But Miss Nine's not just another doll behind the decks
During the '90s rave-o-lution, some sensed that the digitized psychedelia of electronic dance music could finally fuel the kind of global love-in that the '60s fell short of providing. It was hoped that bell-bottom raving and DayGlo optimism would level the playing field, or at least the dance floor. Of course, just as '60s idealism faded away, rave culture OD'd on its own drug-fueled excesses.
It's against this backdrop of hope and disappointment that women ventured into the anarchic environment of clubland, hoping to take advantage of the do-it-yourself accessibility of DJing, but wanting to make it without being patronized (or photographed by Playboy). Most of the pioneers - DJ Irene, DJ Rap, Sandra Collins, and Kemistry & Storm, for example - made it by playing harder, faster, and better than the boys. But a new genre of female spinners has found an easier route to the spotlight: Call them pin-up DJs.
Ever since the April 2004 issue of Playboy featured a nude pictorial on eight women who spin (most of whom were virtual unknowns on the super-club circuit), more and more young women have been promoting themselves as dolls behind the decks - feasts of mammary more than music. MySpace, where half-dressed go-go girls posing behind turntables have become instant sensations, accelerated the phenomenon.
It must be tricky, then, to be DJ Miss Nine. The jock possesses attributes of the take-no-prisoners pioneers and the use-what-you-got new girls. She's a globetrotting runway stepper, represented by Elite Model Management (once home to Cindy Crawford, Iman, and Cameron Diaz), who has made a rare transition to the turf of superstar DJs. She can mix, but she clearly doesn't mind being photographed.
"I think it's easier" to start out in DJing as a female, says the 22-year-old. "But at the same time it is harder, because we have to prove ourselves more." She doesn't begrudge the pin-up brigades, but she doesn't want to join them, either. "They have to decide what works best for them," Miss Nine says. "I have my own way to become better, and I have my own goals. This is working for me."
Even as she continues to model professionally, German-bred, Amsterdam-based Miss Nine has a serious DJ pedigree: She's represented by Bullitt Bookings, the Elite of DJ agencies; is touring with Sharam Tayebi, one half of star DJ duo Deep Dish; and has a new mix-CD, Yoshitoshi Ibiza, out next month on Deep Dish's Yoshitoshi label. The CD captures her time as a resident spinner at club Pacha on the Spanish party isle of Ibiza - the Mecca of DJ culture. She produced one track, "Everlasting," that appears on Yoshitoshi Ibiza, and she's working on a followup.
Born Kristin Schrot, Miss Nine got her start in modeling at age 16 and soon caught the DJing bug from a boyfriend. She took on the name Miss Nine because she was born on the ninth of March. Miss Nine's been spinning for more than a few years now, having started out at Amsterdam's lauded Motion parties and later, in 2003, moving on to overseas gigs, in between modeling shoots for the likes of Elle magazine, Tommy Hilfiger, and Pepe Jeans.
"Some people like to judge me without knowing exactly what I do and what I play," she says. "But I don't really care."
Her CD, compiled mostly from Yoshitoshi's vaults, is a crowd-pleaser, even if self-consciously so, moving properly from the vocal depths of house (Sultan feat. Zara's "No Why") to the psychotropic buzz of after-hours bacchanalia (PQM's "You Are Sleeping") to the breezy, silver clouds of tech-house (Sam Perez & Dariush's "Across the Ocean"). Though lacking surprises, her debut DJ journey is shining and ballsy - a sure thing for nightlife denizens warming up for the weekend.
"I tried to do something that I would also do in a DJ set," Miss Nine says. "I did it over and over again 'til I was completely satisfied." She worked long and hard on Yoshitoshi Ibiza, mixing with her favored Pioneer CDJ decks and then meticulously marking and editing the recording using Ableton Live software.
"It is a lot of work," she says, "but it was all worth it."
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