Interview with a DJ

Across the Pacific
Steve Maestro

To give way to pattern and go ahead with this interview was nothing. The last thing I want to do is set a pattern for myself, become predictable or set a label on me as the girl who always does interviews with them GCI cats. Someone could look at my history and notice that Steve Maestro is my third GCI affiliate. They might even want to assume or guess who's next. But you see, this story is different; different time, different place, different setting… different man. And when you understand that, as I did, then you'll understand why this interview was done at the man's house, rather than studio.

Sworn to secrecy (as to many other things), the most I can say about Steve's dwelling is that it has a breath taking view, a breath taking four flights of stairs and a breath taking collection of records carpeting what could have been a very nice living room. Nonetheless, the life of a musician doesn't need leather couches or big screen TV's. The life of a syndicated DJ needs only what Steve's got, and it doesn't include your average top-notch technology.

Maestro jumps up onto his crates and walks over at least 10 thousand covered pieces of vinyl. He crouches down and poses for the camera. I can't believe he's standing on the stuff, but he's mastered the gymnastics of it to the point where I gather he does this a lot. Some records are pulled out of crates like bookmarks, but the collection would put the Harold Washington Library to shame. My first question was obvious.

"No, you didn't bring all this up four flights of stairs…You didn't…."

But he nods his head matter-o-factly in the affirmative. With the help of two cousins, "One crate at a time," he says, and then hops down from his collection. Everything is organized and categorized into sections. He rambles them off, everywhere from, "House here, club disco here, old school over here, albums over here, new house over there, hip-hop over there, R&B from a certain period over there…" etc, etc. Until we get to something call his "maybe section."

"Maybe?" I ask

"I might play it, I might not."

I look up and he describes to me how he's acquired a psychedelic collection of records - all, different shapes, sizes and colors. Gold albums from Puffy, triangular ones from Flava Unit, Hot pink, green, blue, see-through. All, given to him from labels, artists, and more

"Because, not only do I work for GCI," he explains, "But I'm also syndicated," And for those who aren't familiar. Syndicated means nation-wide airplay. Steve Maestro is responsible for mixes in several different states, including Boston, N. Carolina, Louisiana, and more. He puts them on CD's and ships them off, always staying at least two to three days ahead of the game.

"I have no leisure time." Steve says when I ask what he listens to on the side. "Even in the car it's between listening to advance copies and my own music." I ask him to show us what he's got and he sets up to play a peace. For the rest of the interview, his music is playing in the background and it flows into the atmosphere. He talks of his writing partner Michelle. "My partner for life." He says enthused about her talent, their chemistry and her brother who, "Plays the saxophone like he's got fifty years on him." He's 21.

Maestro himself plays several instruments on the tracks filtering through his apartment…"guitar, bass, and keyboard…drums if I could… The landlord won't let me have drums in the building. Everyone can have dogs" He makes a playful smirk noting the irony "...but no drums. My mom and dad put me into private lessons when I was, like seven."

Maestro grew up on the North West Side, around Division. "My parents are from Belize, so I grew up with a wide, wide variety of music. Reggae, Calypso, Rock, Jazz, whatever. If it had a beat, I was gonna find out about it." He has lots of cousins in Chicago, lots of relatives, One sister, a son at 10 and a daughter.

In this living room, he has lined against the wall a number of tape decks, CD burners, (a semi-crinkled crayon drawing on notebook paper from his son) an IBM computer, an XP-30, a sampler, and small mix board. The set-up appears impressive, but this is not your new technology. He carries around the same Mic in his bag as he records with it at home. "The sound is still good. I don't like high tech stuff." He admits, "Me and technology don't get along."

"Well, if you carry it around in your bag like that, it's got to be a dynamic Mic, right"?

"It's a…blazi, blazi, whatever, whatever." He waves off the technical term. "It was fifty bucks and it sounded good. It still sounds good. "It's all in the mix. You have to tweak it."

