Read interviews, reviews, or other write-ups on Dj Elz and her affiliations
Club Seen Magazine // Bayraves.com - The Largest Nightlife Network in America // 2005
by Nick Griffin
From the old skool to the nu skool for the groovers and the movers, for the housers to the breakers and the strutters, for the candyflippers to the damn kids with too many beads & binkies wearing too bright and way too big jnco's or kikwear - who remembers those breakdown shirts? and you know the official footwear for ravers is adidas and that everywhere you look and everywhere i see when jammin' to the MARS vs. MYSTRE CD on my SONY is a place to throw a . . . . R-A-V-E!!!
It is not uncommon to see ravers and clubbers develop a desire to somehow contribute to dance culture in some way shape or form. Some decide to become DJs or music producers, some desice to produce events, while some create drug awareness groups, or even stage presence dance troupes. While there are hundreds of ways to contribute to the electronic dance community, a young group of ravers and clubbers paved their way and created a name for themselves by hosting a website dedicated to nightlife in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bayraves (aka BR Productions).
What originally started as a website to display pictures taken at underground drag races eventually shifted to be what it is today. Im 1998, (Doctor) Ross Davis was apart of a racing team for modified import cars. The team began going to raves together, taking pictures at events, and promoted their drag-racing website at parties to enable the ravers to see pictures of themselves and friends at recent events. When the website's hosts realized a majority of their hits were coming from ravers in lieu of the intended underground drag racing crowd, they shifted their content and changed the name and domain of their website to bayraves.com. Ross' next step was to add his friend J-marr to be their first resident DJ.
The website has been a positive marketing and promoting tool for J-Marr's DJ career, and has offered him great exposure. Other DJs who have Bayraves residency include Felipe Avelar, Dj Elz, Valerie Sparks, and Carlos Alfonso amoung others....
Link to online magazine here...
Femme DJs - Founded in November 2003, Femme DJs is a newly formed female DJ collective based on the West Coast. This driven, tight-knit group is made up of diverse, individual strengths brought together for support, education, inspiration and camaraderie in a male dominated industry. The members of Femme DJs are out to add more influential female DJs as role models and to promote the advancement of female djs. They have a life long dedication to music and a commitment to excellence in their field. Femme DJs is determined to take female turntablism and music production to the next level.
Check Elz and the rest of Femme DJ's out on the Odyssey Gear website here...
Check Elz out wearing Mixer Friendly's latest gear on their website
Video killed the radio star. If so, then fashion can make both the radio and video stars. The Village People and Marilyn Manson would hardly be the same without their respective headdress or latex suit. Nowadays music stars define 'the look' of the moment. Gwen Stefani, the lead singer of No Doubt, is set to debut her collection L.A.M.B. this upcoming spring. Meantime P. Diddy's Sean John Collection grosses millions. And from our own home front, a bevy of musical artists or collectives are spinning their own styles.
Justin Marine, founder of Mixer Friendly, produces and spins for his monthly parties, "Boogie Boutique" that is held at Soluna near the Civic Center. He not only mixes his friendly tunes but also designs for flyers, tape covers, and now his own tees. "The city of San Francisco is a huge inspiration for me," Justin says of his music and designs. For this spring he plans to silk screen tees with designs of analog equipment which references the early techno music scene. Other designs include prints of legendary house deejays such as Frankie Knuckles with an image of "knuckles" underneath.
Mixer Friendly isn't the only music maestro making fashion statements. Dre Sibayan's drawing of a monkey eating a record threw Exact-Science Productions into the fashion forefront. Exact-Science Productions was born in the summer of 1999 and initially came together to promote electro and hip hop parties around the city. Brad Steinberg and Andrew Kringstein, two of the four-member collective, were the ones who launched Dre's monkey design into the fashion foray. The tees were first sold from their backpacks at musical venues around town. The fourth member, Bret Lee is the catch-all man who handles the business affairs.
