Story Time 🗣️

On this weeks episode of The Get Down Podcast, Cream & Gary talk about their DJ journeys, reflect on how they met & why Get Down DJ Group was created. This episode is reminiscent of episode 1 with some backstory on the evolution of the company, the podcast & Get Down University! 

Transcript

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All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 141st episode of The Get Down, brought to you by Digital Music Pool. My name's Cream. Gary W here. It's been a minute. We took a little break here in December. This was all kind of part of the plan for us to take a little pause. Gary and I haven't barely spoken the last like three weeks, two weeks. it's been crazy. It's been a real, real time off here. It's been real time off. I feel good about it, man. It's been awesome. I felt like when you go back to school after Christmas break, that's what it felt like today. I know I was thinking about that like man I'm like, thank God I get to at least like, I can sleep in a little bit if I want. Whereas like when I was teaching, it was like, shoot, like you gotta get up and go back to it today. Yeah, it's been weird. I DJed, I took a little break. My last DJ set was December 22nd and I haven't DJed again until this past New Year's. I'll bet Vista and Mohegan Sun, which was awesome again. How did you feel about having like eight days, nine days off? Cause I usually do like, I'm doing like 20, 20 days between. I felt, I think mentally I felt like I wasn't gonna be as prepared, but then I started my set and it was like, it was great. I felt good, I wasn't like looking to figure out what to play. Those nights though, the New Year's Eves, the Halloween's, like those nights, they'll flow no matter what happens. You know, you don't have to DJ for a month and you'll be fine because like the crowds are gonna be into no matter, almost no matter what you play, they're gonna be into it. Right, Pac from Drum Street, everyone's drunk. And you know, it was interesting. I played the same spot last year for New Year's and this year, the way I've been DJing has changed a lot from the start or last New Year's to this New Year's where most of my sets are heavily EDM forward. I've kind of like, I've kind of moved away from the more open format sets. I can still do them, you know, that's how we started, but. Yeah, of course. looking back, I'm like, I don't remember what I played. So I look back at my history and I'm like, wow, it was like up and down, super open, played everything. And I kind of, you know, that was what I thought I was gonna do this year. And it's what I did and it was great. it's the right thing to do I think you're you know if you're personally not a hard ticket seller and Like people are just coming for the venue, you know I Think I think you just kind of feel that out not an EDM forward venue. It's open format, it's bottle service, and you get all walks of life in there. It's way more open. So it was good. It was good. I was missing DJing. So it was nice to get back on the deck side. It felt good to like miss it a little bit and not just be back in the saddle again after a couple of days kind of thing. It was good to like take a step away to then come back and appreciate it and miss it. I haven't missed DJing in a while, you know? Yeah, I get it. I get it every once in a while, obviously, having beings being so far removed. Honestly, I, this is the first time in a while that like, I don't miss DJing. Like I've been really enjoying being off. I texted a friend of mine and I said, I'm super happy I didn't work New Year's Eve. Like I'm watching everybody's video and I'm like, I have no interest, no interest. I might never work a New Year's Eve again. The money is just so good, it's hard to say no. It's not a Monday next year, so you know I'm working. So this is gonna be a huge lie because it's not a, like New Year's Eve Monday money is different. Like that's a different type of paycheck. You know, you can, that Sunday's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. what I said to my girlfriend, what I said to you was like, I'd prefer to not work New Year's Eve either at this point. I've done how many years in a row. I would love to be able to spend it with family, you know? But working New Year's allowed me to take like five nights off that I would normally be DJing, you know? Like a full weekend and then just one gig. on either side of that full weekend off. So like, I wouldn't, could I do it? Yeah, but of course, you know, I gotta make my money for the month no matter what. So that New Year's big payday allows me to take some extra time off. So that's really one of the other reasons why. Yeah, definitely. It's a great night. It really is a great night from a DJ's perspective, no matter how you cut it up. We all can bitch and complain about it, but it realistically is a great night. People are having fun, they're there to have fun, everybody's there to party. There's a point in going out, like we said in the last episode, it's just a good night to play. Yeah, I think in Hoboken too, our home market here in Jersey, you know, all of our DJs were together at a venue in town, like for AFDs. I know, it looked great. I was jealous of that actually. It would have been nice. I haven't done that in a couple years because I've been traveling for New Year's Eve, but I saw those guys and I'm like, man, I would love to pop in and just say what's up to all the get down guys and the local DJs hanging out. Maybe we need to get down DJ's AFTIs for next year. We'll see. So we were talking, we've been talking about what we wanted to do for our year end show here for almost like a month, like what are we gonna do, here's some ideas, and we kind of finally decided to do sort of a mashup, so to speak. So I think we're gonna start with talking a little bit, this is time for reflection, right? So we're gonna start talking a little bit about like, what were our DJ stories and where do we come from? Where do we start from? We talked about this on the very first episode of the Get Down podcast. And it's been 141 episodes and however many years. I think it'd be really cool for us to kind of go through our stories again for you guys to kind of get a better understanding of where we came from and what inspired us and motivated us. And and, you know, then we can get into sort of where we are right now. And then we're going to kind of get into where we think we're going, both as DJs and as a business for Get Down and kind of some maybe not necessarily our plans, but just kind of like the vision for where we see our businesses going. And I think at the end, we're gonna close out and do like some best ofs, our picks of the year for best artists, best songs, stuff like that. I think that's gonna be a fun conversation, if nothing else, for you and me. So why don't you kick things off? Tell us a little bit about, like, how did Gary W. start DJing? What inspired you to become a DJ? And a little bit about your career path. Alright, so when I was in seventh grade, sixth and seventh grade, I was, I don't know, I got it, I was listening to hip hop records and people were scratching and doing all this stuff and I'm like, oh, like this sounds cool to do, so how can I go and do this? I didn't know what a mixer was, I knew what turntables were obviously, but I didn't know what a mixer was and my older, my buddy, my best friend at the time, he's two years older than me, he's explaining, well, you need a mixer to do this and all this stuff. And I'm like, how do you even know about this stuff? He's like, I think my dad's got an old