DJ Poison

DJ Poison started in community radio while still in High School. She learned on weekends and after school. As a radio DJ she played the music, ran the sliders, and announced. She started with records and 8 track tape machines. She learned recording advertisements and editing when it mean physically cutting and using tape to put it together again. That was editing. It was terrifying.

She went to college after high school to get a degree in media, and aced every class! She enjoyed being encased in music all day, every day. That probably helped the grades. Thinking of new play lists and bands to showcase. She bought her own records, and would lug them along to the station downtown in an old milk crate, which was difficult when you had to walk. And heavy! Spending extra hours and nights in the media 'dungeon' which was downstairs where they stored the records the station owned. She would help friends run radio shows, whenever she could. Developing her voice, practising enunciation, until she would get drunk men calling her at night on air. She learned to laugh at them, and checked the door locks every time.

She decided to call herself DJ Poison, because her first name was Ivy, after an old family friend. Her friends in college started calling her Poison instead of her name, so the nickname stuck. She loved the colour purple, and would always wear the cheap bright glow sticks when she could. In all colours, like neon pink, green, blue, yellow and red. But purple was her favourite.

She travelled to a large city after her degree and got started in a smaller station. She worked hard and had her voice going out on the airwaves within months. She's worked so much on her voice, she was headhunted by one of the top stations in the city within a year! She was given a morning radio program where she could talk or just play music as she wished. Her popularity kept soaring. Her show was extended and got picked up by other stations and broadcast daily around the country. Her opinion suddenly mattered, but she knew it was the music that was important. She refused to talk more and play less music. She knew her fans loved when she let the music play and sing and swirl your emotions. Giving you time to let you sing along to old favourites or hear new fun ones. She has an amazing talent to smoothly run one song into the other so the tempo is soft on the ear with no sudden changes in pace. Her melodic voice charms and informs you and sounds as smooth as the tunes. There is a fluidity to her music, and to the soundtrack that is life.

History

The World's first DJ dance party was thrown by Jimmy Savile in 1943, who played jazz records for his guests. A few years later, Savile became the first man to use turntables to keep the music in continuous play. The first discotheque opened in Paris, Whiskey A Go-Go, in 1947.

Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to gramophone records, but now "DJ" is used as an all-encompassing term to describe someone who mixes recorded music from any source, including vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, or digital audio files stored on USB stick or laptop. DJs typically perform for a live audience in a nightclub or dance club or a TV, radio broadcast audience, or an online radio audience.