Paisley Nahanee in her element. Photo by Bella Bébé. 

By Keagan Perlette
@geminisympathizer

Vancouver’s party scene has a bad habit of tokenizing female DJs. Male-dominated marquees hang over many of the city’s venues, but the days of these all-dude lineups are numbered, thanks to Paisley Nahanee. The Vancouver DJ was born and raised in Strathcona and watched the community of her childhood disappear into gentrification. Nahanee has a vision for her city and its after-hours culture, and she’s using her love of music to change and influence the party landscape.

Last October, Nahanee started a radio show called Our Pleasure on the newly launched NO FUN RADIO–a local station that “transmits live audio-visual pleasures” stationed in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. That same month, she began DAME, a dance party with the tagline: “All Girls. All Vinyl. All Night.” The two projects arose around the time that female DJs and musicians had begun publicly outing members of the music scene who had committed acts of sexual violence. Like many women, Nahanee was unsure of her own safety when attending events in the city, and felt empowered to speak up for herself.  “I was doing a night with a male DJ who was condescending and pretty awful to me,” she recalls. “One night I left early, and I left my needles [at the venue], which are really expensive. I came back the next morning to pick up my stuff, and my needles were smashed on the ground!” She told the club owner what had happened, the management swiftly removed the offending party and offered Nahanee the night all to herself.

The inaugural DAME night was born when Nahanee realized she’d never filled a whole night of DJing with her own music selections. As she’d never played with another female DJ, she began the process of recruiting friends who were interested in learning how to work the tables. “I met Hannah D’Amato [formerly of Divorcer] and she was like ‘Hey, I have records, I want to learn!’ and I was like ‘You’re in, you’re signed up!’” Shortly thereafter, Hannah Kay of Necking expressed interest, and became Nahanee’s first mentee. The two DJed the first DAME show together, and since, Kay has been helping Nahanee train other girls who are interested in developing their skills.

Nahanee’s own journey to the turntables was an organic one. “I always really liked music. I love dancing, it’s my exercise and my therapy. My mom was a punk girl in the 80s,” she says. “I never really thought of DJing as an option, it seemed very exclusive to me. I met one of the club owners at The Fox and we had this really long talk about music one night. He was just like ‘You really know your stuff, you should try this.’” Subsequently, she was trained by one of The Fox’s regular DJs, and began sharing DJ duties at the club on a regular basis.

Nahanee quickly got a taste for the rush of facilitating an amazing dance party. “My first night was actually a really busy night and there were like 100 people dancing to something that I was choosing; that’s the greatest feeling. It’s really about momentum and energy and wanting it to get higher and higher and higher.”

This past month, Nahanee has moved into her official DAME studio to 550 Malkin Ave, The East Side Flea’s new complex of studios and performance spaces. Having previously used the studio at NO FUN RADIO to practice her setlists, Nahanee is looking forward to having her own space to train her friends and explore new techniques.

The space Nahanee has carved out in the community is quickly becoming a vital element of the longevity of Vancouver’s party scene. Her initiative has created more than one safe space in which female musicians and music lovers can enjoy time together, learn new skills, and showcase their talent. “I needed to create a community for myself,” she says, “but I also wanted to add more women into the scene, so for the next ‘token’ DJ girl she doesn’t have to go in alone.”

Follow DAME on Instagram for updates on shows, opportunities, and good times.

Keagan Perlette is a writer working on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. She is the Poetry and Prose Editor for SAD Mag.