How Do You Sk8!
“Welcome to How Do You Sk8! – the ultimate destination for every skating enthusiast! Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, we’ve got something for everyone. From the smooth glide of inline and ice to the classic roll of quads and the thrill of skateboarding, we cover it all. Join us each episode as we dive deep into the world of skating, exploring everything from high-speed adrenaline in speed skating to the artistry of figure skating, and the intensity of ice hockey. If it’s on wheels or blades, it’s here. Lace-up, strap in, and roll with us as we celebrate the freedom, community, and passion of skating. Let’s ride together!”
How Do You Sk8!
Funk on Wheels: When DJing Meets Roller Skating Culture
The spinning wheels of roller skates have their perfect complement in the spinning vinyl of a DJ booth. This fascinating connection comes alive as Steve Gonzalez (DJ Speedy) takes us into the world of skating DJs—a specialized art form that's about far more than just playing songs.
Starting his skating journey in 1979 and picking up DJing in 1982, Steve provides a time capsule of roller skating culture spanning over four decades. He explains the crucial difference between club DJing and rink DJing: "You have to know your crowd and build the music." From his beginnings at Lorain Skate World in Ohio to his current residency at United Skates in Tampa where he draws crowds of 150-200 skaters, Steve's career traces the evolution of both skating and music technologies.
The conversation takes a poignant turn as Steve shares how vertigo forced him to hang up his skates in 2019, followed by a heart attack and bypass surgery—physical challenges that transformed but didn't end his relationship with skating culture. Despite these obstacles, his passion for creating the perfect skating atmosphere continues behind the booth.
Music selection emerges as a fascinating topic, with Steve favoring funk classics from artists like Zapp and The Gap Band that perfectly complement shuffle skaters. His assertion that modern music "has no heart" (with exceptions like Bruno Mars) reveals the thoughtful consideration behind every track at the rink. The technological evolution from vinyl to digital platforms has made beat-matching easier but perhaps less artistic—a transition Steve navigated while maintaining his distinctive approach to skating soundtracks.
Whether you're a skating enthusiast curious about what makes rink music work, a DJ interested in specialized venues, or someone fascinated by subcultures that blend physical activity and music, this episode offers rare insights into an art form that keeps the wheels turning. Find DJ Speedy on Facebook to follow his continuing journey at the crossroads of music and motion.
Hey there, welcome to how Do you Skate, the ultimate destination for all skating enthusiasts. We cater to everyone, from beginners to pros. Whether you love inline and ice skating or prefer quads and skateboarding, we have it all covered, and we bring you exclusive interviews with professionals, talented amateurs and influencers in the industry. So sit back, relax and get ready for an exciting journey into the world of skating.
Speaker 2:Welcome to this week's episode of how Do you Skate. I'm your host, sean Egan, and my guest today is Steve Gonzalez, who is also a skating DJ. So excited to have finally a DJ on board. So welcome to the show. Thank you very much Glad to be here. So when did your whole skating start? How old were you?
Speaker 3:I started skating when I was about 15, about 1979 okay, so nice and early.
Speaker 2:I was a little younger then, but well, actually actually you know. But so now you've been skating since 1979, so obviously you've seen quite the transition in the skating culture from 79 to now. So anything exciting about the transition that you've seen, it's more well you froze up and down here in Florida there's a freestyle and the bass music. Okay, so now, when did you start DJing and how did you transition into skating DJ?
Speaker 3:I started DJing in 1982. Okay, on vinyl.
Speaker 2:The good old days, yes, the good old days. Now did you scratch too, or just no, it wasn't that challenging, didn't get that far into it. So what made you transition from? So you, obviously you started with like parties and stuff and then transition actually I turned a party that started uh doing house parties, okay.
Speaker 3:And then, uh, I started uh working on a local skating rink, which was lorraine skate world in lorraine ohio, okay, and uh, which was Loraini Skate World in Lorain, ohio, okay, and that's just for me.
Speaker 2:So what is the difference between, like, a normal DJ and a skating DJ? Because it's something that a lot of people see, so just curious about it.
Speaker 3:The difference is how you treat the crowd. You have to your crowd. You have to know the music. Okay, obviously you're not going to play a slow song when you should be playing something that's faster. You know so it's. You have to know the crowd and then build music nice.
