USA Spotlight#2 —JUICE Drum and Bass & BassRoutes Agency (Portland, Oregon)
Portland, Oregon, is a vibrant and scenic city in the USA’s Pacific Northwest. The largest city in the state, it is famed for its huge expanses of green space, from parks and forests to breath taking mountaintops, lakes and rivers. It’s well-known slogan “Keep Portland Weird” highlights a funky counter culture of hipsters, art, diverse music and eclectic food carts.
But what about the DNB scene there? We’re on a quest to uncover the history of drum and bass in America by highlighting the scene in each of the 50 states, (having started with MetaPattern and Atlanta in April). We’re continuing on with the adventure this month.
This second edition sees us head over to the upper northwest region of the country, to chat with highly talented agency director of BassRoutes Agency, LLC-and promotor/founder & DJ of JUICE Drum and Bass (now running 17 years): Chemynne Perlingieri, based in…you guessed it…Portland, Oregon!
Juice Drum and Bass!! Welcome in! Portland, Oregon is in the house!
Before we get into this proper, could you possible give us a run down on what you know about the DNB scene in Oregon pre-2005, which is when you started JUICE?
When JUICE started in Bend, there was just one night running regularly in Portland called CRUSH. (Bend is 3 hours SE of Portland.) CRUSH ran for 11 years before the founder (Noah D) went on to producing and traveling to play out. Sometimes we would ‘flightshare’ on talent in an effort to get producers to come to Oregon, because at that time, they most often passed over Oregon and went straight to Seattle.
It was tough getting agents and artists to *see* Oregon as a viable stop on a tour, and we relied heavily on posting in forums like NW Tekno and DOA.
Yours is a pretty epic story, so let’s start first with you yourself. You are originally from San Francisco, and of all of the places to grow up, this seems like one of the most exciting potentially, especially in terms of music and culture.
The 60’s psychedelic movement, City Lights bookstore……I could go on! What would you say SF gave to you in terms of art and culture?
Absolutely. Actually I was born in Manhattan, NYC! Ha, but that’s another story.
I mean…the Bay Area is rich with culture. Before I moved to Oregon, I was a student and saturated the daily grind of surviving in the city as a designer, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to take in all that the area offered other than art openings and frequent trips to the Museum of Modern Art, a few blocks from school. What I really loved was how ‘free’ the city felt back in the 90s.
I lived in the Castro for some years—home to one of the greatest and most progressive LGBTQ+ communities in the world. There were demonstrations, and naked bike rides monthly (originally called Critical Mass). I was a part of something that was pivotal in affecting west coast legislature & politics at the time. I felt like I could ‘be myself’—which was dope because I never really ‘fitted in’ anywhere. Every week there was a lot to do, and although I couldn’t always get out to events, I was stoked that the options were there. Slowly SF started to get very expensive and gentrified in the late 90s, and eventually that drove me out of the state.
What I am really grateful for is that San Francisco exposed me to DNB. I used to tape record and listen to KUSF “Friday Night Sessions” (a college radio weekly), and that was really where I was first exposed to the genre through artists like Big Bud, Peshay, LTJ Bukem, Photek, Amon Tobin, Talvin Singh. KUSF played a lot of 160bpm type of stuff with a real jazzy feel. I was enamoured with it and tried to never miss the show (and I used to record it on tape!). Plus we had Amoeba Records on Haight Street, and they had an amazing electronic music section (still do).
Mid 90’s, I took in my *first* drum and bass show by accident at a small café a few blocks away from the University. I’d been in-studio working on a final project all day, and walked over to the spot to grab some espresso late in the evening.
It was loud AF, and packed. The beats were amazing. It was Kemistry and Storm playing, and I squeezed in for ten bucks. I had never heard of them. It was my first exposure to jungle and ‘fast soul music’…and I had the time of my life. It was sweaty, deep, danceable…I was done. I’d found my music. I felt really fortunate to catch that since Kemi passed away just a few short years later.
You are trained in textile print and graphic design. What influenced the decision to study in those areas?
