- [Interviewer] What does EDM, or Electronic Dance Music, mean to you?

(EDM music playing) - EDM is an opportunity to get weird.

- It's hard to describe, it's hard to describe like...

I mean everyone's got their things, I think.

- It felt like it was part of me, as I told you, when I went to that festival.

I feel like that's why EDM... because it was just the vibes.

The people were always great.

You go to the party, there's never fighting.

I've never seen people fight.

- It's dance music!

It's music that makes you want to dance, that makes you feel free.

It makes you wanna get on the floor and you know, interact with people and just let loose and...and have a good time!

That's EDM dance music.

- Electronic Dance Music is like the standard kind of meaning of EDM, just like the acronym, but it just basically means that genre of any music that is electronic, whether it is Dubstep, Down-tempo, Techno, Hardcore... all of those.

It's a genre of music.

- EDM, to me, is at first, just an acronym trying to explain music that is made with machines, but that's maybe a definition that would've applied 15 or 20 years ago.

- My life, music, and kids.

It is my life.

I mean, in every capacity, what I live.

You know, I mean, I'm blessed because I get to spend my life with music and kids.

- I love it... very, very, very, very much.

- EDM is the soundtrack to affluence.

- Whatever it is, it's the beats, it's the rhythms, it's the melody, it's the voice or the vocal, it's the sample, or something, and for whatever reason, it just, you know, music hits me in certain ways.

And you know, I can find a song, like a song can hit me, and it's just like... Wow!

(EDM music) - [Interviewer] Where did it all start?

- [Michaelangelo Matos] Well, that starts mainly in the Midwest.

Techno music is a Detroit thing.

It comes out of Detroit, it comes out of it in the 80s in particular, and then House music comes out in Chicago around the same time, in the early 80s.

And it's named after "The Warehouse", which is a club that was presided over by the DJ, Frankie Knuckles.

The way he played records, where he would sometimes put a drum machine, this was common in Detroit and Chicago.

They would put a drum machine under the records they were playing, to just, you know, make that stomp go harder and to keep the floor going.

A lot of the early Chicago House music was heavily indebted to certain kinds of late 70s Disco music.

Essentially, there's a lot of recombinant Disco going on in early Chicago House, a lot of old riffs, old melodies, being rewritten, over and over again.

And what's different about it is that instead of high priced, nice studios and professional musicians playing off charts and a whole room full of an orchestra, you had kids in their bedrooms with cheap equipment.

And recreating this music, but in a totally different way.

And that stuff had a vibe.

And that stuff was really popular locally.

And it became more and more popular as the mid-80s proceeded because more and more people were starting to make records like that.

The records are made for DJs.

They're not made for radio.

They're not made for people to like, sit at home and like, study.

They're made for DJs to play so people can dance.

Oftentimes, they're just like drum machine tracks with a little bit of synth overlay and a bass line, and that's about it.

(EDM music) - [James Patrick] EDM is the soundtrack to affluence.

If you take kids, especially white kids, in the US, who grew up with everything and never really faced a lot of sadness in their life, when they go to a music experience that is meant to be escapist, and supposed to drive them into a space that they only find in their imagination, they want to go to a place that is a soundtrack to having everything.

And so, EDM is a soundtrack to a culture that has it all and wants it all.

And you can interpret that as something that's beautiful, you could also interpret that as something that's not as beautiful, but it's all open to interpretation, and that's beautiful.

So many of the techniques, production-wise, that are used in EDM were invented by underrepresented communities, people of color, queer folks.

I mean, House music, Reggae, Techno, all the original genres that used technology to be invented in the first place, were invented by people that needed to escape this life of, oftentimes, suffering.

Slam Academy brings me great joy because I get to watch the great joy that it brings so many other people.

Sharing my love of electronic music and music production and DJing and performance, it brings me a lot of joy, but when I see someone light up and appreciate the knowledge, and then, even better yet, be able to apply it to their own life, it fills me with a sense of meaning that is far beyond a paycheck.

