMU — Central Michigan University.

Ryan Burger: You guys do have a very strong website, SoundProductions.com; a lot of video content on there, a lot of different stuff on there. What do you use to run the back end of your business? Do you use one of the online packages?

Jim Paetschow: The DJ Intelligence we use for the bride for planning. That’s nice. You can just turn them loose with that. Saves fielding phone calls, you know? “Hey, I want to change my bridal song to this today.” It cut all that out. It just got to be overwhelming; 25 to 50 brides a week we talk to, literally.

And then InfoManager’s our main base. And Todd Wheat’s been great with that company. He’s a phone call away. We have a problem, we can call him. If we want to modify something, we can call him. He’s just fantastic. He logs right in, fixes whatever we need. I would recommend InfoManager to anybody.

Ryan Burger: Very cool.

Jim Paetschow: We’ve looked at other programs, but something’s always missing, so we always just stick with InfoManager.

Ryan Burger: Todd’s a good guy. I met him 10 years ago down at a show down in Texas, so very cool.

Goals for the next 10 years: do you want to do more gigs or do higher-priced gigs or get more into some of the sidelines, the photo booths, and some of the other kinds of things? How many more brides could you want to work with on a weekend?

Jim Paetschow: Yeah, I know. That’s a great question, and I don’t really know the answer to that. We have one photo booth. We bought an Apple photo booth of the real nostalgic steel, 1950′s-style photo booth. And I’m watching all these open-air booths and all these guys are just — and everybody not in the wedding business is getting into the wedding business and is kind of ruining the market for everybody else.

But I don’t know. I’ll tell you, the big money’s in corporate stuff. There’s no end to it. Some of these shows that we do for AFLAC, they’re major, major productions. They’re truckloads of stuff.

We did Orange County Choppers this summer. That’s the biggest show we’ve ever done to date. In Mount Pleasant, Michigan, the Soaring Eagle Casino, they came and gave four bikes away. They custom-built four bikes for them and they gave them away. We did the stage, crew, sound, lights. That’s all over our website, too. We rented a lot of stuff to do that. We rented the roof, but we did all the rest of the stuff. So that’s where we want to be more focused.

The weddings will always be there. I can see us staying with 20 wedding shows and then the rest corporate.

Ryan Burger: Okay. I guess if there’s anything else that you want people to know about Sound Productions of Michigan or yourself, give them the lowdown and we’re done.

Jim Paetschow: You know, stick with it. Everybody starts out thinking they’re going to get rick quick in this business. It’s taken me 30 years to get where we are. We do a million dollars a year. In the market that we’re in, I don’t know if that’ll ever grow. I don’t know that that number will exceed a whole lot than that.

Take care of customers. Customer service, customer service, customer service. I just can’t say that enough to people. And it’s really hard to grind that into your DJ’s heads. They can’t have an attitude. The customer is always right, unfortunately, and they’re not right a lot of times. But they’re always right. Just keep that in the back of your mind.

Every business that I’m into, it all goes back to customer service. If you don’t have it, you might as well go home.

Ryan Burger: Very cool. Jim from Sound Productions in Michigan, thanks for joining me, and I’ll see you soon.

Jim Paetschow: Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Burger: Hi. This is Ryan Burger, the president of Mobile Beat Magazine. We’re here with the latest inductee into the Mobile Beat Hall of Fame, Mr. Karl Detken.

Karl, introduce yourself, please.

Karl Detken: Hello. I am Karl Detken. I am a previous product planner, marketing director, artist relations director for Pioneer Pro DJ products for the last 18 years.

Ryan Burger: Give us a little bit of the lowdown of how you got to this. I know people can watch the video of you online, and I highly recommend you do that by checking out the MobileBeat.com website, go into the Hall of Fame.

But give us a little bit more of an inside take that can only come from you personally.

Karl Detken: Well, I started off as a musician early in the days with a love of guitar and singing, and basically fell in love. That was my passion, my vocation for a long time. Somewhere around 1992 I started a family and realized that the life or a touring musician would never allow me to have a 401(k). So Pioneer at that time had an opening in their karaoke division for their person that would do the licensing and programming of their karaoke. So I took that job and spent the first six to eight years working on the karaoke product.

In that time, one of the things I ascertained was the need for — in order for karaoke to become mainstream, it needed to get out into the consumer public. So I started pitching that art form of karaoke — if you can call it an art form — to the movie studios and TV studios. And we started to get some interest. Shows like Mad About You and even The Simpsons; movies like The Cable Guy and My Best Friend’s Wedding, Duets, and whole lot more started putting in karaoke scenes into their films. And we saw karaoke explode as a mainstream form of entertainment.

During that time, the media format or the delivery format of karaoke changed from laserdisc to CD-G, and it basically hampered our ability to release music with the artist that CD-G was able, because licensing on CD-G and laserdisc was different. Laserdisc was video and you had to get a sync license, and some of the artists like Madonna and Bruce Springsteen did not allow their music to be synced with any kind of video. So CD-G became a stronger format, and companies that were doing CD-G were growing. So that particular market began to shrink for us.

But what it enabled us to do at the time was as we were seeing that a lot of mobile DJs were using our laserdisc karaoke for their bar mitzvahs and weddings and corporate events, we realized that there was a need for different kinds of CD players and different kinds of mixers that DJs would use. So around 1993, 1994, we started working on the CDJ.

And we released in ’95 the CDJ-500G, which was a top-loading tabletop CD player, and it was revolutionary in a couple regards. One, its format and size was different than what had been available before. Rack mount was the norm for a mobile DJ, and putting out this tabletop was different. It acted more like a turntable, although it didn’t scratch. So it grew and subsequently we started to release other products that would complement that, like our mixer series and our Vector series and what we saw as the kind of birth of Pioneer pro DJ in that market. And really, it was about four or five years of working with that product.

And also, I saw the need — for it to become a standard, we would need the top touring superstar DJs using our products. So I started evangelizing and training top-level guys on this product. And at first, it was a hard sell because a lot of these club DJs were coming from vinyl. They were hardcore vinyl purists, and it took a while. But when the CDJ-1000 came in in 2001 that was kind of the changing point where it really avalanched for us in terms of acceptance, because of that emulation and the tactile feel of the CDJ-1000 being so close to being like a vinyl turntable.

So it also took about two years of evangelizing and it was literally like going — being a Christian missionary in a Muslim territory because these vinyl purists definitely did not think that CD was anything like a turntable and it was blasphemy to them. But over a few years, it really took them just putting their hands on the player and realizing the similarity and the ease that now a DJ had to be able to get music onto CD or create a song that afternoon and play it at the club at night, that they realized the benefit of not having to carry around vinyl and not waiting for songs to be released for a month or three weeks for them to play it at the club.

So after the two years, it started to become the standard. And over the last however amount of time, we went platinum; sold over a million players. That was back in 2007, so we’re quite a bit farther from that. But it has become the world’s standard in terms of a nightclub or a top DJ and even a lot of the mobile DJs on the CDJ-1000 and the matching DJM-800.

So my job has basically been helping in the planning and the features and designing of the product as well as for about eight years marketing the product; and of course, being the liaison and friend to the guys that are out there being the rock stars. It’s been a good ride

Ryan Burger: Quick thing with that. You’ve been the connection between the average DJ and the rock star DJs. You have helped to guide the DJ industry into what can be geared as the whole rock star kind of image. DJs before — when someone asked, “Oh, you’re a DJ,” it’s like, “Oh, okay. What radio station are you on?” It’s like, “No, the disc jockey is more of an entertainer. We’re not a jukebox at a wedding.” You have helped to further the technology by seeing the need of this and connecting everything up together. And you’re a great guy to sit and talk to.

The next generation of where you personally went and where the DJs went is into the video area. Give us a minute or two on how everything mod to being a VJ inside of just a DJ.

Karl Detken: That’s a great question, Ryan. Basically somewhere in the ’90s, the image of the DJ did change from being somebody that was just a person that was pressing Play and playing music to actually being an entertainer, whether it was on a club format or on a big stage or at a wedding or the bar mitzvah. It really took on another level, and I think this is what kind of raised the whole industry and the game in regards to the whole DJ industry.

And what we saw is not only guys looking at the products that they used and wanting to use our products, but wanting to learn how to be better entertainers; wanting to learn how to provide their customers — the audience with just a feeling that they have received more than they would have ever imagined from their DJ. And this really didn’t come from anything I did. This was just the industry in itself evolving into being a more refined industry; the DJs turning now into entertainers and providing better service for their clients.

