"DJ MENACE; Fighting for Your Right to Dance All Night"
by Carl Noone, Jr.


DJ Menace has undoubtedly seen his full share of ups and downs in his short life. At 34, this Allentown Pennsylvania native has been spinning vinyl on the wheels of steel for almost twenty years now. At the young age of 14, after taking his cue from the legendary Jam Master Jay of RUN-DMC, he began engaging friends with his Rock, Disco, and New-Wave records and has since managed to generate a successful career, as both an entrepreneur and an entertainer, from his lifelong experiences.

As owner and head-honcho of one of Allentown's only after-hour nightclubs, The Down-Low, Menace has been able to take his love of dance music and DJ-ing to a whole new level by cornering an virtually untapped market, and staying ahead of the political controversy allegedly brought on by the passing of The R.A.V.E. Act.

Amid a firestorm of negative press that surrounded his much-publicized dispute with Allentown Mayor Roy Afflerbach over the operation of his establishment, credited, in part, to the publicity that was stirred by the passing of Senator Joe Biden's anti-drug joke of a law, Menace (a former Mountain Dew Mix-Off Champ) has survived the fallout and remains afloat with his head held high.

"Some problems started to happen late at just at the same time of the night when me and another club were open. They (the city authorities) sort of tried to blame us (the clubs) for their problems", DJ Menace told me recently, when we finally had the chance to talk after weeks of planning via email.

"The mayor was trying to blame it on us, like it was OUR fault. Then he brought this "No Dancing" law in, which they tried to enforce, but it didn't work. So, I got my lawyer involved, and it went back and forth in court, then it just went away", he explains to me, adding a bit of detail that local newspapers seem to have forgotten about. He then adds, "In my opinion, there were a lot of things going on in the city, and the mayor just needed a scapegote."

As the "little club that could", The Down-Low, with DJ Menace at its helm, is out to prove that big fun can come in small packages. "The problem with big venues, especially around here, is that you need 600 to 700 people to fill a room, have a nice party and make it all worthwhile. But in the spot I'm at, I can do 180 to 200 people and have a real nice party", he says, referring to the business philosophy he has chosen to adapt, making use of every inch of his multi-level bar to its fullest.

"You don't need a real huge crowd to have a good time," he adds. "We do teen nights from 10 p.m. to 1, close-up to clean for a while then we re-open for the adult crowd at 2 a.m. It's non-alcoholic all the way around"

As all dance music lovers already know, style is everything in DJ-ing. Each night, in any given city, at any given hotspot, a DJ with a strict style and regiment can be heard playing dance music in front of thousands, getting paid thousands, yet never veering too far off the track laid out in front of him. Whether it's "Trance", "House", "Latin", or "Hip-Hop", some disc-jockeys have cornered themselves into a market filled with niches, but not DJ Menace.

"Depending in what city I am in, because I still get booked out of town, I will play for what ever area I'm in. What I'm doing right now at the Down Low is more on the Latin side, some English, but not much, because most of my clientele is Latin," the former Power 96 FM Radio emplyee informs me. "I like to break new music, have fun, and make people dance. I'm not afraid to play something. I'm one that steps out of the box and doesn't play the same thing you hear twenty times a day on the radio like some DJs do," he says with a bit of swagger in his voice. Smiling on the end of the phone, he adds, "My versatility, I feel, is what makes me who I am."

Any conversation with any DJ today can not be complete without bringing up topics such as technology, MP3s, and the remarkable Final Scratch DJ tool that enables disc jockeys to store their records as digital files in a laptop, and trigger them through a vinyl interface on the turntables. DJ Menace is no exception, adding his to the many famous faces, such as Germany's Paul Van Dyk, that swear by its use.

"I'm actually one that does use Final Scratch. When people say, 'You're not a real DJ, you're just pushing buttons', I can tell them, that with Final Scratch, I am still using the cue, and the pitch, and all that. Only with Final Scratch, the only real convenience is that I can carry 8,000 tracks. It would be impossible for me to carry 8,000 tracks to a gig. Now I don't have to carry 8, 10, 12 crates to Philly with me. I can still backspin, and do everything. The only buttons you are pushing are to load the actual tracks," he says, as if preaching to the many trainspotting non-believers that still exist in clubland today.

With a loaded computer, chock-filled with hot tracks, as well as his own productions and remixes culminated over the years, DJ Menace is locked, loaded, and ready to roll over the dance floors and DJ booths of the world as he ends our conversation with a remarkably profound statement; "The only thing I want people to do is have a good time, and remember that I was one that made them feel that way."

Amen.