SPEAKER_01 0:11

Action Tell me a funny story real quick. Oh man. I need that mic. I know you don't want it right there in front of you, but go ahead. Funny story. Funny story. Go ahead. Tell me a funny story.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Funny story you can tell. You know. There are plenty. Plenty, plenty, plenty. Shit.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Give me, give me, give me, give me, give me something everybody can relate to.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Give me a funny club story. Funny club story. Funny club story. Well, I once had to kick somebody out of the club for uh harassing um customers.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Got it. Harassing customers? Female, male. Female. Female.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

It's a male, male harassing female. Right. Um guy was like 6'2.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

I'm working both head of security and I'm DJing at B Green, which is a basement club, which is now known as Voyager.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

B Greens. He was at B Greens. Yeah, I know it's Voyager. Gotta go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

So I had to get this guy up the stairs. And I'm talking to him and walking him up the stairs. Slowly. He's walking backwards. I'm walking him up. And we're doing the talking argument all the way up. Right. Get upstairs. And he starts screaming and yelling at me, telling me that I'm not his father. I can't tell him what to do. And I was already irritated because I'd been dealing with this guy like 30-some minutes. I was trying to be as nice as possible without having to hurt a customer.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

So you're going down the stairs from the top part, or you're going up the stairs? I'm going up the stairs. Out, out of the club. Out of the club. Got it. Okay. Just to paint a picture. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Alright. Get to the top. I'm on the street level now. Right. It's about 5 o'clock in the morning. Sun's starting to come out. A lot of other places are closing. Quite a few people on the street, and he wants to argue with me. Screaming and yelling. I'm not his father. Da-da-da-da. I'm like, all right, I already got this guy at the club, no big deal. Turn around. He pushes me. I turn back around. And in one quick snatch, I unlooped my belt and pulled it out from my pants. And I started whooping his ass on the street. I didn't see this going there. Talking about, I may not be your father, but I'm gonna whoop your ass like I'm your father.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Beating him with a belt. Yes, in front of about 50 people. Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah. What did he do? He got into a taxi and left.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

So he didn't fight back or anything.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

He didn't fight back.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

You probably caught him off guard like you caught me off.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I definitely caught him off guard. I definitely caught a lot of people off guard with that one.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

You whooped him with a belt in front of a club. Did he ever return to the club after that? Not that I can remember. He probably shouldn't have needed. At least not that club. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Shit. That's a funny story I can tell. What you mean?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

You saying that as if there's a lot more. There's a lot. I mean, you're saying that as if you have a story that you probably shouldn't tell.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

There's a lot of stories I shouldn't tell. Because it can implicate people. And even if I try not to name them, people that have been in the know, people that have been here as long as you and I have. And I've been here going on 36 damn years. They're gonna know who I'm talking about. Gotcha. They are no need. No need to go down that route. Okay, fuck it. Let me open this show.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yum.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

You feel me?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

This is your boy Jay. This is YBZ the podcast. As always, a like, share, and subscribe to the channel. Shout out to the day ones. We really need your energy. Please tap that subscribe button, man. I don't know how many times I gotta tell y'all to keep tapping that subscribe button. Pat tell tell your friends. Tell your friends, friends, tell your friends, mama them, tell them to hit that subscribe button. Anywho, on this episode, we got one DJ Sergio. I've known this man as a matter of fact, shit. So to kind of get him into the groove of talking, because he he got plenty of fucking stories. This is the guy that got me my first job at a club. Remember that? Yeah, I do. He got me the first job. I it was it was B Greens and I worked security. I worked security for a long time before I even touched the turntable. And this was the man that was responsible. Not saying he or she wasn't responsible, but it was because of Sergio. Sergio kind of started my education in the streets out here in Okinawa. So I'm very happy to have him on the show. I'm glad. Sorry it took so motherfucking long. My bad. But uh yeah, thank you for thank you for doing this shit, man. I appreciate it. I appreciate you having me. Yeah. So uh I as far as Sergio is concerned, he has DJed at every big club, if I'm not mistaken. Every big club in Okinawa, if it if it was a club here in Okinawa that was bigger than this bigger than the sandbox, he he's fucking DJed in it. So you can name him past, present, I think present Epica, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

No. I've you know uh I haven't done Epica, and there's a there's a reason behind that, but I won't get into that. Okay. Um but yeah, I haven't done Epica. You got a lot of redacted. Yeah, I do. I mean it I I can kind of touch on it. The the owner, I know who the owners are. Right. And we had issues when I was doing something in mainland. Got it. And now that they took over down here, the nephew and I, we don't really get along. I just didn't want to I didn't I didn't want to be in that environment, so I just stayed away from Epica. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

