IAM a DJ+

He is one of those friends whom who will remember even after the memory meltdown.

And I always wanted to know how does it feel to be him. And now I have a chance to ask all the questions I longed for.

We're sitting in a room both excited because of a couple of reasons. First, we haven't seen each other for quite a while so obviously we can't wait to attack each others heads with questions and get some exciting news. Second, that kind of experience is brand new in our relationship but we both know it promises to turn into a triumph. This is how it goes among friends like us.

I will Introduce him as Dima( a.k.a.Dmitriy Afanasyev), His stage nick is Stealmer. His stage is Dj's deck, his mind is 3D graphics and his student books are about management in IT.

Here comes the synopsis of his records.

Dmitriy Afanasyev(09.22.1989) is well-known as a DJ and a musician in Chelyabinsk and as a party-master among his friends. His career begins in 2006 with experiments on the basis of progressive trance, tech trance.2008 is time when Stealmer created tracks which promised success.

No doubt, there are prominent people who made a great impact on his professional transformation. These are Reptilia (www.reptilia.su), Vyacheslav Zaytsev (www.daat.pdj.ru) and Vladimir Novozhilov (www.vladimirnova.pdj.ru ).

April, 2009 Stealmer got a contract with label Andromeda Recordings (Chicago, USA) that’s where he recorded his first track "Connection". It was therefore supported by Manuel Le Saux, Tillmann Urmacher and Christi.

May, 2009 Stealmer and Roman Tereschenko (aka Romeeck) work on mutual project "Mental Ambience" (www. mental-ambience.pdj.ru).

July 2010 Stealmer releases his second track "Music for the Masses" through the label Pure Magic Recordings.

Currently Dima explodes with ideas, works on his masterpieces and performs in the clubs of Chelyabinsk City.

>>>>.

-So the first and most important question to ask you, Dima, is How and when you decided to make music?

-I was an 11 years old school boy when my friend introduced me to that primitive computer program E-Jay. The idea is to make a track from given loops by adding them to the final playlist. That’s a kid stuff, I thought. And the intention was gone after a few months of working. Years were passing by, I was about to finish school and I got this pretty nice set of Paul Van Dyk. And what do you think happened? I was so much excited that I decided to make electronic music of my own.

-So you made your decision. Did you start dj-ing by attending any special courses, master-classes or self-educating was your way?

- I had to do this on my own. In Chelyabinsk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk) it has always been a problem to find particular courses in that field and It looks like it always will. The only truthful source of knowledge is internet and catching up with musicians. This is how I met the most prominent people who affected my personal career. DaaT mastered me in dj-ing, mostly showing the tricks on the dj-deck. Reptilia is my musical mentor who lead me all the way of studying music. I don’t really think I would become who I am now without them.

-Sounds like a true friends’ story. Do you still keep in touch with them?

- For quite a long period of time, we were close friends with DaaT though recently we haven’t seen each other much and it became harder to be that close. Perhaps the reason is that I lost that passion for dj-ing which I used to have and He’s kind of busy building life with his lady…This is life.

But We’re still great friends with Reptilia and try to hang out when possible, so that he will always have a chance to trade in his musical equipment to me.

(While we were having this conversation, Dima wrote Reptilia about the interview and his direct part in it, which definitely made both a little bit proud).

-How about you musical education, do you have any?

- When I was a kid, my Mom took me to some piano and drawing classes to make me learn something. The year was enough to make me bored there.I was just a silly kid, looking for fun. In secondary school I tried to learn playing guitar but it didn’t last me long too. Thanks god, I still have some memory of musical notation, I remember some chords and all that jazz. I do regret giving up all those activities. What can I say -such things happen. I’m glad that I still remember the craft of music, have some skills in my pocket.

What I know for sure is that my kids will no doubt get musical education and drawing skills.( At least somehow I’ll fulfill those ideas of past which I din't).

-Dima, describe a picture from the past, the most bright one.

It happened when I just made my first experiments with music and started to act professionally. I must admit my first results were interesting because I worked on the melody or worked on new things to make it special, but the rest was epic fail. Bass and drums were simply horrible. I was sending my tracks to all people I know. One of them was a trans-producer from Samara, who actually was quite famous among the european trance-musicians. He torn my work to pieces, what he meant was - “quit making this, boy.It’s not your cup of tea”. I was extremely offended and insulted; we went through a huge fight. And now IT’s so much fun to talk about it because at that point I thought I did really good stuff. Truthfully he was absolutely right in everything but in one that I won’t be good. Yeah, I admit I could hardly stand someone criticizing my works, but I was a 16year old ambitious teenager who didn’t have a clue of music production.

Now it’s different. First, I am not 16 and even 17. I Respect opinions, but only opinions of those musicians who really succeeded and made great music I take into consideration. There is a whole lot of “FAKE musicians” who are very proud of themselves and neglect any criticism from aside and I see how I used to act.