I ask how long it took him to get all this stuff and he makes note that the possibility is due to the position at GCI. Most of the equipment he bought after he began his career there. The turntables were the only things he claimed were his before. Everything else came peace by peace.

Steve is looking to launch his music, particularly Michelle's vocals and their combined writing style oversees. He's interested in, "That, and the adult market….Jill [Scott], in my opinion is bustin it open." And we connect on the same desire to bring that old goodness, that quality music back to the youth.

"Yeah, cause they're not stupid…" Steve lifts his hands, palms in the air, to stress his point. "You know it kills me, the record company philosophy, what I call the 'Dumb Down Theory,' which is like, make everything simple. But…not everybody is simple. Not everybody likes simple stuff." And then he declares confidently, that his favorite artist out now is himself.

"Me." He says beefing up his chest with a pompous grin. We all laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, of course, but no… who really. Everyone learns or gives credit to someone, right?" Wrong. He was smiling when he said but, but there was no joke in the quote.

"And nobody does nothing for me that Stevie Wonder, Barry White or anybody else hasn't already done before them, so there ain't nobody out here doin nothin for me. Don't get me wrong, I like Jill, but I…I'm 10 years past Jill. That was Soul to Soul, you know what I mean?

Now, this just gets to me in an intriguing way. How could nothing touch him...Nothing? I know the music industry can be a desert at times, but there are a couple of ponds here and there. I want to play on it more, but decline.

"So most of the music you listen to, is primarily old school."

"Fo Sho. The Masters. Marvin Gaye, all dem Cats" (notice the capitalization on the "C".) He proclaims this as if they reside on the top of a mystical mountain off across the Pacific. It explains his Star Wars-like apprenticeship with Boogie Nights and the Old School Lunch Mix. It explains his own music more. You do enough in this genre, play it night and day, mix it day and night, and there's merit in how you can be considered a type of connoisseur on the issue. He's earned his right.

He was "25…26?" when he started at GCI. He won a demo contest. And although it took him about a month to get the staff to stop treating him as some lucky "contest winner" he got his props.

"Oh yeah, oh yeah…I got Flack! Cause, nobody new who I was, nobody new where I came from, I was a basement DJ. But, you know, I think those are the most passionate. I think what really got them was when we started doin the old school. You know, before V103 got it…before everyone started jumpin on Old School. Yeah, me and Howard did our old school thing."

Now, even though GCI moved all Old School, including Old School Sunday to V103, Maestro is unmoved and unaffected. "Yeah it was time to separate." He says positively. It had no negative effect on his career and he still does his thing. "If anything it has forced me to go deeper into the crates for Gene's show."

As far as his future, Steve admits he kinda want's to do the puffy thing. "But I don't want to be out like Puffy. [And] I want to do the record label here. Cause, we've got mad, mad talent here in Chicago, and no labels. There's this rumor out and around that we can't work together or whatever." But he contests it's not true and it's time to bring the attention back home

The Zodiac is Scorpio, the color; "right now, this year" went from green to "Burgundy." And he doesn't get star struck. "Nobody gets me star struck." "No, it would have to be someone coming back from the dead. Artists are people, first and foremost. They're just people."

I asked Steve for any advice he'd like to share with aspiring industry cats. And he tells me this. "Do what you love, even if goes against the wishes of your parents, cause sometimes, they don't know."

Steve's accomplishments are well deserved, well earned. He's definitely laid back and friendly. Furthermore, he carries himself as a true artist, a truly hardworking artist, and very set in his ways, but I just couldn't help myself on the way out.

"So there's no one? No one you can give props to now, in this time… for anything?"

"No, no. He shakes his head. A smile, but still firm. "There's no one doing anything for me that hasn't already been done. And you can put that in Black and White.

To hear Steve Maestro do his thing, tune into WGCI. Monday-Friday at 12:00PM. Check out the Boogie Nights Mix Sundays 12:00AM-2:00AM, and the Old School Sunday Mix - Sundays 6:00PM-9:00PM.

- Ibi Aboyade-Cole