All right. Well shit. I I I mean that the you know the the to get you to tell that much or whatever. I'm just bullshitting. Here, before I before we start talking about the shit that I I brought you here to talk about, let me let you give everybody uh some history. Like give everybody a you know when did you when did you start DJing? What how did it happen out here? Like give us a like a brief summary of that.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Um, to go back, I I started DJing when I was 14. I was I came from a breakdancing crew. Crew couldn't find music. We had DJs that we would go to. Right. We'd never get what we wanted. Uh got it in my head that I can become a DJ. Uh started on record players, not turntables, record players. Learned how to do the mixing by ear, and then uh went from there. Within two years, I had my own college radio station. I was opening for concerts, I was doing house parties, weddings. I mean, my weekends were jam-packed with events in high school. And this is even before you even got over here. It's before I got here. Okay. When I got here um back in 90, late 90, um, I had actually quit DJing because I was a Marine now. Right. Um, it wasn't until I met my first wife. You could have jumped over that, but go ahead. Yeah. Um she was listening to some mixtapes I had in the car that were my mixtapes, and she's like, Where'd you get these? And I told her that I made them. She didn't believe me. Got her out, and uh we found this shop. She found out how much turntables were. She bought me a whole setup for my birthday. That got me back into spinning at the house here. Got it. Uh, didn't take long before somebody befriended me. The flea market back in the days over in Chatan uh was huge way back then. And uh I ran into some guys from the college, local college. Uh they were making mixtapes live on the spot. Got to talking to them. They invited me to a college event at Okikoku. Started DJing there just for the event. That got my name out. Then FM Okinawa had me on the radio station every Wednesday for a couple months. Then I picked up a job doing security at the old club pyramids, and from there I got into the bigger clubs as a DJ, which at the time there were American DJs here and there, but nobody was breaking the mold. They were following the Japanese system. The Japanese system was you're gonna play these songs at this time. So it was a pie chart. Right. I didn't like that. Just like I don't like a lot of things, right? I didn't like that. Don't tell me how to play. I I do my stuff, da-da-da-da. Um by by '95, I was spinning in different big clubs, Japanese clubs, like Cielo, uh, Vientos way back in the day, you know. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Um, yeah, I can go down the list. It's just a lot. I mean, so I broke the mold. I got people out on gate too, which wasn't normal to bring in strictly American DJs. Right. Um, and I think a lot of people in the past we've had some people that beef with me because, hey, who are you? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not a social media type guy. Right. I don't post stuff. Uh my mixtapes, my music spoke for itself at the time. Right. Had a following. I had people calling me from mainland. I've been to the Philippines, I've been to Taiwan. I've been quite old, quite often. I mean, sorry, quite honestly, yeah, around the Pacific, a lot of different places. Um, so it's created a buzz for me. And uh the height of my career here, I'd say was like 2012 to 2015. I was on on almost every club, Cyclo, Fantasy Space, B Green, Double Mint. Right, right, right, right. You know, it's had so many names, Aileys, right? Um, even even twice over at uh what's his name's place? Uh your hangout. I keep forgetting. No, no, no, no. Well, I've been there too. Um on Coke's eye. Uh clutch. Clutch. Yeah, I was the only one to call it crunk because I have a good time, you know. Clutch clutch. Um, I know everybody there. And then that's the thing, though, is like a lot of those DJs are friends of mine, and you know, they they they're good, they do their thing, right? Um But I was also in the battle scene, you know. I I got into it, you know. My my my biggest rival, who's also a very good friend of mine now, um, DJ Trey. Really? Yeah, like Trey had um Utopia back in the day, right? Yep. And on Cokeside Street, when we finally got to Koakse Street, I had this little bar called Club Red.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Which started out as a rock bar. Um, but I had that unlock. I mean, my Fridays and Saturday nights there, we were five, six hundred people in that little bar lying to get in. Um so I was a rival for him even after our DJ battle days, our scratching. Right. Um But we built a friendship. The friendship because the the people talking about us behind our backs were saying that we were talking about each other. Right. And that wasn't the truth.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

So y'all just y'all just we had a conversation finally. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

And that happened too, that happened too with the younger DJs just uh a few years back, uh, right before COVID. Um I get hit left and right with some this young cat, and I'm like, you know, I don't know this kid. So then I go in and I was like, all right, you want to let's do this the DJ way. So I threw a battle track at him, dissed him really hard, had a couple other DJs come in, like, yo, you didn't have to do that to the kid. Right, right. We went back and forth, and there was a lot of talk on Facebook, and then uh people telling me, yo, you know, it it's not a good look. So I reached out to him and we spoke. Come to find out, he never said anything bad about me. I never said anything bad about him prior to that. Right. Right? Um DJ Primetime, the original G J DJ Primetime. Yeah, the first one, yeah. The first one. The first one. Not the one that's here now. Right, the first one. The first one.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

The first one, yeah. It was more than one.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, he is now my mentee. He's in the states doing great things. Is he? Yes, he's got his own mobile business, he's got uh, you know, he's been able to buy a house with that business and a lot of other stuff going on. And you know, he calls me from time to time. And and I mean, like every two or three months at clockwork, he calls me, hey bro, what's going on? I got DJ questions. He could ask anybody in the States, but he he reaches out to me. Right. Um DJ Mo, who is the UQ Kings DJ, was one of my students back in the day. Okay, you know, so you know, he didn't come to me long, but he came enough to figure out what it was that I was trying to get him to do. I've always I grew up with a bunch of different music. Right. Okay, I grew up in a house that had classic rock being played. Uh my mom was a disco queen dancer, so there was always disco music. My grandparents were always listening to you know cumbias and merengue and uh you know Mexican music, just jamming all the time. So I got to grow up through all those generations, and and music to me, if it was a good song, it didn't matter what the genre was. Good song is a good song, right? And when I got to mixing over here, what really hurt a lot of people is like, oh, you're not a hip hop DJ, you're not this kind of DJ. I've always kind of been an open format DJ when open format wasn't a thing, so that's helped me get to everywhere. Now I'm not perfect in any one genre, I think I'm just good at all of them. Right. And it's opened up my DJ career going on what 40 years? Yeah. Okay. Still DJing. I'm not DJing as much now. Got young cats out there, and there's some amazing young guys that I run into.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Don't jump the gun, don't jump the gun. We'll we're gonna get there. We're gonna get there. I will. Uh so with all that being said, uh, let's let's have several conversations. Okay. One is, and again, I would not it wouldn't be cool if I had you on here and I didn't ask you these questions. So you have been doing it, like you said, for like 40 years. You know what I'm saying? I don't even I don't I don't even I can't even put the the the mark from the start to here to Okinawa, what shit in them 40, but 20? You're in Okinawa?

