Let us tell you what “Like A Virgin” is all about: It’s all about a guy who’s using technology as a catalyst to boost his genre. It’s a metaphor for change. Some might say it’s about a guy with some electronics simply meshing together bits of pop culture lore, but they can tell that fuckin’ bullshit to the tourists. Mike Relm’s show is not about some digital guy who’s come across some snazzy editing equipment. That’s what most DJ shows are about—granted—there’s no argument there. But Mike Relm’s show isn’t about that. It’s all about this guy who’s a regular mix machine. We’re talking morning, day, night, afternoon. Mix, mix, mix, mix, mix, mix, mix, mix. ’Til one day he gets bored with mixing and wants a way to switch things up. He finds a Pioneer DVJ and it’s like, “Whoa, baby.” It’s like the John Holmes of video mixing equipment. Now he’s getting some serious mix action and he’s feeling something he ain’t felt since forever: newness. It’s new. It shouldn’t be, you know? His experience should’ve brought him across this; but it’s new. When he works with this DVJ, it’s new. It’s new just like it was the first time. You see, the newness is reminding him of why he started DJing in the first place, what it was once like to be a virgin. Hence, “Like A Virgin.”
Mike Relm doesn’t look like much. Five foot eight, maybe 145 pounds, non-gelled ear-length hair that flips any which way it pleases. A pair of those thick black-framed rectangular eyeglasses that all the indie kids were wearing five or six years ago. Topping everything off, his glasses intermittently slide down, preempting a stereotypical, one fingered, nerd-nudge to reposition them back to the bridge of his squat nose. Not even his Tarantino-inspired signature suit makes him “cool,” and unlike the Reservoir Dogs-inspired “Like A Virgin” monologue, he’s the antithesis to the images of DJing’s idolatry. More zoologist than Z-Trip, less Tiësto than tax attorney.
Setting up to perform the opening at the third stop of Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam tour (an amalgam of skateboard, BMX and motocross performances) Relm couldn’t seem any more harmless. The Houston heat has hit the San Francisco native with the brunt of its force, claiming the usually dapper Relm’s suit jacket as its own. For six years, Relm has performed in a black suit, white shirt, black tie combination, and seeing him without his jacket is like seeing Superman without his cape; or, more apropos at this point, Linus without his blanket.
A few hand stretches and wrist rolls later, and Relm is ready to begin. Somehow, even situated in his DJ cubicle eight feet higher than everyone else, he appears small. Curtis Miller, Mike’s video editor, announces to the crowd over the loud speakers that the show is about to start (Yay!), but first there’s gonna be a performance by a DJ (Awww.) The little man in the booth couldn’t be any less appealing to the Texas crowd if he were a coat. At this point, he’s fuckin’ Barney Fife; he’s super lame. But then he begins. And holy shit.
By 2004, Mike Relm had been DJing for close to 11 years. He’d begun mixing after hearing the now-nationally syndicated Wake Up Show, a radio program hosted by DJ Sway and King Tech that began in 1990 on KMEL, a hip-hop station based out of San Francisco. It was the first time he heard music mixed together and it stymied him at first. “Mixing was surreal to me,” says Relm. “I was sitting there trying to mix songs with two tape decks and was just like, ‘This is not the same speed. How do they do that?’” He eventually discovered turntables and pitch controls and everything else he’d need.
1999 saw him win the International Turntable Federation Championship of America and that, coupled with his 2000 work on a Mistah FAB music video, brought an abrupt end to his then college career. “My parents were definitely upset when I left [San Francisco State],” says Relm. “They’re probably still upset [laughs]. I mean, I was three years in. And I’m Asian-American. There are different expectations for us. But that’s what I was going to school for, so why stay if I’m already doing it?”
Over time, interest in Relm continued to grow, right along with his discography. A Christmas-release mixtape dubbed Mike Relm’s Holiday Special met solid reviews and set up 2003’s lauded follow-up, Radio Fryer, an all-encompassing album immediately recognized as stellar. The 74-minute phenom solidified Relm’s mentioning among the DJing elite, and live show after live show did the same among the club populace. By DJing standards—titles, albums, acclaim— Relm was more than established. But by world-wide status, he apparently was not.
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