Edgar's Blog

sonic-hz:

Approximately 9 hours ago, Joel Zimmerman walked into my classroom, a large Tim Hortons coffee in one hand. Behind him, through the classroom door which was then swinging closed, I could see a small number of people starting to gather. Undoubtedly they heard the rumour that an RTA class was being paid a visit by Deadmau5 and had come to see if it was true. I hope they were satisfied.

So Zimmerman walks in, shakes my professor’s hand as they exchange greetings, and takes a seat at the front of the classroom. A few minutes in, my classmates nearest to him are heavily engaged in conversation with him as we wait for class to officially start. Others were simply paying very close attention to him as he spoke. I was thinking, This was definitely the wrong side of the classroom to sit.

People don’t give artists like Deadmau5 and Skrillex enough credit as musicians or as artists. Many people are so quick to assume that they get up on stage and press play on their computers or whatever. They assume that Deadmau5’s performance is found in how he pretends to be busy making music behind that laptop screen. This was merely one topic that Zimmerman addressed when he talked to us today. He also gave us his story of how everything really stared for him, his thoughts on the music business, other artists/musicians in the genre, audio quality and bandwidth, Bob Lefsetz, DJs, etc.

I can tell you now that when he was done speaking, I saw him as much more than this electronic artist that’s commercially mainstream for the fact that he’s capable of making people dance and move to his music. The guy is knowledgeable about his technology, he has smart criticisms about the music industry and other electronic artists, and he’s definitely wise due to experience. And he’s so honest in his delivery that you can’t help but believe him.

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