Hoagie

My appreciation for music began as a child in the 1970's growing up in New Jersey. My parents played the best soul and funk records that were out at the time. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Ramsey Lewis and many others were regulars on the turntable in our house.As I grew a bit older and began to search out music for myself, I was introduced to what was then called "Rap" music. This was the early 1980's and artists like Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash completely blew me away. I started to buy as many of these records as I could and began to listen to the few shows on the radio that would play this new exciting genre. One show in particular was my favorite. It was hosted by Kool DJ Red Alert and he was on the air every Friday and Saturday night from 12am until 2am on 98.7 Kiss fm in NYC. I used to tape each show and during the week I would pick out my favorite tracks and make a master mix. I would bring those out to parties on the weekends and rock the house. People would always ask, who is that? Where did you get that?My record collection would grow and my desire to learn more seemed insatiable. As the late 1980's came and Hip Hop music progressed, I started to get into Reggae and Dub music very heavily. Artists like Jackie Mittoo, Sugar Minott, Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis and Augustus Pablo were a few early favorites. I started working as a DJ in my local area and worked for a record label that specialized in Worldbeat and Reggae music. It was then, while enrolled at Rutgers University, that I came up with the idea to start a music magazine. I named it "Dub Catcher" and I published the first issue by myself. I used to go to every Reggae/Hip-Hop show in NYC I could and sell the magazine outside. Eventually, I moved up to Booklyn and there, I met every writer, photographer, DJ, artist and musician that was on the scene. I eventually had distribution all over the country and world. I also had great writers from NYC, London (including Steve Barrow from Blood & Fire Records who was my main writer), Kingston and Los Angeles. I hooked up with Chris Blackwell (the founder of Island Records and the man responsible for Bob Marley's career) who was a big supporter and gave me an office inside their downtown headquarters. It was a fun time.The magazine ran up until the mid-1990's and after having enough, I decided to bag it and go back to graduate school for multimedia and graphic design. I enrolled in New York University's prestigeous Interactive Telecommunications Program where I was turned onto the exciting world of digital technology. I could see then that music would be pushed further than it ever was through digital channels, namely, the web. After graduating in the spring of 2000, I moved out to San Diego, California for a change and was surprised how much more it opened me to different styles of music. The DJ culture there is very strong and they are real open to sounds from all over the world. I immersed myself in the music and art scene there as digital music grew further. I have recently enjoyed watching MP3's make the record industry come to it's knees and having the power given back to the artist. Great things have come of this, and I think Myspace has been a great catalyst for that to happen. So, I decided to dedicate my page to continue spreading cool music that I am into to whoever is interested. I recently moved to Newport, Rhode Island and am really enjoying the chill lifestyle here. lately, I have been very into Downtempo, Deep House, Nu Jazz, and Broken Beat. Stay tuned for more cool stuff to come to this page! Peace -- Paul "Hoagie" Holgerson div