As a teenager, I took silk-screening early on at University in San Diego, and I loved it. I was a ‘doodler’ by trade, and discovered my doodles could be turned into prints. I decided to set my sights on trying to get into the toughest school in the country for fashion and textiles (Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC), and after a year long application process, got in on a partial scholarship. Crossed the country by car to go there for 3 years and earned my first degree. During this time I escaped an abusive relationship, and had back surgery at 18, so the fact that I graduated with honours was nothing short of a miracle.
I left New York and worked in that industry for 7 years before realizing I wanted to get deeper into design work…typography, packaging, tradeshow booth design, etc.So I went back to school (in San Fran) to get a BFA in Graphic Design, with a focus on branding and marketing. Plus, it was when colleges and the industry on the whole morphed into using computers as a standard, and I had zero technical/computer experience—so it was a way to keep my skills current.
Moving on to DNB then, how did you discover this essentially British musical movement out there in America?
Well, I touched on this above in my SF history. I grew up with a lot of jazz, funk, soul, R&B and hip hop. My early teen roots were with ska, reggae, and punk music. I loved ska, owned a Vespa and got into the culture through that route.College radio was ultimately what turned me onto DNB. I also travelled in my teens and early 20s to the UK and around EU, though I wasn’t really aware that DNB existed at that time. By the time I heard the music in San Fran, I realized it was the ultimate combo of all these styles of music I loved, but wrapped up seamlessly into this new-school dance music.
It was like, the *sounds of now* to me! Still is.
It was while living in Bend, Oregon that you had the idea to promote DNB in the USA then, right?
Yes. By that time I was running my own design agency: Mulch Design, and was deep into the music, just as a listener. DNB was barely coming to Oregon—and not coming to Bend at all. I wanted to have an effect on my community, and I had the money to invest in it. A couple of good friends were running a fantastic bar/restaurant/venue called The Grove, which hosted most of the great electronic music in town.
I convinced them to give me the last Saturday of the month to dedicate to DNB shows, and JUICE was born. The shows did well and I feel like we started something special there. Some of the first feature artists I had out there were Big Bud, Kubiks and Lomax, Will Miles, Stunna, Bachelors of Science, Method One, and ASC. Bend had never heard this kind of music.
They took a gamble on me, and to this day, I’m eternally grateful to Erica and Chris for giving me a chance, because JUICE would have never started or thrived without their support.
I guess your creative side helped you move that vision forward from simply being an idea? What were the first steps in making it happen?
In a nutshell, I used my professional design skills to create the JUICE Drum and Bass brand, early merch, and all the associated printed and online materials. We did a lot more print then. I put up posters and flyers *everywhere.* I don’t like to do anything half-assed, so I put in a lot of effort into its marketing and promotion, in order to get the Pacific Northwest on the map for drum and bass. I was basically on a mission to tell people about the music hahahaha. DNB shows never made much revenue, but my business was doing well enough to support the shows, so I kept going. It was a labour of love that I never imagined would endure this long.
JUICE DNB’s 17th Anniversary IRL show in Portland April 29th, 2022 with LTJ Bukem and Redeyes.
As a woman in DNB, what if any obstacles did you/do you come across? You state that most people new to JUICE expect it to be run by a bunch of guys initially? Do you feel like you’ve had to fight harder to gain recognition?
Yes, Ooof. I mean, this is a loaded question. And I don’t want to piss anyone off but let’s get to the facts. Most every message I receive on social media or via email to this day (unless people have done their homework), addresses me as a ‘homie, dude, bro,’ etc. I’ve heard it all. It’s a bummer that people in the general scene seem to (by default) think that women don’t have much to do with pushing the genre.
DNB (up until recently) has always been fairly exclusionary to women in the industry (and I’m sure women producers will reflect on this strongly). At first I didn’t notice, and didn’t care (probably because I had another full career as a designer). But after my night was running a good ten years, I really started to feel it. Where I initially felt it the most, was being flat out ignored by other agents in the industry when I was looking to book artists. Many would hardly ever return my calls or emails, even though I had years of great, professionally run shows to cite on my ‘resume’ (don’t mention two degrees).
I pounded on a lot of doors, and sometimes had to ask artists who played for JUICE to recommend us to others. I was the lady that wouldn’t get out of people’s email boxes, ha! One of the ways I conquered this was by traveling frequently to the UK to meet artists directly, sticking my card and flyers in their hands to connect directly, so they’d know I was genuine. Not many American women were traveling 6k miles for a show, you know? Ultimately the artists were more receptive to JUICE DNB than stateside agents and promoters were to me.