one up at the bar because they own a local bar. And so what I started to do is like, I started to garbage pick stereo equipment, right? And I would like invite my friends over and like, I would flip between like the aux and the CD and that's how I would like DJ at the time, quote unquote. Fast forward about a year, my mom saw that I was doing this a lot. I learned a lot about like different musics at that time too, like, cause I would invite anybody who would come over and then you'd be like, well, why don't you play like this? And this is how I brought in my horizons and what kind of music I know. So like Baltimore club was something that like had a friend come in from Jersey city. It was somebody's cousin and he was hanging out. He's like, you got to play this kind of music. It's like percolator, witch doctor, all stuff like that. And then like dance all reggae and like, it just started to understand all types of different music within that time period. My mom saw that I had taken a serious interest in it. For my 13th birthday, she got me two turntables and a mixer and a goose neck microphone, which was hilarious. The one that used to plug into the top of the thing. Ironically, the mixer was a Gemini and it was called the 626 three channel. And the turntables were BD100 Gemini's. They were belt drive 100 Gemini turntables. My mom must have dropped like 700, 800 bucks for my birthday, but you're super nice of her. And I started to do parties that way. And I would do our middle school dances and block parties. And I do like, I had like a couple, like one or two friends that were a little wealthy that would give me like 100, 150 bucks to go do their birthday party. I remember like the first birthday I did, I think I had six records. I think we played. KRS one step into my world like 15, 16 times, like Spice Girls CD, like, you know, all the girls wanted to hear that. So I was playing that on repeat, but like everybody had a great time. I set up on their pool table and like my dad would have to help me bring the coffin in because it weighed way more than I did at that time. I was probably like what, a hundred pounds and. He would help me set up the parties and stuff like that. It was super dope. Like my parents were really supportive in that journey. And then, uh, junior year of high school, uh, at the summer going into junior year, I got offered my first bar gig, um, friend of mine, his mom owned a bar in little fairy and, uh, called Riverside. And they gave me a three night residence. They tried me out and then they gave me a three night residency there every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I paid 75 bucks a night cash. which in high school you're like, I'm making $2.25 a weekend, cash money. Like that was great. You know, I worked three nights. I got to go out. I was drinking, you know, so I got to go drink and I got to like, you know, support whatever hobbies I had. So like, if I wanted to like take off and I go see Tiesto, which was something I always did, you know, I do go and do that. And then kind of grew into doing, then it, then it was very regular after that. So doing fratern, my fraternity parties and events and then doing other fraternities. Right. I was like the Ramapo DJ. I went to Ramapo college in Jersey. Shout out to Angela, the kid, also around a guy. Um, I was the DJ for Ramapo, even though I was in like rival frats, uh, I would still do all of their, all of their, uh, formal events and a lot of their part, just regular parties, because I mean, I don't mean to brag, but I was the best DJ on campus. So it was, you know, I was the Tuesday DJ, the Tuesday spot where everybody went and had dollar beers that I was the resident there every Tuesday. And like, that was why, like, that was a fun time. I learned a lot about like crowd control there because that was, we had such a mixed crowd up there. Like we had the local Ramapo crowd, which was, it was just different than the college crowd. So like, I learned real quick, like you play Annie up and like shit was going to get aggressive and it did some nights. Like I bottles getting thrown across, like thrown across in front of the DJ booth and whatnot. And I think at that point I was like, okay, like this is what I want to do. I left playing basketball, got recruited to play basketball around home and I decided not to do that. I was like, this is not what I want to do. I want to focus my time in on, on DJing. And I kind of went all in on it. I mean, at that point too, I was also doing a little, um, Promotion in order to try to get my foot in the door of some places So I promoted at sound factory on Fridays for a little bit sound factory NYC which was on I think 43rd Street is where Pasha was for the younger guys That are listening and girls So I did a little bit of that. I think at the time clutch was playing there. He was around my age is around our age I'm trying to think where else I like connected with a couple promoters that I tried to like do the promotion DJ thing with them Didn't really work out that like route was very difficult at that time I think everybody was trying to get their foot in the door of DJing at spots and you really had to like be friends with People in order you had to have like really good connections And even though I was trying to go this professional route doing it. It just wasn't working out I'm trying to think and then like I kind of did the Morris town thing since oh four You know, I was like 20 years old at that point, did the Morristown thing for 16 years. And did the New York City thing. I just wasn't really a Jersey, I wasn't your typical Jersey DJ. You know, I played the Lower East Side. I played Love NYC. I was a resident at 49 Grove. I was resident at Ultra NYC. You know, so I was doing all that stuff. I was doing the more New York City stuff for a long time. you, we met at a club in Jersey called West Five Supper Club. The only places in Jersey that I knew that you played was West Five and then Morristown and everything else you did was in New York. that was where all my connections were and that's where you wanted to play back then because you know what, you could be more open, right? Where I felt like my jersey spots, like it wasn't as, I don't know, like Marston was super creative because I knew the owner and he let me do what I want, right? And it just worked. You played very like AM style in Morristown for sure. Like gender, genderbending, genrebending, completely playing anything and everything really over there where you could some nights have a heavier EDM night and then other nights you were playing a lot of rock and soul and R&B and hip hop kind of thing. Those are always like my favorite sets. I don't know why I ever got away from like last 30 minutes of my set would always be Motown. I was gonna say more of that. remember you playing too. Like, just like Jackson 5, like throwback stuff. was big, like that was always a night ender, you know? Um, but because I was comfortable with that space, I was in that space for 10 years. Um, and then, yeah, then, and then I got a break, uh, playing off of ultra NYC. Um, Chris Lothar was, uh, hanging out there and he was the manager at West five and he was like, Oh, we're looking to bring some new talent into Hoboken. I'm like, well, I really never have played Hoboken. It's not, you know, Morristown is more my, my city. Um, Even though I grew up, my family's from Hoboken, you know, and, and I went to school in Jersey city. So like, I am through and through a Hudson County. Kid like. So you guys listening that don't know anything about Jersey or, you know, the areas we're talking