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Okinawa. Um I would say since 1994 solidly. So um so so to put uh whole the whole 40, damn near. Damn near. Damn near, okay. Damn near.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

So with all that so with all that being said, you done seen many iterations of Okinawa. Yes, I have. I don't want to start a debate, so I ain't finna start with that question. I ain't gonna start with that, yes. I am fucking what's the difference, what's the difference between then and now?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

People knew how to party. Elaborate. Okay, we didn't have social media, we didn't have cell phones. I mean, there were, but very few. Um, so though there was no social media to connect to with the cell phone. So you went into the club, you went to go have a good time. Right. You went to go talk to the females if you were looking for a female, all right. Um, you danced. Yeah, you didn't go inside like today. Everybody's on their phone, everybody's against the wall, they're not talking to the females, you know. It it's just it's a whole different environment. Everybody's taught uh, you know, how how can I get more likes? It's all they're worried about. Right. And that's not what it was like. Like the smartphones made us dumb. We don't know how to communicate anymore. So that's true. That's a it's it's a big deal. And then, you know, on my second marriage, my my my current wife, she's 20 years younger than me. It wasn't by design or anything, it just happened that way. Right. Um, but guys, you're like, man, how do you do it? How do I do it? So I actually talk to females. Right. I don't go in there. I'm I'm going there to have a good time. Right. You know, I'm not going in there to try and affront for anything or do anything. I just have a good time. Leave me alone. Like I said, I'm not a social media guy. I'm in here to be in here, yeah. Um, and that's that's how it happened because I know how to talk to females. Right. So that the big difference is they're just not there to have fun. They just want to be cool.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

So everything, so you think everything is there to be a moment, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Pretty much. And they're not in the moment. They go to a concert, or you know, we have these concerts that we do, and the whole time they're videotaping. Right. Instead of watching, right? Watching it.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Yeah, I was there, I was there. What was the point of you being there just holding it? You you're just a tripod. Right. You know? So you gotta live in the moment, man. You gotta enjoy what's going on around you.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Is is that was is is that what's killing because I don't see a lot of clubs out here now. I just it's it's more bars or anything and you know, bar hopping and anything. Nobody has a club out here. Do you think a club out here would survive if like if a club opened on gate two right now, let's let me just you know, kind of narrow it down. Yeah. If a club opened on gate two right now, you think it'll survive? Not long. Not long, right? Not long. I think so too. I think so too. I think that's the answer. I think I think it wouldn't survive that long. Uh I think they're spoiled to the fact of I can go in and go out when I get ready. Yes. To make somebody give you twenty dollars just so you could be in this club and yada yada yada, I don't think I I think that's gone.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

And that's a good thing that you said that, because uh back when I first got here, to get into any club, you had to be dressed up. Oh, right. That yeah, you you before my time. Go ahead. Yeah. You had to be dressed up. And if you wanted to get into pyramids, which was the biggest club at the time, right, largest dance floor in Okinawa, you had to be in a shirt and tie at the minimum with a female. Couldn't get in without a female. The females had to escort you in. So a lot of us guys, a lot of submarines, we would pay for the females to get in. Right. Now, this is gonna blow you guys away. 90s, it was 4,500 yen to get into a club per person in the 90s. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

I I you know what, man? I think that's cool because that shows that's where the exclusivity comes in at.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

If you ain't got that money to get in, you couldn't get in this club. Like that, I think if if it was a system like that out here now, we would we would really see like the baddies and the this and the that. Because they would go to that club. Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

So, yeah, and so that's that's the thing though, is it it cost a lot, but you got top-tier drinks, right? Tickets. Right. So you get, I think it was two or three tickets, and then uh pyramids on its had a second floor. It actually had four floors. On its second floor, um, up until like midnight, they they served food, so you had food coupons as part of that fee. All right. They had nice leather couches that surrounded the whole dance floor. Um, it it it was just beautiful inside. Um jam-packed six days a week because they were closed one day out of the week. I'm telling you, you go there on a Tuesday and find 600 people in the club. Okay. You go there on you know Thursday and it'd be eight, and then on Fridays and Saturdays, forget it. You're talking 150 to 1800 people. Right. A line wrapped around the block trying to get in and it wasn't just that club, that block was owned by two brothers. So they had Manhattan's and Applehouse and Eight Beats, and they were all different types of music. Now, Pyramids at the time was more dance music. Right. Uh Manhattan's had European type, uh high-energy type music. Some alternative Apple House was rock. Eight beats was a strictly hip-hop little bar, but yeah, it the eight beats was the beat down, as we used to call it. Always something going on. Then you had the tunnel, and uh I can't remember the other one, the other club that was on top. It changed so many times. Right. Um but always, always good times. Right. Always good times around that. I can't imagine. Um but Pyramid also broke the system. I'll say that. How so? They're the ones that started that free drink system.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Ah, pay this and get the free drinks or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Somebody had to start it though. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

And that system is what started the downfall, and then they opened the doors to You think it was the downfall? I think that was the downfall because it became the standard everywhere. Right. So now people who relied on entrance fees to stay open were now giving out free drinks, and people were just getting drunk and destroying stuff. True, true, true, true, true, true. That costs money, right? No longer's coming in. Right. So it started to downfall. I mean, even pyramids, when they first opened to Americans, like they can come in without an escort, right? Within the first two weeks. There was so many fights in there, it destroyed the beauty of it. So they had to close the club down, renovate it, get rid of all the carpeting, all the nice stuff, and just put the basic stuff in there so that it wouldn't get destroyed anymore. Yeah. It is, it is. And I have some pictures, and it'd be nice if we could just flash them. I don't even know I don't have them here with me, but I could show you some pictures of pyramids back in the day. I mean, you send them to me on the show. You could I can show you a clip of some pyramids at 8 o'clock at night with over a thousand people in there. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's unimaginable.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