I’ve knocked on almost every door of industry-standard publications too, but still almost *never* get a response, even though I head up the longest running DNB night in Oregon, and one of the longest running in the US now. One would think that by now I’ve ‘done my time’ and proved my worth in this stateside scene, but I still feel the burn of being overlooked or disrespected in daily business, even with agency work lately. I could go on but you get the point.
I *think* BassRoutes may be the only woman-owned drum and bass agency in the US…but if there are any other woman-owned businesses out there doing this…I would love to meet them! I’m definitely seeing some acknowledgment and changes now—especially for women DNB producers—but other women in the industry involved in sound, lighting, design, marketing, promotion, agency work, etc., are still often not given the spotlights they deserve. So thank you for the opportunity here on this feature…it means a lot!
The scene is improving, but has a long way to go.
So, you decided to move from Bend up to Portland in 2011. What influenced that decision? Was there already a DNB scene cooking there?
It was post the 2008 economic crash and things were pretty depressed in Bend, and all over really. I was a new mom too. I was hopeful that the move to Portland would bring more design work, better draw for doing shows, and a more diverse environment culturally in which to raise my kid. It took a number of years to get established, but it was a move for the better. I’ve now been here 13 years (the ten previous were spent in Bend), and I just love this city. I love Oregon.
There were a couple of nights running when I got to PDX, but everyone played soooo hard. I wasn’t hearing the lighter, uplifting style of DNB JUICE was promoting, so that just fuelled my desire to bring it so people could hear how DNB could have a really soulful, jazzy slant. I can’t tell you how many listeners over the years have said to me “I’ve never heard dance music like this,” or “I’ve never heard this kind of DNB.”
Tell us a bit about the venues you’ve used for JUICE events then. How did the venue owners react to it at first? I’m guessing you don’t here DNB on the radio much over there?
Yeah, you really don’t hear much DNB on local radio here if at all. It’s just not that ‘mainstream.’ Our local jazz radio KMHD will play a cut every now and again on their “New Jazz for Lunch” show, but if you’re talking outside of online radio, there’s not much.
We’ve been in all kinds of venues, most under 175 capacity, some a bit larger. We’ve even made appearances at Oregon Winterfest back in the day. In general, we’ve always run up against obstacles with getting space at venues. DNB only has so much pull in Oregon and in a city of 700k. The Grove was one of the best spots we lived in early on in Bend.
Once in Portland, we ran for a couple years at The Groove Suite (underground vibe, 100 capacity) which later closed due to building retrofitting. There a number of others, including the Rose, Paris, Fifth Avenue Lounge. We were at Fifth Ave for near 5 years. All of these closed due to building owner issues, need for renovations, or selling the business. Each time this happened, JUICE was out on the street essentially, forced to find another spot. It’s been challenging.
We ran on Thursdays for a couple years because many venues didn’t want to give us a Friday or Saturday night dedicated to drum and bass, (they’d rather give it up for a rock tour, house or bass music). I couldn’t keep up the weekdays…turnout was not optimal and I lost a lot of money. DNB still struggles in the US, which is why I still want to push it. I simply don’t want to give up on the beauty of this music and exposing people to it.
Pre-Covid, we were at The Whiskey Bar…kind of a rough spot downtown but great space and sound system, high ceilings, 300 capacity. We ran monthly there for near three years until everything was shut in 2020 as the pandemic started. The Whiskey never re-opened.
One thing I bet you didn’t struggle with is the branding! It must be nice to put your artistic talents to good use for yourself and for your own benefit after so many years of working for other people?
The way I could best support the success of this night was by treating it like a paying client, and doing the very best job possible. Consistent branding has been the key to JUICE Drum and Bass’ exposure, but also keeping things fresh with ever changing merch and graphics. I’ve been grateful to have my background experience to support that. Plus JUICE really gives me a chance and place to put *all* my skills to work.
You’ve had a ridiculous amount of global talent come through the doors to play at JUICE events. Tell us about a couple of the highlights, and maybe tell us a bit about your home grown crew?
