This article is part of a series of articles in collaboration with Women Who Rock.
Sometimes in life you meet kindred spirits along the way of your journey who in fact feel like a friend who you can talk to for hours and talk about just anything. For me, this was award-winning music producer, curator, and DJ – Daisy O’Dell, who I had the honor of interviewing about her awesome career and insanely interesting life. I had heard about Daisy through the vines of music sites and bands of my very missed Blog Haus days and loved everything about her. Especially with the fact that she was a DJ in a time where I can only name male producers/DJs so of course, I had to support the cause.
As I mentioned in the Women Who Rock article, I first discovered Daisy O’Dell through happenstance, first through a band Deluka who I randomly saw live, and then through a JBL commercial that featured Daisy spinning a remix of Aussie fave, Cut Copy. I then saw Daisy spin at another music afterparty event and that was the be-all and end-all of becoming one of my favorite DJs.
It’s fantastic being able to talk for hours about everything you’re passionate about from favorite NYC venues to dismantling the patriarchy, it was truly such a pleasure being able to talk to Daisy as a fan and then as a person. Besides being an awesome DJ, Daisy also has some wicked side projects as well such as The m.i.d.s. and woman/soteria.
The m.i.d.s. consists of Daisy as lead singer along with Scott Fairbrother & Kinsey Dulcet. They also covered A Flock of Seagulls “Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)” which you can listen to over and over on Spotify. This cover was produced by Julian Shah-Tayler aka The Singularity. The other track on their Spotify is “Golden Eye” and is an original mixed by Tony Hoffer (M83, Beck).
The video for “Wish (If I Had A Photograph of You)” is beautifully shot and reminiscent of those mischievous, fun nights with friends over drinks and enjoying whatever adventure the nightlife had to offer. The unbearably talented Mynxii White directed the video and this gorgeous video was mainly shot at The Standard (hotel) in Hollywood. In an unexpected twist of fate, we spoke about our favorite places in danger of closing and sadly The Standard is one of those cherished establishments that announced this very past Friday that they’ll be closing.
Daisy also owns a company called woman. along with soteria. which are amazing initiatives that focus on equity, inclusion, and safety by collaborations through brands and exclusive curated events and workshops among other opportunities that are inclusive to everyone, despite gender, background, and identity. It’s really uplifting to see such wonderful companies like this being created and serve as a safe space for all. The press alone on woman, really captures the essence of the great work being done. They also recently announced the new lineup for the show that Daisy created original music for: Actors on Actors.
As this piece is the first of many for the Women Who Rock and Bearded Gentlemen Music, this means a lot to me as I get to experience extreme nostalgia of my venue hopping days but also get work with the inspiring and talented Daisy who I’ve admired throughout the years. Check out the interview below!
What was the pivotal moment in your life where you said to yourself ‘yeah, I was born to do this’?
Uhm, I don’t know if I’ve had that moment – I’ve always been obsessed with music so when I was child I sang, and I actually took that to a performing arts high school, where you know I play a bunch of instruments. I played double bass, I played double steel drums which is kind of random. So, my love of music and you know I was a teenager who went to concerts – A LOT of concerts and I collected records and, you know, I was somebody who like most of us who ended up working in music. For me, it resonated with me, it was a very profound and visceral thing. And I traveled before I went to university, I went to London as a teenager and I traveled all over Europe and the Middle East and I became immersed in nightlife and club culture because I was also drawn to the glamour and the excitement and I romanticized this sort of hedonistic life so I LIVED it! I was friends with a lot of DJs but there was always this kind of mystique around it and as much as I aspired to do it – I didn’t understand the technical steps one took to get from playing the records, which I had been collecting to actually being on these stages of these huge clubs because these DJs were playing huge clubs.
So, it wasn’t until I got to New York that someone simplified and said you know if you played those records in front of people – you’re DJing. It very much happened, sort of by accident that I knew some people and I did a party and I played my vinyl and someone thought I had a cool taste in music and I was confident enough so that led to more work which led to more work which led to more work. I tell this story with a little shame because there is this assumption that is often made, particularly about female DJs – uh, we, you know, that we kind of lucked into it or it happened to us or that we didn’t work hard. The beginning of my story is that like I fully lucked into it; I was just a girl – a cool girl who met the right people and had some records. It was something I always aspired to do but when I first started I certainly was getting opportunities that I didn’t deserve but then I quickly became determined to be good, to be great and I worked my ass off. And I was given an opportunity to go on tour with Gwen Stefani and the Harajuku Lovers Tour and I went and it was amazing but yeah I kind of have a chip on my shoulder about being good. I think because of the way I started that I felt it was so important to have dignity and to make sure that I was proficient and that I was deserving of the opportunities that I got. And so, the technical side of djing is something that I have a real reverence for and I think is really important and when I meet DJs that are starting out; I talk to them about the most important thing about being a DJ, I think is your taste in music because that’s what’s going to sort of define you and that’s how also you’re going to stand out. The individualism that we all have, you can give a different DJ 10 songs, but each DJ is going to take those songs and reorder them and recut them – you know play them in a different way, one hopes. we both laugh out loud Having your taste in music is the foundation but learning how to be technically good, you have to do that. Particularly as women, particularly to dismantle the stigma that surrounds so many women who are djing.
