BJDJs master Brett Wise wants to get Beijing's DJs out of their bedrooms and onto the decks with meet ups dedicated to sharing talent and learning new techniques and tricks from each other. The next meet up is at Siif tomorrow, February 7 from 9pm. Get involved by checking out bjdjs.tumblr.com/

What's the philosophy behind BJDJs? Primarily BJDJs is about giving people a place to share their love of DJing while learning something along the way. Out of that we hope to give the Beijing electronic music scene a solid kick in the pants. We know there are a lot of bedroom DJs out there and we are hoping that they come out to meet up, learn, share their talent with us, meet new people and hopefully start new parties.

How's the atmosphere like at a BJDJs meet up? It's quite relaxed and everyone is really friendly. I get to Siif, our current home, around 9PM. From 9 to 10 PM people arrive and everyone signs up for their time slot. People get on their decks or controllers from around 10. When not mixing, people hangout, watch others mix or talk to new friends and old. We play until most of the others have left, usually around 1 or 2AM. Those that are left at that time usually grab food at a nearby restaurant to talk about DJing and the scene some more before heading home.

Our DJ demographic is made up of everyone from beginners to pros. A lot of the people that are coming to our meet-ups are playing out in Beijing at different clubs, but we've also got a sizable portion of DJs that aren't playing out yet.

He spins us right round

Has anyone moved on from the meet ups to professional DJing? I guess it depends on what you mean by professional DJing. If you mean someone who plays out and gets paid for it than yes. If you mean someone who's doing it as their main source of income, no, not yet anyway. The majority of us have day jobs and do DJing as something on the side. Although there are one or two DJs among us that joined us already having DJing and production as a full-time job.

I work with a party promotions company called Supercolab. They recently brought Peter Hook to Beijing and are always looking for fresh talent to introduce to Beijing at their big parties. Along those lines Supercolab will be putting on several events in the coming months and so have their eyes on BJDJs for that fresh talent.

Are there any trends in what people are spinning at the meet ups? Anything to look out for? We have a pretty diverse representation of the various electronic genres. But most of what you will hear will probably fall into house, electro, dubstep, tech-house, downtempo, nu-disco, or techno. We're lovers of music and aren't at all cliquey about the music we listen to.

What do you do if nobody turns up? So far we haven't had that happen yet. We've started out relatively small but we have had increasingly larger turn outs at each meet-up.

What's up next for BJDJs? Well, we know there are still a lot of DJs out there that haven't come out yet so we expect good things after the Chinese New Year and are hoping to see some new faces.

We've been pleased with the turn out so far but there is always room for growth. In the first few meet-ups I met a couple of DJs, Shifty Shakes and Beatza Hut. We got together with an old friend of mine, Tommy T, and started a party called Swag Sound, which is basically BJDJs in party mode, which is currently at School Bar. So we are actively looking for new DJs to play out with us and hope to see some new parties started as well.

DETAILS

What: BJDJs Meetup

Where: School Bar

When: Tuesday, Feb 7 from 9pm

Web: bjdjs.tumblr.com/