Ryan Burger: Exactly. Our other Hall of Fame inductees before yourself, the Mark Farrells, the Bruce Kesslers; Mr. Buonaccorso, my partner in business here with the magazine, all of them were involved in the national convention scene, the national industry all coming together. So definitely. Understood on that completely.

I connected up with you when we first created ProDJ.com 15 years ago because you’re a guy that would sit and talk with everybody, and you turned into one of the faces of the industry that people got to know. Tell us about your personal life. You’re obviously a strong Christian man that believes in what he believes, but how has that influenced where you’ve gone with your life

Karl Detken: It was an interesting transition for me as a musician because — I don’t know if you remember, but back in the ’90s, when DJs started to become more popular in weddings and bar mitzvahs, a lot of the musicians at the time looked down on DJs because they didn’t feel it was a craft or an art form. And it really took my boss at the time, a Japanese gentleman that said, “I want you to go out and DJ and go out there and do clubs and do weddings so you can understand what our customer wants and you can help in development of the products.”

So I went out and did that and started off with like $90 club night, karaoke night back in 1994. And I actually fell in love with how — because what you do as a DJ and what you do as a musician is very similar. You are evoking. You’re trying to evoke a feeling of goodwill for the people, whether it’s hearing music or singing music or dancing to music. You’re trying to bring them to a different state; get them out of whatever stress and pressures they have of life. So I really got — I found a passion in becoming a DJ, becoming an entertainer.

And like I said, in that, one of my goals was to get to the top guy. But what I also discovered is the importance — there was a core importance for me and a goal to also talk to every single kind of DJ, whether it’s the DJ that’s working for $200 a night at the club or the wedding DJ that was making $800. It was important, and a lot of that was done at some of these trade shows like the Mobile Beat that I attended every year. Great place to have a one-on-one with so many different kinds of entertainers and DJs. So that just allowed me to get a different point of view from all levels, which helped in the production and the designs that we subsequently would come out with.

Now, it’s been such a wonderful blessing for me to even be in this industry, because what I did find out, like a lot of my musician predecessor friends, the personalities of the DJ, although similar in that they want to be performers, there was a lack of ego with many of them that I saw so much of on the musician side. Whereas in the DJ side, there was more of a camaraderie and a will to want to help each other, to kind of raise the art form.

Now, that’s not 100 percent. Of course, there are those that would want to keep their cards close to them and not show what their tricks were and their entertainment styles were. But what I found for the most part is people were willing to give. People were willing to share information. And that was the beauty of things like the Mobile Beat show and some of these associations and the magazines that brought the DJ community together.

So it’s just been a great, great ride for me, and just like I said, a wonderful blessing to be amongst all these kind of performers.

Ryan Burger: So you’ve gone through the life of a musician to a DJ to working with products with all the people there. Where do you see your life going in the next couple years?

Karl Detken: Well, right now I am going to take a little time off, because over the last 18 years I practically have taken no vacations. So my focus right now is to just kind of be with my family and enjoying it. That was one of the reasons I was a little late to this interview, was I needed to walk my kids to school. It’s just nice to be able to spend time with the family.

I’ve got a lot of opportunities in front of me that I’m evaluating. My real goal is to find a partner that really wants to build the next world standard for the DJ community. So I’m just kind of chilling right now in Southern California and this beautiful weather.

Ryan Burger: And the wonderful weather you have out there compared to the -5 I have out here in Iowa.

From musician to DJ to product visionary, we’re happy to induct you into the Hall of Fame. And thanks for joining me, Karl.

Karl Detken: Thank you, Ryan and Mobile Beat.

Ryan Burger: Hi. This is Ryan Burger, the publisher of Mobile Beat magazine. And I am here with the one, the only Johnny Rozz. Introduce yourself to everybody; tell us a little bit about who you are.

John Rozz: Hi, everyone. I’m John Rozz from Sound Spectrum Entertainment in Wallingford, Connecticut; that is in the New England area here on the East Coast. And I’ve been in the music business since I was 12 years old. I’m now 60 so that makes it 48 years if my math is correct.

Ryan Burger: Well, you just celebrated a big 60th birthday and you’re going to be coming up then on your 50th anniversary. Going to have another one of those large parties like what I heard all so much about for 50 years in the business or not

John Rozz: That’s questionable. That’s very questionable. But it’s all about the people and the public so most likely we’ll do something.

Ryan Burger: Something. Maybe I’ll be able to get out there for it. I know Mike Buonaccorso, our trade show manager, had an absolute blast and was just amazed at the people you know, the connections you have, and the production value of one of your shows. We’ve all heard about them and that’s part of what I want to hear about a little bit on this podcast today.

Going back then nearly 50 years, how did you get into the whole music business and then how did you slide yourself into the mobile DJ side of things?

John Rozz: My cousin, Ron Marjesca and Ken Marjesca, started me playing locally when was 12 years old in their wedding band and we went out every Saturday and I played my clarinet and saxophone. And that’s how I got started in the music business.

Ronald’s son made the big time; he’s the trumpet player in a well-known swing band called Big Bad Voodoo Daddy who I’m sure all mobile DJs play their music regularly. So as far as the head honcho in the family, he’s the guy.

And then in 1975 I was buying and selling a lot of oldies at that time from the ’50s and ’60s at a local record store in New Haven, Connecticut called Merle’s. I met a gentleman who told me he was doing a sock hop and I said, “A what?” And he said a sock hop. I’m going to play records at a dance. Would you like to be a guest at my party? And I shook my head and I said, geez, I’ve played in a band my whole life. I don’t know if this would be any good.

And I went to the event and he was playing one record after another, segueing from the left channel to the right on the turntables and he needed some help. So I just went up there and did some vocal stuff and sparked the audience and that’s how the mobile DJ business began for me.

Ryan Burger: Wow. So you helped out with that event. It continued on from there. You eventually started your own company. Do you have anybody else that — I mean, is it just John Rozz that goes out for your company or are there other people that work for you that are part of your show? Tell us a little bit about your overall business, then.

John Rozz: Well, my business consists of seven mobile DJs that go out for me regularly, weekends and weekends. And I have a nice office here in Wallingford, Connecticut and this is where we meet all our mitzvah clients, our corporate clients, our wedding clients, and our school clients. And all the guys do sell their own parties and get involved, even though I do lay the perimeters on what we’re doing, what we’re charging, so on and so forth.

Ryan Burger: Okay. So you have a style that everybody works under but they — the disc jockeys have their own personal style that they throw into the event and that’s how they get referrals under their name. And people calling all the time for you personally, I imagine your schedule fills up. How many events do you think you do in an average year, or is it too tough to keep track of?

John Rozz: Really tough to keep track of. Last weekend we did 18 events and I was very pleased with that. And that was Thursday through Sunday in a time where — you know, the recession is very iffy. So we plug along and we’re doing pretty well with that.

Ryan Burger: Wow. How many of those did you have a touch in yourself? I imagine you were working every night at least, right?

John Rozz: Actually, I’ve been cutting down a little bit, Ryan. I did six events in four days.

Ryan Burger: Only six. Okay.

John Rozz: That’s a lot at my age right now.

Ryan Burger: Understood. One of the questions Mike gave me to ask you about on some of this stuff was how things have changed over the — I mean, in the mobile arena you’re now talking that you’ve been doing — let me do the math — 30-some years. How has the style and the focus of the events changed over the last 30 years?

John Rozz: Wow.

Ryan Burger: It’s a deep question we didn’t prep you with. I understand.

John Rozz: Well, we can talk about that for a while. You know, the changes of course have been — everybody today has a laptop with thousands and thousands of songs on there, so anybody can play any format of music, or at least have it on their computer. So we do see a lot of people doing that, bottom feeding, bottom lying dollars for events. I see weddings as low as $599 here in Connecticut simply because I think of a lot of DJs operating out of garages, bedrooms, basements, whatever, with just a hard drive and a lot of music. That’s one of the big changes.

I do see that a lot of people do want to do a lot of stuff simply just by online or anything over the computer. We do see that, though we try to definitely personally meet with people and get everybody to play in the sandbox together, because I think that’s one of the biggest things missing in America. And if you’re going to be a personal DJ at someone’s wedding, mitzvah, corporate event, they really want to shake your hand. They want to play in that sandbox with you. And we do do a lot of business the old school way here, though I do understand a lot of people are just booking things online. So that’s changed too; that is very big.