I can't even I couldn't even fathom that now. Or I okay. So I'm not, I I'm I I'm not outside like that. I can admit that. I'm not outside like that no more. You know what I'm saying? But when I do go outside now, I'm so underwhelmed. And at first I thought, oh, you know, this is me on my old man shit. Get off my lawn shit. Yeah. But then I'll be thinking, like, maybe our parents was right, and maybe in in us saying, like, our not saying our generation was better, but the time that I was here feels way better than now. You can just feel that energy or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Like, you if you go, if you go somewhere, you you still DJ from time to time. Yes, I do. Right? So when you step, when you go out to go DJ from time to time, you know that energy. You know it. You know what I'm saying? Me, me too. And that's how I feel. When I go somewhere, I I don't feel that energy. Maybe it's because we were living in a different time or whatever. Now, I've been to other places in my old age and felt that feeling. Right? They still exist. So it exists. So I know it exists, and it wasn't around a bunch of people my age, it was around a bunch of younger people or a mixed bag of people, and I felt that vibe, and that's that's the only thing that I'm missing right now when I step outside, which is why I don't go outside no more because I don't feel that feeling.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Yeah, I know. I went the last time I was on Gate 2 was right before the new year. Um last year, my wife and my sister-in-law drugged me out. Let's go, let's go. Um, the only club I had a or bar, shall I say, that I had a good time at was um Blue Reef. Um the music was good. Right. And and you know, I'll give shout-outs to them when it's time, but the music was good. And that's the thing, why gate two is dead, why a lot of these places are dead is everybody has the same playlist now. Yeah, everything's downloaded, everybody wants to be a DJ. So they got these programs that even helped them mix, or they even play in their own podcasts or whatever, whatever. Right that helped them get through the night. And um, you know, in my time, if you didn't hurry it up and get to the record store, or if you weren't part of a record pool that was sending you promos, you didn't have the new stuff. Right. You know, if you got the new stuff, people would follow you. That guy's always got new music, blah, blah, blah, blah. They wanted to hear new music. And our job was to break new music. How to write a report, how many people dance, how do you send it back to the record company. Right. And for those of you that are old enough to know when you bought a CD, it always said includes the hits, whatever. Well, how do you know that it's a hit if it's brand new drop? Brand new, right. It's because DJs were breaking that and getting the feedback given to the record companies. That's how they know it was a hit. Ah, okay. Okay. All right. They don't do that no more.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Well, she since we here, who uh who does DJ Sergio like out here in this landscape now? Uh DJ wise. Who does DJ Sergio give his stamp of approval to?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

You know, I was I was DJing at this little bar over in Chaatang. Little restaurant bar. Yeah. Right next to it is uh Barry's. And I'm I I was done with my set, and I'm walking to my car, and as I pass Barry's, I'm like, you know, I can hear the music. Within a minute, I heard this DJ go do like four songs seamlessly. Made a thousand percent sense. Right. All the songs made. All the songs just made so much sense. I was like, yo, who the hell is this? I had to make a U-turn and go back.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Right. DJ Prince. Prince. I knew it. I knew it was DJ Prince. DJ. I knew it was DJ Prince, man. He he's pretty good, man. I fucked with him, man. He's pretty good. He's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

He yeah, he really left an impression on me. And it's hard to not not that I'm a great DJ or anything like that, but I've got a long career and I've done a lot of things, and you know, I've helped a lot of people get to where they're at. Um, but him, man, I mean, like, I heard him and I was just like blown away by the sense that he has with that. And uh, you know, met him once and remembered his damn name and his face and everything. Right. And that's right. At my age, that's hard to do. That's hard to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yeah, it's like, okay, well, I I I I I remember you, and yeah, nah, the same way. He yeah, he made a great impression on me immediately. I I can't stop singing his praises, man. He he's he's fucking alright, man. He is I dare to say he's bigger than what he's doing right now. Oh, yeah. He's bigger than what he's doing. He's definitely bigger. But the thing is, whatever he's doing right now, he could be doing a hundred times more. Yes, if he wanted to. No doubt.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

No doubt. And and I know he wants to, he's just in the wrong area. Yeah, Okinawa is saturated. Okinawa, I'm sorry I hate to say this, I really do, is filled with a lot of haters. People that don't want to see you succeed. They they say they do, right, but they don't. Um everything's about me first, and that's the thing with him, is is I never got that from him. Right. Um, he's very humble, he's got amazing sense, like I said. Um just an all-around great guy, and and I love his music. I do. I love his music. Yeah. Every time I pass by, every time I'm done, or if I'm just in the area, I'll stop by and listen. Um and it goes back to Blue Cave. I was down there. Both he and Francis were playing at night. Now I've known Francis for a long time. I've never really listened to one of his sets. Right. Because I never had time. We're always just in passing. But I was there as a customer this time, and he was doing a video set, and I was like, okay, who does videos still? You know, because I used to do videos, and I didn't think anybody was still doing it. And uh, sure enough, the music was just the the crowd was just and and I'm talking about there was every race inside of there, and they were just jumping nonstop for like two hours. It was just a great time. Yeah, hadn't had that time, that great of a time in a long time here at Okinawal. So Francis, you know, big up to Francis too, man. He he definitely um, you know uh Francis be fucking around, man.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

I'm gonna keep it a bug. Francis be fucking around. You you you cook when you get fucking ready. I done seen it, so I mean that he be bullshitting, man. Francis be bullshitting, man. He cooked when he gets ready, though. No, which Francis are we talking about? We're talking about the same one you're talking about, uh uh Jamaican Francis. Jamaican Francis. I ain't talking about franchise. I ain't talking about franchise. That's right. Nah, yeah. He knows who the fuck I'm talking about, goddamn.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

He be bullshitting, but he he get busy when he wants to. He definitely did that night. Yeah, and uh I left there good, yeah, it was the great time, great time, I think good timing. So um anybody else?

