Audio By Carbonatix
Every week, Hollywood’s DJ Wendel Marcisse combs through bins of vinyl at local record stores or sifts through music his friends have sent him. With each new beat that greets his ears, his anticipation multiplies like that of a deep-sea fisherman hauling up a scaly critter of the sea. Love of the unknown drives this Haitian-accented, Brooklyn-born DJ. Chances are, no matter how many times you hear Wendel spin, you’ll never hear the same song twice.
“It’s a major turn-on for me to hear a new record at my house,” Wendel declares. “I just can’t wait to play that record because I’m just anticipating the reaction I’m going to get from the crowd that particular night, just seeing their reaction when that record actually hits. Something you can do to shock them, get their attention — that’s my main focus. Just to see what I get from them is a major, major high for me.”
One hundred and fifty to 200 new releases each week keep Wendel DJing on a regular basis. He aims to educate with his mixology. Two hours before a set, he’ll listen to the other DJs to avoid duplicating what’s been spun already. The DJ’s shelf life is fleeting, so Wendel plays a record from the time he gets it until it’s officially released. Since by that time, everyone’s already heard it, Wendel can offer it early retirement (gold watch optional). If he’s spinning at a venue he’s never played, he gets twice as amped. “A place I’ve never played is usually my best night, 90 percent of the time,” he gushes.
Wendel has been turntabling in South Florida for a decade. DJing became an outgrowth of his hardcore vinyl-buying habit; the music he liked came only via that format. He enrolled in the music-performance program at the University of Miami long enough to get a better understanding of how music works, knowing that no classroom could prepare him for the business side of music, where it’s all about who you know.
Wendel’s newest remix album, Evolution of Breaks, arrived in February on the Miami-based Max Music label. The breaksmeister is in the process of starting his own imprint, On the Move Recordings, and plans to have something available by early next year.
Wendel is known as a breaks DJ now, although he’s leery of such typecasting. An earlier progressive-trance album, Emit, showcased his genre versatility. Still, he loves playing all styles of breaks, including electro, new school, and the homegrown Florida variety. “If the record blows up and it makes people on the floor dance,” he says, “that’s more important to me than what style of music it is.”
And he’s quick to defend the often-dissed Florida crop.
“People don’t understand that everybody who produces breaks overseas is very influenced by Florida breaks, believe it or not, because that’s where they hear them first,” he asserts. “You’d be surprised the amount of breaks overseas that you hear people sample from down here. It’s the same sound; it’s just altered.”
He believes the bigger issue with the anti-Florida sentiment might be that people don’t want to support local electronica. The “Florida breaks” tag can itself be a stumbling block. “I think people just don’t want to admit that they like them,” Wendel theorizes. “I can play one record for one person and have them listen without ever telling them what it is and they’ll like it. But I’ll tell them it’s made by a Florida producer and they shun it. And that’s bad.”
The wow factor derived from flying in international DJs and inflating them to demigod status at South Florida nightclubs often overrides local talent already thriving here. Wendel cites Danny Tenaglia, a part-time resident at Club Space known for playing 18-hour sets, as an example. Tenaglia moved to Miami in 1985, where he oversaw a dance revolution until he moved back to New York City five years later. “You would be surprised the amount of talent down here that people don’t know about,” Wendel points out. Still, he feels that locally he gets a fair shake, his friends appreciate what he does, and he meets people who appreciate the style of music he plays. “That’s a very good feeling,” he says. “Even though I get that when I do play out of town, it’s a lot more comforting when you get that from the people that you live around.”
Getting enough deck time and finding a venue that showcases breaks — both of which are rare these days — are barriers that may signal a disheartening chill in the nightclub air. Wendel believes consolidating several DJs on one bill is turning the scene into more of a business than anything else. Five or six years ago, he recalls, promoters didn’t have to stick 30 DJs on a flier to bring in a crowd of a few hundred. Now, unless it’s a big-name DJ, a slew of lower-profile turntablists is required to attract a sizable draw. The downside: jacked-up ticket prices and a mere hour allotted each DJ.
“Forty-five minutes is like three or four records,” Wendel says glumly. “By the time the DJ gets into a groove, they already have to get off. I think that’s cheating the customer [who is] paying that much to go to something like that and not having a chance to enjoy the person they’re going to see.”
Wendel picked up a residency in Fort Lauderdale recently, so he won’t have to worry about being stacked with dozens of other DJs. And he can continue doing what he loves, which is even more gratifying to him when it rubs off on clubgoers.
“Meeting new people and [hearing] them telling you that they’ve been going to see you for a long time and they’ve never had a chance to meet you — that’s what I like the most about DJing and entertaining people,” he says. “I love seeing people going off on a record I just put on the tables and they’re bouncing off the walls… that’s a very, very big high for me.”