I do see that a lot of people today don’t know what a good DJ is. What is a good mobile DJ? I think very few people have witnessed a great mobile DJ, a gentleman or a lady that can MC, can take hold of that crowd and be interactive with them, within reasons, without doing much or too little, where to push the energy, where to lay back, how to segue, how to mix, the genres of music, the chemistry that just puts that certain somebody in the room. I think most people don’t know what that is and that’s missing more and more simply because of the society we live in today. So that is one of the big changes.

Ryan Burger: So it’s kind of a watering down of the personality that’s needed because you can go out and iPod it, go to Guitar Center or Best Buy, get yourself a little sound system and go. It’s a lot about — and there’s been a lot of talk in the DJ industry about not promoting the tools you use but promoting the MC, promoting the uniqueness.

And I’ve seen — obviously with working with you on this book project that we’re going to talk about in a second — uniqueness of doing something different and making that event stand out, versus the last five wedding receptions that the bride’s probably been to that summer of all her friends. It’s making it unique, from what I get out of it. And from what I understand, you’re a king at making the event very unique and not just the same old thing.

John Rozz: Exactly correct, Ryan. I know you know where I’m coming from. I’m going to just give you one other thing that I noticed just recently. I do this throw-back party on Tuesday nights in New Haven, Connecticut and it over-faces the New Haven Harbor and I’m averaging 400 to 500 people there on a Tuesday night. Now, this is strictly oldies music. When I say “oldies,” we go back as far as the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s.

And I’m getting a lot of young people at this event. I’m getting a lot of college students from Yale University that are coming there that are very young; they’re there for summer sessions. They have no clue what I’m playing. They’re out there dancing. They’re out there using — I think it’s called Shazam — to find out what song I’m playing, who the artist is, and then coming up and also asking me what it is. They have never been exposed to any of this kind of music, whether it was rock and roll, doo-wop, soul, funk, whatever, and I’m exposing them to new music. To them that is very cool and they just never knew it existed.

Ryan Burger: Yeah. I mean, you’re able to connect with people that are literally one-third your age, total generational split, that they think music might have begun with Michael Jackson, or maybe disco. But you’re able to connect with them through the music. Okay. I’ve got to get myself out there to actually see you work some time. That’s what will be impressive, to see you in your element. I’d have to come for that exact party. From what Mike told me and what you’ve now told me about it, it sounds phenomenal.

On that same area, you connecting with another generation, do you see at all that people might think you’re too old for this job? I mean, you’re one of the veterans, you’re one of the grandfathers in this industry. When I first came and started getting involved in the industry 15 years ago, you were there and you were established. Everybody knew who you were. Do you see clients having a trouble connecting with yourself or do you just — that “young at heart” kind of thing comes out?

John Rozz: Wow. I feel that. I do feel that a lot. I feel that I lost touch with a lot of the 17 through 28 year age. I feel I lost a lot there but my young guys keep giving me the pep talk that I still got it and there’s something unique about me and that I’m cool. And, you know, I hate to say that, saying that I’m cool, but this is coming from my guys. So I feel pretty comfortable with that.

If I’m ever doing something that I know is going to be really current music, I always have a young assistant with me, a gentleman or a lady that I’m training: one, that looks good; two, can dance; three, that definitely knows the new music, whether it’s hip hop or club music. And that gives me a lot of relief from programming the music of this perfect time. So that helps me

Very interesting thing: I’m very comfortable with kids’ music. So as far as your Miley Cyrus, your Hannah Montana, Jonas Brothers, any of that stuff, I’m very good in the school yards with that. And I guess I’m still hip with those kids because they’re not quite the age yet

Ryan Burger: Yeah. There’s still an innocence there and you have that young at heart style that you can drop yourself right into them a little bit easier than you get into those 20-somethings. So, understood.

John Rozz: Which I feel very comfortable with that, Ryan. Which is fine. I know my limitations and I’m really fine with that. My bottom line is for any event that I’m booked for, or my company, that I make sure it’s the right person on the right event. That’s what’s important to me. It is the public and the right party. I know I’m not for a high school dance or a middle school dance and I am fine with that. Do I go to them and attend them? Absolutely. I’ll run the light show. I’ll do the booking. I’ll set up a light-up dance floor. I’ll advice the students and then of course I’ll just turn them on to my cool DJ, the guy that’s going to handle it. Because that’s what’s important.

And when we say times have changed, Ryan, this is very important for everybody to know out there. And this is not to pin any stars on me or anything, I can go to any school and rock the school even not knowing the music. But it’s just the look. I don’t have that look. So an inexperienced guy that looks cool and young, of course he’s going to be the guy over me. I mean, I’ve seen my guys two or three seconds between some issues of songs at a local YMCA dance, which I questioned him why. He was just caught up short on making the change into the next segue. So it’s not always about how great you are; age has something to do with it.

Ryan Burger: Well, yeah. Understood. I mean, with the little bit that I still do of the high school dances, I’m almost 37. You’ve got a couple years on me. And I don’t feel I connect and I would rather send the young, cool looking guy to it. But when it comes down to it, yeah, I can play a playlist of the current tracks and work in some of my other fun older stuff just as well as average.

The tools. People do like to know the tools. That’s something they’ve always asked us to ask the people that are there. What’s your preference in equipment that you like to personally use in the way of audio gear? Do you work off of a laptop? Do you PC DJ? Or how do you work your actual sound and lighting?

John Rozz: Okay. I go a lot of different ways.

Ryan Burger: Well, if you had to personally — your personal rig. I imagine all the guys that work for you have a little bit different stuff, but what do you like to work with?

John Rozz: Can I name the actual gear or –

Ryan Burger: Yes.

John Rozz: I can?

Ryan Burger: Yeah. Go ahead.

John Rozz: Well, I’m not great with all the numbers but I’m very in tune and I love my Pioneer system. I believe they’re the 1000s and the 800s; I have a few sets of those that work very well with me with the Pioneer mixer. I think it’s a six-channel mixer. It’s a nice club mixer that works very well with me.

I do use a lot of CDs. I feel that I can fly better with the CDs. I can fly a little bit better with the CDs on a row and I feel better mixing with them, segueing with them and scratching, so on and so forth.

I also use a Numark Virtual Vinyl which is a computer program for a Mac or for a PC and I do use that. I do have a laptop on every event, sometimes two. But I do, once again, feel very comfortable when the party’s rocking with the CDs. And I do see that with a lot of my guys; they sort of follow me there.

I do use a DMX board for lighting. I’m not that good with it but I can do the basics with that. Always doing a lot of lighting stuff, like the Martin 250s, any of the Martin lightings, a lot of LED lights. So I get into some of the DMX mixing with the light board, so those are some of the tools.

Of course my wireless mike. I love my Sennheiser wireless, a great tool. And I’m still a cable guy. You know, when I’m close to the system I still like an SM58 with an on/off switch. So if the toast is being done by somebody at a wedding, they have my nice Sennheiser out there, they pass it on to whoever’s doing the toast and then I’m just up there with that cable mike. I’m not moving at that point. Those are tools.

My other tools of course consist of any of my fun props, whether it’s for interactive or for a wedding or for a mitzvah. I have my fun box of props, my games, my interactive stuff.

Ryan Burger: Wow. It’d be interesting to see your garage of all the different stuff. Just so everyone knows — and I want to go into this area next — is we are producing a book of yours — a next generation of a book of yours. I saw pictures of all these different things you built and all these different things you’ve done. I mean, do you hold onto all these different things you built in a massive warehouse just in case you might have a reason to use it again? I mean, all these tools that you have built.

John Rozz: I do. I think that’s one of my problems; I don’t let things go. I’m a collector. I think we’re going to have to have a tag sale. But I do keep a lot of things. And what’s very funny, Ryan, is a lot of things that are old are new again. I mean, it’s amazing how this happens. And I’m on the third and fourth generation of doing some of these things. I mean, there were a few years there I didn’t do any hula hoops or limbo. I said, you’ve got to be kidding me. We just don’t do this anymore.

I mean, this summer I can’t tell you how much we’ve been doing this and these new kids at poolside parties, at picnics, love it. They’ve never seen it. Maybe they’ve seen it but they’ve never seen it done correctly or with the finesse of a good MC or to make it interesting. Anybody can throw a limbo pole out there or throw some hula hoops, but it’s that genius female or male MC that gets them charged. What are you going to do with these props? And I’m just using two basic props that probably started somewhere in the ’50s that still exist today that you can buy at Wal-Mart or wherever. So what’s old is new.