When you’re working on a mix, I know it’s like even creating a playlist; it’s like an art piece, so when do you trust your gut and say this is perfect?
laughs Well it’s never perfect, I’ve never listened to one of my mixes and said “This is great! This is amazing, I’m totally satisfied with it!” As the producer and as the DJ makes mixes, I feel like there is this, you know, I have to sort of set an end for myself or like a deadline – I guess is more appropriate. But what’s interesting is, I think everyone is different so I’ll just talk about my experience. For me, I need direction and that direction usually stems from a theme. So I’m really lucky that in my career I get to do a lot of events and for instance, the last one that I did was the Westworld premiere. So when I’m playing an event like Westworld obviously there’s a point in every evening where it just becomes a dance floor and can’t be as sort of curated as other parts of the evening because you need to pay attention to what’s relevant and what’s happening in the moment and what’s going to get people moving. But, beginning and ending every set, you really dig deep and play with a lot of specificity and that’s my favorite thing about djing. For Westworld, for instance, I really loved digging into the dystopian future and the robots. I remember playing Kraftwerk and playing Cut Copy which you mentioned in the prior article and the future, just to be literal. Then there’s western themes like there’s things about the city and there’s all these sort of elements in the show that I love having those to form my sets. For example, Stranger Things, I think I’ve done almost every Stranger Things premiere and they are obviously set in the ’80s which is my favorite, favorite, favorite era for music. I love it so much!
I’m the type of DJ who I won’t just be like “it’s the 80’s!” I’ll be like it’s 1984 – what were the charts? What were the indie charts? Like we know what was happening in terms of the bigger sense of the music scene, what was happening in…let’s say the UK? Like, let’s look at the Manchester charts. What did The Smiths come out with that year? Or The Fall? So you can also dig into a deeper layer and then also, I get really…I’m a consumer of pop culture so I get really super into understanding the politics of the era and what was happening in terms of television and the fashion for me has always really sort of sucked me in. I say this as this relates to me as all of my mixes, I have to give myself at least some sort of framework. So that’s why most of my mixes will have songs of passion and pain, right?! They’ll be thematic because my taste in music is so vast and my knowledge is pretty versatile. I like different types of music like I did a project over quarantine that I would like to share about, I spent a lot of time during quarantine working on understanding and having a deeper knowledge of music history and that actually manifested into something called Dig, which will be coming out. We’re looking at the context of these genres and understanding them in a deeper way and that was something that I did as a passion project and it’s been really, really fun. You mentioned Tumblr earlier, it’s kind of like a Tumblr come to life (we both got super excited and laughed) – there’s a video component. It’s like these insane 30-page blog posts that I have to narrow down and playlists and like I just did this whole quarantine project that was based on me exploring this passion more deeply. So, in terms of the mixes, they’re never done – they need a framework.
So, you’re an LA/NYC staple in the music scene, how do you feel with the music scene evolving? Before & past COVID?
I do feel like it’s been an interesting time and one of the most inspiring things is to see how people pivoted and to see people really leaning into this moment creating opportunities for themselves. Some people are very, very good in a virtual space and I applaud their success and I think they’re incredible. I think it is a different type of djing because it is much more performative and you know you have to have good banter and you have to sort of understand there’s a technical side to it as well in addition to djing, you’re also chatting with people. If you’re on Twitch for instance, you’re using these kinds of green screens and creating these environments and I’ve seen people do it and excel at it and I think it’s awesome. I do think ultimately people are going to want to hold space together and be in the same rooms so I’m cautiously optimistic that when we come out of this it’s going be a raging party and it’ll be really exciting for the opportunity to just be together again. I think people might interact differently; like right now feels surreal, the past feels surreal. I’m like did that really happen? I watched the episode of the event and I’m like, “did that really happen?” “was I there?” I can’t imagine the future because we’ve been through such a wormhole with this whole experience. It’s just like my entire reality shifted.
