The story of me

Written by dj Teresa January 24, 2007

The most intimate thing you can do, isn't have sex.  It is to tell someone who you really are; to be vulnerably honest and tell the real story.  Plus, if we are to embark on a music journey together, we'd better be sure we're real about who we are and where we are going.  Well, my real story is, I caved in to society's propaganda that music was a fanciful pastime but most certainly not a viable profession.  I didn't keep going when I should have.  I allowed my insecurities and the pressures from people around me to push me along the traditional path we're all expected to take.  Go to work, get married, buy things, live a life of compromises, die.  I have always been passionate about and inspired by music, I just haven't always had the courage to make it the focus of my life, choosing it instead of what's expected.  I do now and I have a lot of wasted time to make up for.

I grew up a musician playing alto and tenor sax well enough to earn me first chair and a scholarship to junior college after an audition preceded by two years lack of dedicated practice.  Although I was technically proficient and an exceptional sight reader, I could never grasp the forest for the trees to make the leap to music theory comprehension and composition.  I couldn't play by ear, I couldn't jam, ad lib or write my own parts in jazz band even though I knew all my scales backwards in my sleep.  It didn't make sense.  I didn't know why I couldn't do it no matter how badly I wanted to or tried and it crushed me.  After the formal music classes of high school, I searched in vain hoping to find other musicians willing to be mentors to develop a band with.  In two years of looking, a connection never happened, no one recognized my potential and I never managed to stumble in the right direction.  I became a very frustrated and bored musician who found other things more interesting or productive to do than practice by myself with no purpose.  I loved the electronic music that was emerging at the time, but allowed the music influences of others to lead me from my path and eventually abandoned the pursuit of music, even as a hobby, to join the grown up world of working and marital expectations accompanied by the drone of commercial radio in the background.

Despite not finishing a two year degree, I achieved professional success in bar, restaurant and event management and eventually marketing management with a prominent national marketing agency.  When the bottom fell out of the economy in 2001, that success ended.  I woke up one day divorced, suddenly unemployable and alone; and realized that I didn't know who I was or what was even worth waking up for every day.

The only things I knew for sure were all the things I'd worked for, accumulated and compromised on.  My world was full of stuff I had given up tens of thousands of hours of my life earning money to buy, but it was devoid of passion, love, connection…… my world was full of crap and cavernously empty.

I made a radical decision; gave up everything I had and returned to school for a bachelors degree, convinced it would bring me admirable corporate success and fill my emptiness.  With necessity being the mother of invention, I opened a cleaning service so I could earn enough income part time to put myself through school and still carry an 18 credit hour load year round.  I also consciously chose to make sailing and music the object of my passions and extracurricular dedications instead of men.  I diligently sought out the electronic music I loved so much and djs to network with, since they are simply the best curators of music on the planet.  I spent all of my free time in pursuit of music and fellow musicians on a global scale.  Three years later, BA "Corporate-World Boarding Pass" in hand, I discovered that I didn't want to get back on that ride after everything I had sacrificed to buy the ticket.  I realized being a corporate slave isn't what I truly wanted, it was music.

Owning a cleaning service may not be glamorous, but I don't have bad days, it doesn't own me and it allows me to truly pursue what I am now undeniably sure is my destiny.  Something magic happened along my journey.  I met amazing musicians, brilliant artists, and people with real and expressive souls that radiate energy as sure as the sun does light.  Nothing before has filled me with even one tenth of the love, content and passion I have now, having realized that music is the purpose of my life and every atom of my being is committed to living it.

In 2006, I learned how to dj and experienced that pivotal moment where I finally understood fundamental music theory concepts that have kept me from making my own music.  I'm not exactly sure where or when it clicked, but every day I hear and understand more.  I know really good music that will move people when I hear it regardless of genre, finally hear music of my own in my head and feel like a musician for the first time since I was a band geek in high school.  I am 100% committed to following my music passions wherever they lead me even if it feels like I'm driving in the dark with the headlights off sometimes, because I have faith in something that makes me utterly complete.

The Story of me; Continued - two years later

Written by dj Teresa November 23, 2008

In January 2007, I played my first house party.  In March 2007 I went to first Winter Music Conference as an official badge holding delegate; did the whole thing like a real business card carrying professional.  I met dj and producer Salah, who works with remixer Kriss Dek, who now works with me on projects; cool huh?  I met Uk producer David Shaw that I am sure I will end up working with at some point here shortly.  I had a crazy random encounter with Kelly D in an elevator at the Radisson on the way to Ultra.  I went to classes on how to market myself as an artist and make the leap to production and spent the following months building upon the relationships I established networking at the events, still not entirely sure where all this would lead me but somehow feeling that it was the "right" direction to be going even if I felt like I was driving in the dark with the headlights off (again dammit).

