Colleen Teigan—the prolific DJ Dyops—likes to party. Sitting across from her bold eyes, bouncy blond tresses and brazen laugh at Brew Coffee, I found myself thinking of “the party animal.”
That, of course, is an animal perfectly adapted to flourish in the environs of party land. The mythological party animal is apparently a moth, as Teigan takes the Heniocha dyops as her sigil—the night-loving, flame-seeking “butterfly.”
DJ Dyops is open format, not bound to genre, but her musical heartland is house music, hip-hop, afro beat and spun pop sugar.
Cinncinnatus Hibbard: Colleen, I understand your first DJ kit was an orange and tan Fisher-Price record player. How long have you been a pro?
Colleen Teigen: Ten years.
Tell me about your method.
I’m a hard worker. And more than that—I’m obsessed with (laughs); I spend all my free time looking for hot new tracks, discovering new artists or digging through my record crates.
Tell me about your approach to DJing.
Mostly, I let music speak for itself. When I can, I try to enhance the music through my mixing and to create unexpected surprises—like mixing Britney (Spears) into Bad Bunny.
DJing is much more than putting together playlists and mixing (blending in the next song). Lead us into the art of the DJ by describing your DJ console-controller.
It has eight pads for q-points, and effect controls for 10,000 effects—like echoes, delays, sound fx, studders, spirals, and reverb, the equalizer controls. It has disk platters for nudging, backspin and finding your spot in a track or scratching. And it has the stem splitter, which can divide digital tracks into their individual instrument and vocal tracks.
Those are a lot of creative choices for the DJ—beyond track selection. When you’re up on your console, bossing the party, what else are you paying attention to?
I am constantly reading the dance floor—what genres people are really responding to—leaning into that, but not letting things get stagnant. I’m looking for that next track and deciding at what point in the song to mix it in. I’m checking the clock, or I’m checking my phone to see if the next DJ is here yet. I’m shooting promo footage and taking selfies with people. I’m checking in with security about any trouble developing in the crowd. I am responding to drunk girls flashing song requests with their phones.
(Laughs) That is a lot to manage into beat-matched smoothness. You play around a lot, with the wild Wolf Pack DJs, at ecstatic dances, exercise classes at SPITE Fitness and at music festivals, but your flagship event is LUSH—at Vintage Space. Describe LUSH.
LUSH is Sonoma County’s only monthly LGBTQ+ dance party. I started it at Jaspers before moving it to Vintage Space. In addition to monthly guest DJs, we have go-go dancers, and we break up the dance with burlesque and drag performers. We also have vendors—usually Jenny DeYoung and Illiana Sanchez.
I have fond memories of the ‘queer prom’ you hosted there. What’s your next event?
It’s an alien disco.
Party local: DJ Dyop’s instagram (@dj.dyops), where she cross-promotes with many of her DJ friends, doubles as a listing of some of the best parties in the North Bay.
Her next event, ‘Area 54: An Intergalactic Alien Disco,’ is 8pm, Saturday, Oct. 18, at Vintage Space at the Flamingo Resort and Spa, 2777 4th St., Santa Rosa.
The event features space-y light art by Magicalized, alien burlesque by Foxy Cheex and Taters Mashed, alien disco soul singing by Audio Angel and Space Walker, soul train dance lines and a climactic alien dance battle. See this week’s ‘Crush’ column on page 11. And search Eventbrite.com for ‘Area 54.’
