DAILYSESSION

By  leader of Halcyon

Although hardly a household name amongst Techno heads as of yet, with his Perc Trax debut “Tarantula” out this week, Oktave’s Jeff Derringer is heading into 2011 with the afterburners on full. A former indie rock drummer who made the jump to producing and eventually DJing Techno some six years ago, Jeff, along with Oktave partner Kevin Gregor, has immersed himself fully in multiple facets of the scene. With his move from NYC back to his hometown of Chicago, he’s taken up the mission of spreading American Techno through education, promotion, marketing and networking… but mostly through making and playing quality music and putting on great artistically uncompromising events. halcyon’s Techno beat reporter Albert Freeman took some time to chat with Jeff about the long, hard road, its twists and turns, and what the crystal ball has in store…

halcyon: So let’s start at the beginning Jeff. How and when did you become interested in DJing and especially production?

JD: I’ve been interested in production for a lot longer than DJing. I’ve been making and recording music for about 20 years. It’s only in the last 6 years or so that I’ve been interested in producing dance music, and in particular Techno. I was originally a drummer, so you could call that my native instrument. I think that makes me a better producer, it gives me a feel for rhythm and polyrhythm, but I’m basically a writer at heart. I’ve only been doing Techno for 6 years, and since then I’ve been getting into DJing. [Read More]