A lot of the other things I’ve invented. I’ve always been an innovator. I just figure if you have something that’s unique and you go beyond the call of duty to build it, someone’s going to want it. They want uniqueness and they want that wow.

Ryan Burger: Yeah. The thing just pops out at them. It’s not the same thing they saw at a bar mitzvah the previous week or two. I know you do the game shows and do some of the other stuff like a ton of other people do, but you’ve got something totally unique

As I was looking through your book there’s some stuff in there I’ve seen before and there’s some stuff that just blew me out of the water. How did you come to creating the games or taking them and customizing them to make your own? I mean, how much of the material is purely yours versus borrowed from friends? So I know you’ve been part of some different networking groups, you’ve got friends all over the world that you get ideas from. How much of it is uniquely Rozz, or is it all kind of Rozz-customized?

John Rozz: No, I think a lot of it has been borrowed or a lot of it has been seen by other entertainers, whether they were in live bands or solo artists, other DJs. I just put my own little frosting on the cake on how to do them. But I would say 60 percent of them are games and interactive fun things that I created. That ugly toe thing, I mean, that started one day at poolside where I was 25 to 30 feet away from the pool and I had 1,000-some-odd people at a picnic and people wanted to do interactive games. I did the dance contest. I did the limbo. I did some of the fun stuff with the balloons into the tee-shirts where they were popping them.

And I just found this magnifying glass that was actually in the picnic grove area in the office when I went down to have a burger — hamburger — came back and I brought the magnifying glass and I just went around poolside with a wireless mike, said I’m looking for the ugliest toe and the ugliest toe is getting the trophy, 24-karet gold cheap plastic trophy. And everybody was putting their feet up around the ledge of the pool and that’s how the ugly toe contest was created out amongst thousands of people.

Ryan Burger: Wow. Where do you see yourself going in the next 10, 20 years? I mean, are you going to be gigging until you’re buried in DJ heaven or what do you see as your future?

John Rozz: You know, a friend of mine — I can mention a name of course, right, Ryan?

Ryan Burger: Sure. Go for it.

John Rozz: In our business a friend of mine, John Michaels from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he says, “Everybody wants to die with their boots on.” So it sort of seems that way.

I’m going to continue to work in this field as long as I can. I feel young. I’m very active. I’m doing still a lot of events. And I plan on continuing doing this. Once again, I will pick and choose at this stage of the game. My biggest thing that I really enjoy right now, Ryan, is I do like to have a weekend off where I actually stop at events and stay maybe for an hour or so. That to me is very cool. So I’ll go there and be a networking kind of guy, take some photos with my camera — I love that kind of stuff — and push the younger guys and the younger girls out there.

I would like to give back more to the industry. I have been laying low on that, as you know. I haven’t been coming up to any of the shows anywhere, and even in some of my networking groups I have been so busy I haven’t been able to attend there. So I’d like to ease back into that a little bit and start to give back. Because once again, now, as you know, we have new people that don’t know who John Rozz is.

Ryan Burger: Yeah.

John Rozz: Okay. So hopefully I can push off to them some great things that I’ve done and hopefully they’ll think about the ideas I have and create their own and do whatever. I tell my guys here all the time, sometimes when I have meetings here and I have new people come in and I’m talking, they’re not hearing me. And that upsets me. And I’m telling them, once again, if you’re not hearing me I’m going to go back and do these shows to people that do hear me. There are people out there that are running businesses throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada, that want to improve [inaudible], want to look at all the trees in the forest and not just one. And take it from an experienced guy that’s been there and done it.

A lot of things in the music business, Ryan, in the last 50, 60 years have not really changed. If you talk to band members, it’s still gone a certain way. An MC is still a certain type of a person that has to be on most of the time. And I hope I can do this and give back again and that’ll be a nice thing for me as I’m getting older. Promoting this book, maybe coming up with a special game for Vegas when you do your show this February. I haven’t been out to a Mobile Beat show since I did the American Disc Jockey Awards.

So I think maybe I’d like to do something like that, come out there, have a little booth, have the people stop by and say hi, we’ll promote the book. I want to help everybody. I want to help this industry, which I think needs it now more than ever, Ryan, because I am just seeing that laptop and someone just going through the motions with two speakers on a stick and this is not what our business is meant to be. There’s a lot more to this.

Ryan Burger: Got you. We’ll definitely be rolling with all kinds of — we’ve got four or five months to figure out how we’re going to be using you out in Vegas. We definitely want to have you out there, reintroduce you to the whole new crowd and you’re going to catch up with a ton of old friends too. So basically, you want to pass on to the next generation of disc jockeys over the next 10-whatver years, or whatever, 50 years of knowledge and everything.

How about you personally? Mike was telling me something about — I guess you’re real active with baseball. Are you much a baseball junkie? Because I’ll have to hang out with you a lot more if you’re a baseball junkie like me.

John Rozz: Well –

Ryan Burger: But you actually play, from what I understand. I don’t play; I enjoy watching.

John Rozz: Well, very interesting. I’m a big Los Angeles Dodger fan. I’ve been a Dodger fan forever. My dad was a Brooklyn Dodger fan and so I despise the New York Yankees. But I follow the Dodgers. I follow the Mets second because they’re close. I was just at Citi Field, gorgeous field. I know you’re a big baseball fan and we do have to get together.

But my big thing is I do play a lot of very competitive slow pitch softball. I play in a blood and guts A division team here in town. We’re in second place. I pitch. I do very well. I’m hitting very well. I’ve got guys that are half my age that I’m playing with.

I also play in a senior league, which is a whole different thing. And we play double headers here every Monday and that’s very interesting. I just signed up for senior Olympic softball, which will be in Houston, Texas in 2011 if we qualify.

And I play a ton of very serious senior basketball with a team called the Wallingford Silver Bullets and we’re playing three days a week. So I’m out three days with basketball and at least two days with softball. And I fit that into my schedule. With the seniors it makes it easy for me because a lot of those games are early in the morning. So I can still go out and play and do a gig in the afternoon or at night.

The biggest thing with this whole thing, Ryan, it’s like my second childhood. I’m doing what I loved as a kid, some kind of baseball which is now men’s slow pitch softball and of course basketball, and it’s keeping me in great shape. Cardiowise it’s keeping me going and I think that is a big key in life, just having that outlet and something else to do.

Ryan Burger: Wow. I thought your schedule was busy with enough business stuff and you have all the personal time. I’m trying to remember now — I was just trying to pull it up on the computer but couldn’t pull it real quickly. Dedication in the book, at the front of it, you mention your parents and your granddaughter. I mean, it sounds you’ve got a good family experience going and have for a while now too.

John Rozz: I do. And you know, the whole thing about life is family, God, staying healthy, and sharing and giving back. And what more can you give back than to the profession that’s been extremely good to me? It’s been very good to me. Yes, I work hard. It’s not an easy profession. Everybody in this profession is going nine different ways. It’s very difficult for family.

And that’s another thing that I think I can teach a lot of the younger people. And when I say younger people, I’m talking from 17 to 37, 47 — how to balance health and wellness and the family, because I know how hard it is to miss a ball game on a Saturday because you have a gig. I know how hard it is to miss a certain event on a Friday night because you have an event. So that’s another thing I can share and give back with. And if I had to do it over again, I would have balanced a little bit more.

But I learned this through the early years of this profession when it was very different. I didn’t have anybody to tell me, Ryan. I had no one to advise me any which way, just my cousin who was a live musician and it was a little different then. They all had jobs. They had other jobs and this was just a weekend warrior thing. So now so many of us are running our own businesses, our own DJ businesses, and what’s important is I really feel that I can give back and help them with the family balance.

That’s one of the biggest keys besides — before — besides is not the word — before the tools. Let’s start with the family and then work from there and we can do that.

Ryan Burger: Wow. Well, this qualifies as our longest interview because we just started rolling there and I didn’t want to miss anything and just kept going. Fantastic. I guess is there anything else that you want people to know about you that we haven’t hit on in the last half an hour or so that is who John Rozz is?