Hm…so many amazing producers! One for the books was LSB and DRS coming out in early 2019 for our 14th Anniversary. We did a one off, sell-out show at this amazing venue called No Vacancy Lounge, and sadly they literally closed a month afterwards again due again to building issues. It was an honour to host those guys, and they stayed in PDX for two days and hung out.
Having Big Bud in Bend in 2006 was another highlight…his LA show got cancelled and he ended up crashing at our pad for a week. (We’ve been friends ever since.) Another incredible event in 2019 was hosting Emma G with Tali, and Command Strange. The vibes were immense, and such a pleasure to host such talented artists with more women’s presence.
I’d definitely have to say the highest vibe I’ve ever felt over the years was three weeks ago at our sold out 17th Anniversary show here in PDX with Redeyes and LTJ Bukem, Kid Hops, Praderz and MC Questionmark. Brett McConnell put on an amazing laser show and lighting, sound was on point, and the new venue we were at, the Holocene, was 100% supportive and amazing to work with. It was packed, and pivotal for us, after not having IRL shows for two years. We also streamed it (through Redeyes’ set) to Twitch, for our listeners there. We plan to work with Holocene again for a special Thursday October 6th show.
Our home grown crew has always been small. I have always worn many and *every* hat in the business, down to hitting the streets with posters. We were always just a staff of like 3-4 people on gig nights at best. My husband Thijs Boonstra, and three others are still involved with events: Nicholas Goodroad (Icedbreaks), Paul Skalleberg (Subfugitive), and more recently Damon Gaumont (Axiom). Unfortunately Paul is out of state currently, and well, we’re only doing a handful of IRL shows right now due to lack of venue availability, prohibitive costs, and of course, Covid. Many thanks go to Maria Chaparro for all her efforts as part of the team for a number of years. And one of my closest friends Drew Cullen was also involved for near 7 years, but sadly he passed away suddenly from a stroke in 2017. I still have trouble getting over that.
Great musical support and backbone to JUICE events also comes from some of the area’s finest residents: Definition Positive (DNB Radio PDX/Salem) who has been with us over ten years! Also Revival (Soul Deep Recs/Fokuz/PDX), Praderz (Deep Space Recs/UK/PDX/LA), Subfugitive (PDX/VA), Axiom (PDX) and MC Questionmark (PDX/LA/UK) are still playing for JUICE livestreams and select IRL events.
JUICE’s fantastic photographer Van Adam Davis out of Washington rounds out this diverse and talented crew. We have grown a bit lately with our mods on Twitch, who are an amazing bunch of people I’d like to mention: dynagroove, moonbornunicorn, vioswing, axiomjunglist, clevah_gal, and manlikedeeps—some whom travelled to our show in April so we could all meet in person.
These days, my husband Thijs (aka tbone) is really my biggest support. As we met through DNB, he *gets* what I’m trying to do, is flexible with the immense hours I put into the business, and is incredibly patient. I’m also extremely fortunate that he manages all of the technical aspects of our regular and feature streams, and also DJs with me every week on Twitch. I owe so much to him, and love him beyond the words I could put here.
JUICE DNB’s 17th Anniversary show, Redeyes shown here.
The JUICE sound is definitely on the more atmospheric tip, with steppa’s and rollers and a sprinkling of jazz and jungle thrown in for good measure.
Did you ever consider going down the harder end of the DNB road? Is there a market for it there in Portland?
We serve up these sounds because deep, soulful DNB is definitely a more “under-represented” style of the genre out here. It’s more underground, less mainstream. It’s feel-good music that doesn’t bang you over the head. It’s therapy, you know? Listeners really get this and actually tell us these days when they pop into our channel “therapy time!” That means so much to us! While the JUICE ‘sound’ has evolved over the years, we definitely still stick to that.
We’re not exactly a liquid night…if you catch our regular streams or have been to our events you know you’ll hear an array of the soulful rollers, some atmos and jungly vibes, and a few heavier edge basslines. The jazz and soul influences are definitely the common thread through those styles.