Speaker 2:And now with that is it like certain kinds of music that work better than others, because I like rock and I like to skate fast. So it kind of goes hand in hand when, at least back in the day when we have fast skate, we'd have a listen to the music and play some metallica, so what? Is some of your favorite artists that you play that as far as that goes.
Speaker 3:I play a lot of funk. I play like Zap Death Band.
Speaker 2:Okay, corner Game. And so now with that whole thing, it's like do you have like a lot of jam skaters or shuffle skaters or what's like the the main style?
Speaker 3:So now, are you okay?
Speaker 2:Are you a shuffle skater yourself?
Speaker 3:No, I had to stop skating in 2019 because I developed vertigo.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so, and pretty serious vertigo.
Speaker 3:Not that I couldn't skate.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I suffer from that occasionally, that occasionally so, but it hasn't stopped me, I'll just take the dive.
Speaker 3:so but do you miss a lot?
Speaker 2:I'm going to all be taking that so now, with that, what's kind of some of the trends that you find with skating, because I know out here like we have dj dough boy and then like they do like a lot of the big parties, do you partake in a lot of the the big parties for skating or?
Speaker 3:I do a local party here that I'm part of. Other than that, I don't go out of state, okay. Not that I don't want to, I just never been asked to okay you'll get there, don't worry, we'll get you there.
Speaker 2:So, but with the whole entire, since you started what 82 you said with the roller rink and have you been? And then, like dh, about 92 and I just walked away from it all oh, in 92 you did yeah, and then did you come back to it yeah came back to it in 2011?
Speaker 3:okay, and what was the cause of the walk away and I got tired of the regrets just doing the same stupid things I did a week. You don't look out, there's a whole bunch of dude yeah, did they give you like creative freedom back then? Yes or no? No, but it didn't matter. They still the same stupid stuff we can only got.
Speaker 2:I just get tired of it, yeah, so now when you came back to it, was it a lot. Is it still the same every weekend, weekend out, or do you have?
Speaker 3:it's still the same, but I have more patients now okay, that definitely helps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and do you do mostly like adult skates or are you working?
Speaker 3:so I do uh adult skates and I do uh once a month at a local rink up in uh inverness okay, and have you been at the same rink for the whole time?
Speaker 2:and I've been at united skates for about 14 years, okay, and how's that going? Pretty good. So can you tell us about the rink? Like, what kind of is it like wood floor? It's wood floor.
Speaker 3:It's a rotunda floor. It's not that big, but none of the rinks down here in Florida are that big. Okay, all the bigger rinks are up north.
Speaker 2:Okay, and what part of Florida are you in? Tampa, tampa, okay, yeah, and you guys get hit by hurricanes there, right, yes, okay. So does that like really screw things up? Does the rink get some serious damage when those come through?
Speaker 3:Actually it's pretty well. It's got some minor damage, but nothing that closes down.
Speaker 2:So now, when you started skating, was it like you just went to the roller rink and started skating, or did your family?
Speaker 3:I started skating because my friends in the neighborhood started skating, okay, and we were all, all together.
Speaker 2:Okay, and was it? Let's see how would I say it, because I know, when my first pair of skates, I had the adjustable with the metal wheels. Or were you classy enough to start off with nice skates?
Speaker 3:No, I started all with the brownies.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, so, and then so you skated. Did you skate all the way up to 92 and then walk away from skating also?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I walked away from all of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, and not even like recreational skating from time to time.
Speaker 3:The only time I went was when I took my daughter and son.
Speaker 2:Okay, and are they pretty? Are they pretty, still into skating? Or my daughter is. But my son is Okay, and is he in line or no, he's just quads. Okay, jam skater too. Or yeah, jam skater, nice, does he do any competitions. Or no, no, nice, does he do any competitions?
Speaker 3:No, he does it in Michigan with his family.
Speaker 2:Okay, is he getting his kids into skating?
Speaker 3:He's trying to get his daughter into it. His son's too young yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it started him young, but I have a hard time getting my kids to go skating, sometimes too, even though my son worked at the roller rink for a while, a while sometimes too. So even though my son worked at the roller rink for a while. So so, but so do you still own a pair of skates? Do you ever try it every once in a while with the vertigo or I tried it probably about six, eight months ago.
Speaker 3:It was like I'd never been on skates before.
Speaker 2:Okay, and is like your vertigo, like a constant thing, or is it?
