{"id":16128,"date":"2018-07-11T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16128"},"modified":"2018-07-20T09:42:18","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T16:42:18","slug":"dj-murge-hits-phillips-backyard-weekender-with-the-champion-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/07\/11\/dj-murge-hits-phillips-backyard-weekender-with-the-champion-sound\/","title":{"rendered":"DJ Murge hits Phillips Backyard Weekender with The Champion Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat would I want to hear if I walked onto that stage at that point, at that time?\u201d This is the first question that local producer DJ Murge asks himself as he envisions being up on stage spinning tunes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Murge, each show is a chance for him to guide the audience through the night. The music he plays reflects the impact he wants it to have; it only makes sense, then, that songs played at the beginning of the night are sometimes very different than those played at the end of the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have this golden opportunity,\u201d says Murge. \u201cYou can have them in the palm of your hand, playing music and [being] really engaged with the people; there\u2019s a connection that can happen. You can also lose that connection quite easily. It\u2019s not tension in a negative way. But there\u2019s a relationship you form with the dance floor.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
DJ Murge is one half of locals The Champion Sound, playing at the Phillips Backyard Weekender (photo by Xavier Walker).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Murge\u2014who is playing this year\u2019s Philips Backyard Weekender with long-time pal DJ Verse as The Champion Sound\u2014tries to play tunes that he is passionate about, but he knows that in a festival setting, when people are there to see many musicians, he has to throw in some familiar sounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cBring them in, then school them a little bit,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s different to prepare for a festival set than it is for a club set, says Murge, but change is the name of the game. When he came to Victoria from Port McNeill at 18, he was confined to playing only what he had on vinyl. Now, technology allows him freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got electricity when I lived in Port McNeill,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019m just kidding. My medium has always been the turntable; starting out, all I could do was buy records. Nowadays, there\u2019s things like [vinyl emulation program] <\/b>Serato Scratch Live. You can still use a turntable, but now you\u2019re using your laptop. Your entire music library becomes playable.\u201d<\/p>\n

That freedom is good for him, but he says that\u2019s not the case for everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat allows us to play things like the Phillips Backyard Weekender, where you\u2019re playing to a pretty broad, diverse crowd in those three nights,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019ve got different lineups each time… you\u2019re able to kind of jump and bounce around between things quicker than, let\u2019s say, if you had record crates. Now you\u2019ve got whatever your entire music library consists of at your disposal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Champion Sound\u2019s set at Phillips will be a balance of mainstream songs and Murge\u2019s remixes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose remixes range from Dawn Penn reggae stuff into Van Morrison remixes,\u201d says Murge. \u201cShit that I love to listen to.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, if everyone can sing along all night, says Murge, his job isn\u2019t done.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is done if someone comes up and says, \u2018Hey, what was that song you played?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although it might be easy to go up and spin the tunes everyone knows, Murge says he and his colleagues in the Victoria music scene have bigger responsibilities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our job to break new music,\u201d says Murge, adding that it\u2019s an important role of DJ culture in general.<\/p>\n

The philosophy of a DJ from 1970s New York\u2014David Mancuso\u2014rings true with Murge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe applied this Buddhist approach to it where, as people come in to a party, there\u2019s a certain level of music that should be played, then there\u2019s the circus,\u201d says Murge. \u201cIt\u2019s fun. Givin\u2019er. And then the return to reality. You want to play music that relates to sending people back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phillips Backyard Weekender
\nVarious times, Friday, July 20 until Sunday, July 22
\nVarious prices, The Phillips Backyard
\nbackyardweekender.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat would I want to hear if I walked onto that stage at that point, at that time?\u201d This is the first question that local producer DJ Murge asks himself as he envisions being up on stage spinning tunes.\u00a0 For Murge, each show is a chance for him to guide the audience through the night. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-july-11-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16130,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16128\/revisions\/16130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}