DJ
Donovan
Last Night A DJ Saved My Life
DJ Donovan has been a prominent name in San Francisco since chance and fate gave
him the gift of DJing the VIP room at Ten15 Folsom as his first gig. Moving back
from Los Angeles 10 years ago, Donovan has brought a part of the Hollywood
glamour to San Francisco, thus creating an empire spanning from club promoter to
an up and coming fashion designer. Love him or hate him, there’s no denying this
man has fueled the rise of upscale nightlife in San Francisco along with being a
prolific deep house DJ, with his newest Seduction Series CD dropping on December
13.
SF Station: What is your favorite
type of music? I know you play a lot of deep house, how did you get
into that whole genre?
DJ Donovan: Must people don’t know
this, but I actually used to be huge hip hop & rap fan. I grew up
on Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Ice T, Eazy E, Ice Cube, NWA, Public
Enemy, KRS One & Boogie Down Productions and the list goes on. I
was the only “white kid” at my school that listened to and danced to
hip hop before it became mainstream. I’ve been an avid music
collector for as long as I can remember. I moved back up to San
Francisco after attending UCLA to pay off my school loans, but
ultimately planned to move back to Los Angeles to be in the
entertainment industry. I started attending parties in San
Francisco, got introduced to Martel & Nabiel and their “Release”
parties at Ten15 Folsom, and for the first time heard “good” house
music and fell in love with this dance music genre. I couldn’t get
enough of it. I started shopping at record stores like Tower &
Virgin and couldn’t find the music I was hearing at the clubs, so I
started going up to the DJs playing at parties and asking them where
they bought their music. They told me about underground DJ record
stores in the city, so I started buying vinyl from these local shops
and burning records onto CDs so I could simply work out to them at
the gym. One day I was at Guitar Center and saw a “sales special” on
DJ turntables, so I bought a pair. At that time, every other young
guy in San Francisco was a bedroom DJ and was more likely to own a
pair of turntables than a Sony Playstation. Because of the surplus
of talented DJs in San Francisco at that time, breaking into the
scene as a professional DJ was extremely competitive and I never
thought I could ever become a real DJ. Just for fun, I started
making my own DJ mixes and started playing my friends’ house
parties. One night at a party, a good friend of mine lied to a
popular club promoter and said I was the shit in Paris, which lead
to my first “real” DJ booking to play an afterhours party at “Boys
Toys” strip club for $100. I was so excited, I sent invitations to
all of my friends and even took my dad to the strip club for dinner
earlier that week to scope the place out. However, the day before
the event, the promoter said he couldn’t secure the proper permits
for a dance party and the event was cancelled.
SF Station: Really?… no dance party
in a strip club?! Then how did you get your big break?
DJ Donovan: I was pretty
devastated, however, within less than 24 hours, the promoter locked
down the VIP Room at Ten15 Folsom, which at that time was the most
prestigious room in the city to play deep house music Playing the
VIP Room at Ten15 Folsom was where all the most famous deep house
DJs played, including names like Deep Dish, Behrouz, and Marques
Wyatt. DJing this famous room was every bedroom DJ’s wet dream,
and, coincidentally, by complete fluke, the first DJ gig of my
career was playing there. My set was at 4am; however, the place was
going off and the dancefloor was crazy packed. After that DJ
booking, because I played Ten15 & its prestigious VIP Room, I had
instant credibility in the city and started getting booked
everywhere.
SF Station: What cemented a
decision to quit your corporate job and pursue your passion?
DJ Donovan: All my life, I have
always been artist and always needed to express myself through some
art form or another. I painted, I drew, I sculpted, I wrote poetry,
I wrote short stories, I even produced a 45 minute independent
film. DJing was just another art form for me and made perfect sense
since I had been an avid music collector all my life and always
loved to dance. I never pursued my art as a career. My mother
always told me it was a hobby. I was a corporate guy working in
Silicon Valley doing software sales and business development. I
made six figures at an early age in my career, but was absolutely
miserable. I felt like my spirit and soul were dead and I was
living a very “cookie-cutter” life that wasn’t me. When the
high-tech sector tanked in the early 2000’s after the dot com bust,
I decided to take a few months off from the corporate world and see
if I could make enough money DJing to simply pay my bills. My
family thought I was crazy for choosing the life of a “struggling
and starving” artist, but I was happier. What I thought would maybe
be a 6 month leave of absence from the corporate world has now
turned into 6 years and I don’t see me every going back.
SF Station: Any particular people
that inspired you to do what you want to do?
DJ Donovan: When I first started
going out and listening to house music, the DJs who inspired me the
most were Miguel Migs, Julius Papp, David Harness, and Ellen Ferrato
to name a few. Mark Farina was another inspiration in his own unique
way. These were the guys who I studied and tried to be like. In the
beginning, I emulated what they did and really didn’t have my own
sound. It took several years to really branch out and find my own
flavor, but ultimately I found the “Donovan” signature sound and
vibe.
SF Station: Tell me about your
Seduction Series CDs?
DJ Donovan: That was actually my
first real CD series. The first “Seduction” CD Release Party was
back in 2002 at the W hotel, my first DJ residency ever. The point
of “Seduction: Sexy Seductive Beats for the Bedroom” was to show a
very erotic and sensual side of house music. I wanted to produce a
CD that people would put on the shelf alongside Sade, Prince or
Maxwell that set “the right mood” with that special somebody.
