Dance Floor Cocktail

It's taken DJ Graph six years of spinning progressive, electro, and deep-tech tracks to figure out how to keep an audience on the dance floor. It's all about mixing up the playlist. "I don't want anyone hearing a 4/4 beat or just straight-up techno for an hour and a half," says Graph, aka James Cox. "I'm looking for head-bobbing, smiles, people glancing over and saying, 'Wait a minute! You just played house music 10 minutes ago, and now you're playing this.'"

A 2003 graduate of Case Western Reserve University, Cox is an information-technology specialist who's ready to ditch his computer-geek image. "But I don't know what the chance would be to DJ as a means of supporting yourself," says Cox, who won Scene's Ultra DJ Battle in February. "I'd say it's about the same chance as getting drafted into the NBA or the NFL." Until then, Cox will continue to be a self-proclaimed madman in the DJ booth. "I bounce around, point at people, scream, and yell," he says. "I'm not going to yell something cheesy or cliché like 'Put your hands in the air!' I'll just go, 'Aaargh!'"
Fri., June 2, 10 p.m.