about Hoboken and Jersey City are the two cities that are bordering each other right on the river, direct access to the city. You know, we have a train that goes 10 minutes right into Manhattan. Mars Town is about a 30 minute drive from those places out Western New Jersey. yeah. So I grew up in Hudson County, so it was really funny not to catch a break in Hudson County, I tried. You know, but Hoboken was, and we talked about this, Hoboken was run by the older DJs, and there was no breaking in if you were a younger DJ. Like, I got a couple breaks, like Lughead gave me a break one night at, well, it's so ironic. It would be where Wild Moose is. We booked, which was, yeah. I think it was something else maybe prior to that. But it used to be separate. They used to have that lounge bar in the front. It was still dope, like nightclub-ish, and then they had the main nightclub in the back. And I got to play that front room, that was awesome. It was really my style. It was nice and small and it was tight and it was still a nightclub. And the DJ overlooked everything, it was dope. So I got a couple little opportunities, but nothing that really stuck. And then the West Five thing stuck. And then that's where I met you. And you know, you, you were opening for me one night and then you were like, I live in Secaucus, I'm like, well, I'm from Secaucus. Then I figured out that you were living in my, my best friend's girlfriend's house that she grew up in that I hung out and partied in all the time growing up. And then I was, I then, you know, we, we got along and decided to kind of work a little more professionally closer and then kind of get down started. Yeah, I think we can, let's pause there, because I think we'll get into more of the get down stuff. But I think where you and I met, right, at West Five and started working together, the trajectories of, both of our DJ careers changed a bit. And I think, so that's a good place to pause. I'll kind of run through some of my stuff, and then we can together talk about how we met, and, or, I mean, just talk about how we met, but how we kind of like really started helping each other, how get down started and how. basically like you and I helped each other fill our calendars and really start take the DJ thing to another level for sure. Yeah, we could pause that from that night on. That was probably 2000, oh my gosh, 13 maybe? Yeah, 13, 14, 15, somewhere in that range, I'd say. I would say late 13 or 14. Because 12 was, we were just still kind of starting to work in there heavy. And then I don't think that like, I was getting nights in there. It was like me, Carlos Melange, David S. Who else was playing in there? Toro. all the radio station guys were rotating through there pretty much. Chainsmokers were in there. There was like some New York City DJs that later went on to become big. I was, I was always the outlier in there because like I wasn't big in Jersey at all. And like, but, but my DJ skills, you know, I got away with, I got away with a lot, you know, I got away with being one of those guys in there. So. think also, even then, your DJ style was different from what those radio guys were doing for sure. You could do what they were doing, but I think you brought a unique perspective to that room, which was refreshing to not just the audience, but to all owners. The owners really liked the way you played because they were into more hip hop stuff. And a lot of that, everything was kind of leaning more EDM at that point, where you were kind of able to like... play more stuff that they were into. And I think that also helped. But like the crowd loved it too, because it was something a little bit different from what was normally happening in the room. Yeah, that's correct. So, yeah. so my story, I guess, it's a different path for sure. I started DJing later in my life than you had for sure. I, growing up, was always really, really into music. My dad was in a band basically for his entire life. I think he was in a band up until maybe five years before he passed away, three, four, five years, something like that, before he got sick. So growing up... music was always a big part of my life because he was constantly playing and his bandmates were coming into the house and a lot of classic rock, some folky stuff. That was a little bit of soul music, but more like classic rock is really what I grew up on. Listening to the radio with my dad in the car was always classic rock stuff. And I was into it, but that... That wasn't necessarily what I loved, you know? Like when I was growing up, I remember the first music that I bought and was like listening to was Nirvana and Pearl Jam and like Presidents United States and all these bands. And I tell the story back in the day, there used to be these like CD pools where you would sign up for a CD pool, they'd send you like 20 free CDs or cassettes or whatever it was at the time. And I was getting all these alternative rock albums and I ran out of like, I'm like, all right, I got seven more albums to pick. I guess I'm gonna take whoever, like this R&B album or this hip hop album. And I started getting more into hip hop because of that. The Little Kims and Notorious B.I.G.s and P. Diddy and all that era of hip hop. I think people our age all had a very similar trajectory in what they listened to. That was not what our parents were listening to, right? So like it was that same, like my first album ever was Pearl Jam, it's funny you say that. My first CD that I should say was Pearl Jam. So yeah, and then I was listening to all that same stuff. So it was all same probably time period, like 92, 93, 94, or 95, and then 96, 97, 98 came the Tupacs, the Biggies, the Puffies, the Locks, all that stuff. I was in my mom's attic the other day and I have a shoe box filled with all the cassettes that I used to listen to when, I don't remember who bought it for me, but somebody bought me like a, like one of those like Sony radio boombox things. And I would listen to Hot 97 and 92.3 and whatever else I was listening to and recording my own mixes. But I was also listening to all these cassettes and I had the most random shit like Metallica, Earth Wind and Fire, like Boys to Men. Boy Spin was big. like, such random, Billy Joel, like the most random shit. It was the most random collection of music in a shoe box. But I was listening to all that stuff when I was younger. But it was cool because I was able to kind of figure out, like, I'm listening to all this stuff, I love music. My dad loves music. My brothers are now like playing instruments. I never got into playing an instrument, but I still love the music, right? I was always listening to music. And eventually like, As I got older, you know, LimeWire and all these different things started popping up where I can go and download all this music and I could go get the backlog of all these hip hop artists that I'm now getting into. And I fell in love with hip hop. Like absolutely loved it. Not just the commercial stuff, that's what first got me into it, but then really digging more into like the backpack rap and just digging super, super deep and like shutting my brain off to everything else. Like. Only hip hop is what I cared about. And I was just really inspired to try to start making my own stuff. So like I said, I was recording these little mixes from the radio where you gotta sit there and hit record and wait for the radio player, this next song, and like be like, hear one or two notes and be like, oh shit, hit record for the next track that I want on this cassette player or whatever. Which is funny, but that kinda turned into me making mixes on