Speaker 3:I'm okay sitting down, I can drive. Okay, I can walk, but if, after I start walking for a long period of time, I start to get dizzy, okay so, and do they know what's causing it?
Speaker 2:is it just like equilibrium in your ear?
Speaker 3:I don't know. It thinks many years. I think it's there. I think it's that I tried a couple medicines and nothing works. It's like okay, whatever yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's just like a pain when you're trying to recover from some and it's taking you away. I mean, like were you pretty passionate about skating, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Three or four times a week.
Speaker 2:Oh nice. And then, of course, that's taken away from you. So have you like gone to a chiropractor or anything? No, I don't.
Speaker 2:To me they're like a stopgap measure, because all they do is they adjust you and then you slip back into where you were before, yeah, unless you have a really good massage therapist that can like realign your muscles. So yeah, because I mean I suffer from heart disease and it seems like every time I start to make progress, something happens and I get knocked down. So I've gotten more of the natural route of stuff now and it seems to be working a lot better for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I understand that I had a heart attack two years ago and it bypassed last year.
Speaker 2:Oh, not fun. And so do they have you like on a bunch of meds and everything. Yeah, like about 14 different meds. Oh geez, I was on nine and got cut down to three different meds. Oh geez, I was on nine and got cut down to three. So so, but we can talk about that later, especially all the natural stuff, but, um, yeah, so how was that whole experience did that like? Did the vertigo start after the heart attack?
Speaker 3:or no. It started before that. I was in q west one weekend with my uh girlfriend and I got sick there and came back with it and I just never left.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, it's just one of those weird things, huh yeah. So even like when you put the skates back on, you can only go for a little bit and then you get dizzy.
Speaker 3:No, I can't. It's like I've never skated before.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like just totally like in my job. I was able to do spins and turns and backwards skate and everything, and I can't do that so that's got to be extremely frustrating, yes, especially when you work at the roller rink and get to see yeah that's like the definition of insanity right there exactly. But so now, with your whole dj, and is it just the roller rink, or do you get out and do parties still, or?
Speaker 2:I do parties every now and then, but mostly it's uh, the world rank nice, so I'm gonna ask you what kind of skates you skated on when you did so. Like what? What's your? What's your setup?
Speaker 3:I have a pair of uh Douglas Schneider, uh, super deluxe with a gold, uh, gold, gold, uh, right now, gold, Okay.
Speaker 2:And then bearing set up and Okay, and wheels.
Speaker 3:Uh, I don't remember my last pair of wheels. Okay, and wheels. I don't remember my last pair of wheels.
Speaker 2:Okay. So now if someone wanted to become a skating DJ, what advice do you have towards them? I know earlier you said know your crowd, but I know not all music works with skating.
Speaker 3:No not at all. I mean, sometimes you can make your work, but nowadays, with STEM and stuff like that, you can make a lot of music work that you didn't work before. You've got to know the music. The newer music, in my opinion, doesn't work as well for skating.
Speaker 2:Why is that? Why do you think? To me it has no heart.
Speaker 3:Okay, you know, it's all opportunity that there's no talent there, you know, and there are very few of them that actually have the talent to do it, like bro mars. He's one of the ones that his music is like back in the day. Yeah, and I play his music all the time.
Speaker 2:What are some of the other artists that you think are capable nowadays, that actually have talent?
Speaker 1:Because I agree with you with a lot of the auto-tune Okay.
Speaker 3:Charlie Puth and maybe one or two others. I can't remember them right now. I don't play a lot of the current stuff.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, and that's why I like rock, because that's one of those things when you go see them in concert, you know if they're auto-tuned or not.
Speaker 3:Right. Even nowadays, rock bands aren't what they used to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, there's a few good ones. I mean, actually, there's quite a few good ones that I used to do, and then I'm out in Denver, so we got like a really good local scene here. Oh cool, just have you been out to Denver at all? No, we've got, I think, five roller rinks within a 30-minute drive of me right now.
Speaker 2:Wow five roller rinks within a 30 minute drive of me right now. Wow so. And then we have at least six nights of adult nights that I know. The one place that did it on Monday nights isn't doing it, but you can find whatever you want. Usually Sunday nights is the super busy night in Aurora. That's where you get a lot of the shuffle and jam skaters, and then our Vada. That's where we get a lot of the shuffle and jam skaters, and then our vada. That's where we have our retro night. So all the stuff that was brand new when I started skating they play there. Nostalgia, except I just don't have the mullet. So exactly. So now do you plan on like, just keep going? Is like the dj in your full-time job now? No, I'll try a full-time job.
