ABOUT ME:  

Swim the Shine is a multi instrumentalist (drums, guitar, keys) originally from Budapest (Hungary) but spent his formative years in Montreal (Canada). With aspirations to take a heavy-ass pop band (not unlike Depeche Mode or Linkin Park) into the charts he moved back to Europe, first spending  5 years in "sunny" Stockholm (Sweden) before making the move to London. As it turns out however, keeping a band together is harder than keeping a marriage together..... it's almost like you need to be married to 4-5 different people and each of the members has to be madly in love with each of the other ones.... but as we all know, orgies like that are short lived and only a lucky few ever get the chance to make that a permanent life style. Thus, DJ-ing became an obsession as a possible avenue for musical output as a solo artist. The aim is still the same, take heavy-ass pop music (not unlike Prodigy or Marilyn Manson) into the charts. So while still taking gigs as a musician (most notably being the permanent guitarist for Zemmy [see www.facebook.com/zemmym]) Dj-ing is the future. The aim is to eventually, build up a show with live instruments incorporated in the set. Should have thought about it sooner...

ABOUT THE COURSE:

Mantas, you are great!!!! Thanks....

Being a musician I figured I could self instruct myself to DJ and had the confidence to play out way before I stumbled on Mantas' Become a DJ course. Actually, my girlfriend did the stumbling and as a surprise signed me up for the free lesson. In order not to disappoint her I went along grudgingly even though it was on a weekend morning and f*@%$ far from my house.... Admittedly, I didn't think I needed any more instruction.... But Mantas, helped me realize in about 5 minutes that indeed I had plenty to learn. Although, I might have had the ability somewhere inside me, I didn't have the skills or the mind to do it properly. With his patient but uncompromising style Mantas guided me to a much more streamlined mechanical style and also helped me open my ears to possibilities in songs that I had never known were there.

Now that I look back, although I played out and organized my own parties at London night clubs before I took part in the Become a DJ course, I always had a pre-meditated set. I never had the guts to just show up at a gig with a bunch of CDs and take the chance to see whether I can feed off the crowd and just allow them to channel to me what they wanted to hear. But now that I've taken the course, I am much more confident and, more importantly, having this confidence relaxes my mind, allows me to be creative and makes me much more inspired while playing.

In short, I recommend the Become a DJ course to any aspiring DJ (even to some of those that think they already know the ropes....)