Hurricane Productions 5 Years Later; We've Had Some Haters

Today, June 19th 2008 marks the five year anniversary of Hurricane Productions LLC. That's right, 5 years ago today we entertained our first party. Getting involved in the mobile entertainment industry happened quite by accident for co-owner Vincent Velasquez and I. Sitting quite still one Wednesday afternoon in Mrs. Jaeger's English class (Saint John Vianney High School 05') I overheard a light conversation about an upcoming party. Turning my head slightly, the conversation began to take focus. They were talking about music.. and needing a DJ for an upcoming graduation party. As the conversation progressed so did my curiosity. Suddenly the exchange came to a pause and Vinny began to turn my direction. Quickly, I diverted my attention elsewhere to avoid being charged with eavesdropping.

To my surprise I feel a tap on my shoulder, "DAMNIT", I think to myself "They caught me listening in..".

"Hey Strato", Vincent starts "Kristen here is having a graduation party this weekend and she needs some music. I know you have a lot of home audio gear just like I do .. do you think we could throw something together and play some music for them?".

I think for a moment then respond, "Yea sure why not, I'm sure I could find some speakers and CD players."

From that moment on, something changed inside of Vinny and I and we didn't even realize it. In the instant we agreed to provide music for the graduation party, an entirely new dimension of ourselves was born. We were given a responsibility and a role we'd never filled before; it was uncharted territory for us but something about it felt right.

Despite the make-shift DJ setup and that we were in a backyard, all the elements that make up a great party still existed! Everyone was having a great time and we could feel an energy we'd never experienced before. Curious as to what we were using? Here's a glimpse at our origins:

Just look at those fancy speaker tripods! And WOW check out Hurricane 1.0's light show made up of a "party-city" strobe light and an equally as cheap police beacon! At this point your probably wondering what kind of crazy equipment we've got behind make-shift facade. Let's take a look:

Behind that aesthetically pleasing setup you would find two, 5-disc CD changers and a small Yamaha keyboard. As the party went on we would write down, on a piece of paper what CDs we had in each CD player. We had no mixer, only the ability to fade the volume on the master 5-disc changer and press the AUX button to kick in the other 5-disker. On the rare occasion that both CD changers needed new music we would switch over to the keyboard and have a generic beat playing the background simply to avoid dead-air while we loaded up the CD changers. We did a few parties like this before we could afford real DJ equipment; you gotta' start somewhere right?

Our setup is much more impressive now-a-days...

But I digress...

The real reason for this post is to reminisce about some funny incidents we ran into in the beginning. I'd like to share with you an email we received from a competing DJ, the same age as us at the time -- a mere 17 years of age. I've decided to pick this email apart and color code each ridiculous line I read. Each instance where I feel the writer sufficiently deviates from reality I will be linked to the bottom of this post sharing my insight about his carefully chosen words.

so hows it going Vince yea u got a nice setup...too bad Strato's the only real DJ in ur company...wanna be a tough guy? ill be around soon...be a tough guy to my face...and i know ur prolly showin this to eveyr1 cuz u think ur cool...and ur girls prolly gonna be all mad, ur fag boyfriend has nuthin better to do wit his life then try to be a dj... bro if you knew anything about makin websites, youd know it doesn't take one day to make..i was makin that site for months...i dont need to pay to get mine done...i will say this though...congrats on ur company, seems your doin aight...only difference between em and you is that 1) your only in it for the money, i do it for the love of DJing...and 2) id destroy you in a battle....pisses me off that ppl that just start their company spend all their money on shyt and get parties, and still charge liek 1000 for a party...nto even tryin to be a dick, but madd ppl either said you suck or you guys were aight, nothin spcial, i mean your sites not bad, not everyone can afford to pay professional web desingers..and that picture of Vinny with the sunglasses makes him look like aherb..that's just my opinion. ..one question...whats wit the keyboard? I know Strato knows how to play it, and trust me, it's not gonna be in any of my packages, but what do you do with it? And Strato I got no prob wit u, but Vince, pray people that didn't crack you in the face when you were a freshman and will definitely do it again. Find an activity to keep yourself busy. Oh and Strato, you been DJing for a while I know, I'm just wonderin how long you ... you probably started DJing in ur time frame around the same as me, i been for 4 1/2 yrs now...i never heard you DJ so i cant say id destroy you but i mean im pretty sick wit mixin man, not tryin to brag, but clubs was hoppin, i mean i do mainly hip hop and rap and i scratch too, not on the cd players cuz all cd players, even the best, sounds crappy when u scratch on them..i use technics...which is why i dont advertise for weddings much...i dont do many parties that much cuz i dont care about djing parties...most of my DJing is in my room..dont get me wrong, i get a few parties a month, but mainly school dances, teen dances, sweet 16s, things of that nature..you know, teen shyt,,,i get bored easy playin Earth Wind and Fire and going into like Heatwave or sum shyt, ... i;m out -peace lil f@gs

He was right! Vinny was an MC back then just as he is now. So that leaves all the rest of the company to which he was insluting... but Strato was the only other staff member..

Not everyone, only the people connected to the internet.

Again, Vinny if anything was trying to be an MC. Curious fellow, I know but wait it gets better

Here's another shocker -- Strato designed the entire HurricaneProductions.com from scratch.

No offense to the owners of this website, but just as an example --> this is what his website looked like at the time.

What?! We were charging a maximum of $250.00 a party!

B'cus thats how real DJs duke it out.

All of our equipment was either donated or given to us in the beginning, it was a while before we could afford to by serious equipment.

Refer to: "What?! We were charging a maximum of $250.00 a party!"

Again, webdesign = Strato.

Herb? Who even says that?

Somehow how he turned the tables on us.. he doesn't want Strato to play the keyboard in any of HIS packages. Strato feels discouraged.

I have no words for this one; no clue what hes talking about.

Too bad clubs aren't hoppin' like they used to be when we were seventeen years old.

Apparently this young man has never heard of the industry standard, pioneer's CDJ-1000 / MK2,3.

He gets bored going from Earth Wind and Fire into Heatwave. If I were him, and this is just me, I'd maybe go from Earth Wind and Fire to ..oh I dont know, Kool & The Gang? -- jusssst to shake things up a bit.

As crazy as that email was, it was stuff like that which actually motivated Vinny and I to pursue the mobile DJ industry. We always new we were better and could deliver a better product than any other mobile entertainer we'd seen, we just needed the opportunity.

Here's to another five years, and another five after that.

-DJ Strato Doumanis