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- Music - Electronic
- Description:
- NO DJ's is made up of Vee Diawara (Sampler, Keys, Guitar, Bass), Marijus Aleksa (voted best drummer in the Baltic’s) and Riccardo Bondini (Percussion). They got together for fun to mash up songs live & made a point of never rehearsing. This makes every show unique and spontaneous. Since none of them is a DJ (but essentially they mix songs like a DJ) they choose the name: NO DJ's.
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Paul
Simonas
- Name:
- NO DJ's
- Category:
- Music - Electronic
- Description:
- NO DJ's is made up of Vee Diawara (Sampler, Keys, Guitar, Bass), Marijus Aleksa (voted best drummer in the Baltic’s) and Riccardo Bondini (Percussion). They got together for fun to mash up songs live & made a point of never rehearsing. This makes every show unique and spontaneous. Since none of them is a DJ (but essentially they mix songs like a DJ) they choose the name: NO DJ's.
- Privacy Type:
- Open: All content is public.
- News:
- Hi Party People,
My name is Vee. I'm from a band called "SKAMP" (www.myspace.com/skampmusic). I'm also a composer, remixer and producer. But this is about my side- project "NO DJ's".
Mash It Up!
A friend of mine DJ Mamania (www.myspace.com/djmamania) has been doing mash up's since forever. I always love going to clubs when he's playing because you never know what to expect when he's behind the turntables. He mixes Gwen Stefani with Queen or Missy Elliot with Metallica and so on. He is always going on about Z-Trip (his Fav Dj), who is considered by many as one of the founders of the Mash Up movement. When we were on a SKAMP tour in the U.S with Mamania (back in 2005) our friend Vytas took us to a Halloween Party in L.A where Z-Trip was DJ'ing .
Mamania went out of his mind and it turned out to be one of the best parties i've been to. I got more & more interested in the world of mash ups, pop bastardz, and whatever else they are called. Later on I asked Mamania (God bless him) for a few accapellas and started to fool around in my home studio.
Innovate!
After a while i had quite a few mash ups ready and decided it was time to go "public". But i thought it would be lame to just mash up songs with my laptop in a club. I'm not a DJ. What DJ Mamania and Z-Trip are doing is amazing. They mix songs on the spot, they do scratch shows, they get the crowd going, singing, jumping around, going crazy and they look wicked behind their turntables at the same time. It's not an easy job to rock the house like that. So i asked our drummer Marijus Aleksa (www.myspace.com/marijusaleksa) to join in. I do the computer stuff, mix the songs live, add some live guitar riffs and solos, play keyboards and whatever else comes to my mind and he gives the whole thing a live feeling with his beats on top of my mash-ups. From the start on we decided this was supposed to be a fun and spontanous experience. So after our first rehearsal it became clear that we didn't need any rehearsal. It's been our one and only Rehearsal up to now. I get to do all the home work and we just meet during the gig and jam. He never knows what i'm gonna play next and i don't know if he won't start playing drum n bass over justin Timberlakes "My Love". It's a lot more exciting this way. We never know where we will end up when we start our set.
The "NO DJ's" Crew
Marijus is my favorite Beat-Master. Although he's from a jazz background he's comfortable playing Hip Hop, Rock, Latin, House, Reggae, anything really. You can always count on a tight beat and that's why i love him:) He especially likes it when i turn songs into drum n' bass tunes. That gives him the chance to beat the shit out of his drums.
Also on board is Omenas - our sound engineer. He's been working with SKAMP for the last 8-9 years. I can't really imagine working with anybody else. We've been through so much with him it's amazing we're still alive & kickin', but let's leave the details out. He's very important to us as he makes sure we sound great. More importantly he makes sure that Marijus hears the mixes i'm doing.
Next to Omenas' soundboard you will often find a lovely lady with her own equipement. That's Vj Vesta (Mistake). I don't know why she calls herself "Mistake", but she's a great VJ. She mixes the most amazing visuals with live footage of us during our shows . I know her from our other side project TABAMI (www.myspace.com/tabami). She's been working with us on those projects for over a year. I really like her vibe and she always does a great job.
Also important is our stage tech Arnas. He helps out a lot with all the gear, all the Fltascreen TV's for VJ Vestas Visuals and saves my life almost evey gig by changing the strings i break on my guitar.
DJ or NO DJ?
Although i've DJ'ed on a few occations (more so during my stay at high school) I don't really see my self as a DJ. I have too much respect for Mamania & all his collegues to call mixing 2 cd's DJ'ing. That's why i came up with the name NO DJ's.
After our first show in august 2007 in "Gravity" Club (Vilnius / Lithuania) it became clear that people really enjoyed the show and we had loads of fun. SKAMP took a 9 month baby-break around that time. So I decided to take this side project a bit more seriously and we started to put on a show each month with a different theme. So far we've had "The Depeche Mode Session" in Woo Club which was a real kick. The club was full of Depeche Mode fans which added a great vibe. We did "The Quentin Tarantino Session" (Mash Ups of soundtracks from Tarantino movies) in Tarantino Club and "The Guitar Gods Session" in L'Amoure Club and many others.
Happy New Year 2008
The most memorable gig so far was the New Years gig in Woo Club (2008). We couldn't do soundcheck that day because we had another gig with TABAMI the same night. So we got to the club around 2 a.m. and went straight to the stage. The club was packed. Everybody was in an amazing mood. Thanx to Arnas and his assistant Stepas all our equipement was set up perfectly and we kicked off a set that lasted almost 3 hours. I don't know what song we started or ended with, but it was the best NO DJ's gig by far. I thought Marijus would be dead by then. He played a 1,5 hour set with TABAMI and then drum n bass'ed and house'd his way through a 3 hour NO DJ set. But the club was full of friends and band mates from SKAMP / TABAMI / D'ORANGE / and many others. Afterparty ended up in our place and we stayed there non stop all the way to january 2nd. We are flatmates with him. All i can say is our flat didn't look to good after that afterparty.
Italian Percussionist from Italy?
A new member in the NO DJ's family is Riccardo Bondini aka Drum and Soul (www.myspace.com/drumandsouls). He's an Italian percussionist who came to live in Vilnius. He spent the last 8 years in Paris taking part in various projects. He's played with many DJ's and seemed perfect for our project. We hooked up and he straight away added superb percussion licks and scats to our mash ups. He gives the whole experience even more freedom to jam and experiment on stage. It also allows Marijus to have little time outs while Riccardo takes over the lead or does a solo.
So what's next on the agenda?
That's our story in short:) I have a lot of new ideas all the time, so keep comin' back here to find out more about our future projects. We're planning a Golf Pro's and Tennis Hoes Extravaganza Party, also coming your way is NO DJ's Vs "Chill Out". "Chill Out" is an accordeon trio which i saw when i was a judge during a Newcomer Contest. They blew my mind with their music. I think it'll sound great having them play "Pump Up The Jam" on accordion while we pump up the beat. Anyways up next is the U2 Session on may 2nd in Woo Club (Vilnius) and 3rd in Global Club (Klaipeda). Check out some of the preview tracks on www.myspace.com/nodjsmashup
