Inspirational Music Across My Time

07.09.2010 // Featured Articles, Life, Music // Lukasz // 6 Comments

For me music is such a core to who I am. It reflects who I was, what I’ve encountered, the emotions I’ve experienced and just an over all signature that simbolizes my life. I have explored most every genre of music and the styles that I stick with from childhood all the way to the music I DJ today maintains as a constant inside my heart. Ill be honest here, I’m not one for names of particular songs or memorizing who produced that track in which year at what studio, hell… I still dont have the lyrics memorized to some of my all time favorite songs but in my opinion; that doesn’t 100% matter. I think that many will argue that point and I encourage it because it really defines who we are. Thats a totally different topic though… After writing this post it turned into a real history into who I am, what I experienced and how music was part of it.

Ill try to take this in a series from when I started listening to music that I wanted to listen to and up to today. I started with tapes and a lot of them were sort of random picks because I didn’t really know what I liked so I got a lot of Madonna tapes, Roy Orbison, and I think the first tape I ever wore out on my yellow sony portable sport tape player was Roxette. Holy crap that was like 1986 maybe 1988. What I remember is being in Poland with my brother in law and my nephew camping at the lake that my parents got married. While we were there Poland was playing the world cup, I was catching some sort of crayfish and I think I even chased a few girls around… hehe. That might have been the beginning of listening to music endlessly and oh boy did I love to rewind that tape. For those of you that may not know what  tape is… yeah I’m not gonna go there.

Let me summarize from there up to middle school. My brother really exposed me to so many different genres of music and I can’t thank him enough for it. From Bob Marley to Depeche Mode I looked up to everything that he wanted to share with me and crank over my little boombox. hahaha… oh that boombox live forever… How random is this, my first CD I ever bough was the Jetsons Movie Soundtrack. Yeah, thats right. The Jetsons. I think at first it was more the excitement of having a CD and then the songs grew on me. My neighbor looked at me all crazy for it. So FFW to middle school. This is when I was introduced to Rap. Well actually YO! MTV Raps introduced me to it (So happy I lived to see the beginning). I tried the whole baggy pants, shirts that went down to my knees with a picture of some spray paint can in the bottom left corner of the shirt and to tell you the truth I’m not sure how much I really like it and I was more just trying to fit in. That time in my life was more a phase and it lasted up to my first dance in 6th grade where I heard Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge. It was an instant conversion to Alternative just like that pill that turned me raver from country. Yeah, ill get to that.

The Alternative rock era really defined the childhood problems I was going through. A little insight into what I use to deal with was alcoholism, abuse and lack of friendships. STP, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers and so many more were the release I needed to run from the pains I endured. Little did I know that those bands would live with me until the now and probably forever. Now with the Alternative came Rock and Heavy Metal… Oh my parents really loved me when I played Megadeath or Pantera and Metallica. 3 things I remember about, ok 4 things that I can Share. 1: Coming back from Great America with my ‘cousin’ (not really, we were both just Polish) Marta, we drove past Shoreline Amphitheater and realized that we were missing the Nirvana concert… I think it was the last concert in the Bay before he shot him self. (R.I.P. Kurt, you died to soon.)  2: Playing Metallica – One at Martas house so many times and head banging so much that I literally, no seriously, literally could not hold my head up and I had to use my own hands to keep it afloat. 3: Marta bought me the Metallica Black album for my birthday at the Skating Rink (actual wheels) and it was one of the best presents I ever got for my birthday. I’m going to state that the album was their best album to ever be released. 4: The Metallica box album came out and we got our hands on it. Watched the live performance of Metallica on VHS in my room so loud that my parents heard all of the cussing, came upstairs pulled the VHS tape out, took the box set and it was never to be seen after that day… I saved the stencil though and painted it on my binders!! HA!

Highschool has to be the hardest time in a persons life. You are going through puberty, its all about fashion, status, cars, dating, clicks and everything else that comes with it. Now let me just say that up until high school I think that I can count the amount of friends I had with all my fingers and toes. I was not a popular guy but that first dance… the Aloha dance, Michelle Nessel picked me to be her boy friend and oh did my status change over night. I instantly had 3 football players hate me and I became friends with the most popular kinds in school because I landed the head cheer leader. Now let me remind you… I was an alternative rock kid that Rollerbladed. Yeah, long hair, metallica shirts and the head cheerleader. I had to adapt fast… but that really didnt happen because when my Grandma Passed (Love ya Grandma) my freshmen year in High School I became quite the angry little boy. I never really gave the top 40 music of that time a chance and I maintained my passion for Alternative and Heavy Metal.

Just a side note… I was in band from 5th grade through 12th grade playing in the Full Orchestra, Full Band, Quartette, Jazz Band  and Honor band. I played the trumpet as well as the french horn. In 5th grade I tried the violin (i dont know why) and it didnt really capture me. From there I wanted to play the Saxophone but we couldn’t afford it so I bough a trumpet at a little music shop that my mom made payments too. Nice of him to be that generous. And what kind of metal head musician would I be if I didnt try to play the guitar… Did that for a few years too. Jazz was my favorite because it was very complex, fast moving at times and you got to play solo’s and be very expressive. It also challenges you to try new things and push you limits. Miss that the most from my band experience. No band camp though…