CDs for my friends. I was digging super deep and creating these like 15 track, what I was calling cream mixes even back then, and I started selling them in school. And so people got to know like, oh, cream, when's the next cream mix coming out? And it was all hip hop, it was all like a mixture of commercial and underground. So yeah, and I was making the mixes for like our basketball team. But again, like you said, I didn't have the DJ equipment. I was in like audacity trying to like figure out how to like put these two songs together. And I was in fruity loops, like trying to make my own music and like making shitty hip hop songs. It's interesting you say that because it's like, it's, that's the side of it that I never ventured down because I was just making live mixes and had been making live mixes for so long. Like since freshman year, me and my, my friend Chad would sell out of my locker for five bucks a mix and we've, that's how we'd hustle and I give him two bucks and I take three and, and that's how, that's how we, we made a little bit of scratch on the side and in high school. And I kind of continued all throughout. And then. is you coming on later and being a little more raw, it gave you the naivete almost to like, Oh, let me try this other stuff, you know, before actually applying it to the DJ equipment. Yeah. So So to fast forward a little bit, I went to college, I went to James Madison in Virginia. First person I meet, this dude Rich Frizel, who we instantly clicked because he loves sneakers and he loved hip hop music. And he was from New York and we were in Virginia. So it was like, we clicked the first day we met, we went into the dorms and like hooked on talking about music and he put me onto so much other music, soul music and stuff that I never got into that he was into. But his brother was in a hip hop group. in the city in New York, but he also went to school in Virginia. So me and Rich would go to his college shows. He was in a group called Sixth Sense, a white rapper and a white DJ doing hip hop, underground hip hop in Virginia and lower East Side, Manhattan. So, you know, as college is finishing and I'm going back to New York and going to all these underground shows, going to the Sixth Sense shows, following around Rich's brother, his name was Frequency. He's now produce records for Eminem and Rihanna. He's got Grammys, he's managing artists. He's come a crazy long way too, but that was the first time I ever even touched or thought about or looked at a DJ setup. And I kind of messed with his stuff a little bit before a show in the dorm room one night. And I was like, this is pretty cool. And I might want to get into this. And so graduated college, came back and was partying. I was... out in Hoboken, Jersey Shore, like going out. And the music was changing, right? Like it was, hip hop was kind of still something I was really passionate about, but I got turned on to this EDM thing and house music thing, going to surf club and going to DJs. And like, I started getting into that music a little more. And I said, fuck it, I'm buying, I bought a controller, like a shitty little tiny Newmark controller to like learn how to DJ in my bedroom. I was like, just. having fun with it, I never thought it was gonna turn into anything. Started making cream mixes, like live mixes at that point. And eventually started booking like, like backyard parties, or you, oh, cream started DJing, let's have them come play the, the apartment party in Hoboken before we go out. Can you do my 30, my 20th, third birthday party in my mom's house kind of thing. And just going and playing whatever music I wanted to play. And then eventually starting to book like actual private events. weddings, sweet 16s, like random stuff. And that was my first entrance into DJing. I got a great cremix story that I've told before and I'll tell it again. I was playing beer pong at my shore house, which was in, oh my God, I'm going to, in Bradley Beach. We always stayed away from Belmar because it was just a little too much and I liked the more quiet, but I could still access Belmar and I could still access Asbury Park. So playing, playing beer pong. listening to a mix, I'm like, whose mix is this? And the kid, Anthony, I think is, no, what the heck was that, Joe? He's how I was introduced to DJ Cream, because he's like, oh, this is this kid, DJ Cream's mix. And I'm like, this is dope. I was like, the mixing's clean, I love the track selection. I was like, I'm gonna have to reach out to this guy, but I never reached out, but we then met that fall at West Five, which was kind of ironic and crazy. but I'll never forget the first time I heard a mix of yours. I was impressed and I'm never, you know, always like jaded about like, fuck whoever's mix this is, you know, back then. And I was, yeah, like thoroughly impressed. And that was the first time I ever heard you, I don't know if that was a live mix or if it was a, but, yeah. I'm pretty sure it was a live mix because I still would never mess with Ableton at that point and it had to be a live mix. But had to be summer 12, I believe. I think that was my last summer at the shore. So I think it was summer 12. Yeah, so I guess my, so my first, very first club gig or bar gig was West Five. And at the time, I was, like I said, I was going out a lot, right? I was living in Hoboken and Weehawken and we were going to all the clubs. We liked going to the clubs. We were going to the clubs in Hoboken, we were going to the clubs down the shore. So we got to know a lot of people, a lot of promoters, a lot of managers and owners and bartenders. And West Five was a place where we would go at least once a weekend. We'd like at least stop in there, say what's up, shake some hands, kiss some babies, hang out and then bounce around. And one of these parties I was playing, it was a Super Bowl party in Hoboken and someone came up to me and was like, yo, I'm a manager at a club in Hoboken. Do you wanna, you should come play my club. And I'm like, I would love to. Let's do it. And You know, that's one of those things where I never really think it's gonna actually follow through, but they followed up, they booked me, and that was my first nightclub gig. And it was with David S. And I was super nervous, and going in, I... You know, still wasn't super comfortable on CDJs or turntables, which is what they had. And, because I still hadn't bought my CDJs before, you know, getting that first gig. And, uh... I knew if I could just bring a lot of my friends out, if I was terrible, if nothing else, the bar would be like, yo, this kid brought 50 people at 10 o'clock when he started. Like, even if he sucks, who cares? He brought 50 people, like, we made money because of this booking. So my mindset was always like this business-minded way of thinking like, If I could bring people, even if I suck, they're gonna have me back, right? And I'll just get better and I'll learn on the fly and I'll buy CDJs, which is what I did pretty soon after that because I was like, this is what's in the clubs and I need this and I need to be really good at this and I need to get better at this. And that's what I did. I would book private events and one, two, three, four bar club gigs and use that money to buy my first nine, I still have them, 900 and 2000s. from that time that, from that time where you were just starting out and you had, you opened like within a two year span, you got so, so much better, you know? And it was like, it was, it was noticeable. Like it was extremely noticeable. Like your hip hop skills got better. You know, the EDM stuff you loved and that's what you played