Who or what is a ‘djwudi’?

Howdy!

This is the home of DJ Wüdi, the alter-ego of Michael Hanscom. If you’re interested in what DJ Wüdi is up to these days, please head on over here!

If you’re interested in the story behind the DJ, read on…

A little history

A long time ago (though not in a galaxy far, far away), I was over at my friend Royce’s house when his dad remarked that I “looked like a young Woody Allen.”

For a time, this little nugget of trivia was known only to Royce’s family and my own. At some point during my later High School years, though, a few things (namely, frustration at there being so many other “Michaels” in my age group, and a teenage-angst fuled desire to be “someone else”) led to my deciding to adopt the nickname of “Woody” full-time. It started with the Yearbook and theater crew (both of which I was very involved with), and began to spread from there.

In the post-graduation years, I used “Woody” almost exclusively, in the social world and at my jobs. It wasn’t long before there were more people who knew me by “Woody” than by Michael.

Round about 1992 or so, the Anchorage alternative scene was somewhat in hibernation, especially for those under 21. I talked my way into a DJ spot at one club, then moved on to another, and then another, eventually spending around eight years DJing alternative/goth/industrial/retro/anything-but-pop for the Anchorage scene. My ‘DJ name’ was obvious: DJ Woody, or, depending on how I felt when writing it out on flyers, DJ Wüdi, playing off Royce’s pseudo-Germanic version of my nickname.

The DJing eventually moved on into past tense (though it’s since started to return to the present tense), but as the world of the Internet grew, I soon found that short, unique names were both desirable and valuable, and that smooshing everything together into ‘djwudi’ produced a string that, to date and to my knowledge, has not been used by anyone other than myself.

As the years have gone by, I’ve returned to using my given name in the real world and online, but I still claim ‘djwudi’ on any site I sign up for.

So what is this site (djwudi.com)?

For many years, ‘djwudi.com’ was my primary space on the ‘net, hosting my photos, website, blog, and whatever else I wanted to toss at the online world. In 2002, however, I decided to take steps to own my online identity by claiming my real name whenever possible, and moved all of my ramblings to ‘michaelhanscom.com’.

For many years, ‘djwudi.com’ was little more than a relatively unpublicized testbed for one project or another, though most often simply sitting here doing nothing.

Now that I’ve started to work my way out of retirement, I’ve started to pay more attention to these pages.

So what's worth paying attention to here?

Other than this page? Why, there’s the official DJ Wüdi website, featuring (eventually, at least) playlists, song request forms, and perhaps even the occasional mashup or long-form mix.

What else have you got?

Well if you’re looking for more, here are some things you might want to pay attention to:

• MichaelHanscom.com, which hosts my weblog and (occasionally updated) vinylblog.
• Facebook, for socializing and general random linkage.
• Twitter, for microblogging,
• Flickr, for my day-to-day photographic wankery.

Once you’ve found those, you can pretty much find me anywhere.

That’s it?

Yeah, that’s it.

Honestly, I’d be surprised if anyone actually read down this far.