15 Minutes of Fame: Druid at the decks Part 2
by Lisa Poisso 
Jun 23rd 2009 at 5:00PM
Who are your musical influences?I'm extremely eclectic when it comes to music. I listen to everything, from classical music to heavy metal and everything in between. I couldn't care less about genre and care a lot more about quality. Different songs speak to me in different ways, and sometimes I'm in the mood to listen to Händel and sometimes all I want is a good dose of Iron Maiden.
That being said, I'm a huge fan of electronic music, and I think that genre influences my production and my DJing the most. If I had to pick one band, I would pick Depeche Mode. They have been around forever and have been consistently great. I love the atmosphere of their songs and the fact that they're constantly renewing their sound -- yet they're always recognizable. It's something I try to do, to keep my sets cutting edge but always have that "Aspeth touch." The best compliment I get is when someone says, "I didn't know that set was yours, but I thought so because it had your style." It's pretty hard to find your style in the first place and then to be consistent with it, and DM has done that. I get a lot of inspiration from them.
What are you enjoying mixing right now?
I think this is a great time for electronic music and for trance in particular. The scene is maturing and enjoying some mainstream attention, which is both good and bad -- but more good than bad, I believe.
Production values go up, and in the end we get songs that are much more polished. It raises the bar in terms of mastering and production quality. The flip side is that we get some very "commercial" sounding tracks. There's always been some crappy commercial stuff coming out, but it's up to us DJs to weed those out. :p
There are quite a few great producers I'm enjoying right now. One of my favourites at the moment is tyDi. He's incredibly talented and is one of the best things to come out of the recent Russian electronic music scene. Ashley Wallbridge is doing some amazing tracks, as well; Omnia, Tritonal, Josh Gabriel, Claudia Cazacu, all doing very solid production work. It's a good time to be a trance DJ!
Have you ever included a WoW track in your mix? Which do you think would work best?
No I haven't yet; I've actually considered that a lot of times. I have the Echoes of War CD, and there are a ton of nice songs which could work out as intros, but I never really got to use them.
One song in particular that I'd love to use is one which plays in the Night Elf area, with a nice choir and harp arrangement. Another one that I love is Lament of the Highborne. I do want to use one of them sometime still. =)
So when do you get time to actually sit down and play WoW?What I've been doing lately is bringing my laptop with me to the studio when I'm scouting promos (selecting tracks for my regular sets or special mixes). There are two types of "listening sessions" I do. One is more technical, where I really have to concentrate on listening to memorize the songs so I know what's going on when I'm playing them live. But when scouting songs, it's actually healthy to kinda "not be listening," as in paying attention to something else while you're listening, because if a song really catches your interest that way, it's because you like it. You tend to ignore the songs that don't do anything to you and pick up the ones that get you back from whatever you're doing into listening to them. Those are the songs that I want to listen more carefully a second time.
So what I do is I load a whole bunch of promos (new tracks I receive from producers) into a playlist and play WoW (usually fishing, because it's so soothing, LOL!) and just take notes of the songs that make an impression during my game session. It works quite well. =) So if this keeps working, I might be playing a bit more in the future!
So how about us North American Aspeth fans? Think you'll ever do a club tour of North America?
Yes! In fact, I'm going to be playing in the LA Lovefest in August and possibly in San Francisco that same week. I'm very excited about it. =) Also planning a tour to the U.S. after my European tour in September. It will probably be around November.
Any special projects you're working on right now? What's ahead?
Lots of new projects, actually. =) I got a deal with Trama, a record label, last month to release my first original track, and I've been working at a few remixes. I've been wanting to get into production for a while now, and I'm very happy to be able to finally do it. =) I'm also going on tour to Europe in September and have a U.S. tour in the works for the end of the year. Very excited about these next few months!
"I never thought of playing WoW like that!" -- neither did we, until we talked with these players. From an Oscar-winning 3-D effects director to a custom action figure artist, catch it on 15 Minutes of Fame.Filed under: Features, Interviews, 15 Minutes of Fame
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Agerath Jun 23rd 2009 5:04PM
Well, at least it's not furries, I guess....
Lorgrim Jun 23rd 2009 5:48PM
Im not a fan of trance music by any means, but it takes guts to put work that you have poured your heart, your time and your effort into out there into your WoW community. And as a player who is utterly jaded, it brings a smile to my face to see the Argent Dawn community respond so positively. You have my utmost respect mate :)
FatKobra Jun 23rd 2009 6:09PM
Nicely done on the Summer Mix 2009 , just downloaded it, i would recommend the music, its not DJ Tiesto but it is of very high quality, keep up, i know how deep that stuff goes, i piano player ( ask me if it helps me being a rogue pushing keys ehhehehe.... yes ).
islandstyle Jun 23rd 2009 6:16PM
It's badass. I like it.
Dragoest Jun 23rd 2009 6:50PM
songs are nicely done.. I enjoy a few of the songs and a few others just wasn't enough for me the first 2 songs almost lost me but just after skipping ahead i found some good beats.. but I'll keep an eye out for this one seems like lots of good tunes would be coming from here.. Good work...
Vonblah Jun 23rd 2009 7:21PM
Sorry girl, but WoW IS popular here in Brazil, specially in the last 2 years (maybe because of the blood elves). Not as soccer, of course, but lots of servers (like Warsong-US and Gurubashi-US) are full of brazilian players (and unfortunately annoying the whole server talking only in portuguese).
Ed Jun 23rd 2009 7:42PM
I guess you really meant it when you said this column would focus on WoW players of all types.