a lot of. And that was, and you were, you were good at it, right? But like, By 2015, you were going pretty good. 2016, you were going pretty good in both genres. Before, before, because, so I haven't mentioned, like while this was all happening, I graduated college and I was a sales rep. I worked for a publishing company for a while and then I worked for another company. But, so I had a full-time sales role and I went to school for marketing. So the marketing thing was always something that I knew was gonna be part of what I did and part of my business. So whether it was social media, whether it was business cards, whether it was mixes that I was. putting these covers, Creme Mix covers on and creating, because I had some graphic design skills. I was doing all of that through this whole time, like heavy, heavy. I was sending promoter groups. I made t-shirts one year, and I sent a box to a prominent promotion group here with t-shirts, my mixes, and a note, basically saying, I see what you guys are doing. I'd love to be a part of it. Here's Creme Gear and my latest mix. like I would love to work with you kind of thing. Got some bookings from that. And like the ball just started rolling a little bit, started getting more local shows. And I was just all about it, man. And I put the time in to really get better. And EDM was, first hip hop was, I was like laser focused and all in on, but then when I started falling in love with the EDM thing, I did the same thing where I was just like, I have to learn everything about this. I wanna know everything, every sub genre, every artist. Like I wanna break music. I want people like, what the fuck was that? I want to know the stuff that they don't know, which is what I was doing downloading music off of LimeWire when I was in the eighth grade. Like I was introducing music to people then when it was a lot harder to find that stuff. Your trajectory was interesting because you were definitely a better EDM DJ than you were a hip hop DJ to start. for sure. And that's what I'm saying. Like you grew a lot in a two year period where you became a more well-rounded DJ. You were always a great marketer, always a great, you know, you could brand yourself well. You could talk to anybody in the room and find those right people and always good at that stuff, right? That was, that's, but from a DJ skill perspective, like your hip hop came along years later, you know. had to catch up to the marketing, I think, in the beginning. They did. It did for sure. It definitely had to. And it did. I watched it happen because I was like, ah, like cream's great EDM DJ knows how to work a room with EDM but like, still rusty on kind of how to how to really work a room for hip hop, you know, because it's different. So the place West 5 where we played, I was doing weekends, I started booking some other local stuff, but during the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, West 5 hosted Zog Sports, which is like this intramural sports thing in Hoboken. They paid me, I think $125 or $150, but I played. every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, to a room of probably 50 people playing beer pong and flip cup and whatever else, all genres. And like, that's where I got better, honestly. Just going and playing these lighter rooms with people that weren't normally going to West Five all the time to hear EDM and stuff. I had to play everything, and that's kind of where I learned. I taught myself how to play turntables during that time. So like...$125 every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I'd probably do two of those and you would did the other one. And Aldez would do one, we used to rotate. three that would rotate it. Um, so yeah, I mean, it was, it was great for practice because you could test records out for the coming weekend or in your case, just, just work on your skills, whatever they might've been, because you had been DJing for such a short period of time, you know, finding guy, you younger guys that aren't so experienced in the, in the nightlife game, like that, it's a great way to do it. Like pick up anything, like just pick up gigs. You know, it's a great way to just tighten your skills up because being in front of people, I don't care if it's 50 people in a room, you still have to play the room. Right. And you have to kind of understand, you know, how to genre jump and how to do all that stuff that makes you a real DJ. And also you're creating friends and fans during that time because these guys are coming to hang out with you on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And then on the weekend, if you're playing a different venue, they're gonna come. And like, that was a big part of me growing quickly was growing this fan base in Hoboken specifically of where I could spread my wings. And when I booked someone or I got booked somewhere, people were calling like, oh, is Cream DJing tonight? And like owners hearing that. And that was a huge part of my growth too. Gosh, that was such a thing. I forgot that happened, that people would call the bar and ask if we were playing. Yeah. Gosh, I completely forgot about that. That happened at all venues. Yeah. So the last thing I'll say before we get into the get down stuff is just also during this time, I taught myself how to make DJ edits. And the reason why I did that was because I was opening for all these big artists, not big artists, but big local DJs and some regional DJs. And I got to watch them work every single weekend, like seeing what how these how do they intro? How do they use the mic? How do they transition? How do they play hip hop? How do they go from EDM to hip hop? And just watching, it was like on the job training every single week. And so I was like, I wanna start making edits and playing stuff that I made in my sets as an opener, right? And every time I create an edit, I would send it to every record pool that I could, and I'd send it to every local DJ that I could. All the bigger DJs that were playing all the spots that I wanted, so that if nothing else, they would see book like DJ Cream every single week in their email with a track. Whether they listen to it or not, they saw my name every single week. And what would happen would be the DJs would come in and I'd introduce myself like, oh shit, you're Cream. Like I have a whole Serato folder of your edits that you've sent me over the last two years. Yeah, you always made solid, solid edits. They were, you know, whether they were intricate or not, they were serviceable, they were good, and you could play them the way you did it. You made it so you can play them in that like 11 p.m. hour. They weren't all peak hour bangers. They were like where everybody at that time really struggled to start to build energy in the room. It's always the hardest part of the set, right? You don't wanna go super hard yet, but you still wanna have some energy and stuff that people know, and that's where. You found your sweet spot in that area. What we call like the 11 PM build up stuff that was pop and energetic. So yeah, man, like, our journeys collided at West 5, and we became friendly and became friends, and we started making edits together, which was fun, and like, some of those edits, looking back, like went crazy, like Skrillex and Diplo played some one of our edits, and all these people were like playing some of our stuff, and we, you know, I was throwing parties at my house, at the House and Sea Caucus that you had talked about a little bit earlier, and you were coming over and DJing those, and we... It's kind of funny, we weren't like super close until we started to make music