John Rozz: No. I think we hit on everything. Everyone is welcome to my home, to my office at any time in Connecticut. I’m a great host; anybody will tell you that. Mike Buonaccorso will tell you that. My friend Cesar in Mexico will tell you that. Any of the DJs that have come out here, they have all been welcomed with open arms. We share things together I think and experience different things and just always check with me. And this goes for anybody that’s out there. I would love to do that and just move on.

I hope that I’ll be able to be on two of these tours that you’re doing. I believe one is in Needham, Massachusetts?

Ryan Burger: Yep. There’s a bunch of stops we’re doing out in your direction so we’ve definitely got to get you out there and you’d be a quick guest, stir the crowd up a little bit and have a little bit of fun with it.

John Rozz: Yeah. I’m going to try to — definitely I’ve already got that down for Needham, Mass, and I think the next night is in Long Island and get out there. And if I can help you in any way with this book, like I say, I’d love to do it.

And once again, this book as we talked about it with Mike and yourself, it’s for the DJ industry. It’s for the MCs. It’s for party planners. It’s for band leaders, front people. So this is something I just want to share along to keep the good vibe going.

Ryan Burger: Wow. John Rozz of Sound Spectrum Entertainment, thank you for joining me and we’ll see you in Vegas.

John Rozz: My pleasure, sir. By, everyone.

Ryan Burger: This is Ryan Burger of Mobile Beat magazine and we are here with DJ Kool, who’s going to be at the American DJ Party at Mobile Beat Las Vegas. Kool, introduce yourself and tell us how you got here.

DJ Kool: (coughs) Let me clear my throat. I’m the legendary DJ Kool, straight out of Washington, D.C. That’s that (202) area code.

How did I get here? Yo, man. I was born in the clubs, you know what I mean? I started rocking clubs back in, oh, late ’70s. I became a recording artist in 1986 with a song called “The Music Ain’t Loud Enough, Pump Up The Volume.” I’ve had 10 records 10 years in a row to hit the Billboard charts, from “The Music Ain’t Loud Enuff,” 1986, all the way up to the song that has the cough heard around the world, 1996, which is “Let Me Clear My Throat.” I’ve been here a long time, man.

Ryan Burger: Very cool. DJ Sparky B, being a good friend of mine, hooked me up with bringing you guys out to the show. Give me a little bit of the lowdown of what you’re going to do for all of us out there.

DJ Kool: Straight house party style. Little bit of old school, little bit of the current stuff, you know what I mean? Hip-hop, R&B, reggae; maybe a little go-go music coming out of Washington, D.C. But once again, straight house party style. No whole bunch of tricks or stuff like that. I love that part of the craft, but I’m just not that type of DJ. But big ups to all my friends, Jazzy Jeff, DJ Craze, and all those turntable-ists, you know what I mean?

But my thing is straight house party style; me, the crowd and the dance floor. That’s it. I ain’t got no whole bunch of tricks for you. I’m just trying to keep the mixes tight, keep the selection hot, and keep the party moving with my voice. That’s what’s up.

Ryan Burger: So you’ve got the mix going for the whole party. You drop in every once in a while, do your own tracks just as part of the show, or how do you work in “Let Me Clear My Throat?” How do you work in some of the other stuff?

DJ Kool: Well, pretty much just like what you mentioned a moment ago. I’m playing the hits current and recurrent and so on and so forth. But at some point during the program you will hear me drop in, “Let Me Clear My Throat.” You will hear me drop in “20 Minute Workout.” You will hear me do “It Takes Two.”

And I do these tracks live because I actually recorded them live. “Let Me Clear My Throat” was a live recording. “20 Minute Workout” was a live recording. “I Got Dat Feelin’” was a live recording, just to name a few.

As a matter of fact, “20 Minute Workout” was so loud to whereas I had a mobile recording unit hooked up in the club where I was cutting the record back and forth, the beat that I used for “20 Minute Workout” was the record was a record by Doug E. Fresh called “I’m Gettin’ Ready.” And I was cutting the breakbeat back and forth while I was on the mike, rocking the crowd. So that’s just the whole DJ Kool style, you know what I mean? Just live, live, all the way live.

Ryan Burger: Very cool. So what’s the future for DJ Kool? Continuing to do stuff like this, appearing in Vegas, Atlantic City? What do you got coming up in the next couple years?

DJ Kool: I got a few things coming up. I’m back in the studio and everything, getting ready to drop some more of those DJ Kool club [inaudible]. First and foremost, I do my records for the DJs, for the clubs. It just so happens that I’ve been blessed enough to have had my records wind up on radio and everything, and that is a blessing. But for the most part, just like I said. I’m going to go out and do my show for the clubs.

So we got some new DJ Kool stuff coming out this spring. The first single will probably be a song called “What’s Your Area Code,” which should just for the most part be a way so people can kind of represent where they’re from, you know what I mean? Like I’m from the (202), which would be Washington, D.C. If someone said if they were from the (803) area code, that would mean that they would be from South Carolina, and so on and so forth, you know what I mean? So it’s just a new way for people to kind of represent where they’re from.

Ryan Burger: Makes sense. Once again, DJ Kool’s going to be playing for us at the American DJ customer appreciation party. Thanks to DJ Sparky B, who I guess will get the privilege of introducing you to the stage.

That’s all I got. Thanks, Kool, for joining me.

DJ Kool: No problem, man. Thank you for having me. God bless.

Sugarhill Gang: Hey, hey, Ryan. What’s up, brother? What’s up, Ryan?

Ryan Burger: I’m out in Iowa just kind of chilling out, surfing the Internet and talking with some cool guys. You guys are out in New York or Jersey? Where are you out of?

Sugarhill Gang: We’re in Manhattan.

Ryan Burger: Oooh. You’re living in the high life in Manhattan

Sugarhill Gang: Oh, yeah. We’re right here where all the money is; everywhere. You know what I mean? We’re like two minutes away from Wall Street. You could throw a rock at Wall Street.

Ryan Burger: Well, we’re bringing you out to the fun place in Las Vegas where everybody spends all that money they make in New York.

Sugarhill Gang: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. One of our favorite cities in America is Las Vegas.

Ryan Burger: You guys go out there pretty often?

Sugarhill Gang: We’ve been to Vegas quite a few times. Absolutely. We have to get it set up to where maybe we could work out of there for a few months.

One time we were actually looking at doing like a show out there in one of the hotels.

Ryan Burger: Well, you could get a residency just like Bette Midler and Elton John, right? You could take over their shtick.

Sugarhill Gang: Right. We would kind of get something happening like that. We’re still looking at that, too, because it’s a really good idea. Two shows a day, five days a week, and it was going to be like a legends show; like all the legends. And it would be almost like a theater kind of thing.

Ryan Burger: Cool. Well, I guess let me tell them a little bit about what we’ve going on for all your viewers and listeners. We’ve got you guys coming out to the Mobile Beat DJ show. A bunch of mobile disc jockeys that are playing “Rapper’s Delight”, playing “Apache” on a regular basis, we want them to get to know the real people behind the songs. And that’s why I wanted to record this interview with you guys and get the word out to all your listeners, because we’ll give away a couple passes also to some of your viewers.

Sugarhill Gang: Cool. Excellent. Definitely.

Ryan Burger: For our purposes, our side of the equation, most people that watch your show know a lot about you guys. But I guess could you guys tell me a little bit about how you got into everything so that we could tell the readers to our magazine about where the whole Gang came from?

Sugarhill Gang: We were just really caught at the right place at the right time, and the rest is history.

The thing of it is, Mike and myself, we were kind of doing the hip-hop thing in our area, in the northern New Jersey area. So when the individuals that will remain nameless decided to make records, they were looking for MCs and rappers and they looked in the local area. And like I said, we were in the right place at the right time with the right stuff and they chose us. And the rest is history.

Ryan Burger: Very cool. I mean, it’s pretty much — the three of you guys are coming out to visit us. You bringing along a DJ or does that include the whole mix?

Sugarhill Gang: No, we’re bringing a DJ. There’s four of us altogether on tape.

Ryan Burger: Cool.

Sugarhill Gang: Five, sometimes; live instruments.

Ryan Burger: What’s the show like? Give us a little bit of a clue as to what the whole energy of the show, how you get involved. Tell me a little bit about that.

Sugarhill Gang: The show is really like a journey. We take the audience on a journey. We start pretty much from the beginning and we play classics. We play some of our favorites. We interact with the people. It’s very high-energy. We play new stuff. We talk about our experiences.