On Cinco de Mayo, I had a vip table at Bahasa and ended up an afterparty with old friends who were also at the club that night, a couple of djs from the club that I knew and a cool new cat named Steve, the host of the afterparty debauchery (trust me by the end of the night we were wearing record sleeves for party hats, it was debauchery at its finest moment that night, no doubt).  They didn't have cd decks, but even though I'm a digital girl, I can tear up some wax, too, so I asked him if I could look through his library and play and he said sure.  I didn't know any of his stuff, so I just went on track name, hunting for anything remotely funky and picked out about 11 records (turns out he was a minimal head and I was "minimally ignorant" at the time, so funky in any minimal sense is asking a lot….hehehehhehe….but I pulled it off).  I went over to the decks and proceeded to drop every jaw in the room because I was able to grab some vinyl I didn't know and throw it down,    ….just….. like….. that…... 

After that night I started getting invited to more afterparties with cd decks and I was a bit more in my element with my own case and catalog of music.  My friends James, Pascal, SteveO and those who shared those moments with me had great times and they made me feel comfortable enough to be brave on the decks, try new things, try more difficult things, push myself, and get over my hand tremmors that used to happen when I stepped up to the decks the first time at every party; for that I cannot thank them enough. 

In August 2007 I bought my own dj equipment and did my first headlining gig at Xbash after being quite teased by James about how I was going to get over my nerves and handle my shaky hands at this much bigger gig. 

In September 2007, I was approached by a net radio station and started doing a regular mixed showcase of new house music called Global Grooves for DeluxeUK.com and Noganic.com.  Around the same time I was approached by a local promoter and offered a residency at the Raw Lounge in Ybor City.  It was a short lived lounge with a great concept, but a bad location and like most club start-ups, a lack of capital, proper local knowledge or desire to advertise and promote properly.  The gig inspired me though, and I put together my first "branded" venue mixed cd of all the sounds that I thought most perfectly created the right vibe for a ladies night at an upscale sushi bar with killer sexy house warming up the atmosphere as it gently weaved in and out of  conversation without overpowering it.  I never even made enough from my gigs to pay for the cds that I made and gave to their patrons, but the inspiration to make the mixes was worth it.  I made great new loyal fans who love my sound, still have the cds in their personal rotation and the cds now get me gigs at hot lounge venues with much more potential. 

The best thing to come from the Raw Lounge experience though, was capturing the attention of studio owner and engineer Vitali Chadrine, aka. Ivan The Terrible.  He came from downtown St Petersburg to Ybor City on a Wednesday night to meet me and listen to what I had to offer.  He invited me to his studio and I took him up on the offer.  After a tour of the studio and being fired up over his enthusiasm in the potential of working together for a production that utilized my voice and sax, I went home to write my first song.  By the next morning, raw vocal files were waiting in his inbox and became the track that we co-produced, which was released as a full EP on September 1^st, 2008.

In November 2007, I did my first gig at Jacksons, opening for High Frequency.  Then in December 2007, my long-term relationship of three years ended Christmas day, which required me to move during the holidays. 

The first week of January 2008, my dog of 13 years died which just wrecked me.  Only once have I cried harder than that day.  Then it was becoming unavoidably apparent that I had moved in with an unpredictable loud drunken crazy (did I mention CRAZY) woman who could not hold a job and never left the house, so I could not practice, do my radio show, grieve the loss of my best snuggle buddy or even have friends over for moral support.  I continued to look for somewhere else to live, but was hit with another blow that sidetracked me even more the first week of February.

On February 5^th, my Mother lost her battle with cancer and two weeks later I had to move again due to the intolerable room mate situation of less than two months that was not working out and robbed me of a few hundred dollars.  Thank the cosmos that I have a true friend who is a great room mate now.  My small family lashed out at me in their anguish and then disintegrated, leaving me the most powerful amount of alone I have ever felt in my life, which was compounded with grief the grief of my loss. 

But I realized that I simply could not stop and allow despair to suck me in.  Two whole years of hard work toward a music career were culminating for me at one time, with hoped for, yet still unexpected success.  It was THE BIG one-time opportunity coming up and choking or falling anywhere short of my best was NOT an option.  I could not allow sadness to swallow me, I had to pull up my bootstraps, reach deep within myself for strength I never knew I had and keep moving forward.

March 22, 2008, I debuted and played sax live with my original track, produced with Ivan the Terrible, called "Gotta Groove" at my first headlining gig at Jackson's with a spectacular turnout.  The next day, I returned to WMC as a 2^nd year delegate with my new track which had been accepted in the demo listening workshop and earned rave reviews.  In April, I used the workshop reviews to help shop the track to labels.  As a result, I secured an EP contract based on the original track with Summer Rain Recordings and began soliciting remixes for a full EP release.

