MUMBAI: The DJ Dispensary, founded by DJ Matty Wainwright, has recently conducted a DJ retreat at Vivanta by Taj called the Sound Lab. This three day retreat was more like a workshop for students to learn the basics of DJing. A resident DJ at Wink, one of the Bars at Taj, for six months in 2007, DJ Matty came back as a tutor. “It is almost like I am back home. It is weird. Nothing changes but everything has changed at the same time,” he said. He spoke to radioandmusic.com about the DJ Dispensary, how EDM music might just be a phase, and Indian audiences.
What are you doing in India?
We are doing a 3-day DJ retreat, a work shop, where we include the Dispensary curriculum here. We teach them basic fundamentals about how to DJ. The tutors then play at Wink in the evening. Today was the first day. The students are very good. I do not think we are going to have many problems together. Some people just get it and some do not. And these guys seem to know about music so it should not be a problem. We have about four students and they are aged from early 20s to 40s. With the teaching, we strip it right down to the basic and keep it nice and simple so people do not get too scared, especially on the first day. Then we gradually build up the level of technicalities as we go along.
Do you think that 3 days is too short a time to learn DJing?
It is, yeah. The time we are in and with the technology we have got, it is possible to get a hang of the basics. This would have been impossible five years ago, never mind fifteen years ago. With the CD players and the mixers that we use, it is a lot easier to explain what you want to do and let people get their hands on it. With a little bit of guidance we can teach them skills about things that people would accomplish in a month or fifteen days alone in a room. By the third day, they are pretty much getting there.
What equipment are you using to teach?
Our equipment is pretty much industry standard, two pioneer CDJs and one Pioneer mixer. The music comes from the USB or CD. It is really back to basics. Otherwise, for my performances I use a laptop along with the CDJs and a program called Traktor Scratch. The other tutor here with me just uses USB. But for me, if I am using the Traktor program, I do not need to pack different cases of CDs or USBs so it is easy on the go.
You founded the DJ Dispensary. What do you do exactly?
We started up about a year and a half ago, so we are fairly new. It is the world’s first DJ retreat. I have been involved in DJ tours in the past. And I have seen people learning how to DJ in classes and stuff, where there are a few classes a week, and half of all the classes go into recapping what was done in the earlier class. It seemed like a waste of time. What we do is keep the duration of our retreats three or five days where the students stay with us and learn everything throughout the day. People are away from their offices and other distractions, which helps them focus. We have a morning session, which is a group session, where we recap the previous day and discuss what we would do that day. The afternoon sessions are students having a hands-on one-on-one lesson with their tutor and that is where they physically learn the art. At the end of the retreat, we record a live set for them. We are six tutors from all around the world.
With the number of DJs coming up and everyone trying a hand at it, music is increasingly becoming more monotonous.
That is one of the reasons why we set up the business in the first place. I was getting so bored of people coming up to me and asking me about some DJs because they know only a certain number of artistes. When I ask them what music they like, they just do not know! One of the points of the retreat is to teach people to have their own identity and their own sound. People need to walk into a bar or club and know, without even looking, it is you.
But that kind of individuality will only come into the mix if the student is musically inclined.
When people start off, we ask them what they like. There was this one guy who like only the ’80s music and that was all he wanted to play. We worked around that; we went through a lot of music of his choice and gave it edits so that his final set, ‘sunset on the beach’, was an 80s set, only, he had opened his mind to expand and include different music into it. But some things, like stirring the crowd, cannot be taught. That only experience can bring.
There are a lot of festivals springing up in India and we see a lot of international DJs coming to India to play compared to the small number of musicians from other genres. Why do you think that is?
I think the EDM market has grown leaps and bounds and the whole DJ thing has become massive. I think it is important to not zoom in a focus on that one aspect. Trends come and go; Djs are cool now, bands are cool five years later and the cycle goes on. But you cannot have one without the other. You cannot be a DJ and play other people’s music without there being other bands and producers. The two go hand in hand.
You have performed a lot in India. What do you have to say about Indian audiences?
The good thing about Indian audiences is that they are always up for a good night out. I love playing in India because you always leave the bar or club and you have ten new friends for life. Everyone here is really friendly and everyone wants to have a good time.
EDM is becoming really huge right now. Why do you think that is?
For me, EDM is pop music for this generation. It is very simple and hence, very easy for people to get into. I am very careful not to put what we do in the same bracket as EDM. That is why it is called Dispensary. I know a lot of schools that have opened up seeing the popularity of EDM but DJs have been there since the 1940s. It has always been there. All EDM has done is bring it to the forefront. We would like to teach more about the art of DJing than the popular stuff that is playing in clubs.