It all started in December of 1994; this is when I met my to be mobile disco business partner Ryan. He was a Mobile/Club DJ for the past 8 years, and was ready to give up and move on with his life. I guess it wasn’t the best thing for me to meet him but I told him that I wanted to learn the tricks of the trade. Ready to sell his equipment, he changed his mind and decided to hold on to it for a little while more just to see how I would work out with him (I guess all went well considering or company is going strong).  To be an equal partner, I bought a pair of turntables, a mixer, and a power amp (It was these four things that were necessary to keep the mobile running. Ryan’s old equipment was worn due to its life on the road). I practiced the art of mixing and whenever we had a gig I would bring my equipment and Ryan would bring his stuff.  Together, we had a half-ass system.  We did a gig here and there until we could buy new equipment.  After time went by, we ended up with a shit load of new stuff and a whole bunch of records. Business was decent until the summer after I graduated from high school.  That summer our mobile averaged two gigs a week. That was awesome considering we would do one job a month.

It was around that time that we met a guy from San Francisco named Dan-o who was trying to make it as a night club promoter.  Little did I know he had no idea what he was doing but at the time I was young and dumb so I worked under him mixing at various locations. While mixing for his promotions company named Word of Mouth Productions I mixed at a bar in Wahiawa named Val’s Place, and a run down little night club in downtown Honolulu named The Fast Zone.  In the short period I worked or him, I met a lot of people which was good and bad. Mostly good I would say.  If it wasn’t for Dan-o I would never have gotten where I’ve got so far. It was Dan-o who taught me what made a good radio DJ.

With my goals still set at being a big club or mixshow DJ, I didn’t really care about radio DJ’ing or what Dan-o had told me.  I thought radio DJ’s had the easiest job in the world. Oh boy was I wrong.

I then started college and continued working with the mobile doing a few gigs a month.  I also started talking CB because Ryan got had gotten into CB radio (again!).  It was fun talking CB, it’s kinda like a walkie-talkie but at a greater scale.  Out of my car I could broadcast clear across the island.  There were a few factor that influenced my transmit range but I can’t say nothing about that.  Okay, well… one night I went out with my high school buddies. One dude which became to be known as Big Bar of the Afternoon Caribbean Session wanted to talk on my CB radio. I said NO, but after a few beers I changed my mind and we started to broadcast on the Citizens Band like it was a FM station.  That was fun I must say.  The few privileged people who heard us broadcast illegally liked our selection.  So a few weeks later, Big Bar and I went to the UH college radio station KTUH and applied to be DJ’s there.

We didn’t begin training until the end of our freshman year of college.  I believe we waited about 7 or 8 months but anyways now we were on our way to being on real radio.  Training lasted around a month, it was after that we got our first air shift together. Tuesday mornings from 3 – 6 AM was the Underground Madness radio show.  We played all kinds of shit. 80’s rock, ska, reggae, punk, house, hip-hop, classical, swing, etc.  We even had a mixshow at 4:40 in the morning.  This radio show only lasted 6 weeks.  We then moved to Monday afternoons 3 – 6 PM.  This show was called the Afternoon Caribbean Session.  This show’s genre showcased music from the Caribbean, especially Reggae music.

Then by chance, right before my sophomore year of college Dan-o gives me a call and tells me that his boy Chumley who used to do the Sunday night cruising classics on 93.1 KQMQ was running Rendevous Night Club.  So I went down and checked out Chumley who hooked me up with mixing Friday nights and Sunday nights.  This was cool; it gave me a little extra money and a lot of practice.  Dan-o also landed me a job at another club called Carnegie.  I had to turn the job down after working two nights because they wanted a full time DJ who would work every night.  Not to mention, the pay was pretty weak too.  But I was close to the main DJ at Rendezvous so I thought that was enough for me.  Don’t forget I also had a full load of classes to deal with in the day.  I worked at Rendezvous until it got bought out by James Coles at the end of 1997 and became The Mixx.  