Essentially, it was a sex CD. The first Seduction was huge hit and
Seduction 2 was an even bigger success. I remember bumping into the
owners of PleasureZone and them telling me Seduction 2 was the
“official” anthem CD for their PZ afterparties, so I knew I was onto
something here and doing something right. And when I walked into
popular clothing stores, restaurants, and lounges around the city
and kept hearing “Seduction” playing everywhere, I knew I had
arrived. It’s been almost 5 years since I produced Seduction 2 and
a lot of people still play that CD. People keep asking me to
produce another one. The timing felt right, I wanted to return to
my deep house roots, so I’ve been working really hard on this third
compliation. A lot of DJs will rip out a promo CD in a day, but I
spend months on compiling my mixes. I will pull a100 songs and
listen to them over and over and over again. Only the songs I don’t
get sick of and that keep their magic after a hundred listens make
the final cut. When it comes to mixing, I work very hard on finding
the right combination and creating mixes that are artistic and
create an emotional impact for my listener. I’ll reconfigure the
order of the songs several times before finding that right
combination that takes people on the right musical journey I want to
take them on. The Seduction CDs have three parts: The Love
Sessions, The Lust Sessions, and The Climax. Each song has been
closely studied, evaluated and “tested” for seal of approval. Yeah,
I always have a lot of fun
making these
CDs.
SF Station: What is the message you
want to say with your music? What is important to you?
DJ Donovan: From day one, I’ve
always been a huge Prince fan. The thing about his music that I’ve
always admired is how sexy it makes you feel. I learned a lot of my
sexuality through Prince’s music and his vibe. I wanted to
replicate what I learned from him through house music. I just want
to make people feel sexy, make women feel beautiful and desired and
bring people together in a sensual, yet classy way on the dancefloor
or in the bedroom. That’s always been my goal from day one.
SF Station: It’s hard to cater to
the upscale market here in San Francisco. What made you stay here in
San Francisco and not Hollywood?
DJ Donovan: I went to Hollywood to
check out the nightlife scene after being in San Francisco for a few
years, and they were still all playing top 40, which wasn’t the vibe
I wanted and no longer resonated with me. I realized how important
house music had become in my life and how it fed my soul. Although
I know hip hop and top 40 are way more popular amongst the younger
generation, hip hop is a very different culture. That style of
music attracts a very different audience, a very different dance
style, and very different behavior that you don’t see at a house
party. LA has the upscale clubs and the hot crowd, but San
Francisco has the vibe and the etiquette. I saw an opportunity to
combine the two and bring the best of both worlds together. I
realized there was a demand for this in the Bay Area that nobody was
catering to it, so I created it. My first event was at a club
called Harry Denton’s Rouge. I threw a party called “Rendezvous”,
where the tagline of the party was “It’s a fashion show where YOU
are the supermodel.” I remember my industry peers thinking I was an
idiot because they said San Francisco’s nightlife culture was laid
back and casual and “all about the music”. They said San
Franciscans weren’t fashion savvy and people would perceive me and
my parties as pretentious and would be intimidated to come to my
event because they would have to dress up and have to be pretty to
feel comfortable. They said my party would be empty. I didn’t
care. I told them I’d rather throw a half-empty party with gorgeous
people dressing fashionable than a packed party with people who
didn’t take any pride in their appearance. However, the Rendezvous
fashion parties were a huge success, beautiful girls came out
dressed in big furs and stilettos, and the Donovan parties were
born. Since that event over 7 years ago, San Francisco has
completely transformed into a city where new clubs, lounges,
restaurants, hotels, and promoters now cater to this upscale,
sophisticated market. I would like to believe I had significant
part in initiating this huge upscale movement towards making San
Francisco’s nightlife a more sophisticated and classy city to go
party.
SF Station: How do you stay on top
and remain innovative with so much competition?
DJ Donovan: You’re only as good as
your last party. Your customer can easily turn on you at any
minute. There is very little customer loyalty in this business.
The only way I have been successful is by staying innovative and
constantly offering my customers a new experience. I admire the
promoters in this city that can throw the same party at the same
venue year after year after year and keep packing the place.
Because of the type of clientele I cater to, the same party at the
same venue will lose customer appeal after 6 months or less.
Sticking and moving has always been my business strategy. The
only exception to this rule has been my 2 year residency at Slide
where I have come up with new clever ways to excite my clientele to
want to come back week after week. Everything from 944 & SOMA
Magazine parties, to fashion shows, to movie premiere parties, to
charity events, to special guest DJs and performers, and various
fashion events with world-famous brands like Vogue, GQ, Calvin
Klein, Diesel, and Armani Exchange. It takes a lot of time and
energy to keep coming up with something original, but I’m an artist,
I love to create, and I like the challenge that keeps me pushing my
creative boundaries. That’s why I do what I do.
SF Station: So what words does this
artist live by?
DJ Donovan: My favorite artist
quote of all time was by my biggest inspiration Prince. He once
said "The
minute I stop creating music, I will die".
I connect a lot with that quote. My life is about creation. The
minute I stop pushing my creative boundaries, which right now is
producing high quality events and creating sexy, sophisticated
experiences for people, I will feel like I’m not living my life.
Experience the biggest,
most high profile New Years Eve event of San Francisco at City Hall
with DJ Donovan and check out the most beautiful, well-dressed
people the Bay Area has to offer. Visit
www.donovansf.com to learn more
about Donovan and his upscale, fashion events.
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