Music has always been an integral part of my life. Both my parents played guitar and had an extensive collection of albums. I studied piano at a young age and my dad taught me some basic guitar chords at age 10. There was always music on at home or in the car--mostly 60's rock like the Rolling Stones, the Doors, the Beatles, & some more folky stuff like Cat Stevens, Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel and Arlo Guthrie. These were my early influences.

By adolescence when i started seeking out my own music, the 80's electronic sounds of pop, new wave and electro grabbed me and permanently altered my musical taste.

In college, i began branching out widely, listening to hip hop, funk, punk rock/hardcore, international music like Indian and African, jazz & eclectic stuff like King Crimson and Laurie Anderson. Spending so much time with other artists influenced me with music i'd never heard before, such as Echo and the Bunnymen, Cocteau Twins, the Smiths & Joy Division. Listening to music like this made me start wearing black every day, and one dangly silver earring instead of two, and sometimes bright purple tights.

Moving to Seattle in 1992 brought to my life an explosion of new music. It was the height of the grunge era. Living right smack in the middle of it was thrilling and inspired me to put down my acoustic guitar and pick up the bass. After Kurt Cobain's death, grunge fizzled out in Seattle and what rose up from the ashes was some really great funk and a lot of that greasy, snarly hipster indy rock which seems to define the Seattle scene--at least through the lens of The Stranger and its readership. I played bass in a few funky garage bands but got distracted by the introduction of a Conga drum to my household. I started drumming in drum circles, got pretty good at it quickly, and enjoyed it so much that it was all i wanted to do for most of one summer. That is, until the turntables showed up.

Yes, my new housemate wanted to be a DJ, and he had just acquired a pair of Technics 1200's from a radio station he worked at, complete with a scratchmaster mixer It wasn't long before i realized that the turntables could be used like drums, playing polyrhythms between two records, fattening up beats, and then poetically layering my old Laurie Anderson lyrics over them. This new sonic medium blew away anything else i'd ever played with. And with the introduction of new DJ friends Michael Manahan, Chadwick Huffman, Trisha Carter, Kevin Hills and Eddie Nonog, i was soon invited to play at small outdoor dance parties. My first electronic music influences included Future Sound of London, the Orb, Moby, BT, Astral Matrix and Aphex Twin. I started out playing ambient and downtempo, although for some reason nobody ever told me that i was playing my house records on the wrong speed and calling it downtempo. They just let me play, perhaps because i was one of only a few female DJs in Seattle. I chose the DJ name "Seven", intentionally unisex because i didn't want to get booked just because of my gender, but i think a lot of the time that was precisely the case because i must have really sucked.

Eventually i got the hang of DJing and got booked to play out of town at a festival in Ohio called "Family Affair". I also played at several of Seattle's Oracle Gatherings, and mostly a lot of house parties with occasional club appearances in Portland OR, Asheville, NC. and Seattle. Once i got pregnant with my first child in 1998 (shortly after this photo was taken), my DJ career went to the back burner, unfortunately along with most of my other creative outlets. By the time i had the money to buy my own turntables, i really didn't have time to use them. By then i had two children and a full time job, and shortly after that, i opened the Gypsy Palace boutique. That was when i sold the turntables and decided that maybe i should hang up my DJ hat and go back to where i started, playing acoustic instruments.

My passion for creating art and music seems to parallel my general joie de vivre, and at that time, i was really in an energetic rut. Working myself to the bone and feeling very isolated, lacking community and genuine, close friendships, i was not inspired to make or even listen to music for a couple of years. It was when i made my dramatic lifestyle change to a 100% raw diet and dedicated yoga practice that all of my creative outlets woke up and began to sparkle. Not only did i get interested in music again, i became passionate about what i was listening to. This resurrected my interest in DJing because i wanted so badly to share what was inspiring me so much. The only thing that seemed to stand in my way was that my DJ skills were limited to playing vinyl on turntables, which meant that i had to have the money to shop at record stores (spending up to $11 per album), as well as the time and patience to go through hundreds of records. I soon discovered that most of the DJs i know had switched to digital media--either CDJs or laptops, some using Serato with turntables. I struggled with the whole issue of letting go and giving into change. I thought it would be lame being a laptop DJ and wanted to retain the tactile excitement of handling the turntables and mixer. But the more i listened to music on Beatport.com, Juno.com, iTunes and other radio stations, the more i had to give over to the need for my craft to evolve. In order to share the music i love, i had to make that leap and learn how to use Traktor on my MacBook. I prefer to plug my sound card into the mixer so i can control everything there rather than on the screen--it's far more satisfying and a smoother workflow. Now that i am getting proficient in this new medium and have discovered the immense field of possibility and creative freedom it affords, i wonder why it was so hard for me to make the switch. I still have all my vinyl, which gets played once in a while and i might sample some of it to throw in with my mixes...but i sure don't miss lugging that record crate around.

In addition to totally loving being a DJ again, i am producing my own music using Ableton Live. I have also picked up the guitar again. I keep a little guitar in my car and play it when i'm stuck in traffic or waiting for someone. My kids and i make music together at home with the dozens of instruments we have around. I am looking forward to some music projects with others very soon, and as soon as i can get some DJ mixes on Soundcloud, i hope to start getting regular gigs at parties and clubs.

Thanks for reading through this long story. I hope it was interesting and insightful for you. Check out some of the links on the other side of this page--maybe you'll fall in love with something new.