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In the nineties, Israelian DJ/producer Ziv Avriel left his home country to try his luck in The Netherlands. This turned out to be a good move because his DJ career picked up soon. Of course, he remembers his first gig very well. In 2015 he told me his story. “I had barely heard of beatmatching.”
“As long as I can remember, I was doing something with music. In the seventies, my mother played a lot of disco at home and my father was crazy about The Beatles.”
‘New’ sound
“The first track that really touched me, was Herbie Hancock’s Rock-IT, mixed by Grandmixer D.S.T. His DJ skills astounded me. This ‘new’ sound was my trigger to become a DJ.”
Beat-matching
“My first gig was in 1992 at my high school. I was spinning at a party that marked the end of the semester. I was doing it with a cassette deck and a turntable at the time. I still barely knew anything about beatmatching.” (laughs)
First Technics
“Fortunately, the crowd was having fun and they were all dancing. During this event I realized that this is what I wanted to do! From this moment on I saved up every penny I earned until I was able to buy my first Technics SL-1200. When I became the happy owner of this turntable, I was constantly mixing vinyl in my bedroom.”
Beersheba
“About a year later, I had the courage to present myself in real clubs. This was not an easy thing to do, because my birth town Beersheba (Israel) didn’t have a huge offer in clubs. On top of that, the residents didn’t want to lose their spots. By working hard and being patient, I finally got an opportunity, and I acquired a residency in one of the hot spots.”
Second home
“After a few years in playing most of Israel’s leading clubs, I decided to try my luck in Amsterdam. That was in 1997. By now, Amsterdam is my second home. I met numerous DJs who bought their vinyl legendary record store The Groove Connection, which was ran by DJ JP Lonestriker and Joost Bleeker.”
Trance Buddha
“Through my Defuse Records partner Daniel Englisch a.k.a. DJ Diablo, I got the opportunity to play in a big Amsterdam club, the Trance Buddha. A night I will never forget. To witness that many people dancing and enjoying my music, was awesome. Even though I played quite hard that night! That was the real start of my DJ career.”
“From that point forward, I’ve played in many clubs around the world. Together with Diablo and DJ Juriaan I also had a residency in the epic Amsterdam club Mazzo. And now, Daniel and I run our own Amsterdam based record label Defuse Records. As you can see, dreams do come true!”
This article is originally published on DJMag.nl on Wednesday April 15th 2015.