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Anybody else on your road or anybody else you know you want to big up shout out, you know what I'm saying? Because I'm pretty sure that's high praise coming from you, you know, if they heard it.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Some of these guys have already left, like I said, the the the the first prime time, he's he's gone, he's doing great things backstayside. Um, you know, even some of the older cats that have been around have changed their style of mixing. Um when they told me why I got let go from B Green back in the day was because I wasn't hip hop enough.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Right now, Hiroshi San. Love you, brother.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

What time for Hidoshi?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

I was told he's the one that let me go, but when I didn't show up to work for a couple of weeks, he was upset. Like, wait, who the heck? And I found out who actually let me go. Right. Okay. Um and the excuse was that I wasn't hip-hop enough. Well, like I said, I I mix great music together. So I took and I left there, and that's how I got to uh Club Red, which Club Red was a rock bar at the time, and they were getting ready to transition from where uh Music Town is at now to the current location, which is now what was it called? Galaxy, or it was Galaxy, I don't know what it's called now, but um they were moving across the street because that whole building was coming down to build Music Town. So in that transition, I changed the music to what I do, right? And that's how we got a whole lot of customers because the old Club Red only had about a hundred customers through the weekend, yeah, not per night through the weekend, yeah. And then I started pulling in five, you know, five. Yeah, that's easy.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Uh the the the spot, Chicano Park, that's where the the club red used to be at. Okay, yeah, with a big rocket ship, or I don't know what it is now.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

I don't know what it is, yeah. So and then you know, we opened up um Rojo's, which is upstairs. We opened up uh Club X, which is down the street, and then Seven, and I hired the DJ for Seven, uh, which is DJ Dio, who also spun at um Cyclo. Um and I I brought in Special K and some other guys that I I knew what their talents were, and Seven was doing so good for a long time, but then a lot of things happened, and the curfews and all that took place, and it really hurt. RP Club 7, man, goddamn it really hurt the business, and then you know, eventually Club Red got sold. And um, yeah, so but Coke Side Street, I just watched all the clubs there disappear.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah, all of them. Yeah, I mean that's sad. That was sad. It's sad to walk up and down that yeah, like uh like they put a like they literally cemented over my damn shit. I I'll say it, my childhood or whatever, like yeah, memories like a motherfucker, man, gone.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yeah, B Green, uh you know, for those of you remember, it was called Double Mint at one time. And uh they used to they used to have these gay parties in there that would attract hundreds of people, right? Because it was just a good time, right? Um man, I remember those days. I was just just doing security for those things, but it was just a nice fun environment. Um and then there's other small clubs that uh that were there for a while, like fantasy space had been around for a while, but I finally got to DJ, got you know, hey, can you come and DJ? And we did some things there.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

And then did you ever DJ at that? The newer family when they moved, when they renovated it to that like four-story, whatever the fuck that was.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

So Party Masters was the group, the video DJ group that I got invited to be part of. Uh Saeji, Cutmaster Sagey, he was the head of it. Um, eventually I started my own group called Party Masters International because I was going internationally and I was actually meeting DJ, so I got them to be part of the group. Now, for them to be part of the group, they had to pass my test of whether they can actually mix or not. I ran into a lot of producers making their own music, make uh a lot of remix artists, so uh that really leveled up our group. Now we weren't looking for music, we were creating our own music, our own remixes, our own video edits. And so our video mixing at clubs was next level. You can hear the song and see everything that's taking place at the same time. So when you get a little hey, yeah, whatever, there would be snippets of somebody saying hey and ha over here, but the music video in the background, and if I got the rhythm of another uh track that would be coming in and out, so it was just visually intoxicating for some people, right? And owners didn't understand that because it was clearing the dance floor. Man, you know, you're doing this, this and nobody's dancing. I said, that's fine. They're at your bar buying drinks and sitting down watching a video. They're drinking, right? Okay, I get them back on the dance floor, that's not a problem. Um but it's hard to explain business to a lot of people who just aren't business minded, they just open a business because they have some money. Um, and and that's another thing, is a lot of these places that open up, they they they're not business minded, they just think they can money's gonna come like this, and it's the same thing. Everybody's doing the same thing, nobody does anything different. Yeah, for you so-called promoters, because some of you are so-called, some of you are great promoters, you're missing the fact that Okinawa has got Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Americans, they're coming from all over the world, right, to come here on vacation. Right, right. You're not advertising to them, you're not doing events specific to them, to them, yeah. For real. They're here weekly.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

For real.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

And I've I've said this over and over and over again. And the thing with me is I don't have the funding to do what I want to do. And it's hard to get people to back me on it because I'm older now. If I was younger, it'd probably be easier. Right. Um, but because I'm older, they say, oh, you might be out of touch with the music, blah, blah, blah. I'm not out of touch with the music. I do like a lot of this new music, but a lot of it isn't music, so I just ignore it. I don't normally play it in my sets. Not because I don't know what to play, right? It's just because I feel it doesn't enhance the environment. I don't want a bunch of dudes slamming against each other because it ruins the environment for the females that want to come in and and enjoy themselves. Right. Right. So I I I I play to females, to be honest. I do. As long as they're there, they're having a good time, the guys tend to follow.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

I mean, that's the rule. I should be that I shouldn't know that's the rule. Yeah, if the females are there, the dudes will show the fuck up. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