Yes, over the years we have certainly hosted some heavier nights, like World of Drum and Bass (SS, Simon ‘Bassline’ Smith, Crissy Criss, Kenny Ken), Total Science, KJ Sawka. There is a market for the heavy stuff, it’s just not our focus. For some of our livestream features over the pandemic, we’ve had guests like L-Side, DJ Ama, Spiralus, Ellementhz, and INJA too…and they crushed it! It’s good to diversify, but we’re dedicated to the soul-nourishing beats for sure. There’s also another night here in Portland called Subduction Audio, who caters to the heavier side of DNB and they do a great job of it. Currently they do a happy hour event monthly, so we try to cross-promote and support each other’s endeavours in that regard.
2018 saw you retire from running your creative design business and start up a brand new venture known as BassRoutes. What’s that all about?
JUICE Drum and Bass shows started as a hobby, subsequent to loving the music so much. Over the years it gained traction over my daily life and work hours. It turned into a passion, and then really something more serious. It was hard to keep up with my design work to be honest, but of course I did so as it was that work that supported me financially. For a number of years I’d been sort of a liaison in the scene, connecting artists to other promoters, helping them to grow their audiences to some extent. I designed some brands for a few artists. I’d started helping on tours here and there. Initially, I had wanted to open my own sustainably-driven venue (and wrote a full business plan for it), but it was not meant to be and was far too expensive of a venture to pursue solo.
After having hand surgery for carpal in 2018, I realized design work was really taking a toll on me physically too. It literally felt like I was operating three businesses (and I was!). I wanted to imagine a dream job where my hands were under less pressure and I could really spend full time hours in DNB. Talk about giving myself the ultimate challenge—I’d already reinvented my career twice over the years, but to attempt to do drum and bass work full time? Nuts. Truth was though, that it wasn’t a big jump to move from a design agency to an artist agency. BassRoutes started with helping two key artists in the industry with visas: Redeyes and Command Strange. It’s still an honor to work with them: just wrapped up a 9 stop tour for Redeyes last month, and Command Strange heading this way in July.
I’m still promoting brands if you look at it that way—just the brands of DNB artists instead of working with select companies needing design work. To be honest, I believe I bring something really unique to the ‘agency service’ having a background in (sustainable) design, branding and marketing. It’s not something you normally find in an agent stateside, and I’m proud of the work I’ve achieved in these industries and the experience I bring to BassRoutes artists in support of promoting their music and tours. What’s more is I just truly love the music.
I’d been offered a job in early 2018 heading up the ‘liquid side’ of another agency in the states and that was pivotal. BassRoutes was already evolving, and I was at a sort of crossroads. Should I work for this other agency…or keep going on my own path? Ultimately I had to believe that if someone wanted to hire me to do this work, then I was qualified to do it for my own company. I always preferred to work for myself. It was like jumping off a huge cliff around my 50th rotation, but I truly believed I could do it. 3.5 years, a few visas and a bunch of tours later, I know I do a great job at this. It’s hard work, but I love it. Happy to give a little plug for my artists here: www.bassroutes.com
Humble roster, growing gently but strongly. Excited to have three more amazing artists joining later this summer…stay posted!
I’m sorry to mention this, but CV19 has impacted everybody, so how did it impact on you and what you were doing with JUICE?
Of course. We had our last IRL show February 28th of 2020. That year, I had some amazing shows lined up for 6 months in advance. I had thousands of dollars out in artist deposits and a ton of plans. When the pandemic hit and everything shut down, (including schools), I think we were all mortified, especially if music IS your business. At first I thought things would improve over a few months, but it was clear that wouldn’t be the case. I was logistically immobilized for two months: literally not knowing what to do. There were a lot of tears with the high level of cancelations I had, because we were running monthly shows then. Don’t mention getting my teenager into distance learning, and trying to figure out how we were going to make a living, down one family income.
I was crushed and had to figure something out…too much was invested up to that point, you know? A few days after Oregon closed down (in March of 2020), I re-directed available time and energy toward some new creativity, and spent a week designing the Portland Junglist merch sub-brand, (inspired by the Portland Oregon Old Town Sign) that’s famous here.
With my husband’s help, we built a new website and merch store, a big upgrade from the previous site. The Portland Junglist design did very well, even people from out of town ordered it. We’ve shipped all over EU and even to Japan! This was the fuel I needed to not give up. When the pandemic started, JUICE was hitting 15 years going, and BassRoutes had only been alive for 18 months. I had to tap into all my abilities, and put everything into shifting gears. There was no going back. I simply HAD to make it work.
