East graduate discovers his passion for DJing

Sigrah Neb was in a trance — bobbing his head slowly, melodically, inside Indie Bar located at the corner of 13th and Main in Power and Light district.

His baggy black T-shirt, sporting the words “Snatchy Trax” across his chest, hung on his shoulders while his hand spun the turn table in front of him; the other holding his over-sized headphones to his ear.

The sound blaring from the speakers on each side of the table was placid and calm, backed up with abrasive bass drops that pleased the undersized crowd standing a few feet away from Sigrah.

At 9:00 p.m. on this particular Saturday night, the room inside Indie Bar’s only illumination spurred from the street- lights of downtown and the green laser-like lights, zig-zagging across the black ceiling as Sigrah continued to spin, midway through his 30-minute set.

Sigrah was a part of a lineup for the buzzed-about electron- ic music show “Pretty Lights,” and even though he wasn’t ac- companying the big name disc jockeys like Spankalicious just a few rooms away at the Midland, there were still the 100 or so people surrounding his speakers, listening; and that counted for something.

Among the room of strangers were Sigrah’s close friends, who come to almost all of his shows. Though, they know him better as Ben Hargis.

***

East graduate Ben Hargis first started experimenting with the sounds of electronic music towards the end of his sopho- more year in high school. Through searching for new music on the Internet, Hargis stumbled upon 12 Planet’s remix of Heartbreaker by Mstrkrft.

After hearing that, he was hooked.

“The rhythms in that song were syncopated in a way that was intriguing,” Hargis said. “It was very bass heavy and I hadn’t heard anything like it before.”

What had perked Hargis’s ears up was a type of music called dubstep, a genre of electronic dance music that origi- nated in 1998 that acquires bass heavy rhythms and has slow- ly grown into something more intricate over the years. Hargis was immediately keen to the creativity that came with mak- ing dubstep mixes which lead him to explore a program called Virtual DJ on his home laptop.

Everyday Hargis would come across 15-20 new songs from artists he had never heard of. With Virtual DJ, Hargis could take two other producers songs and mix them to transform them into his own. Becoming more engrossed with the facets of dubstep and DJing, Hargis began teaching himself how to DJ on his own CDJ’s, a digital turn tables.

When his hand drops the tone arm onto the record spin- ning on top of his turn table at 45 RPM, transmitting itself through five USB cables into the mixer, sending itself to the speakers, Hargis can control movement.

With just that swift hand movement, Hargis can control energy. The energy of a crowd of people, waiting for the next bass drop.

“Once you build that energy and get that energy going with the crowd,” Hargis said. “You can interact with them and that gets them hyped.”

He began to push himself onto the dubstep scene in KC, regularly attending concerts sponsored by the record label he now plays for, Snatchy Trax. Hargis began uploading personal mixes onto Soundcloud.com, a music forum for unsigned DJ’s. Snatchy Trax contacted Hargis after they noticed a post he had written on their Facebook page and had continually seen him supporting their shows. They immediately took him under their wing, allowing him to play at shows they would sponsor around the KC area, including the Beaumont Club where he played his first show when doors opened last March.

Hargis incorporates melodic sounds into his set mixes to assemble 10-20 minute build ups, creating a mellow atmo- sphere up to the high point in his set. The contrast between the beginning of his sets and the peak, keeps the crowd in- volved in his set.

The percussive and bass qualities of dubstep were familiar to Hargis from his previous experiences when he was young- er, which helped him with hand-eye coordination that came with DJing.

At only five, Hargis took a crayon to his first drum set, cre- ating haphazard scribbles over each drum. What resulted in a brief scolding, gave way for Hargis to trade in the Crayola for a pair of drum sticks at the age of eight. He learned the basics from his father, a musician and DJ in disco clubs during the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Music is something Hargis has carried with him throughlife, and something he always will.

“Whether it was sadness or anger or happiness, I could justgo sit down and drum it out,” Hargis said. As Hargis carried on in high school, he became interested in the auto-program at East, causing him to stray from his mu- sic roots; DJing was just something he had picked up along the way.

Hargis was sure when he enrolled in the auto program at Pittsburg State University his senior year that he was dead-set on a career fixing fuel pumps and engine lights. He knew it wasn’t music, but at least he was sure he would have a reliable salary.

He was sure. Sitting in his dorm room his freshman year at Pitt State, surrounded by his piano, guitar and CDJs, he received a call from his mother, that made question whether he was sure anymore.

His father, a strong musical influence in his life, had passed away.

Hargis sat in his dorm room for three hours after that call, strumming away on his guitar as he cried to himself. The mu- sic made him feel okay. He could always turn to music.

“That sort of re-ignited the flame between me and music ,” Hargis said. “I came to a realization in that moment that music is a huge part of my life, and it was a huge part of his too.”

Hargis also realized Pitt State isn’t for him. He plans on transferring to JCCC for his sophomore year in college and is enrolled in their audio engineering program.

Currently, Hargis still pulls other producer’s music and puts his own spin on them, but hopes to begin creating his own electronic mixes from what he learns through JCCC’S classes.

Hargis refers to himself as a weekend DJ, but is looking forward to traveling to St. Louis in the summer to DJ for a local radio station through Snatchy Trax and looks at his Facebook fan page as often as possible, which currently has 55 likes and is growing daily.

“I want to live an adventurous life,” Hargis said. “I know I’ll always need that ‘day job’, but DJing is what I’m doing, at least for now.”

Hargis’ record labels’ sites can be found at dubstep.fm, snatchytrax and roguedubs

 
For more music by Ben Hargis visit his soundcloud page here.

Calski Minimix by Sigrah by SME Harbinger