Face the Music

What is Dragon House?

It’s a monthly event series as well as a brand, production company, and DJ collective. We got our start doing events once a month at The Dragon Upstairs in Chinatown, which is why I called it Dragon House. For the first year, it was just me playing for four or five hours straight. I started incorporating other artists in early 2019. Now we have a pool of about 10 DJs that we pull from, and we do collaborations with other DJ collectives too.

I expected to expand to other venues, but I always wanted to pay tribute to the original venue that gave us a chance, similar to how my name CAÏN is an homage to the French music scene that got me into electronic music. Eventually we outgrew The Dragon Upstairs, and now we’re exclusively at Shorefyre, in addition to parties and collaborations at different public and private venues.

What’s your recipe for a great night?

Just getting a crew together before the party and meeting up in one place, hanging out, listening to good music, chatting about what our plans are or what act we’re stoked to see that night. That’s what’s great about running Dragon House, and it’s why I started it in the first place. I wanted to throw a party that I would be stoked to go to.

How would you describe Hawai‘i’s house music scene?

There’s always been an electronic music scene here, but it used to be driven by a younger crowd who tend to be into the kind of EDM you see at big festivals. It was a lot of college students who would graduate from school and leave Hawai‘i before they got into house and techno. But there’s a lot of potential. More DJs are playing house and techno music and more production companies are spending money to bring bigger names to Hawai‘i. Being in the scene has shown me how much there actually is here.

You might not see the same artists as you’d see in Los Angeles or San Francisco, but we get big-name artists every once in a while, and you can see great local house and techno DJs every weekend if you’re looking for it. My goal with Dragon House was to do whatever I can to be a part of that.

What are three words to describe Dragon House?

Authentic, soulful, and eclectic.

What are you listening to at the moment?

SRVD’s “Black on Black,” “The Player” by Ben Rau & Jansons, and “Octave” by Jansons.

Name: Daniel Moody
DJ alias: Dee Wizzard

Shorefyre residency: Wizz Weekends
Every Saturday
9 p.m. – 2 a.m.

Why do you go by Dee Wizzard?

My mom called me “wizard” when I was a little kid. I was really good at things—I excelled at sports and always got straight A’s in school. The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie, so the name kind of stuck. When I started deejaying, I thought it was a good fit.

What kind of music do you spin?

I try to play everything: house, electro dance, reggae, reggaeton, afrobeats, local reggae artists, underground artists, old-school hip-hop, R&B. We get a different crowd each night, so there’s no genre I don’t touch.
My taste in music is just as broad. I started as a turntablist mixing records—I’ve been doing this for 20 years—so I used to listen to more dancehall, reggae, and hip-hop. Moving to Hawai‘i, I was exposed to different genres, and now I can basically cater to any crowd. I believe there are geniuses in every genre, but I do think afrobeats is going to be the next big thing. You can play it anywhere in the world and get people to dance.