The Modern Bond: Part I

As an up and coming face in Rochester, Minn., Dallas McLaughlin and his in-home audio production studio Digital Avenue is helping amateur musicians make the leap from wannabes to must haves. With nearly a decade of business under his belt, McLaughlin still dreams of the day when music will be his sole meal ticket. Until then, he must balance Corporate America with the glamour of the music industry.

Dallas McLaughlin hard at work in the recording studio doing what he does best.

McLaughlin. Dallas McLaughlin. But, that’s Boss DeeJay to you, punk. He’s suave. He’s debonair. He’s a… hotel manager? A staunch business leader by day and a flashy music producer by night, McLaughlin has perfected his double life down to a science. Only on his 15-minute ride back to his home studio does he get quality downtime between identities. But, it’s at home where the magic, or what he calls “black magic,” really happens.

It’s a typical day at Comfort Suites on the south side of Rochester. Phones are ringing, guests are settling into their home away from home, and a man stands at the front desk flaunting a black sport coat, dress shirt and matching shoes with professionally gelled hair. His nametag reads DJ and he is the Assistant General Manager. “I’m a manager at the hotel so my shifts are kind of all over the place. I have a set schedule, but unfortunately, as some of my clients can vouch for, I’m basically on call 24/7.” Shifts at the hotel, he says, can be anywhere from mid-morning to early afternoon gigs or late night hours, which prove stressful for his music. “Sometimes it gets chaotic, but I’d like to say my dad passed on the ‘running on no sleep’ gene. So, I guess I got that going for me.” As his day job winds down, DJ quickly gets into his bright yellow 2004 RX-8 Grand Touring Edition sports car and assumes the persona, Boss DeeJay. One might wonder just how these two seemingly incomparable lifestyles took shape. But, it takes an intensive look back at his youth that determined the road he would take.

At the impressionable age of 10, McLaughlin’s older brother picked up a guitar. Feeling that his brother always had the upper hand, McLaughlin saw the guitar as a tool that leveled the playing field. “I played it all the time. I got pretty good at if for a while.” It was then that he decided to work toward a career in music. Before high school he dabbled in web design but it wasn’t until the start of his secondary education that his love of music became more than just a hobby. “When I decided I wanted to do this, I re-branded all of my material as Digital Avenue, built a new web site, made a real brand for myself.”

While finishing up his last semester of high school in 2004, McLaughlin began his search for the perfect music college. “I was originally planning on going to Berklee College of Music in Boston for some sort of performing arts. But, when I took a step back and looked at it realistically, I wanted to make a living with music. I had played around with home studio stuff in the past, so when I looked into it further and took some studio tours, I knew right away that was it.”

A change in mindset pushed McLaughlin to look into what he calls the “big media development school” in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl., Full Sail. Equipped with one of the most renowned audio engineering program in the country, he applied to start in the fall semester. Once accepted, he began to realize Florida was a bit too far from home. “The whole time I was preparing to go there, everyone was trying to get me to check out the Institute of Production and Recording in Minneapolis. I kept blowing them off, then finally I caved in.”

Where did Boss DeeJay decide to go? Did he get accepted? What happened once he graduated high school? Keep your panties on and tune in to the next article when we figure out just what happened to our modern, musical Mr. Bond.

If you are an artist looking to perfect your sound or just looking for more information about Digital Avenue and the man of the hour, visit www.digiave.net.