So that's and I've always been that way. And um, my formula's worked for me for 40 years. I not doing it as much now, like I said, because most of these clubs, they'll ask me to come. Hey, can you come and DJ? Blah, blah, blah. Okay, well, how much are you gonna give me? How many hours? How much are you gonna give me? Right. I'll give you 5,000 yen and all free drinks all night long. Like, are you kidding me? No. No, yes, no, no. When I get invited to go DJ at a bar, they're paying me really good for only a couple hours. Right. And then I mean really good. I'm not gonna mention numbers because some people may not be getting these, right? But it's well worth my time to go. Right. And it reminds me of the old days when I had to lug my records around to these clubs. I was getting $500 an hour or $50,000 yen an hour, which at the time was, you know, the yen rate. Right. Yen rate was actually similar to what it is now when I first got here. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it is. So still a good chunk of money though, for a one-hour set. Carry my music out there, you know. And we protected our records like like they were gold because DJs was still other DJs records. Yeah, I want that record. They can't find it. You know, you get drunk and you're DJ and lose one or two, it happens. But no, you gotta be careful. Everybody out the booth, you know? Right. Here, let me let me uh get me back on track. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that part. Get you back on track.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

What uh if if you had to give any advice to the newer DJs or these DJs of today, do you think you could? You think what what advice would you give them like like now? Like these DJs now, or is there anything about DJing now, these DJs now that you kind of like want to pass on something to them that they're not doing or big up, give them a shout out for something that they are doing that probably you couldn't do or you didn't do back in the day, or I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Well, all these new scratch DJs are freaking amazing. That's all I'm gonna say, because us old people built the foundation and they've taken those foundations. That's their my highest level of that building is where they started at. So, like with anything with sports, BMX, dancing, it's all evolved, right? So now I look at these guys and I'm like, wow, technology, I used to be against it, you know, old head and record, record, record. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now I mean I'm I'm so happy I could take my laptop with my you know 16 terabytes of music library on just two hard drives, and I I pretty much got everything I need to play. Now what I'd tell them study music. Right. Study music. A lot of you are just playing what's on TikTok, um, what you hear and there, you know, there's a lot of local artists that people don't really care about. Um and I say local, like like O Town's got a you know, Chirac's got a shitload of artists there, which is good for that community, right? But outside of there, you know, don't don't you know don't come to Okinawa asking for so-and-so. Nobody knows who that person is. And then they talk about you all this DJ don't know, and that kind of ruins you because the interweb or whatever. I'm sorry, the social media. But anyways, I I'd say study music. I make all my students that people really want to learn under me. Um, I teach them mixing. Not just getting to the next song. Anybody can do that, yeah. Software can do that, but mixing, it's gotta be musical, melodic. Learn how to read keys or you know, listen to the music. Um I make them go back and study music from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and then my 30-day program for my students is they've gotta make a 15-minute mix every day and give it to me at the end of the month. And what we do is we listen to the first mix, we listen to the one or two mixes in the middle, and then we listen to their final mixes. Night and day. Night and day. They're in there every day, trying to come up with a set. So now they're thinking. They're not just looking at a crate that's already separated for them by BPNs, they're thinking what goes into what? How can I use this? How can I transition to this? Um and you know, some of them are like, ah, that's freaking ridiculous. I don't need to, I know how to put two songs together. Like, you don't. Musically, you don't. Right. Okay, right. And for me, DJing's always been about musicality. Can you get I mean, people shouldn't necessarily hear that you're going into the next song. The next song should be on the zing. Oh, whoa, what the hell just happened? Yeah, yeah. And and it's cool with tone play. Yeah, if you're gonna do tone play, which is a performance, you know, performance DJs do tone play, that's freaking great. You know, got an ear for it, you know what's going on. You're not just a DJ, you're a performer. Got that. Go ahead and keep doing what you're doing. Okay, nobody's saying stop that. But if you learn musicality, you learn your music in general, that helps with all that. Yeah. And and like with Prime, I hey, I want to do this with hip hop, blah blah blah blah, and he went to all the nothing but hip hop clubs. Like, dude, get out of hip-hop. But uh get into open format. Practice, study, practice, study, practice, study. And that's what got him where he's at now, what he does in the States now. Um and it's important. I mean, with all DJs, if you're a true lover of music and you want to DJ because you enjoy music, then study the music. Right. But don't DJ just because you think it's cool and you want free drinks and you're saturating the market, you're you're preventing talented people from actually getting jobs, right? You know. Um, so that's that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Do you think social plays a lot more uh important part in DJing now than before back in the day or whatever? Like you do social media, like you're like these people's socials can be high as fuck, but they can be trash. There's quite a few of them.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Yes, yes. Um, and I've had some people like, yo, look, listen to this guy. Like, okay, he's got 800 and some thousand followers. Followers, right? Right? Never even heard of this DJ, right? Ranked on this digital DJ website, he's like ranked number two or something like that. Yeah. Some brother out of like Connecticut, right? Doesn't play any breaking really anything really great. Does a lot of talking. Yeah. There's no transitions between the songs. But he he has some of his like local artists there, and he has some from other places. So he plays like local artist stuff, which I guess is cool because he's promoting them.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Right, right. But so locally he's probably he's probably well known locally. Locally, which is I think all his followers are from there from there. Yeah. That that that might be the case. I I I don't know. I I've been seeing it a lot more lately, and I've actually experienced it more than I can more times than I can, you know, that I want to remember. Uh I went to mainland one time and seen it live in action or whatever. And the girl was she came out. She was she she came out. First of all, she came to the club. She had all her fucking people with her. Right. Right. She had all her people with her. Everybody that was gonna be what we what we didn't know was all of these people were gonna be joining her on the stage later on. That's what we didn't know. So she had a VIP full of people, right? And then when she got ready to get on, or whatever, she sent a whole other DJ, her warm-up DJ, to get her equipment correct. So this other girl is up there. I'm thinking that's the girl, right? It's not her, it's a whole other female. She didn't play maybe two songs to get the shit, you know, correct or whatever. All of a sudden, she appears, they make a big announcement. She appears, she comes on. She hadn't touched the turntables yet. She'd been up there for at least 30, 40 minutes. She hadn't touched the turntables yet. They do a whole dance routine. Right? You do a whole fucking dance routine and this, that, or whatever. Then she changes the song. Because the song she was playing had her uh it was it was a uh intro thing. Yeah, it was an intro or whatever, and it was, you know, it it somebody had made like a dove plate for her or whatever, you know, saying her name over and over, you know, you know, it was an artist from where she's from because she's African. Okay, right. Yeah, I'm telling that story, Rudy. Yeah, I'm telling that to Rudy. Yeah, I'm telling that story, Rudy. Yeah, so she gets up there and she does all this r rah-ra-rah or whatever, and then she she didn't touch the turntable not once or fucking twice. And when she did touch the turntables, it looked like she just maybe looked, pretended like she touched the turntables. It looked, it sounded all pre-mixed. Okay, or whatever. This chick has a billion followers. It's a DJ. She has a billion motherfucking followers, but does not mix a fucking thing. She doesn't touch the turntables not one time. That's what I mean by a lot of followers, but is not a real DJ. We could people can just get away with saying whatever the fuck they want now on social. So I got X amount of followers. I can be DJ J. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