together. Right? Like we knew each other professionally, but then you'd invite me, hey, want to like come, come over and make a, make an edit. And like, so we bang out a day of just making edits and then go have lunch or whatever it might be. And like that's how room at the time. So we would come in like DJ or trade music or whatever. And I had a pool. So I'll be like, yo, let's bring you like, let's go to the pool after or whatever. So, yeah, we just started we connected through music and became friends. And, you know, as we'd be sitting at the pool, we like talked about how we could help each other. Right. You were playing all these rooms and I was playing some other rooms. And it's like, well, can we help each other get into these other rooms to fill our calendars? It's interesting because hearing the two stories and like I played Mars Town, New York City, you play, you had your connections in Hoboken and the shore and it was completely different. Like it was like at that point you have all of the small markets in our major in our, you know, major market covered. So it kind of was perfect. It was a good way to introduce you into those into that Mars Town market. And then also the New York City market. And then I. then got to start to play more Hoboken and I never played the shore. It's not, not something I ever did. me get into New York as well, but the first time I ever DJed in New York, and I wanna say this, cause it's funny, but so I had met Ammo through West Five. I was opening for him there or maybe Teek or one of the spots in Hoboken. And he hit me up one day and he's like, yo, I need a DJ in the city at this place called the Diner. And I was like, oh, well, what is it? He's like, it's a diner in the meat packing. So what they, meat packing near a city at the time was where everything was happening. We played a bunch of stuff there back then. He's like, my boy Nick Russo does this after party. It's from 12 to five or four or whatever it was. He's like, he's got CDJs, just show up and go play music. And I'm in a diner. And it was like, everybody would leave the clubs and go to the diner and they would have a DJ and it would be me. And it was like super unique and interesting and different. But you know, Ammo. is booking everything in New York. Name a club and Ammo's involved and Dream Hospitality is involved somehow. So it was like a great person to meet. And Nick Russo had his booking agency for a long time and he was helping me. Like, it's just funny how shit works. Yeah, that was a wild gig. I remember going there and being like, this is it. It's like really actually a diner. It's like this, yeah, it's a diner for real. Like a real diner. That was my first New York City gig. Ha ha. That's hilarious. And then obviously that then that relationship helped me get into some really good rooms because they were involved in some really good clubs in New York City and I would go open and close and like, it wasn't for a lot of money, but it was playing the best rooms in New York. Yes, and that's where, that's where when we were at that point working together more and more and, um, and that's kind of when we turned to each other and said, you know what, like we've had two or three places reach out and ask us like, do you have a guy on Saturday? Do you have a guy on Friday when you're not playing? Does he play like you like, yeah, that's always a big one. Does he play like you and, um, I mean, that's when like Angelo the kid was playing pills in her house for us, you know, and then that started to kind of roll a little bit. Like the ball started to roll a little bit in getting a couple more rooms. I think you were resident at tally ho at that point antique. Um, you know, we had Sona 13 in Morristown West five was still hanging on somewhat. Yeah, and you were playing at the W Hotel in Hoboken. You helped me get in there. You introduced me to Ron Rodrigo, promoter in the city who owns and runs Rated R Entertainment now. So like we used our networks to help each other, right? And we were like, we realized really quickly that DJs helped each other, which was something that never happened in our market or rarely happened in our market, where everyone was like fighting for all the gigs. We realized that if we would help, if we... stuck together and helped each other and brought each other into our different rooms. Number one, we could fill our own calendars and eventually these venues started trusting us to bring other DJs in, like Dramos and ToneSetta and UFOso and Brian Arguello and a lot of DJs that still work with us who were there from the very beginning of what Get Down was before it was Get Down, you know? Right, right. We were just kind of all helping each other out. And then, and then it became more of this business minded thing, but that was never the intent, right? It was never the intent to be like, Oh, we're going to make money on this. I think when I, the first time that we spoke about it, I think it was like, you know, if we made like an extra 50 bucks a weekend, that would be cool. Like, you know what I mean? Like if we booked like, I don't know, let's say we booked five extra people a weekend, like that would be phenomenal. Like, and I said, you know what, I'm going to talk crazy and like 10 would be great. 10, 10 gigs would be great a weekend, you know, and now this year we had a weekend where we did 90. So it doesn't always start with intent to make money. And, and, and a lot of times people are successful when they start out that way, because it's more of a passion. You're, you're there for a different reason than money. I feel like when you show up for money, then that's when stuff kind of can go awry. You're not there for the right reasons. And, you know, coming at this business with that attitude without even knowing that it should be a business, I think that was just kind of let it happen organically. That's the true meaning of, I think, letting things happen organically. Yeah, and you know, you bring up this like passion versus money thing and for a long time and you know, I quit my job at one point where my day job was getting in the way of my DJ stuff where I was working Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I'd wake up Monday and be like, Oh my God, I can't believe I have to get on like a team sales call right now and present something like I was out till midnight and I just DJed four nights in a row. Like, but like, when you make that jump from all right. I'm gonna go all in on my business or my DJ career or anything that you're doing. It's like, it's not a passion anymore and it's treated a little differently and it's really, really hard to still, you know, get that enjoyment sometimes where you have to really treat it as a business. And I think Get Down was sort of the same way where it started as just like a way for us to help each other and grow our own DJ careers. And then... the switch flick, the switch change where it was like, all right, if we're gonna do this, we have to treat it as a business. And you and I both had to learn a lot as far as managing people, payroll, all the systems that go into place for a business to run smoothly, especially once you reach a point where you're booking 90 DJs in a weekend, right? Like all that backend stuff, you and I just had to learn and figure out. Like... I'd like to, I think that, cause I'm thinking back to when I was coaching and athletic directing and teaching, I would get my off periods would be invoicing and reaching out to, you know, this manager had an issue, reach out to that manager during like lunch, never had a lunch. Like I didn't, when we started to do this