Hmmm let’s see… I was partners with Big bar on-air up until January of 1998.  It was then I took over the Saturday 6-9 PM Reggae show.  I inherited this show from Ninjah Dread because he was graduating from grad school.  Now this show played nothing but the hardest roots Reggae to be found in Hawaii.  It was kinda an honor for me to take this time slot but I had no choice.  Once I told Ninjah Dread I would take over his show after he leaves, meant the responsibility of me spreading the roots culture on to the people of Hawaii.   These were some big shoes to fill.  Well, that semester went by and Ninjah Dread graduated to become Doctor Dread, and the show became all mine.  Now it was my duty to bring the most irie Reggae music I could find.  (Yes I’m still on this same radio show, and I love it =) and did I mention, that sometime while I was at KTUH I was bit by the radio bug?

Now comes the summer of ’98.  Probably the most intense summer of my life.  Chumley, who now was going by Rico calls me up and tells me he ‘s going to I-94 to run the street team and he wanted me to be his right hand man.  Well how could I refuse this offer?  So I started to run the street team with him.  We then changed the name to the Bomb Squad and started to get things rolling.  Got rid of the old and in with the new is what he done.  We set up some deals with some other companies to throw together a promotional vehicle for us.  He even got me on the live Friday night mixshow, which was hosted by DJ Jay-P! and himself. I was live in the mixed for about two months until moves in radio brought back James Coles as MD at I-94.  Don’t get me wrong James Coles is a good man, but he wanted the mixshows on I-94 to sound a step above the rest so there went my on-air career as a mixer. Things were still running sweet, and after a summer of station events and promotion after promotion, the Bomb Squad ended up losing our promo vehicle in the Christmas of '98 to Xtreme Radio. 

Anyone know anything about the Surge Cab? Becasue after the Dew Mobile got snagged, we ended up with this old 1960 taxi cab with Surge soda printed all over it.  The vehicle kinda was hard to drive but after about one month, we ended up getting the Dew Mobile back.  Well after a few more moves in radio, things just didn't look like it was going to go my way in the radio industry. It didn't look likely that I would move up out of the street team. Confused and ready to quit, 93.1 KQMQ pulls an on-air stunt and plays Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca" for hours and hours straight sometime right after the summer of '99.  The next day, KQMQ changed formats from their previous Top 40 format to a CHR/Urban station.  In their normal on-air alias they dropped the call letters from "93.1 KQMQ" and became, "Jammin' 93.1"   This station was sounding soo fucking good, after the first hour of listening, I wanted to find out if there was a way in. Previous to the format change I heard rumors going around that a programmer out of Power 106, L.A. was moving to town but I had no contacts what so ever.

Until one day about two weeks later, I got a call from New Wave Broadcasting...  (more to come)

As for UGM Records, a division of UGM Inc., I've been producing a few tapes here and there with a diferent type of music per tape, depending on what I feel like spinning that day I make a mix tape. I guess on average, I make about four tapes per month. (for mix tape info e-mail the address at the bottom of the page) Also I'm starting to produce my own house, to me it sounds more like a pounder/progressive type, but it's not as easy as I expected. I have many limitations in my so called studio, so production for me can only go so far. I've been using a lot of cuts off of DJ Sneak's albums and a lot a cuts from old tribal songs. Soon, one day I hope to get this art form down. Speaking of making my own music, I've also gotten into my own remixing. (mostly booty jams) Same goes with live music. My business partner, Ryan has gotten into studio recording and with the equipment allowed we do a hell of good job. Multitracked or one-shot recordings it's all good.  If you have any quetions regarding studio recording e-mail: cmd@ugmadness.com but soon I hope to be able to produce some local MC's ready to represent the Aloha State.

Well boys and girls, there will be more to come later. Hope you enjoyed your textual stay about my life and mixing. If you're a single female and read this far and think my life/career sounds interesting, please e-mail me. I know I sound desperate but hey, it's worth a try with the luck I've been having since I got into radio. *Okay, a year and a half later I did some revisions =) 5/24/98 and 7 months later here's more... 4/1/99 one mo gen 1/21/2G baby...

Any comments and/or questions about UGM Records, new UGM releases, or any of my material, e-mail me at krazyk@UGMadness.com Until we meet again, Keep it real and bumpin' IN THE MIXX
 

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