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| Location: | USA, California, Los Angeles |
| Description: | Wake up at 6am. Call the airport to make sure the flight is on time. Get ready and finish packing. Kiss the cat goodbye. Get to LAX by 8am. Cargo-check luggage (but not the records!) Call the promoter to make sure someone will be at the airport to pick you up. Make it through the metal detector (and the funny looks from awed airport security who exclaim, "I didn't even know they still made those things!") Sit back and think about your set, whether or not they'll dance, and who you'll run into tonight as the plane wings its way to New York. Nobody is at the airport to pick you up. Call the promoter. No answer. Call a cab. Get to the gig. Call the promoter again. Meet the other DJs, exchange hellos and hugs, pleasantries and business cards. Your set starts. They dance! And then, it's over as quickly as it began - and you're on a plane on its way back to Los Angeles.
Dazy started DJing in Salt Lake City, Utah, and got her first club gig in 1992. In 1994, Dazy felt an urgent need for a change of pace. She packed her records, two turntables, her clothes, and her cat, and moved to Portland, Oregon. Dazy's DJ career flourished in Portland; by the time she moved to San Jose in 1997, she was a resident DJ at two Portland clubs and had played at most of the others.
In 1998, Dazy moved to Los Angeles, where her career really took off. Today, she spends at least one weekend a month traveling, and has played in Thailand, Canada, and most of the major cities in the U.S. Traveling gives her the opportunity to meet DJs (and other people) from all around the world, and gives her a more global perspective on the DJ biz. It also gives her a chance to showcase her skills to crowds who may not be accustomed to seeing a female DJ behind the decks. Dazy especially wants to reach out to the women in the scene. "I try to get to know as many of them as possible because in the scene we're all sisters, and we should all support each other."
Dazy knows what it's like to face down prejudice. When she first started spinning, she noticed that many male party-goers would "stand around the tables and wait for me to mess up." Most walked away shocked at her razor-sharp beat matching and flawless harmonics. When asked about the reasons guys might assume she can't REALLY spin (can she?), she concedes, "We're just judged a lot harder."
To help combat the bias against women in the DJ scene, Dazy started Sisterdjs.com, a closed mailing list for female DJs, in 1996. Today, over 300 women subscribe to the list. "It's like a big sister list," said Dazy. "Many of the women on the list are the only female DJs in their town, so it's been a great support group for them."
Despite her unfaltering support of the female DJ scene, Dazy dislikes being labeled a "girl DJ." Since she doesn't believe that being a DJ who happens to be female should be leveraged as cultural capital, she avoids the circus-like "all-girl parties" often promoted by men, which seem bent on capturing an audience based on the gender of the turntable technicians that will be performing, not based on their skills.
Dazy's goals for next year include producing her own records and traveling more. She is in the process of building a PC-based, all-digital studio, and plans to put out a few records of her own by the end of next year. With her amazing programming and harmonic skills in mind, these records are sure to be gems. |
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