So at some point in high school, around mid sophomore year or later I ended up becoming really good friends with the country click and it sort of began a whole new world for me. Friends from freshmen year also started to listen to country and we really dove deep into that genre. From the cowboy hats to the boots and buckle we would hop in our trucks, blair our country music and hit up all the rodeo’s and country clubs in the bay area. Oh yes… country. Now Country music is moving. Its real stories. What I love about it is the emotion that people put into their songs. The performances of the artists and of course the line dancing. So I didnt play an instrument I learned to line dance. So much so that I started teaching it during which I was learning country swing… There are so many different artists that I loved to listen to from Garth Brooks, Montgomery Gentry, Charlie Daniels, Hank Williams Jr. and Sr., and even the Dixie Chicks and Shania. The music was so much fun and to partner it with an activity like dancing was an experience that I will not forget. There was a lot of whisky and beer involved. To much whisky. I even turned my nephew country!! Got him a cowboy hat and all. My friends got him drunk at a party we had too… I said no drinking and they would secretly pass beers to him and he would run upstairs, chug the beer and come back for more. Good times.

So after high school and into my years of I have no idea what I want to do with my life so I will continue to drink and live care free my friends discovered raving. We were all into VW bugs and my friend Jason met Tamara who was a raver and country girl and she took them to their first rave -EDIT- (wait… don’t quote me on that, i’m not 100% sure that was at the way it happened the rest is accurate though.). I was all against it and yelled at them up and down about how its bad this and that.  Somehow they convinced me to try it once. No pressure right… Try it once, if you dont like it you dont have to do it again. So my first rave was at the old Q-Sar that closed down in Redwood City. We were shuttled in from across the freeway and during that shuttle ride I dropped for the first time. I really don’t remember much of the rest of the night because let me just say that I was riding high. So that is the pill that turned me raver. The next part we were at I had already bought raver pants and made some candi. It was the F8 campout in 2001. It was in the woods, 250 people, it had a beautiful garden and it was just such an unforgettable place and experience. Once the sun dropped down we got ready for the night ahead… a blue dolphin later I find myself floored infront of the speakers for… well I have no idea how long… But after I heard Mars play that epic set that Night I knew what I had to do… Become a DJ.

Starting my DJ career came to fruition a lot faster than I had expected. My sister (not by blood) lived a few doors down from me and little did I know… she had decks. A 2 channel Numark mixer with 2 Numark belt driven turntables! I borrowed those for probably 6 months. Thank you Kelly. I would not be here today with everything I have without those decks. =) My first set of records actually came from Tower records. I didnt know anything about the dance scene but I wanted to emerse myself in it. Shortly after I figured out that Tower Records was crap for good vinyl I began my crate digging at Remix Records in San Mateo. I really wanted to play trance and everything that Mars and Mystre were playing but I had no clue where to get their records. This is actually where Tamara comes in because Tamara actually took us over to House On The Hill in Hayward and introduced us to DJ Dingo and Reseese. (Sorry Daryl I butchered it I know…) Now this is where I got to play infront of my first crowd. It was one of the most nerve racking and exciting experiences ever. What made it so awesome was the encouragement that everyone in the house was learning and at the same point in knowledge. That was the true birth of DJ Foxx and my trance classics. And my Heelies. We partied there on Wednesdays. Oh yes… full blown parties on Wednesdays. At that time I looked to DJ’s in our local scene so Dyloot, DJ Denise, Morgan, Mars, Mystre and the rest of the top DJ’s in the bay for my musical inspiration. I knew what good songs were. What the hits were but I could never find any until I actually shopped at Skills DJ Workshop. Oh that was a money/time pit for so many of us but many was it all worth it. I’d do it 2 fold if I could do it again. Sitting in a record store and digging through the crates to hopefully find a gem that no one else had touched yet was amazing. Now my first gig, actual booking came from being friends with the promoters at Remix Records. James Dub booked me for my first show called Banana, opening up the upstairs room that was in a wherehouse above a 15ft half pipe. From Out of the Blue to Save the Rave I was droppin all the hard hittin tracks and I actually semi filled the room. That booking sent me forward to many more great adventures.

I hope I’ve kept with my inspirational music story throughout this because my life, the one you just had a glimps of is reflected through the music I listened to at the time. It really defined who I was and am today. I’m going to skip the next 10 years in the story and come to you as of now. The times have changed so much and the music has evolved because of the technology and all the artists that have really driven the path of production. I must say that my all time favorite artist is Sasha. The album that did it for me was Involver. It was such an amazing beyond now sound with such a seamless flow that to this day it lives on my iPhone, iPod, multiple CD’s and every computer that I need to be on. Its not the style of music that I DJ. Thats sort of on a different realm. The music I DJ is inspired by Sasha but the artists I choose from are Umek, Robert Babicz, Adam Parker, ThreeSixty and more. I’m more into the Techno, Tech House genre right now but I still love my Trance. For Trance, hands down, the most influential and creative artists are Myon and Shane 54. Their style is a whole new ball game. Second to them are all the artists that they remix and do mashups of. I can’t think of a bad MS54 track and they are pushing the envelope.

I’ve written so much but I need to say that I would not have the fiance I have, my child, and friends that are my family still to this day without the electronic music scene. Paul, Dan, Kristie, Jeremy, Seth, Jade, Statch, Lena, Shawn, Mea, Sierra, Mo, Jimmy, Jason, Kevin, Sonic, Happy, Jeff and so many more… (I’m sure ill add on to this list.) you have been an integral part of my life as a DJ, Producer, Friend and most importantly the person I have become today. From the music that has inspired my path to reach you and the life I live today, I am inspired by all who have been a part of it.

Made it this far? Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my story know that much more about who I am today.