Gettin Down at the 2018 DJ Expo in Atlantic City

Dance music and hiphop, DJ's and DJ culture have been an important part of my life for decades. I've promoted for dozens of nightclubs, gone to hundreds of events, seen and heard probably over 1,000 DJs, promoted and run my own events, and worked as a professional DJ for number of years. In recent times it's something I've not had the focus for, but in my heart it's never too far away.

So when one of my best friends (and the guy who convinced to pursue DJ'ing) called me up and asked if I wanted a ticket to the annual DJ Expo in Atlantic City, my response was "hells yea!" So I made my way down to the Harrah’s Casino where the event was held and this is a little retelling of my experience.

The DJ Expo is an event that's been going on for close to 30 years (if not longer). One of the main sponsors is DJ Times magazine, which as it says in there photo montage "was there when it all began!"

It's a three and half day event that features a show room floor from all the best gear manufacturers in DJ equipment, tutorials, seminars and workshops from veterans of the club world, as well as business aspects of things, plus after parties and hanging out with a whole lot of hard core music and gear nerds. In other words BIG FUN!

The first thing I did was meet Johnnie and grab my Expo pass.

Then we immediately hit the show room floor to check out the latest from DJ gear companies like Pioneer, Rane, Numark (my personal favorite), Roland, Allen & Heath; Lighting - American DJ, Chauvet; Speakers - Peavey, EV; and all the peripherals you can think of.

When I stepped inside I was blown away - because it felt like walking into a dozen open air night clubs that had no walls to separate them.

Every company had a DJ doing a demo with booming sound systems, lasers and the works. It brought a huge rush of excitement and a lot of flashbacks from my hardcore club days long gone by now:).

Loved this guys Tshirt

After geeking out on all the new gear and stuff, I went to check out some demos and was geeked to see Hank Shockley of the Bomb Squad who produced Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions album doing a Dj set at the Peavey booth on 45 records. Amazing.

And equally amazing, right behind him at the DAS booth was the legendary Jazzy Jay also playing a set!!

Then I went to check out the one panel I really wanted to see. Grand Wizard Theodore, Tremayne, Rob Swift and Mr. Sinista talking about the origins of DJ culture, its evolution and future.

When I went in, you could hear a pin drop, everyone was listening so intently.

They shared some of their wisdom and incredible stories from their careers. The best part for me was hearing how the scratch was invented by Grand Wizard Theodore as a teenager in his bed room. His mother came into his room while he was in the middle of a mix and he kept his hand on the record for too long. When he listened to the recording he realized it was a great sound effect and from then on the world of modern music would never be the same! Afterwards tons of people lined up for questions, until they had to clear the room for the next function.

After that we went to an after party for a while

and then hung out and chilled with some of Johnnie’s friends talking DJ stories for hours before calling it a night.

I'm feeling grateful to have friends like that who look out for me like that and throw me awesome invites out of the blue. We had a really great time and it's definitely one of the high lights of my summer!