thing, like lunch and free periods didn't exist. Everything, everything got done in those little times. And then. You know, and then when I moved, we got to do this full time, I think we really got to grow a lot and take the business to a different level because just sheer time, you know, and having time to do it and time to do it correctly. Right, we also had a lot of help along the way, right? So we got introduced, or I met Brandon Barris, who hasn't been on this show, we were gonna have him on at some point. But Brandon was an editor on Cricklin Clan with me for a long time, and then we connected through music, and he hit me up one day, I can't remember if he was doing photography or he was doing some marketing stuff, but like he started helping us with our with some of our branding and marketing and he and I, because the marketing thing was always something that I knew if we're gonna grow Get Down, like we have to do how I used marketing to help DJ Cream, like let's use marketing to help Get Down DJ Group. And we really built a brand before we built a business with mixes and edit packs and all this different stuff that we were doing before we made a dollar, you know? And still to this day, met much of what we do. This podcast, we don't make $1. This is purely because we enjoy doing it and because it helps us promote, get down DJ group, it helps us promote the things that we think are important in this industry because we love this industry. We've been in it for however many years, many, many years. Too many. So, COVID happened and before COVID, we had a small business that was whatever. COVID happened and we had a choice, right? Do we wanna continue this and push the brand and create this podcast and do all the other different things that we did, create a course for DJs to grow their business or do we wanna give up? And we said, let's do it and let's keep putting out all this content. And I think all the time and energy we spent during COVID where we weren't making a dollar. We were all struggling. It was really, really hard. Paid dividends so that when things opened up, our business exploded because everyone saw what we were doing during this time off in the industry. And it allowed us to grow really, really quickly at the end of COVID coming out of it to a point where now, looking back, it's laughable what we were doing before. Yeah, it's night and day, but I thought, you know, I thought we were in trouble coming out of COVID, and, but we did do all the right things and put all the correct things in place. We had talked about the podcast for so long before COVID happened, and then COVID allowed us the time to do it. And then we learned like, oh, we can just ask Rick Wonder to come on the show and he'll say yes, and, you know, name anybody else that we had on early, early on. Um, and it was just a way to connect with those guys that we always had looked up to at that point, you know, beat breaker was definitely one. Yeah. like I mean, I'm sorry and Rick like we knew but we didn't really know like They could easily said no to coming on to the show Yeah. And I think it helped. I think it helped us with, uh, you know, our confidence in the business too, right? Like it, you look back and you're like, okay, well we're connecting with all these right people because of the podcast. And then they're get, they're learning about all the things that get down DJ group does, you know? And if the word spreads, yeah. so much stuff that we do that we don't make no money. We make no money. And that's okay, and because we wanna do stuff for the industry, and I think, I didn't realize how much people would see that stuff, you know? And see the podcast, and see the GDU, and the Slack channel. It's like, you know, we always talk about being consistent and just like putting yourself out there and... making content, like that's all we did for how many years, like a lot. It's still try to do, you know? Yeah, yeah, I think some of it has taken a backseat to, it's transformed, right, as everything should. We have our event that we do once a month right now, and maybe we'll see a meetup this year, maybe we won't, we probably will, and like blow it out and do something big, I'm hoping. We'll see how that goes. But as we keep adding venues and adding DJs and making sure that everybody is growing in the right way. It's a huge part of our business. It's a, you know, grow talent. And it's a big part of, you know, having an education background for me and you coming from, to parents with education backgrounds and, you know, having that mixed in with your marketing and branding expertise, like it's, it's just a perfect storm of, you know, what we've built here. And not all on super purpose. some advice that I want to give to you guys because I think I would have loved to hear it from somebody would just be. People see what you do, whether they know you or they don't know you. And I think when you're putting out content and you're active and you're networking, people might not give you your flowers or reach out to you in DM or whatever, but people see what you're doing. And I think, I didn't realize how much the market, not just our local market, but in the US and regionally, we're seeing what we were doing. And... download and play my music. It's like, be confident in what you're doing and trust the process and stay consistent and like, be confident, man. Like, I think that's the big piece of all this is like, we constantly thought like, they don't know who we are or we shouldn't ask. Like, just ask, like do it, go for it. I think that was something that I wish someone had kind of, you gotta ask for what you want. Like, I wish someone said that to me and it hammered home the point to me a little earlier. the worst that can happen is somebody says no or you know and that's and that's nothing you're not gonna grow unless you get rejected once in a while I don't know yeah I kind of wish the same thing like that you that there was some feedback because there just really wasn't the feedback honestly probably really would have come in where like all right well you have get down We had two decent sized classes, you know what I mean? A lot of those people work with us now, which is amazing. But I think that, that was good feedback, but I don't think that was enough for us, you know? Yeah, I mean, like we created a course to try to help DJs to grow their business in a time where there was no DJ king. Like we all knew they were going to come back eventually and we knew DJs had time to spend on some like learning and courses and practicing and music and all that stuff. And I think. I don't know. We've been going back and forth about relaunching GDU as like a new something new with new content. And I do think it would be a lot more successful now. that we've grown a lot, not just as DJs, but as Get Down, as a business as well. And there's more eyes and ears on what we're doing. I don't know. We're talking about where we're going. That might be a place where we're going, right? Relaunching Get Down University. What are some other things that like, where do you see the business going or where do you see us going for Get Down? Oh man, I see maybe, I'm hoping to relaunch the, I haven't really said this to you, but I'm hoping that if we do get back into meetups that maybe we can grow the meetup into something that's bigger, that's not just individual DJ based. I don't wanna spill it too much because I don't want somebody to steal the idea. But like, I can see the meetups becoming a bigger thing, maybe conference based. you know, and. this was his idea from years and years and years