“I heard about the Sound Factory, a club event in Boston run by DJ Manolo. So I started going there. A lot. It was progressive trance, Manolo’s sound — new to me. Soon I purchased my own DJ equipment. I had made up my own CD mixes — gave one to one of the club promoters who worked with me at Banana’s. He liked the mix, took it to the guys at a club called Fuel, and I got my first gig there. As the opener. The promoters asked me back. Eight to nine months I was doing that — I was driven! I knew that this was what I wanted to do.”
Besides Fuel, there was an even more popular house-music club: Reflections, in Chelmsford — “The place was packed, it rocked!” Deka became a fixture at Reflections, and his reputation spread, as more and more suburban “house heads” traveled into Boston to see the major house DJs spin at downtown clubs. Deka was there also. A club called Pravda brought him in as the headliner. “A one-time thing, but soon I began to get other offers.” And then, risking all on the strength of his Lowell-area reputation, in 2003 he moved to Boston.
“That’s when it really happened. All kinds of clubs wanted me. I was changing my style, too. Less of the trance, I was getting into tribal house now. Chus & Ceballos — the Spanish production team — did it to me. I heard one of their tracks at the Boston Beat store and there it was. Pretty soon I had a residency at Tabu, and then I got one at Venu, in the Boston Theater District — it was the Six One Seven promotion group who got it for me. They had heard my demo CDs — I had lots of demos out there! — and they wanted more. This was in 2004. Up to now I had done all of my own promoting, but after 2004 I began to have help promoting myself, and pretty soon I was spinning regularly at Venu, then Aria on Saturdays. And then Maria of BonTon Productions took over my promotion.”
“By now I was playing all tribal — hard, New York–style house. I’m still playing this. You can’t imagine how many hours I put in just practicing, even now. Anyway, you’ll hear New York tribal on my own productions. In August of 2006, my first track, ‘In the Darkness,’ was signed. Forty-eight hours after posting it at beatport.com, it was on the charts there. So now I’m on eight or nine labels. Besides Escuro and Nervous, there’s a track on DJ Peter Presta’s label, and one on Sound Groove featuring Craig Mitchell on vocals. And now I’ve got a track on Hypno Music, a UK label — they contacted me! — it’s called ‘In the City.’ You’ll hear it in early 2008.”
