Artist of the Month: Joogornot
For this month's AotM we have dubstep artist Joogornot. Being a long time member of our team, Joogornot has been on the grind showing promise in his rise to stardom. Recently, Joog announced that he will be performing at this year's Toxic Summer festival hosted by Vital Events in San Francisco at the Midway. Going B2B with XILE artist WY-FY, this will be a great set to catch to gauge the aggressive sound that XILE has to offer.
Joogornot’s goal as an artist is to create the heaviest tracks possible. When speaking to him about this, he mentioned that he “likes to bring emotion to people and move people the way that (he) had been moved/changed by the genre itself.” Dubstep being a centerpiece of his life, Joogs passion for heavy music is unmatched. Back in 2016, Joog attended his first festival - Insomniac’s Bay Area edition of Beyond Wonderland. According to Joog, “After that weekend (his) life and taste in music had been changed forever.”
It is no question that music drives ambition and helps connect groups of people in ways that other arts in the media can not. Joog was able to connect with countless people through his interest in music and strives to continue doing so. Having 8 years of experience in the DAW (digital audio workstation) Ableton, Joog takes extreme pride in his sound design stating that “all Joogornot drops are made from scratch.” To add to this, Joog also offers 1 on 1 production lessons and has a handful of students that he works with and has watched grow as producers over the last year or so.
Joog has traveled for his music as well, playing in states as far as Minneapolis, all the way from California. Coming up, he is playing direct support for Perry Wayne and Blvnkspvce at the Public Works in San Francisco on 4/19. Later in the year, he is playing at Toxic Summer. Moving toward the future, Joog plans on creating as much music as possible and is seeking to branch out to play more shows in new cities. If you want to book Joogornot, please head to his IG linked below. We look forward to seeing Joogornot grow even more as an artist.
Joogornot would like to shout out his boy Aaron for buying him Ableton, Serum, and a laptop back in the day when he was coming up! Joog mentions that “If it wasn’t for him, I would not be Joogornot and would have never created any of the music I have.”
Artist of the Month: DAZZLE$
Welcome to the 2nd installment of AotM. For the month of March, we have local Bay Area EDM artist DAZZLE$! After sitting down with DAZZLE$ to learn more about her history, future goals, and ambitions within the EDM scene it became clear that she shows a lot of promise as an artist and event coordinator. DAZZLE$ moved to San Francisco, CA in 2016 from her home in Taiwan after becoming infatuated with Western culture.
Music being one of the most important parts of her life, DAZZLE$ reflects on her early interest in EDM dating back to high school mentioning that “One day I happened to pass a store with some interesting music that I had never heard before and I was fascinated by everything in the store which sold a bunch of DJ stuff that I didn’t recognize. The store also sold some CDs recorded by DJs, so I bought a few CDs from it and it became my favorite CD at the time. The CDs had playlists on the back, and I remember there were some songs from Avicii and David Guetta, so I googled them and tried searching for more EDM songs online. Later on, I found some songs from Skrillex and that was probably the first time I listened to dubstep, and I’ve been madly in love with it ever since.”
Among these early influences, another artist that influenced DAZZLE$ early on was NGHTMRE. Discovering NGHTMRE through his song “Street” that Skrillex played at Ultra in 2015, his music paved the way for DAZZLE$ growing interest in trap & future bass. DAZZLE$ stated that NGHTMRE is “one of the reasons (she) became a DJ” and what fueled her interest in enrolling as a student at the ICON Collective in Los Angeles, CA where her first mentor was Protohype.
Moving toward the future, DAZZLE$ is looking forward to playing more shows and spending more time on audio production. Last year she started her own event company called “REUNiON” and booked Codd Dubz in China as a part of his debut in Asia. The next event they are throwing will be on March 23rd with Usaybflow + special guest Bonker. DAZZLE$ anticipates on bringing more dubstep artist to China and is showing to be a prominent force in music both locally and internationally.
DAZZLE$ had a few words to say for her feature in this month’s AotM! She said:
“During the pandemic, I finally had the time to learn and become a DJ, as I was so busy with my double master’s degrees before that. I want to shout out the XILE team, because my U.S. debut was with them on April 16th, 2022 playing support for Autokorekt and Crowell. This show means a lot to me and helped me to play more shows in the Bay Area afterwards. Also, this helped me to gain more confidence and motivate me to continue to pursue my dreams.”
Artist of the Month: Dastro
Artist of the Month: Dastro
Welcome to the first installment of artist of the month. This month we have Duan Truong who goes by the artist name Dastro. Coming to the United States from Vietnam in 2014 to pursue an education and learn about American culture, Dastro became enamored with the EDM culture and the PLUR movement. Dastro attended his first EDM show in 2017 (Yellow Claw at the Bill Graham in San Francisco, CA) and this changed his life forever. We sat down and spoke with Dastro to gauge his place in the EDM scene and how he got to where he is now and what he plans on for the future. This is his story so far (and moving forward we hope to share even more stories from our local Bay Area scene – and eventually, the greater United States).
Dastro started his project in 2019 as DT and pursued some local gigs in the San Jose, CA area. With an emphasis on hybrid trap and bass house, DT crafted a unique sound for himself that continues to shock his friends and fans alike that keeps venues wanting more. The global pandemic in 2020 proved to be a pinnacle moment for DTs music as he began to venture further down the audio production route and began defining himself as a producer. Shortly thereafter he released a few tracks on SoundCloud ranging from his tune “Back At It” to a bass house remix of Riot Ten’s “Mawlee.”
In 2023, DT started his Dastro project. Dastro stated that at around this time he “decided to take a step further and join the Cosmic Academy to learn about the music industry and production”.
Continuing this pursuit in musical expression and education in the arts, Dastro mentions that:
“My journey in music taught me how to be self-taught, be myself, and trust in myself. I know a lot of good friends in the scene that support and show each other unconditional love and make the EDM community one of the best communities – you can’t find it anywhere else.”
According to Dastro, one of his defining moments as an artist so far was being selected as a winner for the DJ contest we hosted years ago closing for the Tisoki show in San Francisco, CA. This helped motivate him to play on a more professional setup and brought him right back into the studio in the following weeks to continue his dream of being an audio engineer.
Moving into 2024 Dastro has tons of new music prepped and ready to go for release. His new EP “Bad Habits” just dropped on February 2nd and is available now on all streaming platforms. Go check it out if you haven’t yet!
Dastro would like to shout out his friends John Gang and Twstd Zoo and is excited to move forward into the new year.