Submitted By: trocknroll

Genre: Hardcore / Breakcore

Date of Set: Oct 21st, 2002

Filesize: 67.16 MB

Total Downloads: 0

Some DJs will recount days of listening to electronica while still in their diapers. The first electronica Ryan ever heard was Prodigy's Fat of the Land, released in 1997 when he was a junior in high school. The singles 'Firestarter' and 'Breathe' were catchy and struck Ryan as they did the rest of the nation, but the album was nothing special to him. His first love in electronica was soon to become Daft Punk's single 'Around the World,' released that same year on their album Homework. 'The video for [Around the World] came on MTV one day, and I was off doing something on my computer. The beat caught my interest, and I turned towards the TV to see what the video was,' he remembers. 'The pattern and rhythm of the dancers immediately hooked me. It was one of those videos where you stare at the screen the whole time so you don't miss the artist info that comes on at the end!' The next day, Ryan went out and bought Homework. He played the CD so much that it became scratched and had to be discarded.

It wasn't until Ryan turned 18 in December of 1999 that he truly fell into electronica and the parties surrounding it. At a friend's New Year's Eve party, he discovered the art of beatmatching and mixing via Dieselboy's 611 Mix Sessions Vol. 1. That was a new point of understanding for Ryan, and over the course of that break he went to his first two raves in Baltimore, thrown by Family Productions.

Upon returning to Virginia Tech for the spring semester, Ryan figured there wouldn't be any parties to attend and that his new-found love for electronica would fade. A friend quickly proved him wrong with the notice that Bad Boy Bill would be performing in Roanoke the following month. Of course Ryan went to the party, and the ball started rolling. He quickly became electronica's newest evangelist, spreading his love of parties and music to as many people as he could interact with. He made friends with the local DJ and party-kid population and attended Starscape in the summer of 2000. Ryan was definitely hooked on the scene.

To make an already long story short, Ryan became immersed in UK Hard House and Nu-NRG after downloading DJ Number Nine's Engine Engine from Napster. He soon noticed the lack of hard house in both the VA and DC party scenes. Determined to do something about this, he picked up a beginner set of turntables (Gemini XL-100s) and started learning how to mix. Because of space constraints in his college dorm room, Ryan couldn't practice regularly until October of 2001 when he moved into an apartment. 'The main reason I started spinning was because I just felt this intense love for hard house, and nobody around here was getting exposed to it,' he explains. 'I felt I had something to contribute to the scene, so I started up from scratch. It sounds very melodramatic and idealistic, but it's true.'

His first set in front of people was at a house party in January of 2002, and his first club gig was in May that same year. Since then, Ryan has truly connected the state of Virginia with his sound: clubs in Blacksburg, Roanoke, Richmond, and Virginia Beach have all played host to his sound. He's rocked gigs in Washington DC and even New York. A dedication to the music he loves ensures that he regularly drives 5 hours to perform an hour-long set. He's recorded three demo CDs that increasingly showcase his mixing talent and track selecting ability. Ryan's musical performances remain diverse: he drifts in between various forms of UK Hard House and Nu-NRG while splicing elements of hard trance and techno into each of his sets. Never one to be content with simply beatmatching, Ryan will often get out of the DJ booth and dance to his own music. 'First and foremost, I'm a party kid. That fact influences every decision I make, from the records I buy to the way I perform live. Watching someone sit there, look bored, and mix records is dull and kills the vibe,' he notes. 'Everyone who sees me play will see the passion and intensity I have for electronica, UK hard house, and this party scene we're all in.'

DJ Notes:
Penny on the Tracks is a different type of mix CD. Instead of pre-selecting all the tracks and going through a few weeks of recording time, this mix is part of a set I played on WVRU Radio, Radford University's radio station. It's a live set, which means that it was recorded all in one take, with no chances for redoing any mixes or correcting any errors at all. I couldn't go back and correct these mistakes and still call it a live set.

I chose the title 'Penny on the Tracks' to kind of convey the fact that this is a live, unedited mix. The joke is that, in the DJ world, making a mistake while mixing is called 'trainwrecking.' So, what connection does this have with the title? Well, conventional wisdom states that placing a penny on the tracks will cause a trainwreck. So therefore I decided on 'Penny on the Tracks' as a title, because it pokes fun at the fact that there are slip-ups, or 'trainwrecks,' on this CD :-)

Time: 69:54

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