by Jessica Del Curto
Daily Lobo
UNM student Paul Ortiz said he has somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 records.
"You name it, I've got it," he said.
But for Ortiz, who is one of a pair of DJs who started a dance night called the Snugfit Social Club, a diverse range of albums is prerequisite to being a DJ.
"You have to be a record collector to be a good DJ," he said. "I wouldn't trust any DJs who weren't at least on his way to being a record collector."
Ortiz and Will Mikkelson started Snugfit Social Club a little more than a month ago, after years of being into a wide range of music.
"Even in middle school, Will was always the guy in school who knew all the cool bands," Ortiz said. "He is one of the few people I know who really listens to music."
The duo spins dance music and, more specifically, indie dance music.
"We are spanning 25 years of music, easily," Ortiz said. "Dance music is a term that is kind of nebulous. It's a term that people have their own attachments to," he said. "Rolling Stones is dance music, people definitely dance to waltzes. Anything with a beat is dance music."
The name Snugfit Social Club sprung from a bicycle gang Ortiz was a part of when he lived in Denver.
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Now it has other meanings, like how tight he and Mikkelson keep it.
"Will and I are tight, our beats are tight," he said.
But even more so, Ortiz called it Snugfit in an attempt to venture away from the idea that dance music is for hipsters only.
"We don't want there to be a vibe of pretension when people are dancing in the club, like there is some glamour required and attached to it."
He said dance parties often have names like "Trash" in London or "Lipgloss" in Denver or "Bliss" in Los Angeles, which are loaded terms where people are expected to dress or behave a certain way.
"There is a lifestyle that tends to get sold within dance music culture," Ortiz said. "I just wanted something that didn't seem so serious and drastic."
Ortiz said he knows the songs that will get people moving on the dance floor. At Snugfit Social Club's last dance party, in the midst of playing a stiff electro-pop song by the artist Solvent, he transitioned into a song everyone knew.
"I think people probably lost it most to 'Push It' by Salt 'N' Pepa," he said.
He said the crowd's reaction wasn't just because they loved the song, but also because of the timing, the transition and the element of surprise.
He said another song he likes to play is "Blue Monday" by New Order.
"That song is impossibly overplayed, every body knows every inch of that song, but still, it's like a fuck-you-up dance song. It's a fascist dance song, it's so good. People still respond to that song in the dance clubs."
He said although Albuquerque has a good dance scene, he and Mikkelson stand out because they have a mix of indie dance music, and the diversity in clubs is lacking.
"Unfortunately, there is either top 40 music or there is house music," he said. "There is not really much more going on if you want to have a dance club experience."
Ortiz said the idea behind Snugfit's dance parties are relatively simple.
"It's just a couple of guys playing records and a bunch of people dancing, hopefully, and having a good time," he said. "It doesn't really go any further than that. It shouldn't, anyway."