The tee's designs are "high concept, simply stated, unique imagery that centers on graphical interpretations of San Francisco underground culture." For their Spring 2004 line, there will be more collaborations with photographers and artists to help design the tees around a particular theme. The project aims to bring together various artists to interpret the music experiences they share. Recently Dre used the imagery of Ernie Paniccioli, a reputable hip hop photographer, as part of his designs that are available as both prints and on tees.
Other well established and venerable collectives include Future Primitive Sound and Upper Playground who have their own store fronts which showcase the music they appreciate. In addition to art or photography or musical happenings, these collectives also express their appreciation for hip hop via designs on tee shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts.
Whatever the music genre, its sounds inspire many realms which include art, dance and fashion. It's beyond the grunge rocker's torn jeans, the raver's Adidas track suits or the rapper's shiny hubcap medallion necklaces. It's about the sound that reverberates and inspires the collective of musicians' and artists' to express something that not only can be heard, but also worn.
Link to entire article here
I recently have been accused of forgetting my priorities. I've been accused of losing my mind and not acting my age...to which I answer, quite vocally, "How old do you think I am?" (I'm 24, for all you nosy people.)
It's amazing how people think that once you're old enough to drink, you should choose not to, and once you're able to choose a corporate life over one that you barely remember (after a night of club-hopping), that you should naturally want to choose the stable alternative. Where's the fun in that? Why can't we have our cake and eat it too?
There's a time that we must face where young and new will become mature and established, and even that those two worlds will one day collide. Perhaps that time is now. But before you change out of your club clothes for a view of your front porch, let me explain.
New:
In the new club world, or at least at Ra, female DJs rule. On Wednesday, Oct. 15, Ra is holding an event I can't wait to attend, the "DJ Divas Tour." The tour will include Spacegirl, Valerie & the Vibe Tribe, Ariel Cybana and DJ Elz. These beautiful first ladies of electronic music are bringing their beauty, style and flair to Ra and are guaranteed to blow you away with their talent.
Spacegirl, dubbed the "Queen of Acid Trance," born in Moscow, delivers an energy-filled techno/trance set that takes the listener on a musical journey through her mind's eye.
Valerie & The Vibe Tribe prefer to classify themselves as a "free spirit." Their vision is to create "interactive multimedia dance performances" that are a hybrid between live electronic music acts, raves, nightclubs, and Vegas-style spectacles.
Ariel Cybana's sound of tribal-progressive house, superb track selection and flawless mixing helps her to stand out from the crowd.
DJ Elz takes '70s funk and schools it in infectious house rhythms to create shimmering, super-funky house and limb-shaking breaks. (Ra inside Luxor, 262-4949, Spacegirl, Spacegirlmusic.com; Valerie & The Vibe Tribe, www.valerieandthevibetribe.com; Ariel Cybana, www.arielcybana.com, DJ Elz, www.djelz.com)
Link to entire article here
Copyright (c) Las Vegas Mercury, 2001 - 2003
Stephens Media Group
Karma Magazine // We Are Family // September, 2003
by Starla Estrada, photographs by Mark Skorheim
The Sister SF DJ collective is conquering the creative patriarchy with its brand of talent, style and community spirit. Be prepared: they're coming to a city near you.
While most crews come together over a particular style of music, San Francisco-based Sister SF was born under a different premise; the solidarity of sisterhood. But make no mistake - this is not your baby sister's "girls only" club. This is a collective of kick-ass female DJs who are making waves in the dance-music industry. Sure they'll let the boys play too, but even they have to dress in drag to spin at Sister SF parties and charity events.
In 1997, DJs XJS and Siren came up with the idea of creating a positive, motivating support system for themselves and other women in the industry. The goal: to broaden the scope of female DJs as performers and producers in the varying genres, which range from house to techno, drum-n-bass to breaks, trance to electroclash. "The main focus is our talent and not our gender," said DJ Elz, a new member who spins funky house and breaks.
Membership has it's benefits-primarily, the competitive edge of safety in numbers. "Being part of the organization paves the way for gigs," acknowledges DJ XJS, an expatriate from Ireland who mixes drum-n-bass. According to her, many promoters and club owners won't take a chance with a DJ unless they are part of a crew or club. Fellow member DJ Samira agreed: With the right balance of people, you can get a lot done with a crew. Collectively, you expand your resources and connections. You learn a lot from each other's experiences.
