(While many cities feature gigantic DJ scenes where hundreds, if not thousands of people can be found out dancing the night away in clubs, Worcester hasn't been as welcoming. That doesn't mean there's a lack of DJs trying to bring something they believe offers a special night of entertainment for local audiences. This spring, DJ Matt Griffin has been hosting "Totally Wired Tuesdays" at the Lucky Dog Music Hall. This Tuesday, June 17, the night is reinvented as "Downtown Beirut," where his '80s faves will be joined by local sounds by Wormtown area rocker CDs. What follows is a Q & A session on his DJ career, the fine art of club DJing, and trying to make the DJ scene work in Worcester)

WTDO: How and when did you get into DJing? A lot of people don't understand the difference between DJing for radio and DJing for live audiences - break down what you're trying to make happen in a club setting?

MATT GRIFFIN: I initially starting DJing in 1987, when I was in boarding school in the Berkshires. The local high school in town had a radio station where some of us from the school could sign up and go down to station and get an FCC licensee, learn how to spin vinyl and mix with the CD player. It was pretty much an extra curricular activity. Being an artist, I have always been pretty much electronically inept; Like in one of the first session's at WTBR 89.7 Pittsfield, I asked them how to "rewind" the CD player.

Djing in a club as opposed to DJing at a radio station comes down to similar aspects of the art. Your creating an atmosphere. You want people to like what they hear. And MOST importantly, your trying to educate the audience of new music that's out there.

WTDO: What's the concept of "Totally Wired,"

MATT GRIFFIN: My concept for Totally Wired is derived out of the last retro night that was held at Lucky Dog. The DJ's were doing a "retro" night, which is fine in the appropriate setting, for what they are playing. The Lucky Dog (I personally) don't believe is the right setting for Dexy's Midnight Runners and Cyndi Pauper. Come on, if you're from the Worcester scene, did you listen to that crap or were you into punk, deathrock, hardcore... et cetera. Get real. The 80's top 40's hit's nostalgia kick went out the door and back to Hell four years ago.

WTDO: What has been the reaction of local audiences?

MATT GRIFFIN: Good. Some people either hate it or love it. It's always a polarity - and with polarity we have opposites and with opposites we have conflict and with conflict we spawn ideas.

WTDO: Have you spun anywhere else?

MATT GRIFFIN: Yes, My last gig was a guest appearance (Well, actually was at WAG, but due to tech problems, it didn't work so well ) was at my buddy Purp's night "Bottlerocket" at O'Brien's pub in Allston. I was supposed to be spinning with N.Y.C. Premier Goth DJ Charlie Slut. Charlie couldn't make it , due to jury duty and the turntable I had acquired for the evening we found out last minute had no needle in it. With some quick thinking, (thanx to Eva Elektra) I had a harpsichord CD in the car. So I would play a song and fade in and out of the Harpsichord music. It worked well, as the song's from that set were pretty epic sounding . Hell, it beats dead air.

I also did a gig at a club in Chinatown, Boston called BOLT. It was run by my friend and old roomie 'Brit The Unholy'. At that time I was living in Boston as part of a near 10 year stint. I had just worked as a barback for Man Ray, (regardless of being a pillar there twice a week) I had also worked as a cocktail waiter at Jacques for nearly a year. Jacques I was able to spin at once in a while, but mainly it was for serving the likes of Tracy Bonham, (and I still don't give a fuck who you think you are, It's a two free beer maximum for band people) Steve from the Allstonians who worked the door was great and So was Vanessa Vale and Rick Berlin. They got great quotes from me in the Phoenix. Rick it ended was an old band mate of David A. Small ...my late father's partner. He use to be in a band called the Refrigerators and the Slugs and use to play the Rat and The Cove back in the late '70s. They didn't make it back then cause "none of them had any hair at the time" But that and David teaching Fritz Ericson of Gang Green how to play guitar is another story.

As far as Radio, I did my shows at WTBR in Pittsfield from 87-89. I also did a show with my old buddy Spike at WCUW (and with the Captain one night, don't know if he remembers , that's where he remembers me from) in '92, then did a show with my Buddy DJ Javier at the Northeastern, Boston campus in 95. I did make a two-song cameo at Kaleidoscope in Worcester mixing Nina Hagen back and forth With Visage, which made the then DJ paranoid.

WTDO: here have some people gotten it and others walked away?

MATT GRIFFIN: It's still to early to say. Some people want to hear top 40 or hair metal. Obviously, that's not my gig.

WTDO: What are your favorite bands to spin and how does that concur with the acts who get the best response on the dance floor?

