DJ HEIDI with Nitin, Johnny White, Brandon Sek. Thu, July 2. The Social, 1100 Queen W. $10 advance tickets at Soundscapes, Rotate This, Slinky Music, Ticketweb.com.
Windsor native DJ Heidi is, hands down, one of the most enthusiastic interviewees I’ve encountered. Minutes into our chat, the morning after she’s flown from London to Chicago, the Berlin-based jetsetter rolls from ragged to raring-to-go. I ask how an indie-loving teen became immersed in house and techno and, bam, she’s off.
“I met Richie Hawtin and went to some of his parties and that opened my eyes to a world I hadn’t been interested in,” Heidi explains. “I fell in love with it — the energy, the vibe and the people.”
She’s been reciprocating the love ever since, moving from Windsor to London, England in 2000 where she worked in record stores and was part of the team that opened the famed Phonica Records shop. She made lots of connections, but it wasn’t until she became close with the Get Physical label’s Patrick Bodmer and Philip Jung (a.k.a. M.A.N.D.Y.) in 2004 that Heidi began to DJ.
“The Get Physical guys helped give me confidence to do all of this,” she says. “My goal wasn’t to be a DJ — this was a chance happening — and they just pushed me to do it. Basically, I was thrown in front of a crowd of a thousand people and told ‘go play.’ I made a lot of mistakes and learned as I went along.
“I’d say that I only really started DJing four years ago and I did get a lot of flack from people, like, ‘She’s not technically this or that,’ but it was always more about what I played to me. I mean, you can be the most technically sound person in the world and be the most boring DJ ever — there are a lot of them out there. Or you can play some seriously kick-ass tunes and rock the party. Somebody once said that I dance too much and that I should concentrate more on mixing, and I was, like, ‘Sorry, am I having too much fun?’”
By 2005, Heidi was gigging across Europe and increased her profile the next year by releasing “Vejer,” a collaborative single with Riton that was also featured on her excellent Monza Club Ibiza mix-CD. While a couple of other singles have surfaced and Heidi is in mid-collaboration with Jesse Rose, production is not yet her priority.
“I make like one track a year,” she laughs. “I’m way more of a DJ than I am a producer. I’m not really into sitting in a studio all day; it warps my mind.”
She may, however, find the time to sit still in a San Francisco studio with Dirtybird artist Justin Martin — a supreme pairing of playful, imaginative tech-house heads if there ever was one.
“I love those Dirtybird guys,” Heidi gushes about Martin, Claude VonStroke and their crew. “The music that they make is so great, and they’re all about the booty-shake, jammy-jam parties.”
It’s this exact spirit and utter lack of jadedness that makes Heidi an ideal ambassador for new dance music, a role she’s taken on as the host of monthly BBC Radio 1 program In New DJs We Trust where she’s put the spotlight on guests including Hawtin, Andrew Weatherall and fellow Canadians Mathew Jonson and Konrad Black.
“It’s really great to bring the underground to a wider audience,” says Heidi of the program. “Radio is so dominated by the worst pop crap I’ve ever heard, especially in the UK. People need know that there’s other music out there besides that and those big, cheesy dance tracks.”
Her interest runs deep. Our conversation is peppered with Heidi’s raves for everyone from emerging tech star Seth Troxler to Loco Dice, DJ Harvey, Dutch label Remote Area’s “proper house music” and Ellen Allien’s gutsy DJ sets.
“There has to be soul,” she insists. “I love DJs who play right from the heart and DJs who make me dance. It’s really hard these days to totally get me on the dancefloor and keep me there because I find a lot of people just trail off into some minimal world that has no funk in it. I need to feel it.”
Heidi aims to give what she gets. Over the past two years, this happy traveller has toured more steadily than ever, with a long string of dates coming up in Asia and South America.
“I always seem to have a really good reaction from crowds, I think because I interact with people,” she says about her sets. “I’m always dancing around and making sure that they’re having fun. It’s always about making the crowd happy.”