So Yeah, and it's wild to me because I used to, I mean, like I used to try get in there, and I think I put together a good set, you know. And I'm critical of my stuff. Put it out there, I'd get like five or six likes, and then I get one of my students to put something out there, and it's the same music, because they're trying to copy what I did, and they got a thousand likes.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

I'm like, what the hell?

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Yeah, social, social, you know, social's a motherfucker. Social's crazy. Yeah, social's a motherfucker, man. Yeah. And it's funny. It's fucking up. It's fucking up because because again, like you said earlier, that somebody who's really talented, but just because they're not as popular gets missed over for you know, this motherfucker who is not talented at all, but she looks good or shit. Here go a hot take. If you're a female DJ, that's a cheat code. Especially if you're fine. If you're fine, if you're a fine female DJ, that's a cheat code. You don't have to know not one fucking song ever in life. That's a fucking cheat code. It's a super cheat code. It's a super cheat code if you're gay. It's a super cheat code if you're gay. Yeah. Yeah. It's a super cheat code. You don't now, big up to any of the DJs that are, you know, studying their craft or whatever. But I think if if if you want to be a DJ, you can be a D DJ tomorrow. Just go out and be a DJ. They could be DJ today. Today. Go buy your laptop. They could be a DJ today.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

You can buy a controller now. Actually, you don't even need controller. You do it right on your phone. You can do it right on your phone, man. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Uh any uh any critiques, anything? I I'm trying to I'm I'm trying to get something out you anything you want to say, because we we could wrap it up, man. Yeah, you know, really good.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

So so anything you want to get off your chest before we close it out? I actually I'm trying to avoid doing that. Okay. And and the reason, the reason, just so y'all know, is I've always been very vocal and about how I feel. I've never shied away. Somebody comes up to me. I'm not scared of anybody. Right, right, right. Um I was a little arrogant at some time in my career, and because I was doing a lot. Right. I was everywhere, all the grand openings, I was there, every place that da da da da. They needed me here, there, there. I still get calls for grand openings. Um, but there's DJs within there who don't like me, so they better friends with the owners or whatever. Right. And I just during COVID, when when all this stuff, people were bored at home, and all these things were going on, and I got in the mix of it, and I really didn't like having to try to prove anything because I had already my my career had already proven itself. Right. Okay. Um so now I just like yeah, there's some stuff I want to say, but I don't feel it's necessary anymore. I really don't. I mean, I I just reached a point where, you know, I I think I got one or two good years left in me, and and I'm just gonna let it be. And I'll keep DJing at home or I might even start going back online on Twitch or whatever, even TikTok. People say, get on TikTok, you'll get likes there. I might start doing that. Teaching some stuff that it's an old school way of teaching it, but I'm sure there's somebody out there who wants to see it. Yeah, so I might start doing that as I get more time to to chill at home and I I know build my own little studio again because I've gotten away from all of that too. Um and and I could tell you, and I'm gonna say it for those of you that need this, uh, mental health is important. Okay. Yeah. Um and depression really, really screwed me up for a long time. And um and it messed with my DJ game and things like that. And then COVID happened, and now we were locked up. So it didn't help. And coming out of it um was hard for me. It was hard for me to pick up you off.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

I'm gonna cut you off. I'm gonna ask a question from what you just said, and just just something. Uh do you think you need confidence to be a DJ? Like you do have to have like just a big amount of confidence to be a DJ.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

That that that's that's a yes and a no. Okay. Um if you're in a hidden spot, and a lot of places got hidden spots for the DJs where you're not actually viewed by the public, right? You don't need it. Just feel yourself, feel the energy and get through the night if you have to. Okay. But if you're in the spotlight, you're right there on the dance floor, like now they they have it, like people are actually right behind you. Yeah, yeah. How real that is all the time, I don't know. I know a lot of places do do it though. Right. A lot of it's probably just AI too. Um that you need to have the confidence because you have people in your ear as you're DJing, you have people reaching, you have people with drinks, you got so all these things you're thinking about, on top of mixing your set, right? It is happening live right now.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

So it's safe to say there's no such thing as a humble DJ.

