Samira

San Francisco writer April Jones recently wrote an article about Sister SF for Etc. Magazine. You can read the interview I did with April, by following the link at the bottom of this entry. Go on now! Check it out! :-) sam
I was a little confused by your ‘intern’ title although you’ve been spinning since 2000. Why are you classified as an intern and when will you become a resident? I joined Sister in January, which is why I’m considered to be an intern. It’s a six month probationary period, and if the ladies still like me after that, they’ll probably keep me. There’s a lot more to being affiliated with a crew than just DJing. Sister is always actively working to create a space for other female DJs. This includes planning/organizing/promoting/throwing of parties. It also entails maintaining the Sister SF website, which functions as both a comprehensive online resource (articles, links, interviews, and forums), and a promotional tool (DJs can submit their bios, pictures, and charts). So when you’re trying to get things accomplished as a group, it’s important that you can work together. The six month internship gives everyone the opportunity to try out the new group dynamic. It’s just like being involved with any other type of group effort, whether it’s work, or sports, or playing in a rockband, you need to be able to work together or you risk being counter-productive. How did you get involved with Sister and are you a member of any other crews? Sister resident Melyss and i are two founding members of Witches’ Brew–also female DJ collective. Melyss booked me for some of the Sister SF events & i continued to pester them for more guestslots. I was a guest DJ for Sister for about a year & then last fall i mentioned to some of the crew members that i was interested in working with them more. A few months later they decided it was time to bring in two more DJs, and that’s when Elz and I joined Sister. I am a member of two other crews: I’m co-founder of the all-female DJ collective Witches’ Brew, as well as a resident of AM Breaks. I’ve recently been signed to the Just Say Agency roster. Other affiliations include: PixelBiscuit, RAW, and Incognita What do you like about the Sister crew? My experience as a guest DJ for a number Sister events has always been extremely positive. Sister puts on great events; the crew is professional & treats their DJs with respect. I appreciate the opportunities that Sister provides for DJs locally, as well as on a national & global level, by booking them for events, and by promoting them online through a kick-ass website ( a website that is filled with extensive resources). I like the diversity of the crew. What are the advantages to being in crew vs. going solo? With the right balance of people, you can get a lot done with a crew. Collectively, you expand your resources and connections. You can learn a lot from each other’s experiences. Your bio states that you grew up in Amsterdam, a country known for its liberal ideas about prostitution and marijuana. Do these ideas translate to the music scene? Sure they do. Holland is liberal, but it is not irresponsible. In fact, one might be surprised how mindful and respectful people can turn out to be, when they are given the freedom to make decisions on their own. I think that prohibition creates desire: the more you tell someone they’re not allowed to do it, the more they’ll want to do it. The more laws you create, the more people will want to break them. I’ve bought rave tickets at the post office in Holland :-) so yes, i’d say that the general attitude towards the dance and music scene is a more open-minded one, compared to here. As far as the U.S. is concerned, consider the Anti-RAVE act. For years, governments on the local, state and federal levels have focused on directly correlating the rave scene with drugs. It’s not unlike any other propoganda, which seeks to explain social and economic problems in the most simplisic of ways: by designating a scape-goat. Go visit the San Francisco Late Night Coalition website (www.sflnc.org) for a wealth of articles, resources & events that will help you gain a better understanding of what’s happening to the underground dance-culture, club-life, and how our rights to dance are being violated. Like a lot of the other DJs in sister, you have a traditional music background. How and why did you make the transition from drums and piano to trance and techno music? What are the similarities/differences? i actually never played the drums–my mother wasn’t too keen on the prospect of her five year old daughter making all that noise. hence i started playing the piano. i wouldn’t say that the transition was one from the piano, but rather from a different medium all together: writing. i was a ferocious writer until i dropped out of grad school & DJing pretty much took over where my writing left off. i think it’s because of my love for narrative, the old oral tradition–people teaching through story-telling & passing down knowledge this way. and the audience is immediately present and the story you tell is one that you’ve heard before (or the records that have been made before) and sometimes stories get altered, depending on who is present. i think that it’s inherently tied up with my love for story-telling. that’s really how i look at my vinyl–pieces of stories already told & elements with which to spin new tales. in spinning I found a creative freedom that I had never experienced with writing: I like the transient aspect of the music-the immediacy of call and response, the nearness of your audience. Do you dj full-time or do you have a day job and if you have a day job, would you like to develop a career as a dj? i had a day-job until March 1st! fortunately, i received a severance when i got laid off, so i’ll be floating for a short while. with that in mind, this is the ultimate time for me to focus on DJing. ideally, i’d love to be able to make enough of a living doing this, but i don’t see that happening quite yet, unfortunately. we’ll see what happens. In your bio you mention collaborating with Bay Area bands. What is it like working with live music and other musicians vs. doing your own thing with the turntables? It’s humbling and inspiring. it’s very different, in that i focus less on building a narrative, and more on what’s