The Sisters have also had to deal with problems unique to an industry that remains male dominated. The request to dress "sexy" for a gig is an occasional dilemma, and the Sisters much decide between their concerns about sexual objectification and the realities of getting booked. Still being a female has not cause many career setbacks. "I have never been passed over for a gig because I am a female, said DJ Elz. "I usually do feel like I have more to prove than a male DJ. In the past i have felt judges by my looks, but I just let my skills speak for themselves. I have gotten a good, supportive response from other male DJs."
In order to maintain a handle on their goals, the Sister crew keeps the group relatively small, averaging ten or so members at a time. Established Sisters nominate new members based on their skills and reputations as local DJs. Nominees must complete a six-month internship, allowing everyone time to work together and see if the collaboration works. "The internship is like an apprenticeship. It was developed as a way to keep the girls working," said Amber, a techno and hard-house DJ. "To keep the flow and awareness that once you're in it's not just a smooth, marble path."
Jobs are voluntary and determined on the basis of ability and desire. While there are no titles or mandatory duties each lady is expected to ass to the crew in any way she can, whether working on the website, organizing events, promoting or spinning. If a Sister can't devote time and energy to the collective, she maybe asked to step aside to "guest" status until she can further commit.
In the past year, Sister factions have developed in the New York City, Seattle and Portland (Sister NYC, Sister SEA, and Sister PDX, respectively). These groups were established as natural extensions of the crew, usually when a former Sister relocated to a new city. The crew is also regularly approached by women in cities all over the country who want to create their own Sister division. Although the interest is flattering, the group is cautious about lending the Sister name. The collective abides by a mission to uphold women as equals to males, so new branches must show that they can be booked based on skills, not gender. Ultimately, the members want to be fairly involved before starting a new branch. DJ XJS suggested that interested women in other cities start their own group, with an "original title that Sister SF could possibly advise and guide through development."
In the future, expect the crew to pop up in more major cities in the U.S. and perhaps internationally. Long-term goals include a Sister record label and a booking agency. Despite the transient nature of clubbing and DJing, these self-described "proactive dreamers" have stuck around. "We're the bugs rooted deep in the carpet," Polywog said. "We're here to stay." To read more about Sisters and to find out about events go to www.sistersf.com
Press on Sister San Francisco 2003
Where is it written that you have to have balls to be a DJ? Since when do decks and estrogen repel each other? So why is DJ-ing still considered primarily a boy's vocation? Why do ladies who can spin rings around their male counterparts still get passed over by promoters and clubbers in favor of some pudgy punk from the UK who you know only started DJ-ing to get laid?
I'm happy to report that the times they are achangin'. Sure, there are still a lot of heads out there who believe gonads somehow make a better deck-tician, but women have made huge strides within the biz, steadily building cred as DJs, producers, promoters and label owners.
Locally, we owe that change in large part to the ladies of Sister SF, whose members looked around, saw all the boy crews and decided to build their own nurturing community for women who might otherwise be discouraged by the relative lack of support within the scene for lady DJs.
The all-female DJ collective has, hands down, some of the most talented DJs (male or female) in the Bay Area on its roster, rockin' beats that run the gamut from hip-hop to techno. They've even extended their reach beyond the Bay quite recently, starting up Sister chapters in Portland and New York. In honor of their five-year anniversary, the crew is throwing a festive one-off at Jezebel's Joint this Saturday with their resident mixstresses -- Polywog, Forest Green, XJS, Amber, Seraphim, Melyss, Elz, Samira and Queen Agnes B -- spinning full-spectrum bump from 10 till 2. Come show your support! Go to The Examiner Newspaper
Growing up in California, young Elizabeth nourished her soul with a wholesome blend of calcium-enriched Michael Jackson, energy-laden George Clinton, free-range Beastie Boys and a cornucopia of other booty-moving musicians.