We have to talk about Twitch too. That platform and it’s incredible community (and I’m talking to every single person I’ve ever met on Twitch right now!), was one of the big inspirations for me to start INSIDE DNB, and I see that you also have one foot firmly on the platform.
Twitch is where I first saw you actually, so the global impact it’s had on certain areas of the DNB scene cannot be underestimated!
100%…(and I’m so glad you found JUICE there!) Honestly I have my hubby to thank here. He’s been on Twitch on and off for about a decade, and used to do regular streams on his own server in Amsterdam, before he moved here, pre-Twitch. I knew nothing about the platform. By April 2020, we started messing around with some test streams, and by May we did our first feature with Mr. Joseph (UK) and Dave Owen (NYC). We were set up in a patchworked-kind-of-situation in our living room, and started the InBetween Sessions Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday evenings.
It was a lot for me to tackle, was a bit rough, and there was a lot to overcome. While I’ve been mixing 16 years, I *never* considered myself a DJ. I was not at ease on camera, and video with a mic was even more terrifying to be honest. Rolling back over the years, while I did all of our podcasts on Soundcloud and did play out some select times, I would never book myself at my own gigs unless someone couldn’t show up or there was an emergency. I figured there were far more talented people who could step in for that. I was always the woman behind the business, not in the front and centre. I was never trying to push my name as a DJ, just the music itself through the JUICE brand.
Covid and being on Twitch required me to get over all of this: to just push out of my comfort zone. Looking back, it’s probably one of the best things to ever happen to me, and has taught me so much about myself. For the first 18 months on Twitch I never even mentioned having an agency. I finally got the nerve up to talk about my business on stream, and to admit in public that I’m the creator of JUICE…not a group of guys! I’ve relaxed a lot on camera and with mixing, don’t take the whole process so seriously now.
I mean, don’t get me wrong: I put my ALL into creating a consistent and amazing stream both in mixing and graphically…but I’ve learned to let go a lot, laugh with mistakes, and just have fun with it. It’s also opened my eyes and heart to an amazing community. We’ve made some incredible friends, and many flew out to our show last month so we could all finally meet in person. It’s truly been the silver lining of the pandemic. We have incredibly strong listenership weekly on Twitch, and for that I’m really grateful! We’ve since renovated our entire basement around this big shift, and love our new music streaming studio.
My husband and I both still don’t really consider ourselves “DJ’s,” but I know at this point hahaha no one believes us as we’ve logged about 1100 hours streaming, and well, our skills are pretty tight these days! We still keep our regular evening schedule 3x a week (Tues/Thurs/Sun 7-11pm PST); mid month we have our residents play with us (remotely usually); and we still do features the last Fridays of the month. It’s a ton of fun.
I’ve tried to create something totally different on stream while pushing the JUICE brand: mainly featuring a lot of key artists who aren’t on Twitch. Part of what motivated this was that during Covid and two years of shutdowns (and no events for artists) I knew these producers needed the support both in terms of exposure and financially. We worked on donations only, and passed what we earned to them. We’ve also given to 22 different non-profit organizations working toward social and racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, as well as supporting kids music programs and local radio. I just wanted to help these shitty circumstances in any way I could.
I’m super grateful to everyone who has played for us. We’ve had some amazing artists through the last two years on Twitch, like DJ Marky, Zero T, Atlantic Connection, Redeyes, Paul SG, Carter, Ben Soundscape & Collette Warren, MissFortune & Dug-e, Reid Speed, One Minds, L-Side, Jaybee, Winslow, Andrezz, Sevin, DuoScience, DJ Ama, Mizeyesis, MC Fava, Mukiyare, FX909, and many more. We even pulled Kubiks out of his retirement and he played his first live mix in a decade for us! It was special since he was one of the first artists to play at JUICE in person.
Your husband tbone is your streaming sidekick then? It is so good to have a like minded partner who can live out your dreams with you and support you in your endeavours, right?