In fact, if I was doing this for the money, I probably would have been better off getting into a different job, but watching people, especially people of underrepresented communities, watching them feel like now they have a voice because of something simple I can breathe into their life, I know that I'll be able to die happy, knowing that I spent my life doing this.

(vehicle driving by) - [Mickey Breeze] Let the low frequencies pass through.

So if you ever want to cut, the highs, the mids, and stuff like that, all at the same time, you don't have to get busy with three different knobs in order to affect your song.

You can use the low pass filter (EDM music) to gradually cut the higher frequencies out.

The biggest barrier I think that I've had to breach through in my career is ego.

Is other peoples' ego, is trying to, you know, submit my own in being who I am as an artist and being cool with who I am as a creative person because, for the most part, a lot of creatives are very self-conscious about what it is that they do.

There have been a lot of times, and there are still times, where I feel that what I do isn't very valued or I feel like what I'm doing isn't good enough or where I feel like if somebody's better than me, then I'm just kind of out of the equation, instead of having other people motivate you.

You know, in Minnesota, what I will say, is that artists really need to get better at supporting other artists.

Me included.

- [Interviewer] How did you first get introduced to everything, the whole room?

- [Mickey Breeze] The weird part was is I actually didn't like really mess around with Slam Academy or music production in general until I was like eight years old.

And when I was younger, I didn't really do video games, I didn't really do, you know, a whole lot of friends in school, and I definitely didn't do sports.

For any reason whatsoever.

But I was taught by my grandfather at five how to play piano and immediately, I wanted to roll into learning how to play other instruments, but without having to buy a bunch of other instruments, and that's kind of how music production came along.

I started off making beats on like a PSP, with this software that Timbaland actually came up with called "Beaterator", that was like, him and rock star games or whatever.

And I got PSP for my birthday, got that game, and started there.

I eventually got my own laptop, starting using GarageBand, and then I was like, "How can I play the beats that I make, live?"

Because I do see a lot of DJs or a lot of producers who get on stage and hit "play" and they just kind of let their song go, but I was more interested in the aspect of actually playing my music like I play piano, like I play instruments.

So, I knew that the software was out there to be able to do this stuff and as I got further and further into it, I ended up getting my own equipment.

(EDM music) - [Jack Trash] I know what music does for people.

And so, if someone's down, they're depressed, and they're broke, and this might help them, cool.

If it doesn't help them, at least I tried.

- [Interviewer] What is SIMshows?

- We are a company focused on presenting music to people.

It's that simple.

You know?

We love EDM music.

I love music, period, but we are obviously EDM focused.

We want to be an option for music fans in the Twin Cities area.

And we want to provide quality events that are inclusive and open that people can come and enjoy music across all forms of EDM.

And that's what we focus on doing.

You know, whether it's Dubstep, Bass music, Trap, the House music, Tech House, Trance, it doesn't matter.

I mean, we love bring all kinds of EDM in different capacities from 7000 person Armory shows to you know, small, 200 person club shows, it's what we love doing.

In the early 90s, there was gay 90s, there was Saloon, that's where they were playing House music, and then First Avenue, where they were playing some dance music but a lot of other stuff, so, I mean, there wasn't any place playing it.

So, if you wanted to do something, throw a party.

So, we started throwing parties.

You know?

And then it just kind of built and now everyone throws parties.

You know?

It's a really exciting, crazy time because music is everywhere for EDM in ways that it never was.

You know?

I mean, it's really evolved and grown and continues to grow, which is really great.

It's great because going back to the whole event thing, it doesn't matter what you're into, you can experience it in whatever capacity you want.

If you're into breweries, every weekend there's DJs at a brewery.

You know?

You want to go to a large giant Armory show with 7000 people, boom, it's there.

You want to go to a smaller club show, you want to go to a boat party, I mean, the music is everywhere for EDM.

You know?

It's really, really exciting and beautiful.

So, people have more opportunities to experience EDM than they ever have been.

(EDM music)