I have always been interested in music. At the age of 2, I remember watching “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana on MTV and being awestruck by the power of music. Ever since then, I was hooked. I wanted to do nothing else but listen to music for the rest of my life. My parents were both big fans of classical music, so I began listening to Brahms, Beethoven and Chopin. Fast-forward to 2015 and I found myself listening to underground electronic music from labels such as Future Classic and The Magician’s Potion.

Music has had a profound impact on me. It has taught me many lessons, shown me many perspectives, and changed my life in incredible ways. It has become a part of my identity; I am who I am because of the music I listen to.

I grew up with this kind of music, starting with artists like Flume, ODESZA and Cashmere Cat; none of which are still remotely associated with underground electronic music today. These artists convinced me that there was more to music than just four-to-the-floor beats and pop hooks; that there was beauty in simplicity and subtlety in emotion and timbre.

The first time I heard an artist perform live

When I was 18 years old, I had a friend who was into underground electronic music. He would send me songs and invite me to parties. At first I didn’t really like the music, but it was different from the top 40 songs that my other friends were listening to at the time. I wouldn’t say it was better, but it was different.

I started getting more into electronic music at around 19 years old, after going to some underground parties with my friend. It wasn’t even 100% about the music; I liked being in an environment where people were doing more interesting things with their lives than just going to school and working 9 – 5 jobs.

I have always felt that there are two types of people in this world: those who are content with living a regular life, and those who seek out adventure and take on new challenges. The latter category is the one which I fall into, so when I saw all these people who were pursuing their own dreams and building something new in the world, instead of just accepting what they were told to do by society or their parents, I felt a strong attraction towards them.

At around 20 years old I started playing some underground shows myself. This led me into a world of drugs and alcohol that I hadn’t

Music has played a big role in my life. I have been introduced to many different types of music, but the one thing that stands out to me the most would be underground electronic music.

At the age of 16, I was introduced to electronic music by my best friend. The first song he showed me was “Kernkraft 400” by Zombie Nation. He told me that this song was played at every sporting event from college football games to Nascar races. I did not like it at first and thought he was crazy for listening to it.

I became more open-minded when he showed me “Sandstorm” by Darude and “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba. Eventually we started listening to a local radio station that played electronic music all night long called “Area 33”. We would listen to this station every night before going to sleep and record our favorite songs from the night before onto a cassette tape so we could listen to them in the car during school.

The station played mostly trance, house, and techno music. My favorite DJ’s on this station were DJ Irene, Christopher Lawrence, Keoki, Paul Oakenfold, and Carl Cox.

My friend and I talked about one day attending a rave party together as

I was born in the wrong era. I would rather have been a teenager growing up in the early 1990s than in present day. The reason for this is that the early 1990s was a pivotal time for electronic music, especially underground electronic music. Electronic music festivals, raves, and nightclubs were springing up all over Europe and the US. There were no rules or guidelines as to what was okay to play or listen to; everything was experimental. DJs would constantly be searching for new releases or undercover bootleg remixes of artists that they could play to their fans. This led to a lot of creativity and experimentation within the music which then led to many new genres of music being created.

This was also the time when I discovered dance music. I grew up with an older brother who had a huge influence on me musically and artistically. When I was around 7 years old he began playing me his mix tapes of club tracks put together by his friends and him. This is where my interest in electronic music began. I remember listening to Deep Dish, Paul Oakenfold, Rabbit in the Moon, Sasha & Digweed and many other artists from back then every day after school until I went to bed (sometimes even playing them while sleeping).

From the beginning, when I started going out to clubs, I was always focused on underground electronic music. My friends and I were never interested in all the commercial stuff you’d hear on the radio. We liked to listen to underground music and go out to raves in warehouses and places like that.

I still remember my first rave. It was in a big warehouse at the far end of Brooklyn, where all the artists live. We parked our car on an empty street with nothing but other cars around. The street was totally empty and dead, but we could hear music coming from somewhere down a dark alleyway.

We walked down the alleyway following the sound of music until we came up to a doorway lit by a single red light bulb. There were no sign or anything to indicate what it was, just a door with some people standing outside talking.

We knocked on the door and someone opened it up just enough for us to squeeze inside. We walked into a long hallway filled with smoke where more people were gathered, talking and drinking beer. At the end of the hallway was a doorway that led into a giant room full of people dancing underneath flashing lights while two DJs played music from behind their turntables and mixers up on

As I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota, my musical taste evolved with me. From my childhood days of listening to Disney soundtracks and the occasional top 40 radio station hit, to my teenage years of listening to hip-hop and alternative rock, one genre remained consistent throughout it all. This genre was electronic music.

The first electronic song I ever heard was by the artist Crystal Method. Their hit Busy Child stood out from all other songs I had heard at that time due to it’s heavy bass beat and catchy tune. I was instantly hooked, but as a young boy who was not yet familiar with the world of music outside of what I heard on the radio, I had no idea how to find more music like this.

In those days there were still record stores in shopping malls where people would buy CDs and cassette tapes for their stereos. One day when I was ten or eleven years old, I went into one of these such stores with my father and began browsing through the CDs. As I looked through the racks upon racks of CDs, each with a different album cover and different artists name on them, something caught my eye: The Prodigy Experience.

The Prodigy Experience was The Prodigy’s first album of all original material released in

When we were young and still living with our parents, all we ever wanted was to be able to go out and party. My friends and I would plan on going to some of the biggest raves in Toronto, but we always had one problem: how will our parents know where we’re going? If they knew we were going to a rave, they wouldn’t let us go. So instead of telling them about the rave, we would tell them that it’s only a small gathering of friends at someone’s house. That way their guard would be lowered and they would feel better about letting us go out.

But getting there was only half the battle. We also had to get back home safely! Our curfew was around 1:00 AM; we couldn’t afford to miss that curfew or else we’d be in big trouble. But if the rave ended around that time, then we’d have no choice but to get back home as fast as possible. To do this, my friends and I would have to call a cab or take public transportation home. We could never take our own cars because they might recognize it while driving home from work or something like that.

So there we were: a bunch of kids who were trying to have a good time while at the same