Yes. While JUICE is my business by day and he has another career, he is truly my partner in crime. He’s my rock. As I mentioned above, I probably would have never made it this far on Twitch without his support, kindness, patience, and consistent technical help. I’m not so technically inclined, and already have too much to do. Having his backing to JUICE has been clutch to our success. What’s more is I just have a ton of fun streaming with him. He’s got his own vibe and style and it’s perfect…I love to hear him mix. He managed and engineered our whole stream for our Anniversary in the venue too…pulling something off that was really tight! That session and all our feature pandemic monthly events are on youtube.com/juicedrumandbass. We’ve come a long way over 2 years streaming, and I couldn’t have done it without him.
Explain to us a little bit about how you use the platform to promote JUICE and to incorporate other DJ’s into the JUICE fold?
At first I just got on Twitch so that JUICE wouldn’t die. It was that serious for me….I mean, this is my job, not a side thing. The pandemic was initially crushing to anyone in the music business. It took some real ‘re-tooling’ and ingenuity to figure out how to keep the night going in the absence of IRL shows. I touched on this above, but it was fuelled by supporting the artists, and keeping the music and brand alive.
To be honest, every time people show up at a stream, we’re pleasantly surprised. Our near 5k followers is shocking! We never have any expectations, so the outcome has been pretty wonderful. It’s really helped to grow our listener base in ways I never knew possible. It’s also really sustained us from a social standpoint too, during times of a lot of isolation.
April saw your first IRL gig after the pandemic. It seems to have been a big hit?
I’d say that for the most part, everything that could go well, did. It was a tremendous amount of work, and a ton of co-ordination. I was working at details five months in advance, no joke. With that kind of a line up, working with a new, much larger venue, and a ton of rider nuances don’t mention a ‘separate’ show via livestream, it was a lot to manage. But it showed me that it wasn’t my first rodeo, and things went fabulously. I’m also thankful to my crew who really showed up and helped me pull it all together.
I couldn’t believe that people flew and travelled here from Florida, Texas, California, Montana, Vancouver BC, Seattle. I missed seeing humans. It was pretty fucking epic. As always, when you’re working a gig, it’s not the same as attending. I was slammed with things to do on the floor and felt like I didn’t really “hear” the music, ’till I watched the livestream later. But that’s ok, I still had a good time and certainly knew that would be the case going in. The important part to me was that everyone in attendance had a great time.
And you’re back to planning more events now and keeping DNB alive and kicking in Oregon?
I will always be working on keeping soulful DNB fresh, alive and kicking in Oregon! We have some curveballs to deal with though. Many venues closed over the last 2.5 years and there’s literally like one or two here that are willing to host DNB shows (on a weekend). Mostly the ones left open are not really affordable or are too big. There’s also economic and Covid considerations, so we’re being super selective with our plans for IRL shows.
Right now the plan is for a hybrid of feature livestreams (last Fridays of the month) on twitch.tv/juicedrumandbass, combined with one or two more bigger IRL shows here at the Holocene for 2022. They have been amazing to work with. I’m also taking some months off from features this year, after doing 22 in a row. We’ll see what 2023 holds, but I have no intention of quitting doing IRL shows, just will likely do less of them.
Are you planning to expand the JUICE brand at all? Maybe taking it further afield to other cities, or even states?
I’ve been getting this question a lot lately! I may look into co-producing shows in Seattle in the future, we’ll see who is willing to work together on this. It was life-changing being on several boat parties at Outlook Croatia in 2019. I really want to do a boat party here, but renting a yacht big enough in Portland is exorbitant in cost. We’ve had some folks reach out from California too. I’m not closed to the idea, would just have to be the right situation and people to move forward with it.
17 years down the line then, what would you say were some of both the lowest and the highest points for the movement you’ve built for yourself?
Deep question. I don’t want to be a killjoy but there have been a *lot* of low moments. Sometimes month after month of losing money I’d ask myself why I was still doing this. The desire to push the music and artists ultimately kept me going. There were some months I banked my rent on shows, and that was scary—and risky as a single mom back then.
I’ve heard every kind of complaint of what I should or shouldn’t be doing with show details (always from men, and often those not even active in the music community), yet I continued to put forth one of the most consistent nights with high level international musicians *every single show.* People would bitch about there not being enough DNB in PDX, but then when it was here, they wouldn’t come out. There were always complaints about paying $15 or $20 bucks for a ticket, even when there were two or three headliners! DNB can be tough here.
