Nick Perloff

You may not know it, but Columbia is home to the recent winner of a national Campus DJ competition. Sophomore Nick Perloff goes by DJ Flaxo in his on-duty hours, and we sat down with him to hear about his dream venue and find out whether DJs still have nice headphones.

Bwog: Why Flaxo?
Nick: Flaxo = Flaco (skinny) + x (the letter). When I was in high school these guys at a Taqueria nearby used to call me “flaco” and I didn’t speak Spanish so I sort of misinterpreted it and used it as my name. Contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with the high fiber grain.

B: How did you first get into mixing?
N: I used my mom’s Mac when I was 13 to mess around with Garageband because I wanted to remix the Who… I sort of just kept doing that until I bought better software and spent a few years reading everything I could about audio production and recording.

B: What kind of headphones do you use? Is DJs having nice headphones a thing anymore?
N: I use Sennheiser DT 770s for studio work but I think when you’re just DJing, headphones aren’t really a thing. Last show I played I forgot to bring my headphones so I grabbed the free ones from the plane. They did the trick.

DJ Flaxo

B: What’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed in the music scenes in San Francisco versus New York?
N: San Francisco has a few established collectives like Dirtybird who put on shows really often, and the crowds that come know their stuff and expect to hear new and weird stuff. New York (Manhattan, really) has much more of a “club” scene, where people go to really take photos and be seen, so they’re not looking to hear new music, they sort of want to hear stuff they know. You have to go to actual concerts in NYC to hear people play the new stuff.

B: How do you feel about iPad DJs?
N: I think of myself more as a producer/musician than a DJ, so I’m not too defensive about my methodology. If you have an iPad app that allows you to perform electronic music in an interesting way, I’m all for it.

B: What’s you dream venue or concert to play?
N: Anything that’s not an exclusively EDM festival. The best crowds always seem to be the ones who go to concerts to hear a bunch of different music enthusiastically. San Francisco’s Outside Lands is an amazing mix of acts; I guess I’d say that’s pretty high up.

B: Thoughts on the fact that “EDM,” “DJs,” and “house music” all yield “…and drugs” as a Google search suggestion.
N: I won’t say don’t do drugs, because that’s your thing. But if you have to do drugs to have a good time at these shows, either the music is crappy or you really don’t like it that much.

B: Will you play Bwog’s birthday party?
N: Isn’t it Bwog’s 7th birthday? I can try balloon animals.

Flaxo via his SoundCloud and Facebook