Meet Deon (dj Auld) Claiborne | DJ and music selector

We had the good fortune of connecting with Deon (dj Auld) Claiborne and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Deon (DJ Auld), we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
Taking risks has defined many of my choices in life including in the areas of work and my creative processes.

For example, when I was much younger, I worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Santa Cruz, CA called India Joze. The cuisine was East Indian, Middle Eastern, and Indonesian. After a few months as a dishwasher, I decided I wanted to cook there. I had no cooking experience. I was just nineteen, but I felt I could do it. So I asked to work in the kitchen. They said, you can’t reach the dishes, which was true, because they were above the line and I’m only 5’1″. I asked them to give me a week and if I couldn’t do it, I’d go back to washing dishes. There was a shelf below the line and I’d stand on that to reach the plates and set a stack next to me. I stayed a cook in that restaurant until I left and for awhile pursued cooking school.

I employed a similar course with DJing. An opportunity popped up in a Facebook group I belong to to play for an internet radio station just as the pandemic hit and I reached out. I was very green. Very green. But they gave me a chance and I grew and learned more about the art and craft of DJing until I was playing on two separate internet radio stations for a total of four hours each week.

This last year I played several club gigs, two dance festivals, and my first public vinyl set!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I would say that I’m not the most technical DJ. I mix well enough and I can do a few technical things well. Where I feel I excel, however, is in song selection. I am a musical omnivore. I always have been, since dancing the twist to “Purple People Eater” at age five to mixing classical music and Trance together today. I love all kinds of music and soundtrack my whole life.

For me music is strongly linked to mood and memory, so I can hear a song and see a whole memory or movie scene unfold in my mind. So, I bring this deep interest in so many different genres to my song selection when DJing. Also, I was a club kid back in the late 70s and early 80s and I love to dance. So if I can dance to a song, usually other people can too. I’m proud of this. That my song selection is on point.

Actually, coming into DJing has been easy in terms of opportunities and support. It took a minute to decide what type of DJ I want to be, but after a few private gigs, I realized that my heart is really in the clubs and festivals and so I’ve pursued that angle the most. Meeting all the amazing folks in the collectives I mentioned in the shout out has provided me with a real support group of great friends and the opportunies to play in clubs and at festivals and make those dreams come true.

I would say my brand and story is about taking risks and not letting stereotypes and others expectations of you define you.

I’m 65 years old and I started DJing at 58 years old. Stereotypes of older women are that we are past our prime and that we are invisible and have nothing to add to the conversation any longer. I like that I am blowing those stereotypes apart! Most of my friends are twenty or thirty years younger than me and my closest lifelong friends are not surprised at all that I would do something like this as I’ve pivoted many different directions over the course of my life.

So, I challenge other older women especially, to follow their passions, defy the stereotypes, keep learning, growing, and changing right up to the last day!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
A week is barely enough to cover this large state! And, it depends on the friend, but left to my own devices it would go like this:

First, we’d go to the Upper Peninsula (UP) to Pt. Crisp and go dispersed camping for a couple days. There’s a spot on a bluff overlooking Lake Superior I found a few years ago that had a sweeping view of the lake.

Then, because of my cooking school past, we’d have to clean up and take a drive down the west coast of the state and have breakfast in Grand Rapids, lunch in St. Joseph, and dinner in Baroda.

Next we’d spend time in Ann Arbor and, of course, eat (lol), check out the Science Museum because kids’ museums are cool. We’d mosey over to the 734 Brewing Company in Ypsilanti for Fallout Shelter where we’d dance to my friends who are DJing or I would be DJing.

Finally, we’d spend the last days of the vacation in Detroit. We’d go to the Detroit Art Institute for the day and, if there is any kind of arts or music festival at Hart Plaza, we’d hit that for awhile. Finally, we’d finish up dancing into the wee hours at either the Spot Lite Detroit, the TV Lounge, Speakerbox, or an after hours party with the Detroit Techno Militia.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Ah, this is easy. It takes a village to raise me. It always has in all areas of life. As it relates to DJing, I give shout outs to the owners of the three internet radio stations I played on early in my growth: Sound Lab Radio UK, Ruff Start Radio, and Groove Radio Detroit.

Those who have helped me grow as a club and festival DJ are: the DJ/VJ Collective of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, the Fallout Shelter, House Music for All, Immaculate Conception Collective, the Wax Kings, and DJ Tribewalker for his phenomenal efforts at Leilapalooza and New Wave Music and Arts Festival.

And all of my supportive friends who let me talk incessantly about music and DJing and show up to my gigs.

Website: https://www.mixcloud.com/DJAuld

Instagram: @djauld_dmc

Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/DJ-Auld-Facebook

Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/DJ-Auld-Youtube