DJ Spooky

Prior to listening to DJ Spooky, I really didn't understand what made this guy such a special DJ. Did he have unique beats? Were his transitions really good?....it could have been anything. But after listening to his him talk and DJ for an hour or so it became really clear what makes his music so great. He finds ways to combine music from different generations, even centuries and which makes for such unique beats. Listening to a combination of Bach or Mozart, coupled with 21st century techno is pretty mind blowing.

He also spoke about the internet and technology, and how we can use them as tools to make even more unique, never before heard music. He called this new era we are in the technology and date movement and made a very interesting point, when he said youtube and gmail have only been around for 5-7 years, but nearly everyone uses it. If we give these things a few more years to become more advanced, yet easier to use even more people will be join the movement. Something Spooky also said, is that because technology allows us to capture any moment or any place, he has begun creating remixes to history.

At the end of the lecture, he showed us a remix that he created to the civil rights movement, and how it has resulted in the first black president. The way he was able to couple inspirational music as well as mellow music to describe our nation's history made ordinary pictures and clips so much more powerful. Spooky is also working on creating a remixes to different places in the world, such as Antarctica's icecaps. One of the last things Spooky said, that I thought was really interesting was that if he just recorded his lecture and played it on the big screen he would not have even needed to come to Ann Arbor in the first place. This really made me realize how powerful technology is, but don't you think actually watching him do these things first hand is better than watching it on a projector screen?


Citation: http://www.djspooky.com/photos/pbs/djspooky_PBS_1.jpg