You got to understand, we’ve been doing this together for over 30 years. So we have a little bit of the past, the present, and the future to share with the people. Because there’s some people that have been listening to us and been with us for years. There’s other people that just got introduced to us through the music. There’s other people that have been introduced to the television shows that we’ve done, ’cause we’ve done various many television; Wendy Williams, D.L. Hughley, VH1 Classics. We’ve been doing a lot of television work.

And then there’s people that have been introduced to us through the UvaTV.

What’s your favorite movie, Ryan?

Ryan Burger: My favorite movie? I’m into kind of sappy, lovy-story movies with my wife and stuff. So I wouldn’t be a good example for you. Why do you ask that?

Sugarhill Gang: Watching us perform is just like having a box of popcorn watching your favorite movie.

Ryan Burger: That just doesn’t sound like — for some reason, I think that’s not just sitting there staring at a TV with you guys. You’re going to get out and get into people.

Sugarhill Gang: Absolutely. That’s what I’m saying. But you’re going to definitely enjoy the show. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.

Can I ask you a question? How did you get into the DJ thing? What was your motivation for that?

Ryan Burger: Well, back in high school — as a sophomore in high school we had a little local 10-watt radio station; reached about a mile around the high school, and we got to play music. This is circa 1986 neighborhood. I got into the radio thing. We had the local junior high that feed into that high school call us and ask if we could do their dances. And we still work one of those same junior highs once a month doing dances.

We now do a ton of weddings, corporate Christmas parties, a little bit of the fraternity scene, a little bit of everything. And it’s just expanded from there. Ten years ago I started a large website for DJs, and about four years ago I bought the trade magazine. Every industry’s got a magazine. Mobile Beat magazine — MobileBeat.com if you guys want to check out more of the stuff on the show.

Sugarhill Gang: Say it again for our viewers.

Ryan Burger: MobileBeat.com. And if they want to e-mail me at rb@mobilebeat.com, send me any of your viewers that want it. I’ll send them a couple copies of the magazine. They can check it out a little bit.

Sugarhill Gang: Absolutely. That’d be cool. That’d be great.

Where are you from? ‘Cause you said “middle school.” Around here they say — you said “junior high.” Around here they say “middle school.” Where are you from?

Ryan Burger: I’m originally from the Midwest. I’m originally from Ohio, now live in Iowa. So yeah, we have a little bit of middle school, little bit of junior high depending on how many grades they cram in the building.

I had a couple other questions the people on the chat board wanted me to ask you; a little bit about the origination of “Rapper’s Delight.” From talking with you guys on the phone and reading some stuff online, you guys were obviously rapping, had your routine and stuff like that. How did they all get put together into that 15-minute megamix of rap and energy? How did that all come together?

Sugarhill Gang: Well, we took our runs from our own repertoire — except for Hank; he used Grandmaster Kazz’s rhymes. Every word, punctuation mark, syllable. And [inaudible] used our own repertoire. We wrote some things specifically for the song. We both wrote our own intros and then we took it from there. And we just do what we did — what guys did back then; pass the mike.

There was no hook in between passing the mike. We just — “Master Gee, my mello, and so on, you do what you’re gonna do; come on, where the mike, do what you like.” We just kept passing the mike. That’s how we did it back then. And that’s how it should be. That’s how it should be these days, even on wax.

But it was all — we already had those rhymes already. And the thing is, the reason why it ended up being so long is because it was our first time recording — first of all, recording together, and then I think it was our first time recording, period. I know it was my first time recording vocally. And we didn’t know enough about recording to be aware of how long a song was supposed to be or the length of time. So as we — like Mike said, as we continued to pass the mike back and forth to one another, we just kept going because that’s what we were used to doing. And we waited until the tape ran out.

Ninety percent of “Rapper’s Delight” is story rhymes, which take a longer time to evolve. And nobody stopped us. They kept going. And they were kind of looking at us in amazement through the booth glass. That’s why we kept going, too; ’cause nobody stopped us, so we figured — they weren’t stopping us so we was supposed to keep on going.

And that’s the one genius thing, I guess, about “Rapper’s Delight” in terms of the producers. They decided not to cut the song down; decided to put it out as a 15-minute song. And when you’re trying to get products sold over the radio, products are buying air time. They don’t want to hear three guys hooting and hollering on the mike. They want to sell their stuff. But the fans kept burning up and blowing up the phones to hear the song, so sometimes they’d play it back-to-back. So that’s 30 minutes of uncommercial — which is unheard of in these days and times.

Ryan Burger: Yeah. The other big track that everybody knows you for — going through a couple generations to get to what we play at some of the other dance — we play Six Mix-A-Lot’s version of it — but going back into “Apache”, I’ve started plugging in more since I’ve gotten to know you guys. And people still do the same goofy old routine that Will Smith and [DJ Jazzy Jeff] did on “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” when they’re up there dancing and everything. Tell me the short version of “Apache” and the whole “Jump On It” kind of thing.

Sugarhill Gang: The original song — what was that, “Bongo Rock?” It was a break beat that we used to use. Man, that was a great beat. That da-na-da-na, doo-doo-da-doo-doo-da — that was two pieces of one song that we put together to make the beat — the rap over. And “Rapper’s Delight” was a break beak; it was from “Good Times.” “Eighth Wonder” was a break beat from a song called “Seventh Wonder.” So when we were looking for another song, we were going with that formula; what break beats were big in the parties?

So the “Bongo Rock” was the big break beat. They took the break beat and extended it, added a bass line to it, and then you end up having “Apache.” And then the concept, because the song was named “Apache,” is why all this Kimosabe and Tonto and of that — that’s where we went with the concept.

And the crazy thing about it now, Ryan, is all the young people; they, instead of calling the song by the original name, “Apache,” they call it “Jump On It.”

Ryan Burger: Yeah. That’s the version, the part they heard; the part they hook with. But it’s always about the original.

Sugarhill Gang: The song definitely has evolved, like a lot of our music.

Well, as you know, Missy Elliott re-did it.

And the funny thing about our music is that we actually are living the experience of it in different intervals, from the conception of it to the mid-’80s of it to later on in the ’90s when it started re-resurfacing. And now in the 2000s, we’re experiencing it with this project that Mike and Hank and Diamond and I, we have embarked on this new project to do the things that we’re doing so the music has a whole another life for us as well. So it’s cool.

Ryan Burger: Wow. So we’re going to see a tribute to the past in music, a new version of some of the songs, some other stuff that you guys enjoy, all on stage, all for a ton of DJs. Looking forward to it. We’re only a couple months away from it.

Sugarhill Gang: Yeah, man. It’s February, right?

Ryan Burger: February 9th. You’ll be performing at the top of the Riviera Hotel, right on the Strip in Las Vegas.

Sugarhill Gang: Old school; the Riviera. The Riviera’s a good hotel.

Ryan Burger: You guys have stayed there? I doubt you’ve been up there performing with Frank Sinatra and any of the other people they’ve had in there. They don’t quite have you guys listed on the marquee, but still –

Sugarhill Gang: But that’s the same stage that they were on, though, right?

Ryan Burger: Yeah. That’s one of the places all those guys played. So yeah, we’ll be up there with a beautiful view of Vegas.

Sugarhill Gang: That’s what I’m talking about. So yeah, we’re looking forward to that.

Ryan Burger: Cool. Anybody that’s watching the show, check out MobileBeat.com or pop me an e-mail or pop the guys here at UvaTV an e-mail. And if you’re in the area, we might even be able get into the show if you’re in the Vegas show.

Sugarhill Gang: Absolutely. We’re going to need white tail jackets, cigarettes, and Scotch.

Ryan Burger: Very cool, guys. Have fun.

Sugarhill Gang: All right, Ryan. See you. Appreciate it.

Ryan Burger: This is Ryan Burger, the president and publisher of Mobile Beat magazine. And we’re here with another artist coming to the Mobile Beat Las Vegas show this February. He’ll be performing February 9th, brought to you by the American Disc Jockey Association and NLFX Professional.

I’ve got Coolio on the line, and we want to find out where Coolio came from and where he’s going. Introduce yourself, I guess.

Coolio: [inaudible]. Yo, the name Coolio, performed the neighborhood, ghetto [inaudible]. I came [inaudible] make some niggers [inaudible]. I hail from Compton, California, and I’m one of those bad kids that turned out good.

You know, my concerts are not old school; they’re go-to. I don’t rap over the words, unless I’m on Soul Train, which I don’t do Soul Train no more anyways, so it don’t matter.