And as the saying goes, "you are what you eat". Now in the prime of her young adulthood, Elizabeth, a.k.a. DJ Elz, regularly regurgitates this funky diet into her sets. Her early musical influence resonates throughout each gig she plays, and the result is a groovy new twist on yesterday's funk and rap that just begs for a little ass shaking. To quote her Web site, her musical style is a "unique blend of funky booty shaking pumping house, funky bumping techno and funky old school electro break beats." While it's an accurate description of DJ Elz's oratory art, no one does a better job of describing her music than the music itself. After listening to a few of her sets - also graciously posted on her Web site - you can't help but loose yourself in the groove she lays out and give into the urge to dance.
In fact, it's this infectious groove that propelled her into success. Since her start in 1997, she's already been booked at such famous places as the X.O.X. 2 and 1015 Folsom in San Francisco. She started Peak Productions in 1999 to hold old-skool funk and break-beat shows. And in 2000, she won the Best New DJ contest on the House Nation radio show (94.9 FM).....Read the entire exclusive interview here at DivaDjs.com
The IT List // AMP Newsletter Issue 05.8 // Aug. 2002
Dance music's slow but steady assault on the mainstream has
brought with IT the cult of DJs. Perhaps as a result, it seems that
everyone and their mother wants a DJ or at least wants to be one.
In truth, however, there are the usual suspects of superstar fame
DJs with household names and then there are very few like the ones
we're going to introduce you to today. All very different stylists who
have created their own niches within the own ranks.
GhettoFunkBoogie Review // Techno Punk Music // July 2002
So when Technopunkmusic.com started up a year ago it was operated by myself but owned by a company called Webseed Publishing. Now, bear
with me because you'll see the point I'm getting at in a second. Webseed offered free domain names and unlimited web space to writers they felt were worthy of admission to their utopian notion of creating an intelligent World Wide Web. Yours truly was one of those writers.
However, a few months back TPM violated one of Webseed's pristine rules and regs inadvertently and was rather unprofessionally excommunicated from the web by these utopian Nazis. Our offense? Well, we didn't do nothin' mastah!
We provide a service, for instance if we write a good review we're promoting the artist in question and sometimes we get lucky when that particular person might like what we've written and use our words to promote themselves in turn giving us promotion as well. It's a nifty system and I rather like the way it creates buddies among us. So we wrote about San Fran DJ Elz and praised her accordingly while she went on to use the link to her review to promote herself at some local SF parties. Makes sense to me so far.
The rule and reg we violated, rather inadvertently, came when an SF promoter sent out a hunk of spam promoting their upcoming event, one that featured Elz on the lineup and a link to our web site next to her name. The spam got reported, we were guilty by association and Webseed shut us down. But in the four months since we've learned something here: Webseed are prissy pussies and Elz still kicks ass!
Her new disc is GhettoFunkBoogie and those who may have a dislike toward disco house need not apply here. It's fairly straight-forward, taking that old 70s funk and schooling it to today's infectious house rhythms. There's nary a DJ trick in the 15-track bunch but then there doesn't need to be since Elz does well enough with the track selection alone. Much similar to her previous Bassfunk release (see review below) Elz shakes the disc up later in the game with some super-tight breaks that makes the transition from the disco moments exceedingly smooth and accomplished. There's plenty to adore from Joey Beltram's tasty "Slice" to John Selway's sweet-ass remix of Jackass & Mule's "1-2-3 Miami."
Now, Technopunkmusic.com is under our complete control where we can afford to have third parties spam with our name attached without fear of repercussion. So I say, Spam away Elz, we love your shit and you've always got a receptive place here in this little niche of the Web.
BassFunk Review // Techno Punk Music // March 2002
It is often an unwritten policy around here to avoid bringing up gender as the centerpiece of the reviews. Within the Electronic community (as within many popular institutions of the day) females are still considered the minority. In our own subtle way, by not highlighting the fact that a DJ is a female (one of those "Damn, she's good for a girl" statements), it seems more respectful to the artist involved and, hopefully, sets an example, perhaps by implying, hey guys, this DJ is a girl, an equal, and has the potential to whip your ass! Only in certain situations do I feel it is needed to make gender an issue within our content, and this is one of those times.