going on with the other musicians. i also find myself much more consious of my record selections, usually opting for tracks that are sparser. it’s easy to end up in a huge mess of sound, without much room for people to improvise freely. i learn a lot from working with musicians: it requires a lot of careful listening. i’ve also worked with two writers–i wanted to explore the relationship between language and sound–more specifically, the relationship between the written word and music. i wanted the focus to be on the writers–have them write & project their words onto a wall. then i would start spinning *after* i read their writings. that way, the entire collaborative piece started with the two writers, and my set was purely a reaction to their work. it was an attempt at creating a dialogue between written and (what i’ve dubbed) “electro-spun” narratives, at exploring the dynamic between writer, audience and DJ. What makes you unique from other DJs? i’m a story-teller. also, a good friend of mine told me that i don’t forsake melody for bassline, and vice versa. What is the biggest misconception about female DJs? There is no doubt that DJing is still largely a male-dominated field. And, of course, there are lots of misconceptions about female DJs–just as there are misconceptions about women in academia, women in the military, women in science, and so forth. But i prefer not to lend any validity to these misconceptions by actually discussing what i think some of them are. Any conception that is simply based on gender (or race, age, ethnicity, sexuality) is, in my opinion, misconceived. I operate from the standpoint that women and men are equal and are equally capable (as well as equally incapable). I spin records because i enjoy it immensely, not because i’m trying to make a point as a female in a male-dominated field. Is there anything you don’t like about DJing? no. Who are your favorite djs, local or international, and why? there are so many awesome DJs i’ve had the pleasure of hearing…but then there are those that can take me there. This is not a complete list, but it will do for now: 10 Sui, HANKtheGUYwithRECORDs, Canyon, Delon, the Incredible Melting Man, Seraphim, Charlotte the Baroness, Reid Speed, Heather Heart. What does the color purple mean to you? i think i’m still trying to figure that out. What is it like to be a female dj in San Francisco? My personal experience in San francisco has been very positive– it’s a DJ friendly culture. What kind of advice did you get since you’ve stared DJing and what advice would you give a male or female dj just starting out. By all means, enjoy yourself :-) Name the top 5 songs you would want to hear at a party, if you were not the DJ. Sasha - Belfunk, Jason Sparks - Soul Taker, Evil 9 - Cakehole, Big Al - Fine Young Nelly EP, anything by EK. These are all tracks i own & love to spin, but it’s different to listen to them, to hear someone else play them. About the Winter Music Conference in Miami–Was this the first year attending the conference? yes it was. What was the experience like ? Miami is crazy. Being there during the WMC is completely surreal. Many people, many parties, much humidity & very expensive! Did you get many things accomplished (meeting producers, other DJs, label execs) i definately feel like i got a lot accomplished. the Sister party was a whole new ballgame for me: we basically organized a party in Miami from San Francisco and New York. It was good to spend time with the crew out there, meet the DJs who played at our event. We spent one day with the ladies from Shejay (www.shejay.net)–they had rented a house. they had a film crew present, that was doing a documentary on female DJs. there i also got to meet DJ Shortee, who just blew me away with her scratching! How did the Sister party turn out ? i think we could have used a bigger turn-out, but all in all, the music was absolutely superb. 12 hours of nothing but female DJs that were off the hook. i’m really stoked that i was a part of that. What year did you start guest DJing at Sister? my first Sister gig was in April of last year–so exactly a year ago. What are some of your duties as an intern? i have to carry everyone’s recordbags to all the gigs…Nah, just kidding. my “duties” aren’t very different from the rest of the crew, really. i help out Annie with the website. i help promote, work the events, and i spin :-) like i said before–the internship is kind of a probationary period, during which the crew can get to know me better & the other way around. it’s a good way to protect the coherence of the crew. you know how sometimes it’s better not to live with your friends? similarly, just because you have a common bond with someone, i.e. DJing, doesn’t necessarily mean that you can work well together. ideally, being part of a crew allows you to get more things done: as a group, you can share resources & experiences & as such, you increase your potential to accomplish certain goals. but, as in any work environment, differences of opinion, work ethic, long-term goal–such individual differences may have a counter-productive effect. so, my internship is a six-month period during which both Sister and i get to know eachother, get to work together & see how it goes. thus far i feel like it’s been a very positive experience–i really like working with everyone who’s part of Sister. You mention liking Sister because of the respect they show to DJs. What does respect mean in a dj collective? respect in a DJ collective is no different from respect anywhere else: you treat people the way you want to be treated. You communicate. other respect issues: Sister has always been very adamant and consistent about paying their DJs, no matter how big or small the turnout of a party. Sister promotes not only their residents, but all female DJs: any female DJ who wants their bio up on the Sister website may submit it to us & we will put it on our site. Sister is open to all genres–it doesn’t matter whether you spin drum & bass, or breaks, or trance or house, or any other genre. Sister consistently books up and coming DJs & actually makes it possible for women to start spinning in public. Positive reinforcement: here’s a lot to be said for that…. Courtesy of April Jones & Etc. Magazine � 2003

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