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By Eunice Park
The disc jockey stands slightly hunched, Quasimodo-style, hands massaging the grooves of his Siamese twin records. The spinning disks have a distinct oily, espresso-black sheen as they revolve on the turntable. He is poised between them, a sonic sun directing his vinyl planets in orbit.
Some have likened DJs to scavengers, piecing together the cast-aside musical scraps of others. Some call them the new composers of the 21st century, recycling and re-innovating their musical predecessors. While recording artists lambast Napster and its counterparts, DJs embrace them, regarding them as infinite treasure troves to sample from at will. In this game of musical evolution, the adaptable DJ seems more likely to survive.
Some DJs now attain the instant recognition of true celebrity, choice examples being Moby and Paul Van Dyk. Asia swarms with its share of aspiring DJs, but only a few have managed to emerge onto the international stage, namely the Fantastic Plastic Machine, a musical construction of Japanese DJ Tomoyuki Tanaka.
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