TechnoPunkMusic.com has been a fan of the all-female DJ collective Sister SF for quite some time. Quite simply, they have an awesome collective including Amber, Forest Green and XJS, along with guest DJs Madame Mercury, Dragn'Fly, Julie Drazen, Sage, DRC, Denise and ELZ. And with the exception of Polywog, ironically the biggest name within the collective, whose non-talents behind the decks are far outshone by the above names, this is where the natural, hip-shaking female talent is at!
We won't go any farther into who is better than whom though it's necessary to say Amber, Denise, Madame Mercury and ELZ are a stellar group of names. ELZ's Bassfunk is a shimmering blend of super funky Disco House and limb-shaking Breaks that is assured a healthy reaction of bobbing heads, bouncing, jubilant bodies and ecstatic hoots of approval wherever it is played.
Only two tracks in, ELZ drops Afrika Bambaataa's classic "Funky Heroes" and elsewhere drops the unpredictable bass rhythms of DJ Icey's excellent "Taxi Driver." But with that said, Bassfunk is never as predictable as those popular names would indicate. With super-smooth mixing and a consistent style of dropping stunning funk at every turn, it's a dirty, wonderfully giddy collection that emulates with a positive infectious vibe and never gets too deep within any dark emotions.
And if a DJ's main duty is to please the crowd then ELZ is an undeniable master since it's tough to imagine smiles not being plastered across every face crowded around the inevitable breakers in the middle of the dance floor. Yeah, ELZ's choices in Disco House are great but when she drops the Breaks, as on the old-school Freestyle feel of The Kingpins "Are You Ready?" and Lil Rob's "Bring It On Back," she's a genius.
ELZ's is wickedly fun and, let's not forget guys, she's a female with the ability to kick some serious ass!
Despite the "work," the aim is always to have fun. After all, DJing might be a career, but these women do it for the love of music. In these tough economic times, especially, making ends meet can be challenging. Original member Polywog (she played the blissed-out, dreadlocked DJ in the film Groove) has been spinning for more than 12 years, mixing everything from Van Halen to Billie Holiday. Three years ago, during the dot-com boom, she earned up to $3,000 a gig. Today comparable gigs pay her around $1,000. Despite the down-turn, the Sisters are committed tot he evolution of their careers. Many have branched out with side careers. Some have found creative outlets: Amber is executive producer and host of a club-based TV show called :CODE, while Seraphim has recently launched Recordwhore.com, an on-line record store.
The Examiner Newspaper // Arts and Culture // Feb. 6th, 2003
Women of Vinyl
Interview by DivaDjs.com
In doing so, they have been pinned to be dance music's next big
thing in their own right, inspiring the respect and adoration of the
multitudes. We are intrigued by the craft of these artists and as
divergent as their paths to success so far. They all share an utter
love and devotion for what they do and manage to transcend
the term "DJ" to new heights with a whole new generation of
dance music purists.
Here are our picks for the next wave of DJs going to make noise...
Nicholas Bennison
(
takes you into a journey whenever he puts that needle on the record, he
makes the progressive sound looks sexy, sophisticated and sleek.
Dj Bam Bam
(
he was hardhouse before it was fucking cool and a trend now. sure his
style has progress to new heights but at least he is leading the pack
Oswaldo "Ozz-E" Gonzalez
(
a no brainer for house music, can rock a crowd unlike any other we have
seen in the recent years, he is a crowd-pleaser all the way
Dj Elz
(
who says girls can't play with the boys on the turntables? a
ghettofunkboogie female dj that can rock the house
Dean Paul
(
definately a gem worthy of high marks. no need to look at european
jocks when your dose of the underground is homegrown
Without a doubt... the future superstars are here today.
Support and embrace them as they will lead the way...
Promoters... it's time for you to wake up and not sellout short.
These are the best of the homegrown crop that you should be
paying attention to for their raw talents on the decks.