"Special Guest DJ.” Too often, the term is a misnomer. Maybe it’s not so much a guest as a friend. Maybe he or she isn’t so special. This Sunday at the Phoenix Landing, however, the special guest lives up to his billing. “I’m a party DJ, is my main thing, that’s what I do, says ALAN MANZI .  “If people want to come shake their ass, they should come and check it out. I bring the hot tracks and I just drop them. That’s what I do.” Long a secret in the Hub, Manzi is the preferred DJ for many insiders, label heads, and club promoters. His legend has grown after 10 years of DJing all types of music — house, hip-hop, trance — and doing it throughout the state. Clubs in Worcester, raves in Amherst, and house parties in Boston been touched by his exuberant style. And like most Boston DJs, he was inspired and motivated by the Loft.

“That’s what really got me into it. I was like, ‘Wow, I want to get into that.’ I grew up in the ghetto in Cambridge. I’m from the streets, dude. I grew up in a rough neighborhood, so I’ve been looking forward to playing this night, because it’s like me playing in Cambridge on a real sound system. I’m gonna drop some stuff that I’ve never dropped before.” This is his Boston club debut but not his first club gig. For years, he had a residency at a place called Club Eden in Central Massachusetts and played around Amherst. “I spun at a lot of parties out there, big parties, like 500 people and shit. They were really into the party vibe out there in Amherst. They were really into like just getting down.”

Manzi stayed low-profile after moving back to town, playing the occasional house party. “But mostly I was just a bedroom DJ, and that’s the way I still look at myself today.” It was up to another Cambridge DJ crew to bring him back into the clubs. “With UNLOCKEDGROOVE , I started spinning at house parties and shit like that and where MIKE UZZIand a couple of other cats rocked the fucking house, dude. We just showed respect for each other.” Believe this, too: at the Phoenix Landing, Manzi will spin only vinyl. “I went to Paris one summer and just started buying records. You gotta have records to be a DJ, man! I like vinyl, the smell of it. I just like the crackle and the noise.”

Early on, he found inspiration in the heavyweight DJs of the time. Names like Jeff Mills, Derrick May, and Sven Väth. “I like people who are just like more sexual with their mixes, people who are really involved. Cats like that bring the party to a higher level and shit. That’s what I try to do.” The tide rises this Sunday. Opening is UG’s own Mike Uzzi.

Cambridge has spawned another monster in DJ HECTIK ,  whose “Reggae vs. Reggaeton” night Sundays at Club Europa is turning into a phenomenon. “I wanted to have an urban party without the ghetto crowd. I’d been going to clubs for years and I’d just get bored, it was always the same music.” The Puerto Rican/Dominican Hectik took a trip to Puerto Rico when he was 13, and it persuaded him to be a DJ. “I knew I could bring a hip-hop vibe to reggaeton. Reggaeton DJs would just mix. I bring a battle style to it: cut it up, double up, bring it back.” He started DJing in sixth grade and has never looked back. After a brief foray into basketball, DJ ELLIOT NESS taught him all the battle tricks in the books. Then: reggaeton. “Reggaeton is blowing up because reggae got too fast. They’re now bringing all those old reggae riddims back because they’re slower, they’re more like hip-hop. And you can’t play hip-hop in a club anymore, it doesn’t work.” On Hectik’s cuts and mixes, a cappella rhymes tag-team with boom-chik beats for a party vibe that keeps any crowd moving. “To have a great party you need a great vibe, and that’s what we do.”

Hectik started 235 Entertainment to run the night, and he has help from two other mixmasters: DJ GERA and DJ DRES . And he still has time to rock mixtape after mixtape. The latest is called Boston’s Reggaeton Generals with DJ SAM SMOOVE. It pummels stores everywhere this week. “If anyone thinks reggaeton is a fad,” Hectik says. “I got news for you.”

David Day hosts Free the DJ Wednesdays at ZuZu and spins Fridays at Enormous Room.

Email the author
David Day: circuits@squar3.com