In June I astonished even myself by landing gigs in Ibiza for September and began to realize why most people talk about making music, yet very few people actually take ideas from concept to completion and release.  It is an ever living pain in the ass folks.  No joke.  Record label negotiations are enough to make my brain hurt and I am a bright, educated girl with strong mathematical, logic and reasoning skills.  Managing contract administration with all parties involved and setting up a proper tracking / management systems to be sure each contributor gets paid their correct share of the revenue stream is enough to make someone run from the building with their hair on fire.  And then actually getting all the artists/parties involved to sign things all proper and such, don't even get me started.  Needless to say, June and July were spent doing a lot of less fun administrative and follow-up duties that gave me minor migraines.

In July, I felt that I had finally achieved a major lifetime goal when I submitted the 7 track Gotta Groove EP to my label.  If that wasn't enough, I received my first request to remix for the Synth DJs and became a trimester resident dj at Jackson's, the number one club in Tampa for house music's best.  In August I started working on the Synth DJs remix with studio engineer Redvoid from Defcon6 records and discovered a very chemistry filled working relationship that made the production process a priceless experience.

In September, the Gotta Groove EP was released, I returned to Xbash as headliner for the three day music festival, I did my first international travel making Barcelona Spain the very first stamp in my passport, did three gigs in Ibiza and interviewed with several of the best clubs on the island to make the connections that assure me residencies in summer 2009.

October was a blur from everyone back home who wanted to hear first hand about Ibiza, but I do remember becoming a monthly resident at Jackson's, a big milestone.

In November, my first remix, "The Saviours of Electronica – Teresa's Dirty Tech Minimal Mix"  is being released on New Head Records, I finished up a very promising original collaboration with producer Tony Puccio and am currently gathering remixes and putting together a marketing package to shop as a full EP to select top labels.

In December I will reach the largest major milestone in djing and/or music yet……  paying my bills with it.  Well, I finally made it.  It is amazing how well you can drive in the dark with the head lights off if you just have faith in what you REALLY want and don't compromise no matter how painful the obstacles or arguments.

In less than one year I have had a romantic heartbreak that uprooted my world but still won't let go of me; I lost my dog, best friend and snuggle buddy, Kari; I lost my mother and my family with her; I lost a painful chunk of my annual business revenue because my other business is tied to the hemorrhaging housing industry; and I have spent too many empty nights hugging a pillow, missing my snuggle buddy, missing disposable income, missing love, missing companionship, missing acceptance and realizing that it is only music and my faith in it that has gotten me through. 

If you had told me 6 years ago, that before the year was out in 2008, I would be an up-and-coming house music dj breaking through international barriers; that I would be producing music; that I would sing and play sax on my original productions and live on stage while djing even; that people whose music I love, play and buy would find ways to contact me and desire to work with me; well I would have thought you had gone mad.  The naive person I was then would have been starry eyed and in love with the idea that I would get paid to express myself musically by playing top club gigs for money and releasing original music on a global scale, but I would not have believed it possible, those are the things that only dreams are made of. 

Well, I think I have learned something truly powerful so far I my life, painful up and down journey or not.  Dreams do come true!   

BUT…. ONLY….. IF …….. you have the courage to follow them and stop at nothing to keep reaching for them.  When I say "have the courage", I cannot imply enough how strong that courage has to be, because it has to carry you through the tears of complete and utter despair caused by family, friends and lovers that abandon you because they think you are nuts to pursue such a fanciful hobby as a career; it has to carry you through all the disappointments along the way from people who would like you to believe they are your friends while they secretly connive behind your back for your connections, information sources or gigs even;  it has to carry you though all of the moments every day when you feel like the rest of the "normal" world does not understand you.

Is it worth it?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

…… and I have only started the adventure…….I can't wait to see what the next two years brings. 

Sept 15th – 16th   - Tuesday:              I stepped foot on Ibiza soil at noon after 24 hours of travel time, listening to Chicane in my headset.  The shuttle I'd reserved didn't have other passengers so a private car took me to my hotel in San Antonio.  By 1:30 I was on the beach, stopping into the Orange Corner to check out the booth and introduce myself.  A guy waiting to get a drink at the bar overhears that I'm playing the next day and says, my friend is also playing tomorrow.  His friend is a dj out of Ireland that I had been emailing with and was looking forward to meeting.  So I go down to the beach and meet the coolest people I met the whole time I was in Ibiza; dj Arthur, his wife Lisa, her brother and his wife Sonia.  We enjoyed beverages on the beach and talked about the differences in music between our countries.