The Middlebury Campus

Issue date: 11/30/06 Section: Arts

Media Credit: Chris Heinrich [Click to enlarge]

Thompson Davis '08 is a music major who has migrated to frigid Middlebury College from hot and sultry Miami, Florida. He is a triple-threat performer armed with a musical knowledge as eclectic as his demeanor, able to wear the hat of DJ, musician and producer all interchangeably. A member of numerous bands since high school, Davis combines his musicianship and production talents in various endeavors from a variety of DJ-ing gigs to his creative work on solo and group projects. The Campus talks with this jack-of-all trades, who is distinguished by his neon clothing and high-energy personality, about his upcoming releases as well as his future in the music industry.


The Middlebury Campus: How did you first get involved in DJ-ing?

Thompson Davis: Well, that's a funny story. It started my sophomore year of high school when I was the singer of this band, Blue Light Special, and we got our first gig at this girl's 16th birthday party - you know it's a big one - and they made me buy a big PA system, which is basically just an effin' large speaker. After that I would always throw parties throughout high school, and then this past summer some friends got me a gig in a club in downtown Miami. I promoted it myself and all my friends came, so it was a relative success. I guess you could say that was my first professional DJ-ing gig.

TC: What genres of music do you usually play, and do you use turntables?

TD: I just cater to the audience really. I work with a lot of different genres, and usually the audience isn't too sophisticated so I'll just play hip-hop or house music. Occasionally I'll throw in electro or pop music, but I'm not going to get too esoteric. I think WRMC's party Velvet was really cool because the audience was a little more knowledgeable in terms of its taste of music, and the DJs had the luxury of playing songs that normally wouldn't make it on rotation. I would love to see that happen more often. In terms of turntables, collecting vinyl is super romantic - you have to devote your life to it and it's a lot more money spent. So when it comes to vinyl, I don't do it, but I do use CD turntables on occasion.

Continued...

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