Short Shortzz to spin before Bone Thugs

By Brittany Benjamin

With floor seating already sold out and balcony seats filling up for Wednesday's concert, Santa Clara's own Short Shortzz, an electropop DJ team, will be spinning in front of their largest audience ever.

The team, seniors Daniel Stadulis and Danielle Polk and alumnus Eli Glad, are probably best known on campus for their radio show on KSCU. They mix music that they call "banging, gritty, dirty, commanding, high-energy and powerful."

"It's like being on drugs without actually being on drugs," said Glad, who graduated last June.

Electropop is best described as pop music that is synthesized in order to create the best beats for dancing.

Most of this music comes from foreign-based artists from countries like France, England and Germany.

"It has more energy than other forms of electronic," said Polk, calling the music's sound orgasmic. "People always ask us if we have drugs because we have such a natural high."

Wednesday's concert marks the largest audience they've played in front of since they started playing gigs in early September.

They say they got the spot through friends and connections they have at Activities Programming Board, the host of the event.

"I'm super-duper excited, but super nervous at the same time," said Glad.

While the three members of Short Shortzz all arrived at their appreciation for the music genre through different paths, they converged about a year ago when they started their radio show on KSCU.

The show is not airing this quarter because the team did not renew the paperwork.

"I've always been into electronic, since like second grade," said Stadulis. "It's like walking - something you've been doing for a long time."

While Polk says she started getting into the electropop scene after hearing music from Kraftwerk, Glad attributes his admiration for the genre to listening to punk rock in high school and coming to college and meeting friends who liked the music.

The team points out that most students listen to the music that is exposed to them through the media.

"You have to realize that there's this whole other world out there," said Stadulis, who noted that America is more focused on rock music. "People are only aware of what they're exposed to, and mostly you're exposed to what's on TV."

Polk agreed. "People at Santa Clara have a very narrowed view of what they listen to," she said. "Music is my escape from Santa Clara because I couldn't handle fraternity parties and house parties. It's the perfect way to actually have fun."

Recently, electropop has become more mainstream because of its blending with indie pop.

Additionally, the team says MySpace has played a major role in the accessibility of music, allowing users to play music without downloading it. They say that anyone who likes music, but who isn't on MySpace, is missing out.

While they continue to work on the set for Wednesday's show, Polk and Stadulis say they are going to contextualize more hip hop into their electropop music in order to blend the music of Girl Talk, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Jupiter Rising.

While the concert starts at 8:30 p.m., Short Shortzz will start DJing at 7:30 p.m. when doors open and want to encourage students to arrive early.

Charged with the responsibility of warming up the crowd before the start of the show, Short Shortzz wants to be sure to get the crowd excited early.

"Your intention as a DJ is to make people feel good and dance," said Stadulis.

While this is their largest performance to date, the group seems to be handling the pressure well.

"We're very nonchalant about this sort of stuff," said Stadulis, as Polk innocently asked him where the event was being held again. She forgot that they were performing at Leavey Event Center.

For students who miss them spinning for Wednesday's show, Short Shortzz plays "1 Night Stand" every first Sunday of the month at San Francisco's Beauty Bar.

They are also featured Feb. 22 in "Blow Up" at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco. Anyone 18 and older is allowed entry to "Blow Up."

Contact Brittany Benjamin at (408) 551-1918 or brbenjamin@scu.edu.