Energy is high, lights are flashing, the music is loud, and the beats are fast. This is just an average weeknight for The Girl Downtown, who is making her way behind the turntables at all of Gainesville’s hottest clubs.
When she’s not in class or going to the gym, The Girl Downtown, Amanda Mesa, 18, is interviewing and photographing DJs and producers to get their personal stories that she documents on her blog, The DJ Diaries.
“I interviewed 12 DJs in the span of about five days right before Spring Break by just going from club to club to club,” said Mesa, a freshman journalism student at UF.
“I’d leave my dorm room around 9 p.m. to get to the first one, do my interview, take some pictures, watch them spin and move on to the next one.”
Mesa said she grew up listening to her parents’ musical tastes, which included disco and tech-house, along with artists like Daft Punk and ATB, a German DJ and producer, who gave her a passion for newer beats and musical styles that are easy to dance to.
“I love the idea of people making this music electronically, and I’ve always been curious about it,” Mesa said.
“Being a freshman here, I really missed writing. I was editor of my newspaper in high school and didn’t have as much opportunity to write here with all my lecture classes.”
After speaking to several professors and advisers on how to become more involved, all of them suggested she start writing and managing a blog, Mesa said.
On a bus trip back to her home in Fort Lauderdale, Mesa said she watched the documentary “Pump Up the Volume: The History of House Music,” and thought about how cool it would be to meet the artists in the documentary.
“So few people take the time to document the stories of these DJs and the people out there playing the music,” Mesa said.
“When I first saw DJs making this music from the computer taking bits and pieces of other tracks, mixing them and beat tracking, it was just fascinating to me.”
As she set out to do her first interviews for the blog, Mesa said she went in with a calm attitude, just seeing who would talk to her.
After sending a few emails and Facebook messages, Mesa snagged an interview with Adrian Villaverde, who DJs at Forum every Saturday night and opened for Alesso, a globally recognized DJ, in early February.
Since her first interview with Villaverde, Mesa has interviewed DJs that hail from Tallahassee, Orlando, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Gainesville.
She has a variety of experience spanning from daytime student to nighttime DJ and producers with record deals.
“Everybody just seemed eager about the project and enthusiastic about it, so that’s how I started.”
When it comes to her persona as The Girl Downtown, Mesa said she drew her inspiration from “Gossip Girl” and students at NYU.
“Whenever I’ve visited New York, I’m always impressed with the students from NYU because they live this very glamorous lifestyle, always club-hopping, but they were documenting the nightclub owners,” Mesa said.
This girl-on-the-go feel, along with a DIY-style artistry, is why she records interviews and takes pictures and video with her iPhone, Mesa said.
She also wanted to keep The Girl Downtown separate from The DJ Diaries.
She doesn’t want to limit herself to just electronic music.
Gainesville is a huge mecca for rock and hip-hop, and she said she wants to be able to branch out in the future.
Although The DJ Diaries is still new, Mesa said she has also been approached by promoters and people responsible for putting shows together.
“I’d love to document their stories as well because they’re as much a part of the culture and the scene as the DJs and producers,” Mesa said.
Look out for Mesa’s upcoming features on artists such as Figure, Crespo and Lady Cherelle that are soon to be posted on The DJ Diaries.
“To me, it’s an art form just like any other musician, and I really want to capture that,” Mesa said.
