The Formula to your Nightlife’s Soundtrack: Two Parts Music Know-how, Two Parts Humility – DJ’s Magic Wong and Rock 1

As Brent Silby of Def-Logic Productions (New Zealand) stated in his 2007 article, Is the DJ an Artist? Is a mixset a piece of art?

“Good DJ Mixes do not consist of random song choices. There is an artistic process at work. Just as a photographer picks scenes that already exist and packages them in a way that makes them appealing to an audience. A DJ picks music that already exists and packages it in a way that makes it appealing to an audience. A mixset is a piece of art.”

We couldn’t agree more.

West LA native DJ Everett Wong (aka DJ Magic Wong) and DJ Gerardo Machado (aka DJ Rock 1) of Whittier, CA are two guys who according to their bios prefer to put the “music before the spotlight.“ The pair met while working at International Creative Management (ICM). Despite being residents of Los Angeles, a city that depending on which circles you move in can have a serious deficiency in the area of humility and self-absorbed personas are superfluous, these two modest DJ’s remain completely unassuming in their talent for making crowds move.

The two dj’s describe their process as “bringing their two different styles to the table, complimenting each other and creating a monumental synergy.”  They state “enjoying being able to switch off at multiple points during the night which allows them to keep the energy high.”

Machado and Wong have rocked this energy at hot spots such as H’Wood, Winston’s, Delux as well as residencies at Green Door, Republic, The Hideout, and currently The Dime (a local watering hole where notable DJ’s such as DJ Pesce spin on the regular). Despite quickly developing a strong following with the Hollywood crowd the glitz and glamour is not so much what they’re after, as that can easily be found on any given night in the city of Angels

It could be a case of been there, done that. More than likely though, it is the desire to bring their craft to as many people as possible all at one time, as world domination is not entirely out of the question. Wong, who grew up listening to DJ’s on Power 106 states, “We’d love to have a residency in Vegas, but our main goal is to share our interpretation of music with as many people as possible. We would rather play for 4,000 people sitting in Central Park than 400 people at the hottest Hollywood club.”

Wong further explains “We play events all the time where there doesn’t necessarily need to be a DJ. We like those events because we hit those crowds so hard with creative blends that they were totally not expecting to hear at say…a cocktail party…or an awards show. We want people to walk away from our events thinking that a DJ is not someone who just plays songs, but gets creative with it.”

Some of these recent events have included the following:

- 2009 CAA Golden Globes Party

- Cast Party for TWILIGHT

- Tom Ford’s Christmas Party

- Relativity Media Christmas Party

- The CW Up-Fronts Party

- The Official Ohio State University Tailgate

- NBC Fall Scheduling Party

- Li-Ning’s Official Launch of Baron Davis’ shoe

- Aids Project LA Event

- Max Mara Private Event

So what made each of these guys start djing? Wong, the self described hip-hop head of the duo, credits it was listening to the DJs on Power 106 every day on the way from school. Guys like E-man, Eric V, Vice truly captivated him from the start and sparked his interest in the art form. Machado, who tends to incorporate an eclectic mix to their sets (adding 80’s/Rock/Funk), was also influenced by the DJ’s of Power 106 as well as the DJ’s of the Electronic Rave scene in the early 90’s. He recalls, “I would watch and listen to DJ’s move crowds of 1,000+. It was definitely amazing and inspiring.”

When asked what they had seen change if anything in the DJ scene they credited the “influx of computer DJ programs such as Serato (Scratch Live)” for creating a “surge of digital DJs” who currently “saturate the market.”

Wong states, “We would be completely okay with this if half of them actually had skills, but a lot of DJ’s we hear nowadays are just not fundamentally sound. Nowadays we find ourselves competing with celebrities who picked up these DJ computer programs from Guitar Center and loaded up all their mp3s. We’ve lost plenty of gigs to guys like Ryan Gosling and Danny Masterson, guys who may or may not have been DJ’s if it weren’t for computer programs like Serato. Losing gigs is always a bummer but we knew we were really on the right track when we started losing gigs to guys like DJ AM and Jazzy Jeff.”< (more…)

May 17, 2009 | Categories: Music | Tags: Brand, Brandy, Central Park, Chester French, Danny Masterson, Delux, DJ AM, DJ E-Man, DJ Eric V, DJ Gerardo Machado, DJ JAzzy Jeff, DJ Magic Wong, DJ Pesce, DJ Rock 1, DJ Vice, Everett Wong, Fon Browz, Green Door, Guitar Center, H’Wood, International Creative Management, LMFAO, Los Angeles, Mayor Hawthorne, Pharrel Williams, Republic, Ryan Gosling, Santogold, Serato, Serato Scratch Live, Siria, Siria Contreras, Star Trak, The Dime, The Hideout, Vegas, Winston’s | Leave A Comment »