Audio By Carbonatix
“I was doing a set in Vancouver and people thought my name was Edgar Five,” laughs DJ Edgar V. Dance music junkies from South Florida would never make such a rookie mistake.
Mr. V (for Villamil), now 31, spun his way through the South Beach club scene before landing a sweeeet gig: opening for international DJs like Paul van Dyk and Paul Oakenfold at Club Space. “It was a little intimidating,” he says, but life as the number-two guy led to overseas engagements and a job as a “party mixologist” on 93.1 before the radio station abandoned its dance format.
Edgar developed a rep as a trance DJ (think fast, airy sounds that build to a climax), but also plays house (a little slower, but more thumpy). “I don’t stick to one genre. I just love music,” he says. “I spend about 10 to 15 hours a week sorting through stuff. I shop online a lot, at beatport.com and trackitdown.net.” For his live sets, he hasn’t yet switched to the new industry standard: a laptop with Final Scratch installed. “I bring CDs,” he says, “and a CD player — a CDJ1000 — that’s basically a digital turntable. It’s funny, though — I’ll still bring a bag of records, even though I only play two or three records in my set. So people can say, ‘He’s still got records.'”
Old-school cred leaves him with new-school nightmares: “All the kids are making music on computer programs. You don’t even need a set of Technics. You don’t even have to count the music! The computer does it for you. Anybody could be a DJ! In a way, it’s scary.” Edgar laughs, though, at the idea of being replaced by a hipster robot behind the decks. Spinning will always require a human, he thinks. “If I see people scatter away from the dance floor, I have to change gears. My main focus is to have the dance floor packed with people, and them going crazy.”
