“What would I want to hear if I walked onto that stage at that point, at that time?” This is the first question that local producer DJ Murge asks himself as he envisions being up on stage spinning tunes.
For Murge, each show is a chance for him to guide the audience through the night. The music he plays reflects the impact he wants it to have; it only makes sense, then, that songs played at the beginning of the night are sometimes very different than those played at the end of the night.
“You have this golden opportunity,” says Murge. “You can have them in the palm of your hand, playing music and [being] really engaged with the people; there’s a connection that can happen. You can also lose that connection quite easily. It’s not tension in a negative way. But there’s a relationship you form with the dance floor.”
Murge—who is playing this year’s Philips Backyard Weekender with long-time pal DJ Verse as The Champion Sound—tries to play tunes that he is passionate about, but he knows that in a festival setting, when people are there to see many musicians, he has to throw in some familiar sounds.
“Bring them in, then school them a little bit,” he says.
It’s different to prepare for a festival set than it is for a club set, says Murge, but change is the name of the game. When he came to Victoria from Port McNeill at 18, he was confined to playing only what he had on vinyl. Now, technology allows him freedom.
“We just got electricity when I lived in Port McNeill,” he says with a laugh. “I’m just kidding. My medium has always been the turntable; starting out, all I could do was buy records. Nowadays, there’s things like [vinyl emulation program] Serato Scratch Live. You can still use a turntable, but now you’re using your laptop. Your entire music library becomes playable.”
That freedom is good for him, but he says that’s not the case for everyone.
“That allows us to play things like the Phillips Backyard Weekender, where you’re playing to a pretty broad, diverse crowd in those three nights,” he says. “You’ve got different lineups each time… you’re able to kind of jump and bounce around between things quicker than, let’s say, if you had record crates. Now you’ve got whatever your entire music library consists of at your disposal.”
The Champion Sound’s set at Phillips will be a balance of mainstream songs and Murge’s remixes.
“Those remixes range from Dawn Penn reggae stuff into Van Morrison remixes,” says Murge. “Shit that I love to listen to.”
However, if everyone can sing along all night, says Murge, his job isn’t done.
“My job is done if someone comes up and says, ‘Hey, what was that song you played?’”
Although it might be easy to go up and spin the tunes everyone knows, Murge says he and his colleagues in the Victoria music scene have bigger responsibilities.
“It’s our job to break new music,” says Murge, adding that it’s an important role of DJ culture in general.
The philosophy of a DJ from 1970s New York—David Mancuso—rings true with Murge.
“He applied this Buddhist approach to it where, as people come in to a party, there’s a certain level of music that should be played, then there’s the circus,” says Murge. “It’s fun. Givin’er. And then the return to reality. You want to play music that relates to sending people back home.”
Phillips Backyard Weekender
Various times, Friday, July 20 until Sunday, July 22
Various prices, The Phillips Backyard
backyardweekender.com