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Crampton Comes Alive! |
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Feb.2003 | The Reader
(see article)
by Josh Bashara
Deep Coffee House Revolution, the brainchild of 18-year-old
Brent Crampton, — a.k.a. DJ Crampton — just might be
breaking down boundaries that past Omaha-area DJs never could.
The trick? Getting people who don’t wear rainbow-colored
jewelry and huge pants to listen to techno music.
"You should have heard some of the coffee shop owners when
I called them up and told them I was a DJ and I wanted to play
at their spot," Crampton said. "[One was] almost disgusted
with it, probably thinking that I was going to bring in some
huge sub-woofers and blow the place down. I didn’t get a
chance to tell her that I play a type of music that is
practically perfect with the atmosphere."
With a little coaxing, Crampton eventually got the chance to
slam his turntables down next to the espresso machine and
spin his genre of choice: deep house. "Since I’m playing
deep house at a coffee house, I get deep coffee house, and
the revolution is there because there is this preconceived
notion that the only kind of music that can be played at a
coffee shop is acoustic," he explained. "The music doesn’t
really fit at raves or clubs, but it does work with coffee
shops really well."
Although holding "residency" at Stage Right coffee house,
Crampton frequents coffee shops all over town. "Instead
of playing at just a shop here or there," he said, "I
thought to myself, ‘Why not just play at them all around
the same time and call it a tour?’"
Aside from breaking away from the status quo as far as
venues go, Crampton pushes the envelope of live performance.
Hooking up with the jazzy two-piece band Howie and Scott,
Crampton spins electronic music while the band simultaneously
plays live saxophone, flutes and African drums. "It’s
really progressive for Omaha," Crampton said. "I know it’s
going on in other places, but I’m the first person to bring
it here. People are very responsive to it — for the first
time, I had someone contact me to play [at their club]."
Rife with modesty, Crampton doesn’t presume to credit himself
entirely for his newfound popularity. He recalled spinning
at simple house parties as a hobby while learning to DJ.
It wasn’t until a friend of Crampton’s — Omaha rave scene
old-schooler F.T.S. — gave him his first 15 minutes of fame
(literally) that he began professionally spinning records.
It was at the "Footloose" party a few years ago that F.T.S.
decided to "give" Crampton the first 15 minutes of his set,
which excited him enough to dive head-first into DJing.
"All my friends were in the front cheering me on," he
recalled. "It was great. I felt like a superstar."
Just when it seems Crampton’s good-old-boy Nebraskan demeanor
can’t get any cuter or more guileless, a look at his
self-written bio posted at djcrampton.technomaha.com
further attests to his sincerity. Crampton reveals that
while on a missionary trip in Albania, he met a prophet
whose words inspired him to change his life. Abandoning
all the drugs and alcohol associated with the rave scene, he
set out to stop playing music for man, opting instead to
play for God. "Because I have been trying to dedicate what
I do to God, He has been providing for me in a major way,"
he explained. "All you have to do is look at my list of
past events, and you’ll see that after the summer of 2002,
[they’ve] rapidly picked up."
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