ago, where eventually we were gonna have this like big ticket meetup idea. that was my idea. So he remember he recorded us coming out of the New York City meetup, right. And he asked the question, where do you see the meetups going next? And that was my answers to, you know, maybe make this a smaller, a smaller thing with maybe decision makers, or maybe the biggest young DJs in the area, or maybe, and you know, you can chop it up in so many different ways. And that's, that's the exciting part, right. I kind of see maybe something like that could happen, but continue to grow young DJs. It's my favorite part of what we do. I like to see the growth of the Tony the Tigers of the world, big shout to him, and all of our younger guys that are coming up, and especially some of the newer guys that have just come on and are playing more gigs. I like to see where they go within the next three to five years. You know, and being able to see a couple batches of DJs go through it and grow has been very satisfying. Um, and that's why I think I'm always more like, let's get more gigs. Let's try to grow, even if it's a small gig, because there's always some young DJ that can go play that room, you know, and grow at and outgrow that room. Cause that's what you hope happens. You know, and, and because if you don't have nightlife experience guys, like you should, and you didn't start there. And that's why I always hammer at home because I always, I started in the little bar, you know, um, but I also was lucky enough that I had a nightclub that I was a resident at. Right, right, right. Well, that's why I'm just saying, that's why I always hammer at home that it's like, go play that little bark. It's just great experience all around. Yeah. That's where you earn your chops playing the shitty bars, man. Like, you have to go do that. If you never do that, I don't think you could ever be the best version of you. Because you have to feel that, like... First, you're going to be excited about going to do that stuff, but then you have to reach a point where you've, like, grown out of it and you feel like you're better than that to want to grow further, you know? It kind of reminds me and it's a completely different scale, but like, uh, Jonathan Peters was a New York city DJ coming up and he started a party at a small bar. It's like, that's all it was a small bar and he blew it up. He blew that party up into something where people would come and line up for every week and he was playing the music that he wanted to play. But I, that's what excites me about playing those places is that you can kind of make it your own, like after a little bit. And, and it's something that I did at Sona 13 that, like you said, like I played differently than most DJs in New Jersey at that point, but I was able to do that because I curate, I was able to curate my own party, right. And even if like somebody's working for us at a venue that we put them on, they could still curate their own party. You know, great UFOs who did it at six to six on Saturdays. It has a sound. It has it. You know, it has a following, it has a sound, and it's successful. You know, and I think sometimes DJs overlook trying to create a home and create a party that they can do things that they wanna do. I think it's needed. I think it's the only way for you as a DJ to go and be able to do what you wanna do. And like, when I had my Tally Ho residency, it was my baby because I played, that was the truest form of, anyone who ever heard me play Tally Ho, that's the truest form of who I am as a DJ. Because I got to a point, they trusted me, we had such a successful night that I could play whatever the fuck I wanted. And I did. Where you got trap cream sometimes, you got Jersey club cream, you got. tech house cream, you got EDM, like electro house cream, you got it all. I'm going to, I didn't realize this until we just started to talk about this, but like the last time I played at one of our venues, um, in December, I started off with like a very pure Gary W set all like disco house and deeper house stuff that I liked to play, but the crowd really got engaged right off the jump, you know, and we were rocking for like an hour and a half and like everybody, like it was no pop stuff. It was like throwback. disco pop, it would like maybe stuff from the eighties and whatnot that was remixed, but everybody was so into it. And then I got in my head and I was like, I got to get out of this and play pop stuff. But if I was there every single Friday, I would be able to kind of stay in what I want to stay in because by those people are there to, to fuck with you. You know what I mean? Right. Especially as a younger DJ, that's like I said earlier, growing, growing some fans, right, getting people to get to know who you are and who you are as a DJ so that not only are they going to come to your residency, but then they're going to follow you to the other places that you play at, you know, I think that's super valuable and a bit overlooked right now. Yeah, so I do. I just want to continue to see our, our younger guys grow and be successful and do these things and get these experiences. That's why like I told I told one of our younger guys earlier in the year, for better or worse for get down DJ group, I told him to go take a residency that was not with us. You know, because I wanted him to do that and be and he did and he was very he threw a successful party there for a while. And I was proud of that because Yeah, like sure. Like it took away from our gigs, but I was proud of him as a young DJ to come up and do that. Right. Cause you have to, you have to do it. So just something food for thought for younger DJs. Yeah, I mean, for me, I think thinking about where the business is going and where Getdown is going, I totally agree with you. Like the core of our business is always going to be coaching and teaching and helping young DJs, right? Like that's just ingrained in who we are and what we do. Like you said, with our parents and teaching and your teaching background, it's just like ingrained in us. And it's something that I think is we both think is really, really important. So, yeah, I think as far as where I see Getdown going, Yeah, I want to book every venue and every gig that we possibly can. That's also at the core of what we do, right? We book DJs and we work with venues and we help venues and we improve venues. I like to think that we would at least try to improve venues, you know? I love that portion of it too, right? That's a fun portion. a little bit like some consulting and like some, hey, that you might want to do this or this could help your venue. And like whether they take that or not. It's stressful sometimes, but I still like it. It's something that's part of what we do. And, you know, I'm always like, how can we grow? How can we get bigger? How can we do something new? So, you know, there's areas where we can grow into and I think that's gonna be a lot of kind of where I spend my time this year and growth into other markets as always. But, you know, same content and same podcasts will keep going and all the stuff we're doing is gonna keep happening. Yeah, man, I'm excited. I'm excited for this year. It's always fun. It's always fun to start a new year and kind of start a new and hopefully gain some, gain some new venues and establish new relationships. So. So, all right, I'm gonna throw a curveball. We're gonna take a pause here and we will be back and we'll go through some of our 2023 picks, I guess we'll call it, or awards if we wanna call it that. But all right, we're gonna pause here. We'll catch you guys in a few. I guess.