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DJ MICKY FRIEDMANN/ by Tony Giampetruzzi With current technology making it possible for anyone to clip together a couple songs and call it mixing, club-goers throughout the world are catching on — and they are rightly becoming more demanding. Today’s DJ has to move beyond sloppily stitching together the ubiquitous journey, to cleverly weaving a fluid performance that taps into the pleasure center of every spectator. True talent and the keenest ears are becoming fewer and far between, but there are some who are filling the gaps. The most recent is Micky Friedmann, a European renaissance man who more than lives up to his great master modifier. “To be honest, I think people go out because they want to feel attractive, they want to feel sexy, they want an experience … when you have great music and people passionate about that music, there’s always a certain sexuality on the dancefloor, so I try to appeal to that,” says Friedmann, whose sensibility towards music, sex, and how they relate to one another, is decidedly European. “I think music must make you feel sexy when you’re out, so there’s always sexuality behind what I play.” Friedmann sexy? You bet: both the man and the music. Maybe it was the 15 years he spent as a professional ballet dancer. Perhaps it was the long days in studios with other top models vogueing for the pages of hot glossies. Or, maybe it was his military service. Friedmann is near perfection in looks and talent, and his music reflects his background: classical sophistication and discipline, sexuality and a keen sense of self-assuredness. Every decision Friedmann makes — in front of or behind the decks — is deliberate and calculated. Sure, he’s not afraid to take chances, but he also takes no prisoners: if you’re into the sexual tapestry of a Friedmann set, you’re in for the long haul … and you’re gonna like it. “ When I go into a club or party, my goal is to introduce music that has a different edge, something new that has depth to it. It’s an education, and the more people hear it, the more they like it, and the more they understand it,” says Friedmann.  “That’s how trends change, it’s how fashion changes. The music scene in the gay world has been stuck for quite a while. Everything is very predictable. A lot of DJs like to talk about their night as a journey  — well, every track I play is a journey.” Friedmann, who has spent the last 6 years spinning at some of Europe’s largest clubs, is a breath of fresh air in the grudgingly conservative U.S. The odd thing about Friedmann is that he has no plans to move across the pond. — he is excited about penetrating a global market, and North America specifically. . Friedmann grew up in Jerusalem, Israel. His father is a genetics professor and his mother owns an upscale boutique. From an early age, Friedmann knew that he loved music, and that impulse led him to a career in dancing. His mother enrolled him in a local dance school when he was 11, and he spent the next 22 years perfecting the art form, attending the best schools in Jerusalem and the United States. He returned to Israel in his late teens for his mandatory stint in the Israeli military service before heading to Switzerland, Amsterdam Hanover and Berlin where he danced with some of the world’s most prestigious ballet companies. Meanwhile, he was being tapped by some of the world’s top photographers for print work — chances are you’ve seen Friedmann, commando, in a number of glossies, without even knowing it. In time however, Friedmann eventually became disenchanted with dancing professionally and modeling. “I was tired of being treated like a 20 year old when I was 30. Dancers always seem to have to follow, and you don’t have any say, and I was kinda tired of doing it every day,” says Friedmann. “Eight hours in the studio with the same people … you have a lot of people you don’t like who you have to deal with, and a lot of mean ballet masters who want to go to bed with you. And if you don’t want to do that, then they make your life hell.” Despite all the discipline that marked Friedmann’s early career, he admits that he was a party child: whenever possible, he would sneak into clubs in Tel Aviv and dance all night. “I think that’s when I first started to connect to where I am now,” says Friedmann who bought his first decks in 1997 in Berlin and started spinning for friends. Within a couple years he was at the White Party in Palm Springs where Junior Vasquez spotted him dancing.“He asked me to come dance at a party in New York, so I did. Then, I went with him to Fire Island, and I could really see what he was doing and I was so impressed,” recalls Friedmann. “Junior said to me, ‘if you want to do it, kid, just do it.’ That was the really big push for me.” Friedmann quit dancing, and DJ gigs followed in Germany where he eventually shot to the top. Over the years, he has earned residencies in Berlin, Hamburg, and Amsterdam. He plays London, Paris, Brussels, Munich, Moscow, Barcelona and Istanbul, on a regular basis, and, finally, he has added Sao Paulo, New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Provincetown, Washington, Fort Lauderdale, Montreal and Toronto to his list of top cities. Continually striving for perfection, Friedmann is also in the studio now, co-producing with master producer Mike Cruz, a fellow Madtizzy DJ. So, the U.S. should brace itself: Friedmann is different, but refreshingly so. “When you go out in America, people expect you to play a certain kind of music, there seem to be things you MUST play,” he says, adding that he thinks people will be able to handle what he has to offer. “Are they going to understand my music? Of course. I’m not out there to play abstract, shitty stuff that only I think is good,” he promises. “But I don’t ever want to be that DJ who is too predictable, I don’t want people to know what’s coming next. ‘Intelligent’ is the word I like. I want to play music that is intelligent so people go home with an experience, something new in their heads, and hopefully they will have learned that they love that new, sexy sound.”

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