I mean, this edition is pretty much entirely about a DJ who has played WoW for all of six hours.
Lisa Poisso Jun 23rd 2009 8:16PM
Whoops, Ed! Read it again -- she's played multiple characters over quite a few years and spends plenty of game time in non-leveling activities. Not every player rushes to cap and on to raiding ... That's the point. Hope you'll keep reading and meet more players like this!
Saint Jun 23rd 2009 9:53PM
No, she's leveled multiple characters and stopped multiple times. You don't have to be max level to play the game, but she obviously CAN'T hit max level or else she would have at least gotten close by now.
Please cover people who actually PLAY the game and don't use it as a social network.
Lisa Poisso Jun 23rd 2009 11:17PM
Sorry, Saint, 15 Minutes of Fame is not a feature about max-level raiding players. I'd suggest skipping over profiles of players who don't interest you.
Saint Jun 23rd 2009 11:59PM
I didn't say it had to be max level raiders now did I? I said it should be people who play the game. My young padawan of a cousin has been playing since March when I bought the game and game time for him. He's not the best gamer, pretty far from it, but he's already working his way around Zangarmarsh. He has high school, a girlfriend, and a pretty active social life yet he's made significantly more progress in the game than this lady has. I respect what she does with music, but much like furries article, I feel this column is scraping very hard for something to write about.
How about the multitudes of fathers who play WoW responsibly with their children? It was just Father's Day wasn't it? That would have made a great article. Instead you chose someone who plays the game as, from what I gather, a way to advert their music.
No offense, I've always loved this column. The article on Abotu was awesome, as someone who enjoys crafts of the sort. Hell I dug the Ferraro article even though it brought up a huge fuss. But this? She's a DJ who plays WoW every so often and uses the forums to advertise her music. I play in a band and have weekly jam sessions at my local tavern. I've got several 80s, and don't raid nearly as much as I did even a few months ago. Real life has taken vastly taken ahold of my life. I know a business man who can only get on a few hours a week, who manage to have several 80s and can get through at least two heroics in his short 3 hours he has on friday nights.
Ultimately I ask: What about her situation excuses her from not *REALLY* playing the game. You can be the most casual player in the world and you would have at least gotten a chracter past 60. My padawan of a cousin, my fiance. Both very casual players, both play less than two nights a week. Both actually make progress.
I feel like all this article has done is advertise her music, which I feel is all her time playing WoW has been. Just my opinion.
katyanna Jun 24th 2009 3:58AM
I 100% agree with him. She is using you to advertise her. There's Myspace for that.
I think Father's Day would have been a great chance to do something unique and touching. Instead we get an advertisement.....and she didn't even have to pay for the space.
Reinhold Jun 24th 2009 7:18AM
Hello!
I mean, Olá!
Espero que você leia os comentários, especialmente neste blog.
É bom saber que sempre temos Brazileiros espalhados no WoW.
E WoW é POPULAR PRA CARA***! Mas, muita gente nem admite jogar.
Sean Jun 24th 2009 12:57AM
Really interesting subject. For anyone who is interested in a brief glimpse of the Brazilian club culture, check out Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Sao Paulo episode. Throughout the interview I kept remembering images from that episode.
Also, Aspeh is the type of person I like to see interviewed in this column. Her life doesn't revolve around WoW but intersects with it in an interesting and formative way. For me, this column is my weekly, print edition of the "How I WoW" podcast. Great work and keep it up.
Extremitus Jun 24th 2009 4:31AM
I'll probably check out some of her music when I'm not at work. Feel free to inform me if things work differently in Brazil than they do here (EU) but I know a good few really talented DJs that game, WoW or otherwise, and they would just NEVER get offered a job at a party or club because frankly, they're so ubergeek that they are pretty unpresentable.
Take, for example, a friend of mine who has recently made little waves on local-media and internet channels for his creative use of the theramin (to play GH, RB and Mario with so far). He had to post his videos cropping out his face because when he posted his first one people ignored the theramin and just talked about how he looked. Next thing he posts a couple vids with his head cropped and suddenly he's in the newspaper and Kotaku, Awesomer etc. People now say things like "cool shirt" (Portal) and "wow i never heard of a theramin before" (probably the same ppl who commented on his first video with "zomg u fraek!")
Gz to Aspeth. I didn't say any of the things above to belittle her achievements or work, like I say I will be checking them out when I get home. To all the ppl saying that she shouldn't be profiled here because she doesn't play enough WoW - I see their point, they obviously want a little 15 minutes themselves to talk about 3s comps, Mimiron healing and the price of Runed Orbs these days. That said I do agree with one point that Saint makes - the father story would have been both nice to read and very timely. After all 15 Minutes' notes do say "from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door." Let's get a player next door! Anyone know a business tripping parent that uses WoW to keep in touch/have fun with their family while they're away? Or maybe the World's Oldest WoW Player? "Back when I were a lad, MMOs were nowt but fields"
@Lisa, I really like this column. Human interest pieces are a really nice break from the dearth of datamining that's been happening recently :)
Carcasshoof Jun 24th 2009 7:46AM
Not all that true. Here in Brazil theres a lot of WoW players, including me :]
Exemple is Warsong server... the number of brazilian players is huge and u can see a lot "BR" attached on their char's name.
Anyway, good luck with your music Aspeth, hope u can set your foot on Northrend soon.
Se cuida guria.
tim Jun 24th 2009 12:17PM
Super DOPE beat maker... props djAspeth! Mad props! Your music puts me in a trance =)