*Sidenote: I was talking about how the whole concert/dance scene has shifted to watching and dancing by yourself at home and LOVED that Daisy broke into song and sang “Dancing On My Own” by the kickass Robyn.
My number one song of the decade. I do think there are people who are better able than I am to predict the future and those people in anticipation of what’s coming will set themselves up for success. I heard this great quote, I’m going to paraphrase it because I don’t remember it exactly. It basically said, “If somebody throws a ball and the ball’s in the air and it’s going up and you’re running around trying to guess where it’s going to land, that could be fruitless.” Like you might look up to see where it’s going to land but you kind of have to wait until the ball curves and starts coming downwards before you stand under where it’s going to land and get ready to catch it. I think right now the ball is going up and there’s a lot of people scrambling around like “it’s going to go here, it’s going to go here!!” Nobody knows but we kind of just speculate but all we can do is be ready. I’m standing, I’m ready, I’m ready to run to where that ball is going to fall. I’m also taking those steps, I’m working on projects and I’m working on all these other things but right now the objective I’m focusing on is to create. Going back to that- doing art for art’s sake which is always the best way to start and I think it’s the most powerful thing you can do and is ultimately going to make for the best sort of output.
Do you have any favorite places in New York that are existing and not existing anymore?
You know what’s interesting, I haven’t been paying attention to what’s closing because it’s too upsetting and I can also say LA because I’m here right now. I’m seeing and hearing but they said Spaceland closed, which was a real bummer. The 101 Cafe has this iconic, laid back vibe – so many awesome nights. There are places you hear about like those two examples haven’t reopened. I’m cautiously optimistic, like I said things are quote-unquote shutting down now might be revived because there might be people who come back and say we’re going to take this on. I think there are entrepreneurial people with vision but I don’t want to say how different it’s going to be. I can’t imagine that right now this covid crisis is sustainable for many like music venues, nightclubs, and restaurants obviously pivoted to sort of doing delivery, and then for a time, they allowed outdoor dining – we don’t right now. I just don’t know how the hospitality industry will survive this full stop. When I think about it, it’s just devastating. I feel most iconic venues that have been opened forever and then there are places like Don Hills’s or Beatrice that are like flashpoints for like a moment in time or like a scene and for a time they are the epicenter of cool. I lived through the blog house revival. we both bonded over that and laughed I feel like it’s cyclical, things do evolve, and tastes change. It’s interesting as you think about a DJ, so the best DJs I know technically are the most experienced because they’ve been doing it the longest. The older you get the better you get and there aren’t many women pushing 40 and above in my industry. Blessed Madonna wrote this manifesto which is my favorite because it goes ” We need more women breastfeeding and then going out to Dj!” She wrote the best piece of writing about dj inclusivity I’ve ever read and she did it and it became completely viral. I do think it’s interesting to think of venues and the lifelines of the scene because it’s cyclical and I have aspirations because I’m moving into this stage in my life where I’m probably not going to be touring or djing because I don’t know what’s going to look like and it’s going to be very different. I have music projects that I’m working on and I aspire to be a much older woman, like I look at myself at 50 – 60+ and I want to be DJing then because that’s what I want to see. I want to see somebody…I already have a closet of sequin clothing. Like I’m ready to roll in sequin and I want to go to New York Fashion Week and I think there’s so few women out there to look up to and to aspire to who have retained their shine like Susanne Bartsch is a good example. There’s few women who have stayed immersed in nightlife and sort of grow with it! I would love to learn that when I get older.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Oh wow, that’s a really good one! You know how everyone tells you, you should live in the present? Never truer words have been spoken which is such a cliche thing to say laughs You should live in the present! Because I’m one of those people that always has one foot in the past and one foot in the future; somebody who has been as drawn to history and culture. You know, just the vintage, experiencing life as it was or the appeal of like, “Why couldn’t I hang out with David Bowie in Berlin??!” and like “Why wasn’t I in Vegas watching Elvis??” and all of these amazing movements. For someone who has one foot firmly in the past is just part is what lends itself to my musical vernacular and then one foot in the future – I feel like taking the time to just enjoy the moment you’re in is the best advice that one can actually receive and apply but it is also one of the hardest things to do. Like, even now, I’m in this moment – there’s a lot of beauty, there’s a lot of strain but there’s a lot of beauty. There’s a lot of pain but there’s a lot of joy. Being in this moment is something I should just be in because historically speaking this is I think, unprecedented is the word I would use. I think there’s grander words for it. We’re living through this incredible history. That’s advice that I would give not only my younger self but also to my current self and to all of the rest of us.