Speaker 3:It never will be.
Speaker 2:Okay, and do you keep planning on staying there for a while?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Nice as long as I can physically. That works. Do you get big crowds At?
Speaker 3:the one difference I do. I average about 150 to 200.
Speaker 2:That's actually pretty good, because here we get excited when we have like 75 people, so so is the skating scene pretty good in in florida. It it got better after covid, okay, and did you see, were you guys open during covid or were you like one of the few? Okay, so did you see like a better resurgence? Cause I noticed a huge resurgence of skating during COVID just because of the fact that you couldn't go to the gym and people needed something to do so it was what All outside. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we wanted to get out.
Speaker 2:And then, as soon as everything opened back up, everybody went back indoors. Actually, we still got a lot of skaters that actually still do it outside. So, um, what is like advice that you have for someone that wants to become a skating dj um, know what you want to do.
Speaker 3:If you want to be a roller rink DJ, pursue that, be a roller rink DJ. If you want to be a club DJ, be a club DJ. I mean, they're different, but they're not that much different. Okay, it's just that your style of music is going to be different. Yeah, if you're in a club or if you're in a roller rink, okay, okay, yeah exactly what you want to do there you go.
Speaker 2:That's always an important thing to to look at. So now, who was your influence with skating and who was your influence with DJing?
Speaker 3:influence with skating was with friends DJing I can't really say. I know later on DJ Jamson. He was a very good friend of mine. He had me in the business.
Speaker 2:If it wasn't for him I was going to cock out and be totally done, and is that just because of it being the same all the time?
Speaker 3:No, I was older. This was about six years ago. I was older. Guys had to haul the equipment around, stuff like that. It was losing my, I guess my throw up, kind of like losing the passion.
Speaker 2:It just wasn't there anymore. So, and now it's especially with you starting from vinyl, from carrying all the cases of your music into bringing your laptop in with all the music on it. So I mean you've even seen the whole transition through all that. So did you go from like vinyl to cassette, to CD, now to completely digital?
Speaker 3:I went from vinyl to cassette. I skipped CD, okay, and then went straight to digital Okay. And then learning curve was tremendous. I mean, the ripping part of the CDs was easy, yeah. The burping part of the CDs was easy, yeah. But using the software and how it translated into your pitch and you know your beat matching and stuff like that at the time, you know, was hard to figure out.
Speaker 2:Now that you've got it down, does it make it a lot easier to match stuff up? Oh yeah, it's much easier, so a lot better than the olden days.
Speaker 3:The olden days it was an art, because you had to know your craft and you had to know you know. Ok, how far might you just get on a song to match it with the other one? Yeah, Now it's just you look at the number and it's you just to the one next to it, and that's it.
Speaker 2:So it kind of takes that skill out of it now. Yeah, so now I was skating Saturday night and the manager was DJing. So what do you have to say to someone that does not know who the Beastie Boys are?
Speaker 3:Don't DJ.
Speaker 2:Because it was like I asked for like a Beastie Boys song and she's like who? And I'm like you're kidding, right, like even all my kids and the younger people know she's, she just turned 25 today, but you gotta know who the beastie boys are. They're like, yeah, definitely. So what? What are some now that we brought them up? So what are your some of your favorite beastie boy songs to play when, when you're djing?
Speaker 3:I like Brass Monkey. Okay, you gotta fight for your right. I really don't play a lot of BC Boyz. I mean I like them, but I really don't play a lot of them, yeah, but they definitely fit in with skating.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, since they actually started, I'm actually trying to get them on the show, because they actually started as skateboarders in a punk band. Oh, I didn't know that Cool the show, because they actually started as skateboarders and a punk band, so it'd be kind of a cool transition. So now, what are your future plans? And like, how can my listeners find out where you're at and follow you?
Speaker 3:They can follow me on Facebook. Okay, and I'm on Facebook. There you go so well. Okay, my name is DJ Speedy and I'm on Facebook.
Speaker 2:There you go so well. I appreciate you coming on and enlightening us a little bit about. So thank you very much, sir. You're welcome you. Thank you, thank you.