I got into the business — it’s kind of a funny thing. I was in the performing arts program that was run by a radio station — the original 1580 K-DAY. They started a performing arts program and we used to go and perform at the oddest places. We’d perform at senior citizen centers. We performed at parks and rec centers. The early groups like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run-DMC, UTFO, the Boogie Boys — I came up with those cats. And for our performing arts program, how it went was we’d do a dress rehearsal right before every show that we were going to do. And whoever gave the special performance, those were the [inaudible] that got to close the show.

Sorry about that. Mama went to the grocery store. You know, I’m the Ghetto Gourmet and everything, and I have to get my cook on this morning.

Ryan Burger: Cool.

Coolio: I got discovered by a little small record company called [inaudible] Records back in the day. It was just a one-man operation. [inaudible] saw me perform at Knott’s Berry Farm in California and he — my first album, I used to be in a group called the [inaudible]. I originally started with some cats out of New York — from [inaudible], New York — by the name of Whiz Kid and Richie C and DJ D. And I was fascinated by the whole hip-hop thing, you know? It was all brand new on the West Coast, and I was super-fascinated by that.

I used to just sit there and watch them. So there was this one guy — another guy, another one of their friends moved to town. He was a [inaudible] guy, pretty boy, and he started taking all the girls that I liked. He started taking all the girls that I liked. And in the midst of that — you know, he was rapping also — and one day I just kind of got a little junk. And he wrote some song, like a [inaudible], and he put it on tape and then he said — he asked me what did I think of it. And I told it’s okay. I said, that’s okay. I said, I could do something like that.

He said, you don’t even know how to rap. I said, well, I don’t have to know how to rap to write something like that. I could write something like that [inaudible].

He said, well, do it, then. So I did it. And then I put mine on tape and I think it came out a little better than his. And that was it. I was indoctrinated.

Ryan Burger: You definitely got into the thick of everything. I mean, how much later did it take until you started hitting the tops of the charts with “Fantastic Voyage” and all that kind of stuff?

Coolio: This is going to hard you hard: 15 years, bro. Fifteen years, I rapped before I got a real record deal.

Ryan Burger: Overnight success, 15 years. Yeah.

Coolio: I didn’t get a real record deal until I was 29, damn near about to be 30.

Ryan Burger: Wow. You’re almost to the point of middle age in the rap community when you hit with your big stuff.

Coolio: Yeah, so to speak. Which I’m actually glad it turned out that way because had I got really good at 20, I probably wouldn’t be around right now.

Ryan Burger: Yeah. Gotcha.

Well, fast forward up to what you’ve been doing lately. The big thing with you, the stuff you’ve been doing lately, the Ghetto Gourmet, the Food Network; all that kind of stuff outside of music and everything you’ve done over the last 15 years. What else keeps you busy?

Coolio: I got kids. I’ve got seven children. And you know, we still have our time together. I got a real cool thing. I’ve got a big family; like to travel. So they keep me busy. I’ve got nephews and nieces. Somebody’s always around Big Coolio. We love each other and we spend a lot of time together. So I got plenty of stuff to keep me busy.

Ryan Burger: Very cool. On the cooking side, you have a book due out any time soon, from what I remember seeing online, right?

Coolio: Say that one more time?

Ryan Burger: You have a book due out soon; or did it already come out?

Coolio: The book comes out November 17th.

Ryan Burger: Very cool.

Coolio: I think you guys are going to love it.

Ryan Burger: Describe it for us. How is this different from the Rachel Rays and all the other — Martha Stewart cooking and all that kind of stuff?

Coolio: For one thing, my book’s laugh-out-loud funny. I didn’t make it 30-Minute Meals. I make 10-minute meals long, long, long before Rachel Ray was even heard of.

It’s something I do. My mom was a great cook, and I think that’s where I get most of my inspiration from.

Ryan Burger: Very cool. Last big thing I wanted to find out from you. What’s one of these concerts like that all these DJs are going to enjoy seeing in February?

Coolio: You guys are [inaudible] ’cause it’s like going to see Run-DMC back in the day when they were on fire. We keep it super hot. We never rap over the words ever. I’ve never done a concert and rapped over the tracks. That’s blasphemy. That’s blasphemous in my day and time. If you rapped over the words, you got booed off the stage. Don’t play that shit.

Ryan Burger: There’s just nothing to doing it that way.

Coolio: That’s blasphemy for my day and time. If you rapped over the words, you got booed off the stage. We didn’t play that shit. We didn’t play that shit, and we still don’t.

So when you come to a Coolio concert, you’re going to get that real. We said, I like the records. I don’t put all that effect on my voice when I go up to the studio, so when we come out on stage, we sound like the record.

Ryan Burger: Very cool. You’re doing all kinds of stuff you’re known for. You’ve got some newer stuff, I assume, that you’ve been pushing recently?

Coolio: Absolutely. You’re going to get it. You go online right now, go to YouTube Music, there’s probably 10 new videos you haven’t seen. Also I’ve got a record that’s older now that’s got [inaudible] Coolio.com.

Also I have one called “Alternative Gangsta.” My newest thing that’s out right now is called “Steal Here.” I got a [inaudible] release dropping today called — the first one is called “Bottom to the Top.” And the album’s going to be called, “From the Bottom to the Top.”

Ryan Burger: Very cool. Well, been rapping here with Coolio; looking forward to seeing you in your hometown — or at least, your new hometown — in Las Vegas coming up in about a couple months.

Coolio: [inaudible].

Ryan Burger: Very cool. I’ll look forward to seeing you there. I’ll talk to your guys later. Thank you.

Coolio: That’s right. See on the night [inaudible] go get it.

Ryan Burger: Okay.

Coolio: Yo, peace out.

Ryan Burger: This is Ryan Burger, the publisher of Mobile Beat magazine. And we’re here with the legendary DJ Jam. Tell us a little bit about yourself, if you could, please.

DJ Jam: Well, I guess for the past 19 years, I’ve been rolling with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre; holding it down for them on the turntables; basically traveling the world.

Ryan Burger: Wow. Back up to even before you hooked up with those guys, how did you get started? I saw some information on your website, that you started out as a mobile DJ, like more of our readers. Tell us how you got going there.

DJ Jam: Basically I started in the city of San Diego, California. I started by basically my brother-in-law’s friend — my brother was in the military, and he had a friend from New York that was a big DJ out there, and they were both in the military. He basically came out here for summer, and he brought his two turntables, his mixer, and two crates of records, and he stayed at my brother-in-law’s house the whole summer. And they did a few parties during that summer.

And basically I would ride my bike all the way across town just to sit there and watch this guy practice DJing all day. And basically by the end of the summer my brother-in-law saw how much I was into it. So he paid his friend for his turntables and mixer, because back then, New York was really the spot to get all the equipment and everything; all the up-to-date stuff. So basically he bought his friend’s equipment from him for me, and his friend left me one of his crates of records to get me started, and said basically, here you go.

So he showed me the basics and I took it from there. I started doing mix tapes in my bedroom. I started passing them out at my schools and all my friends in my neighborhood. Soon after that, the word got around about my DJing and people started wanting me to do their house parties, all my friends. So I was doing all the house parties in the neighborhoods, and then other neighborhoods. Once my name got around to all these neighborhoods, I started going to clubs that all my friends would go to, and I started talking to the managers at these clubs and giving them my mix tapes.

Soon after that, I was DJing five different clubs in the city and my name got bigger and bigger. Went from doing clubs to all the college events for fraternities and sororities; my name got bigger. I started DJing for the radio station, because the radio station heard about me because I was doing all the clubs, and my name was in the commercials, because the club promoters would buy commercial time on the radio. So they were like, who is this DJ Jam? So some of these radio stations would start going to the clubs to watch me, and that’s how I started doing mixes for radio.

So after that, when I was in college, I went Cal State Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles, and still doing mix tapes. My mix tapes sold in San Diego as well as in L.A., and soon after that I was going to college in L.A. So basically I started doing the clubs there, because a lot of people already knew who I was in the L.A. area just from my mix tapes.

So I started doing clubs there. I met Dr. Dre at one of the predominant clubs up there in Los Angeles. Basically, he came into the club, saw me do my thing, and next thing I know I was going to dinner with him the next night and he was talking to me about his album he was about to start working on. He was going to call it the “Chronic” album, and basically asked me to be his DJ. And that’s how I met Dre.

