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DJ Mckenzie keeps Vanguard’s Friday nights shaking Downtown

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DJ Mckenzie spins Friday nights at Vanguard.
Photo: Wade Vandervort

Mckenzie Woodcock has been a name to know on the Downtown DJ scene since the early 2000s. Once a regular performer at legendary 1990s Las Vegas Strip haunt Club Utopia, Woodcock is now the Vanguard's longest-running resident DJ, spinning every Friday night for the venue's RUN DTWN party. We caught up with DJ Mckenzie to talk about Downtown nightlife and what it takes to hold down a residency for nearly a decade.

You opened the Vanguard, right? I was the original Friday DJ. I've been there every Friday for almost 10 years now. It's surreal.

How did you become the Friday resident for RUN DTWN? [When Vanguard opened] I started playing house music, and then I would do First Fridays with Edgar Reyes of Soul Kitchen. Trends change, and I started doing hip-hop, and then I had Vegas Banger come in with me; he's a local DJ. We were doing trap and twerk music for a while, and then Sucio came on—he was doing Turnt Up Tuesdays, and then he jumped on with me. We started doing RUN DTWN probably three or four years ago.

How long have you been DJing? Since '98, so 21 years. It's weird for me now, because a lot of the kids that are coming in are 21, 22. I could be their dad, you know? (Laughs.)

How different is DJing now compared to when you started out? [When I started,] I was an underground DJ, and I had a residency at RA. I was going to Utopia before that. I was a battle DJ also, where I'd be juggling and scratching and all that stuff.

So you started out on vinyl. Yeah, I have, like, 3,000 to 5,000 records. When I would have my Friday night at RA, I would bring, like, 100 records; I'd have a good idea what I was going to spin that night. Now it's all on computers; it's [DJ software] Serato. It's good and bad, because anybody can be a DJ now, and you kind of see that. Somebody will just burn a hard drive and then think they're a DJ. And you can tell they don't know when to mix, they can't read a crowd. There's certain things about a night, especially as an opener, where you don't want to just blow [the crowd] out right away.

Why is that? I mean, we're making money for the bar, so if nobody's drinking and they're just dancing, that's not a good look. So I have to kind of slow things down. I'll change the tempo up a little bit. Psychologically, [people are] like, "OK, now it's time to get a drink." So you kind of have to play mind games.

What's popular on the dancefloor right now? People want what's on the radio.

That's interesting, because you're spinning Downtown. That used to be one of the only places to hear underground music. Yeah, my dear friend Aurajin—and John Doe and the Get Back—that was so much fun. If you played radio stuff [at the Get Back] you were kicked out. That was the time when I was spinning house music, and that's when you could break new stuff all the time.

How do you stay excited about DJing when you've been doing it for two decades? I have nights where everybody is just feeling the vibe that I'm putting down, and that's when it's fun. I've been blessed to spin at a place for nine years, you know? It's nice to feel like home.

RUN DTWN FEATURING DJ MCKENZIE Fridays, 10 p.m., cover varies. Vanguard, 516 Fremont St., 702-868-7800.

Tags: Nightlife, DJ
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