I mentioned earlier that there was the loss of my close friend Drew who was deep crew, and that happened the day before an event night. My mom passed away 8 days before an event. I remember we had Atlantic Connection through right after Trump was elected, and people took to the streets in PDX to demonstrate. People couldn’t get to the venue due to police road blocks and our show was nearly shut down by the venue for safety. Security finally just locked the doors and let our show go on inside with a modest crowd. These are just some heavier bits I remember but there have been hundreds and hundreds of difficult nuances over the years to overcome. Sometimes I think I should just get a “DNB survivor’s badge” for making it this far you know?
The high points….I mentioned a few show highlights above in your earlier question. But the long and short of it is that most of the shows were glorious in their own right. Artists have traveled great distances to get here and always play incredible events. We had KJ Sawka play an all DnB live drum set performance with Marcus Visionary. That was pretty amazing! We’ve had out Spectrasoul, dBridge, Technimatic, Commix, Total Science, Doc Scott, Dub Phizix & Strategy, Lenzman, T.R.A.C., MC Fava, DJ Marky, Digital, Om Unit, BigBud, Utah Jazz, Artificial Intelligence….ahhh so many amazing nights to remember! And for this, I feel so grateful and blessed to have kept going and not given up, even when I took a financial hit.
Did you ever think about starting a label, or getting involved with making music or recording?
I certainly have *thought about it.* I played the piano, flute, and guitar when I was younger. I used to compose music on the piano and guitar but it’s long since left me. I could never sight read music, and that always hindered me to some extent. About ten years ago I thought a lot about trying to produce DNB, but it was just impossible to keep up a professional design career, a night, be a mom, and conquer it all. There just wasn’t time. Truthfully though, I’ve never been really interested in having a label. I know how much work it takes and I guess it’s just not my cup of tea.
I think it’s been enough for me to keep up with being able to mix at a fairly tight level. Before the pandemic, I only put out a mix like twice a year, mostly as a portfolio source for JUICE so that people would understand the type of music we hosted. I guess because I gave up instrumental music (and always felt poorly about doing so), that drove me to keep DJing. I never wanted to be recognized as a DJ, I just wanted to understand mixing and be able to handle things on-the-fly if a resident was sick or someone couldn’t make it. I guess what I’m saying is I don’t think have the qualities necessary to be a good musician, I’d rather be a good business woman in the field.
Coming back to the here and now then, what are your plans for JUICE over the next few years? What are your next set of goals and aspirations for the brand?
Right now I’m focused on doing well in the present. I’ve had to reinvent so many times over the last few years, I’d like to just get really good at what I do, which is agency work and putting out bigger, (but less frequent) top notch drum and bass shows. I have worked tirelessly at getting this far, and I believe I have a lot to offer to artists and this US industry on the whole. I’m working on reinventing the typical ‘artist-agency’ and ‘agent-to-promoter’ relationships. I’m extremely responsive, never leave people hanging. I’m also a compassionate business person—you might see BassRoutes as more of an attentive, ‘boutique’ style agency. I’m available to my artists constantly, and try to be as kind and reasonable as possible with other promoters (since I promote too!)
I see lots of places for improvement (both personally and industry-wide). I wanted to make changes in how agencies work with people—and now I have the opportunity to do so—from the inside out. I still want to keep streaming and have discovered that DJ’ing is pretty relaxing for me at the end of the work day. I love the platform and people on Twitch. It’s an important place to keep JUICE current. I still want to grow the JUICE brand, the art and the merch that surrounds that…but the focus now is helping more international artists with obtaining visas and handling their North American tours. Three more amazing artists will be joining this summer/fall. There have been a lot of “firsts” for BassRoutes and very well recognized artists coming stateside for the first time, and I’d like to continue that trend.
We wish you all the best with everything you do, and thank you for talking the time to speak to INSIDE DNB.
Thank YOU so much for the opportunity to share my story and experiences on this crazy journey the last 17 years! I am truly humbled and grateful to you!
FIND OUT MORE HERE:
https://twitch.tv/juicedrumandbass
