Going for a hair trick
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Scratch DJ KillaJewel makes tongues wag
by MIREILLE SILCOTT
Julie Fainer, aka DJ KillaJewel, 21, is going to have to excuse me for being among the first to write this sort of article. She should be well aware that I will not be the last. 'Tis the bane of the female DJ: the write-up which goes on and on about her Femaleness and not her Art. Fans of all things turnie and tabley will understand why I bow down to the convention so steeply this time, though. Julie is not just a DJ, but a scratch DJ.
"I'm a diamond in the rough," she giggles, "or what's that expression?" What she means is a needle in several very masculine haystacks.
I use the term masculine in the broadest way, of course. Anyone acquainted with the world of the scratch DJ will understand that it is manly in the way that Hobbyland is manly. It's a guy thing. A geek thing. A place for boys who had the "No Girls Allowed" sign up on their bedroom door until the age of 16, when mom suggested it might be time to put down the Starship Enterprise scale model and let a lass or two in. It is a world of practicing in a murky basement until you get some little knob-twiddle down pat three months later.
"I think the girl thing works to my advantage," says the Concordia communications major, who began DJing in 1997 thanks to lessons from friend DJ Mana. "Sometimes when I go perform, I will wear a hat and then when I take it off, the crowd goes nuts when they see my hair."
One uses what they can. And hair or not, Miss Julie is fitting in just fine anyway. She came in one vote short of being flown to San Francisco to participate in the scratching leg of the super techno-geekified ITF competition this past year. "But this coming year I am more ready, and I feel confident about making it," she says.
In the mean time, she is doing the local circuit, DJing at Quartier Latin, Blizzarts and the like, performing with names like Swollen Members, Mr. Lif, Virtuoso, and Blurum 13, while being flown to New York to do live Internet radio on Koolout.com. Her mixed tape is making tongues wag at places like Science and Taboo, and her scratching will be featured on Dubmatique's next album too. Hopefully, touring with Dubmatique will follow, which is when she will be able to use her hair trick to even greater acclaim, you can be sure.
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