MATT GRIFFIN: As far as the "dance floor", one person equated the dance floor with dancing on a football field. I am still in negotiation with the 'staff at Lucky Dog about the lights and needing less of it. It's another tech problem. Some get excited to Yaz, some to The Sister's of Mercy and some to Dead Kennedys. But, I would love to see people boogying to 'The Balls' or even in the end of the night's drunken stupor to Black Rose Garden. I Get stiff when ever I throw on Virgin Prunes or Southern Death Cult...but everything has it place in time and space.

WTDO: Are there bands you really love who you can't fit into the dance setting?

MATT GRIFFIN: CRASS, Xmal Duetschland, Savage Republic. But somehow, it always worked in other places.

WTDO: Set the stage for someone walking into the Lucky Dog on a Tuesday Night for the first time - what time do you start and carry it to last call.

MATT GRIFFIN: After setting up, I would say about 9:30-ish thing's get going and run until 2 a.m. Well, there will be people down the sidewalk of the bar, mostly O.G. punk's from their 30s to 40s - some Goth kids, some band people, friends of the staff, people who would normally go there to have fun, regardless of the night and they just love to drink and be merry and gay at the Dog. Also, people just plain getting smashed.

WTDO: In regards to the DJ scene, just like the live original music scene, Worcester really suffers from the fact that unless you've been blessed to discover creative imaginative local music on your own, it's a foreign culture to probably 90 plus percent of the people. Unlike Boston, for example, where even people who don't live and die by music are barraged with stories and photos in most of the weekly and alternapresses of crowded dance floors and unique DJs, which encourages the uninitiated to at least make a point to check it out at some point (i.e., those people whose attendance allows the creative ones to play a little bit longer by supplementing the devotees). What have been the ways you've tried to kick that door down a bit?

MATT GRIFFIN: I play what people like to hear, as long as It is in my collection (and some have brought in CDs and vinyl) and it is in the genre of the counterculture. Obviously if one night I played Pink Floyd, some would be like "cool!" or WTF? Come on, as far as Goth is concerned, we owe allot to Pink Floyd. You know, people either hate it or love it. Most people from the '80s Worcester scene got the idea that I would be playing a Black Mass to the Jesus and Mary Chain and Bauhaus for five hours. Upon checking out my set list, that's not necessarily the case - would any hardcore kids wanna try and bust on me. And to quote Judy Ricardi, "Yeah, Minor Threat, cool band, too bad they broke up five years ago."

WTDO: Where have you succeeded and where have you failed?

MATT GRIFFIN: As far as the failed bit, if it's totally played to death I'll try to stay away from it. Like I had the experience of all those kids from Boston showing up two weeks ago after a Death By Stereo show at the Palladium - I played all hardcore and punk til they had to leave to go home - I'm very diplomatic and accommodating.

WTDO: How do you prepare for a night of DJing?

MATT GRIFFIN: Allot of sleep before hand.

WTDO: How often do you go on music and record searches?

MATT GRIFFIN: Well, when I lived in Boston, like every week I would scour all the record shops. A funny joke a friend always brings up..."when He's (me) broke, you will be at Mystery Train and you will find Lords of the New Church single hidden in the back of the Barry Manilow section." I hit Al Bum's as much as possible. I have found some REAL gem's for dirt cheap, as opposed to Boston's prices.

WTDO: What have been your greatest finds over the past year?

MATT GRIFFIN: Chameleon's 'Up the down escalator' 12" for two bucks, at Al Bum's (sucka's!!). A Seventh S'eance single that was $20$ at Second Coming. A David Sylvian two-LP set for two bucks at the Garment District! It normally sells for like $17, but when I was showing it to the owner of Second Coming, he said it had their stamp on it and it came from his shop. Second Coming sold 7,000 records to the Garment District in Kendall. I also found Marianne Faithful's 'Strange Weather' for six bucks, but it had a gouge of a scratch through "As Tears Go By." Befitting.

WTDO: Dance clubs change their theme names frequently - why do you think renaming Totally Wired "Downtown Beirut" (though posters with that name over pictures of Worcester, especially the stuff I saw from the Providence and Worcester Railroad tracks yesterday, would be a great political statement) and adding local sounds has the potential to give the night a good kick in the pants?

MATT GRIFFIN: Come on Brian, you know all this music is about progression and an "alternative" to the norm. Well, we know the classics 'oldies, but goodies' do tend to get boring after a while, that's why I want to play and hear NEW music and Local new music. There are way too may band's out there that deserve to be heard in a public forum and more than once a month or so. Yeah, I like the imagery of the name "Downtown Beirut." Like art, and all things that are creative they need to breathe, evolve, revolve and to reinvent it's self or it becomes stagnant and decays like fungus: It's dying and decayed, but yet it still clings for life and yet it still remains. Carrion- carry on. My brother John's handiwork can still be seen on the bridge of the tracks by the Crystal Palace... "Stop the draft..Don't register!"

WTDO: Anything else the world needs to know which might get them out of the house?

MATT GRIFFIN: Die young and stay pretty."