SPEAKER_00 51:23

Um, very few. And and you probably shouldn't be. Because if you stay humble, you're probably not gonna move up. You're not gonna move up, you're not gonna move up. You gotta be somewhat arrogant, but you gotta be able to prove your arrogance.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

Right. Right. You that's I think DJing is one thing, one one of those things. I mean, like most sports and stuff like that, you gotta back it up. Right? You gotta back it up. You you can't just walk in there and just be whatever. You gotta back that shit up. So I feel you on that, man. Uh shit. Anybody, anything you anybody want to shout out? Any plugs, you want anything? Anything you're doing? Go ahead, this the time, man. We're gonna wrap this up.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

You know, I I I I really wish there were some real clubs again. I really do. You know, I wish Cyclo never closed. Yeah, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Um those were the days, bro. Those were the days. I I I done harped about it on this pod too many times. So if you want to do you, I'm sure, I'm sure you've had a lot of people come in here and talk about the old days.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Um and guys, you you guys and and ladies, it it is a different generation, and yeah, you know, every generation, like you said earlier, says my time was better. Yeah, yeah, because you were more social than you are now with social media. So you you had more interaction with people. Um I would just say do what you do. Um try to stay somewhat humble. Right. Okay. Um you are gonna need the arrogance to to fight off all the 9,000 other people trying to be DJs and getting into the same club as you. Um but back it up, back it up, and good things will happen to you. You know, um, I learned that after I can keep my mouth shut a little bit and start teaching people what I know that uh I was able to reach more people and get out to more countries to do that. So that was a big step for me when I when I finally realized like, hey, like right now I'm Okinawa famous. In the States, I was California famous. Right. Anywhere in California, right? Right. But now I'm just Okinawa famous. Right. And I and I had to think about that. Oh no, no, no. Okie there there's more. So when I got to mainland, Kumamoto, shout out to my boys in Kumamoto, and and uh prayers to you guys too. Yeah, hell yeah. You know, and actually I just contacted DJ George, who used to be here in Okinawa. Yeah, he he that's where he's at? He's in Kumamoto. Oh shit. He took me up there to go DJ a couple times. Uh George, man, hell yeah. Um, one of our boys uh from Sleepers, he just passed away. Suddenly just passed away two weeks ago. So yeah, we're just uh you know, reeling in from that. Um but yeah, um I I don't want to get on the politics side of it. I'm I'm here to support any DJ that wants to ask me for their help, right? Or for my help. Right. And um, you know, I I am gonna make you study, so be prepared for that.

SPEAKER_03 54:33

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

Um But if you want to be good, you know what I'm saying? I that's what you got to do. You you know, I I I think you should. I think you should know what you plan, you know. Yeah, you should know what you plan, you should know where it came from, you should know where these samples came from, just in case you, you know, you want to do you want to play around with it.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

I mean a lot of stuff you can do with a lot, a lot, and then with and with technology, like we touched on technology, definitely uh will help you get there faster. Hell yeah. It'll help you get there faster.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

There should be no reason why you should not know uh anything or where where samples came from or who made this because, like you said, technology will get you there quicker. You can just Google that shit. Like, fuck. For real. Like, study, motherfuckers.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Hey, what what what's the original song for this? Like, dude, just Google it. Google it right. Google that shit right here. That's all I'm gonna do is get on there and Google it. Because I can't remember all of it.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

As soon as I leave here, I'm gonna Google it. I'm Googling right now.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Back in the day, I'd go to my 50,000 record collection and be like, okay, I got it here because I knew, but now that everything's on digital, yeah, and why do I gotta remember that? I gotta Google, I got you know there's no read, there's no need to. I I can ask chat GPT somebody. Somebody's gonna help me. Somebody's gonna tell me. Somebody digital's gonna help, yeah. All right, so deal man. Appreciate it. No, I appreciate you having me, brother. I know it's been a long time and I've been nah.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

I didn't think you were interested, one, to be honest with you, it's since we're talking about it. I didn't think you were interested. I didn't think you were interested to come on here and just talk like this or whatever, you know. I I honestly thought you like I I got better things to do with my fucking time like this. No.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

When when when you approached me about a possible new logo design and all that, I was thinking, I know I've known you for a long time. I was thinking, damn, Jay wants to try something new. Yeah, I was all on board automatically.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

I didn't I didn't know if I again I didn't know how far this was gonna go. And I don't like asking people stuff, not knowing if I'm going to if I'm going to A, push through with it, B, like be a little bit successful at it to even make me keep going. You know what I'm saying? It's it feels like a waste of time to ask to ask you something I know you can do. You know what I'm saying? So it's something I know you can do. I don't want to waste your talent on my bullshit. You know what I'm saying? If if I could I didn't know it was not gonna be bullshit though.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

Well, yeah, I thought it was gonna be bullshit. It's not bullshit. Okay, just get that out of your head.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Well, I know I know it's not bullshit. No shit.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

I'm I'm yeah two, you and I are friends. Yeah, we've been around, you know, we know each other a long time. And and anytime you'd ask me for something, and I know we also work together if y'all don't know that. Um kind of didn't want them to know that, but go ahead. Kind of didn't want them to know that, but the first part, goddamn.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Next third.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

That might be why he didn't want me on here in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 57:43

No, but when they see this, because he watched too clips.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Go ahead. Anyways, I I was just uh glad that you were focusing on something else. Um because I know you're not not getting to other stuff. I I know you and having focus on something else is great. Yeah, it's always great. Um so right now my kids are my focus. Um I am gonna be back as far as DJing goes, like solid. I I got some things that I'm lining up in mainland. Um I'm going to the Philippines next week. I'm gonna lock in some stuff while I'm there. Because I've been there before, so I'm gonna go see them again. And then um, you know, here locally, whatever they got. Uh I got a couple places that that hire me from time to time, and I'm just gonna try to blow up the spots a little bit more. Yeah, play some new newer music, obviously. Um, but yeah, just I'm not done yet. I got you.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

Not done yet. It's always room for a good DJ, man. Shit. I ain't gonna hold you. Not not no disrespect to anybody else, but it's always good room for a good DJ. Anyway, that's enough of this shit. All right, this is your boy Jay. This your boy Jay. This is YBZ podcast. One time for Sergio, one time for everybody else. Yo, y'all be easy, man. Peace.

unknown 59:06

Yeah.