At Le Poisson Rouge for Gimme Gimme Disco, Belesi jumps out from his DJ rig to the edge of the stage and exhorts the partiers with singalongs.
New York City – It’s 25-degrees on a late-January night in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, but the kids are lined down Bleecker Street to enter the club. Tonight at Le Poisson Rouge, it’s the wildly popular Gimme Gimme Disco party, so the freezing-ass weather be damned. The kids are getting their groove on, no matter what.
Inside, the dancefloor is already pulsing, and DJ Craig Belesi (aka CBJtheDream) is lifting it higher with his range of disco, funk, and R&B hits from back in the day –Donna Summer, The Gap Band and, of course, ABBA. The playlist is plenty familiar, but skillfully presented to create soaring peaks and soft landings. At the right moments, Belesi jumps out from his DJ rig to the edge of the stage and exhorts the partiers with singalongs. Accordingly, the party rages into the night – another successful LPR night for GGD, a party that has steadily grown to a respectable stature in American clubland. According to its promoter, Burwood Media, GGD played over 450 shows in 2023 and looks to expand further. And from the looks of it, ain’t no stopping ’em now. We connected with GGD’s Craig Belesi, 34, to get the DJ’s angle on the phenomenon.
DJ LIFE: How many GGD dates do you do and where?
Belesi: Oh, too many to count at this point. I’ve played everywhere from New York City clubs like LPR to Big Night Live in Boston and the Summer Cruise Series in Boston Harbor. We do shows in cities all across the U.S., and I’ve done shows in places like Toronto, Detroit, Hampton Beach, and Milwaukee, just to name a few. It’s an amazing way to see the nightlife in different cities. GGD has even started to go across the pond to play London and hopefully is doing more European dates soon!
DJ LIFE: For GGD, is the entire musical program pre-ordained?
Belesi: I think it’s our job as DJs to bring the party. At its core, our job is to play music and read the room and give the crowd an amazing night to remember. So, the only thing that’s “pre-ordained” is which tracks I know work and which ones I know do not. I have playlists that I have been building over the years at GGD, plus my own remixes that I use for the shows. I usually go out there and see my crowd and build off their energy. It’s very “well, if this track worked, then these tracks work,” and I’m usually thinking five songs ahead. Then there are some times during a set that I just enter “flow state” and just go purely off feel and instinct. I think that’s a special part of DJing. I try to never play the same set twice. You can’t say that about other live music.
DJ LIFE: How do you get to that state?
Belesi: I has something to do with how I was taught to practice: Take one track as a starting point and have someone else name a song off the top of their head and try to get there as fast as possible without creating this horrifying jarring transition. Nothing worse than feeling like the DJ got a huge tip from someone and is hard transitioning from KREAM to Barry Manilow.
DJ LIFE: The GGD parties are pretty much loaded with fun. Everyone’s singing along and everyone’s happy. Why do you think this formula works so well?
Belesi: I think there are a lot of reasons. One, it’s fun to go out, sing and dance with your friends or random people you just met. It’s like those underground techno shows I talked about before, that collective energy exchange. It’s community. Two, I think that our generation and the generation after us never really got to experience the club and disco scene in the way we saw in movies and TV and what our parents and older friends told us about – Studio 54 in the ’70s/’80s, Pasha in the 2000s. This era now is so much about the presence of social media, stock portfolios, working to work, pure capital gains and commodification of “side hustles,” and I think turning that off for three-plus hours and just letting loose is just fun and freeing. Those nights are what we all remember, right? Not the work shift you put in, or the email you sent, or the “atta boy” from a manager after a shift… The memories we create with the people we love. And I’m honored to be a part of that.
DJ LIFE: What software and controllers do you use and why?
Belesi: I approach this in a lot of ways. I love Algoriddim djay Pro. Its user interface is fantastic and I always found myself returning to it no matter what other programs I used. I have the app on my phone to try things out as I’m going about my day, so I don’t have to remember it when I get in front of my deck. It’s such a great program and I cannot recommend it enough. I have the Reloop MIXON 4 for easy iOS integration and travel, and I’m still using that controller to this day. I also use CDJs and the Pioneer XDJ-XS. They’re club-standard for a reason.
DJ LIFE: Do you bring your own gear to the GGD gigs?
Belesi: I always bring my own gear to GGD shows. I’m a bit of a control freak after I’ve done club gigs that guaranteed working CDJs and I was handed a CDJ with a half-working jog wheel and a mixer with two busted knobs. Partygoers don’t blame the venue, they blame you as the DJ. I don’t like leaving that in someone else’s hands.
DJ LIFE: You began as a traditional musician, playing a variety of instruments, traveling with bands. What got you into DJing?
Belesi: After many bands, tours in vans, and Walmart-parking-lot hotels later, here I am, another metal/hardcore guy that became a DJ – the universe provides when you let it [laughs]. I’ve always had a fascination with the DJ scene. My friend, DJ Danny Lynch, would take me to underground techno shows and there was this amazing energy – all these people just moving and experiencing the night together. I was hooked. Then, once the pandemic hit, I started to produce my own music as a way of dealing with grief. Once things started opening up, I found the Brooklyn Monarch and all these fantastic electronic shows that were being booked by The Ornate Project and Kevin Reynoso, and just started to really fall in love with it. Especially coming out of a pandemic, that community was just fantastic to be a part of.
DJ LIFE: How’d you get started DJing shows?
Belesi: Gimme Gimme Disco was my first experience with actually DJing live in front of people, not just in a bedroom. I was hired as a photographer and I worked a ton with Josh Batista. You can see him all over the country doing GGD – what a talent. I was with him in Nashville when he was doing a GGD at Brooklyn Bowl, and the sold-out crowd was going crazy for him. But once he would walk back from front stage to the get the next track ready, you could feel the energy wane. They wanted him front and center. We looked at each other, and I said to him, “Call out the tracks, and I’ll cue them up.” He smiled at me and said, “Let’s do it.” Rest of the show went gangbusters. After that, we always paired up and I became obsessed with the art, although I was still technically a photographer for them. I would just pitch in and help out Josh where I could. Then Jason Parent from Sound Talent Group saw me with Josh, and I was brought in as a DJ for GGD.
DJ LIFE: Of course, you are one of many DJs working the GGD parties. In your mind, what makes a great DJ – at GGD and beyond?
Belesi: I’ve always viewed DJing as a collaborative art between the crowd and the DJ. It’s my job to curate the evening and I take that responsibility very seriously and give it the respect that it deserves, and the crowd gives you energy back. At its core that’s what DJing is. I love taking people on a journey.
