I look at my job as a modern day traveling minstrel, to bring new music to as many places as I can, and expose obscure records that, otherwise, might go hidden. "I started playing when I lived with my parents and didn't have any bills to pay so I could just buy records. My intentions were never to just make money, it's nice, but it's kind of turned into a job/hobby by accident - it was a hobby for the most part."
I developed my musical tastes in San Francisco - listening to house music on the radio, living in one of the country's most primordial breeding grounds for house. I started out spinning at small bars around the cities in California like City Nights SF , Players Club in Vacaville, Paradise Beach and The Rage in Sacramento. Most of these places we had to spin a set format witch was ok. I liked to experiment with my own deeper style and feel by dropping De La Soul, disco classics, The Doors & Jimmy Hendrix, classic rock, and other stuff that I loved that wasn't being played in the main rooms. “I find that people will listen to whatever tickles there fancy, so I made it a point to play my sets with an open genre format by creating the mood with my music.
I feel that there's noway I'm gonna please everybody so I figure I'd just play what stimulates me and the rest will follow. While the predominant musical force in SF was still dark, dubby House and Wicked-style Breaks, I started to embraced the downtempo movement with a healthy bunch of live bands and DJ s generating the tunes. I've always been a musician by nature playing instruments like the Saxophone, Guitar and just recently synth-keyboards.
Since 2001, I've been traveling and performing at different shows a year, sometimes DJing all of my preferred styles in two different rooms at the same party. At other events, I've been known to play extended sets that lasted over 6 hours. I've also played with some of my very own favorite D J's doing opening and closing sets in Detroit Mi, Denver CO and Miami. Cats like Dj Icey, Mark Farina, Derrick Carter, Paul Johnson, Digweed, Polliwog, Babe Ann, DJ RAP, Danny Tenaglia, David Harness, Ben Doren, Kenneth Thomas,Paul Oakenfold, Ritchie Hawkins, Norman Stradley, Jay-J, Ellen Ferrato, DJ Dan, and even George Clinton at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival 2002. I loved and cherished all these moments with all these guys and gals and got nothing but good energy from them but most of all a scenes of pride for the love of music and what it brings to people.
DJ MEL biography,
“Music is the Key to Spiritual Guidance & Harmony.”