I met Snoop basically coming on board with him from a mutual friend from when I was doing a party down at San Diego State. And Kurupt from the Dogg Pound had a mutual friend that went to San Diego State, but he was actually from Los Angeles, and he would always come to the dances I did at State and he said, man, you need to meet my boy Kurupt, from the Dogg Pound. Back then, nobody even knew who the Dogg Pound was or anything because they were just a group they just started.

So basically he brought Kurupt to one of the big parties that I did at San Diego State University. Kurupt saw me do my thing; basically jumped on the mike at the party. So I started cutting instrumental back and forth and he freestyled for like 10 minutes straight, and the whole crowd just couldn’t believe it, like he was that good.

I was still going to school at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles at the time, so Kurupt was staying in Los Angeles. So he started coming, me and him would hook up in L.A. after school when I would get out. And basically he introduced me to Snoop and Daz from the Dogg Pound because they were all hanging together, writing rhymes all the time. And that’s how I met Snoop. And Snoop and Dre weren’t even working together big time at that point.

So I was affiliated with Dre over here on the left side, and I was affiliated with Snoop on the right side, and neither one of them knew it at the time. I didn’t know that they knew each other like that. So one day Dre had me in the studio, and all of a sudden, Snoop and Kurupt and Daz walked in — this is when Dre was just starting the “Chronic” album — and basically they saw me sitting me there, and I was like, “Man, what are you guys doing here?” And they were like, “What are you doing here?” And so that’s how the family started, and that’s how I ended up DJing for both Snoop and Dre.

After that, they heard about me at the radio station in Los Angeles, 92.3 The Beat, and they had just changed their format and started playing hip-hop and R&B. And soon after that, they found out about me and I was asked to come on board 92.3 The Beat-Los Angeles. So I was on the air there and DJing for Snoop and Dre, working basically on the first “Chronic” album. So I’d be at the studio up to a certain point. In the evening, I would go to the radio station and do my thing.

And then, after the “Chronic” album was done, I started touring and hitting the road, and the radio station was really cool because they understood and let me go on tour. And when I came back, I was back on the air. So basically that’s how I got, as a DJ, starting from my start point of doing mix tapes and getting my name out there to one day ending up being on radio and working with Snoop and Dr. Dre years later in Los Angeles.

Ryan Burger: Wow. So all the way back with Dr. Dre, starting with “Chronic”; Snoop from the absolute beginning from when no one else had heard of him. I had my cassette singles of Snoop’s tracks at the beginning, and that goes back quite a time with everything.

So you made the move from mobile to doing the club scene to working with major artists on the edge of being big and helping them become big. The radio thing intertwined in between here. Now you tour heavily with them. So you’re both involved of the recording of their albums and touring and actually doing the live DJ set; correct.

DJ Jam: Exactly. So I’ve done studio work, as far as albums and songs that they’ve done; doing the cuts on there, doing that in the studio, from a studio standpoint. And then being on stage in concert, so doing the stage thing with them and learning how to be a concert performer. If you see the “Up In Smoke” Tour DVD, I’m the one that’s doing that with them. So it went from that to as far as a big production as far as the “Up In Smoke” Tour, because that probably has been the biggest hip-hop production tour to this day.

Ryan Burger: Definitely.

Okay. So date this for me. I don’t know my hip-hop and music as well as obviously you do. What year are talking about that you hooked up with Dre and Snoop? We’re talking way back, aren’t we?

DJ Jam: We’re talking 1990.

Ryan Burger: Wow. I was in high school and running a little mobile DJ service out of Des Moines, Iowa; nothing compared to what you were experiencing down there, without a doubt.

DJ Jam: Yeah. Things like this just steamrolled for me, like a snowball just getting bigger as it goes downhill.

And then from doing that and going on the road with them all over the world, after we would do the concert, whoever the promoter would be that would do the after-party — they would always have an after-party after the concert. So they would come in and they would hire me, these promoters, to do the after-party. So I would announce — basically they would pay me and then I would announce the after-party live on the microphone like after our last song on stage. So everybody went to the after-party. So I started building a fan base all over the world of fans as well as club promoters and club owners; so that when we’re not on tour, I keep booking myself out all over the world as Snoop and Dre’s DJ. And that’s what I do up until this day now.

And actually, the past year or so, year and a half, I’ve been actually making my priority as far as what I do, as far as me going on the road being my first priority. A lot of times I would try to get booked, especially like internationally, and they would call me and ask me to come out. And they would start spending money on promotions as far as doing radio and have their event in all the public newspapers and magazines and flyer campaigns; book me in advance. But all of a sudden, I’d get a phone call from Snoop and say, oh, we got to go on the road next week, and I would have to cancel. And all these people would have money already invested and I’d have to cancel on them. So I had to kind of limit myself as far as club DJing to just basically quick events, like this weekend. A club would call me, “Oh, you going to be in town? Can we book you?” I would have to take that.

I would say the past year and a half, my priority has gone to me DJing and promoting my projects that I do, which are my mix CDs, and now taking my mix CDs to another level. I do mix DVDs now. So my mix CDs have come to life. They shoot me in the studio DJing as well as the videos of the songs that I’m playing — and not just the video, but it could be their live performance on tour somewhere, the footage that I could have gotten from them or their David Letterman or MTV Award performance. I have editors that edit all that together. So it’s a really cool thing to watch, as well as hearing me mix.

Ryan Burger: It’s a whole multimedia experience, more than just seeing the guy move two turntables around.

DJ Jam: Exactly.

Ryan Burger: On your personal rig, what do you like to work with nowadays? I mean, obviously back then it was pretty much two turntables.

DJ Jam: Yes.

Ryan Burger: What are you into now? What are you using, technology, to get the best experience out there for the people that are at the concerts and the shows you’re doing?

DJ Jam: I’m a Serato user. So I’m using Serato with the Rane TTM-57 mixer. I still use turntables. I’m an old school vinyl junkie, so I still like feeling that vinyl underneath my fingertips. I do stuff behind my back and all that kind of crazy stuff, too.

I was in the DMC Mixing Championships in 1988. I made it all the way to the finals in ’88; went against Cash Cash Money that year.

Ryan Burger: ’88. Wow.

DJ Jam: Yeah. I went from a battle DJ — starting off, as far as learning how to scratch and all these different techniques, and then taking that and learning how to be a party DJ, and then learning how to be a radio DJ. So I come from all those backgrounds. So I still love my vinyl, and Serato.

Ryan Burger: Serato’s definitely the way to do it.

The future for you. You were talking about how you have so many different opportunities in front of you. Where do you see yourself going in the next five years? You’re already at a lot of venues; from what I’m seeing and what you’re telling me, you’re already the star attraction. Do you ever see yourself getting in front and being the voice of it, or do you like being the guy in the background making everything happen?

DJ Jam: What do you mean as far as being the voice?

Ryan Burger: Well, you’re always right behind the names that everybody knows; the Snoops, the Dr. Dre’s, stuff like that. Do you ever have any aspirations of being the MC up front; the rapper, at all? Or do you like exactly where you’re at?

DJ Jam: No. I don’t want to be the rapper. I want to actually go more into the production. I’ve done a lot of remixes for certain groups out there in the past. I did the remix of “G-Thang” on Death Row’s Greatest Hits album. I’m the only one that’s done the official remix from that song — Dre has ever let do that. So I was really fortunate enough to do that.

But I want to get more into production and working with artists and bringing out artists that I believe in, because I’ve met different artists all over the world. So my whole thing is promoting DJ Jam as a DJ and a producer. And I have a team of individuals that I’m going to be bringing with me as far as production work. So that’s going to be my main goal, but always, always staying a DJ at the same time.

Ryan Burger: Cool. I guess at this point, is there anything else you want people to know about DJ Jam?

DJ Jam: You can catch me. I’m part of Super Radio Syndicated Networks. I’m part of three different mix shows that are broadcast all over the nation. I’ve been with them since around ’98; 11 years now. Check me out. You can check more about me at my website, DJJam.com; my MySpace page, especially, at MySpace.com/DJJam. You can also catch me on Facebook and Twitter.

Ryan Burger: Everybody’s loving Twitter right now. There’s no doubt about that.

DJ Jam: Definitely.

Ryan Burger: Hook up with DJ Jam via DJJam.com. Hopefully we’ll be able to get you out to one of these conventions someday and people can actually meet you and everything. That’s fantastic, Jam. I appreciate your time today.

DJ Jam: Thanks for having me, again.