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| Andy Pulzar has been based in
Christchurch, New Zealand until July 2011, when he relocated to
Sydney, Australia. A professional DJ since he was 15, he’s played
nightclubs, bars, festivals, coming of age parties, weddings,
parties, formals and trance nights. Prior to devastating earthquake
of February 22nd which destroyed most of Christchurch’s CBD, Andy
was the resident at Malbas Bar & Nightclub (Thursday-Saturday). If
you want to see a DJ that really knows how to keep a dancefloor
packed, pump up a crowd and put on a show, you need to experience
Andy Pulzar! Andy has held Christchurch residencies at most of Christchurch’s high profile clubs & bars, including Malbas, Liquidity, Taxi Club, Base Nightclub, Azure, Ferment, The Loaded Hog, Smile Clubbing NZ, The Church and Trinity nightclub. He also guested at Christchurch's top special event venues – Ministry, The Bedford and the Civic. A career highlight was opening for the sold out Sneaky Sound System concert (with Craig Shaw), kicking off Sneaky’s first ever South Island gig at the Civic in December 2007. Andy & Craig got the crowd going so amped the band’s manager asked them to play for an extra half hour. Andy’s largest crowd to date has been supporting Andy Hunter in front of 15,000 in 2003. Another highlight was appeared in the main support slot at Lagered (NZ’s best known trance night) on its triumphant return to Christchurch after an absence of over two years in November 2005. Internationally he’s performed as far afield as Smile in London and Buzz in Chicago, and in Christchurch at more parties than is worth listing here. He has played support to Sneaky Sound System (twice!), Steve Hill, Andy Hunter, Dave Holmes, Skol, Tony Burt, Daniel Ro, Rob Tissera, Eddie Halliwell, Dr Duzzit, Scott Mortimore, Sample Gee, The Marshall, General Lee, Tim Phin, Archie, Jon Ferris, OB1, Kenesis, Alex K, Justin Sane, Kyle Bourke, Disko Diva, and more. He loves travelling and is always looking for an excuse to pack a crate and jump on a plane. Primarily known for playing house, electro and uplifting trance, with many years of DJing for corporate & private functions he is also able to spin commercial tunes, top 40 remixes, hard dance, progressive, drum & bass or whatever else is required for a particular event. With a massive music collection of over 50,000 tunes on CD and thousands of records, Andy can play to pretty much any crowd. In March 2004 he DJed live on stage at the Court Theatre as a cast member of GEEZERS, an improvised theatrical show that ran to packed houses for a full four week season, playing the beats of London’s East End, with breaks, D&B, garage and house music. The show toured nationally for five weeks during August 2005. The success of Geezers was followed by another show with the same cast called ROCK ON (Oct/Nov 2005), where Andy sound-tracked a nightly feast of classic heavy metal. In October 1999 with a business partner, Andy started Pulzar FM, Christchurch's home of dance music, now broadcasting on 105.7fm across the Canterbury region 24/7, employing a staff of 6, with over 40 volunteers. WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BE A DJ? I guess I just fell into it to be honest. I've always loved music, Dad and Mum both had good music collections growing up, and I started buying my own music at the age of 11 or so. When I was around 14, I made up compilation tapes that occasionally I would drop on at parties when the music got a bit lame. Obviously I did something right because then I started getting invited to parties with a "oh, and can you bring some of your tapes?", which led to being asked to DJ a friend's brother's coming of age party when I was 15, for which they paid me $150 (a fortune back then). One gig led to another and before I knew it, I was DJing somewhere almost every weekend. WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME? As DJ's we're basically musical geeks, and I geek out on loads of other stuff as well as music - I love my X-Box (favourite games currently are Assassin's Creed & Batman:Arkham City), I'm a big movie fan with a sizable collection of DVD'S & Blu-Rays, plus I enjoy comic books and a nice glass of wine or a whisky. However, all this stuff takes the sideline to my 1 year old daughter, who definitely dominates what little spare time I get! WHO INSPIRES YOU AS A DJ? My favourite DJ's over the last few years have been Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, John Digweed, Carl Cox, Matt Darey, Dirty South and Vandalism. I've seen all of these guys play live, even interviewed a couple of them, and every time I've seen them I've been blown away by something they've done or a tune they've dropped. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE GENRE OF MUSIC? I'd probably have to say Uplifting Trance, but I don't get to play it out very much anymore. I've got crates and crates of trance vinyl locked away in a storage unit back in New Zealand. WHAT TRACKS DO YOU LOVE AND NOT LOVE PLAYING AT THE MOMENT? Tough question, there are probably loads to be honest. As most of the gig's I'm playing in Sydney are of a more commercial nature, the house/electro/trance club tunes that I'd normally love to be playing don't get to leave my CD wallet unfortunately. WHAT CAN YOU REMEMBER ABOUT YOUR FIRST GIG? I was nervous as hell. I'd talked a mate into setting up a sound system and some lights for us, and I was playing off vinyl and cassette deck, with no real way to properly mix anything. Thankfully, it still went really well and I ended up playing around four or five functions for that extended family in the first few months I was mixing. WHAT IS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT? Probably one of my most favourite memories would be a conference I was booked to play in Christchurch for a nationwide travel firm. They'd hired a theme company who'd designed a DJ booth that could descend into the room from the scoreboard of the Christchurch Arena (around the same size as the Sydney Entertainment Centre). When it was time to enter, I dropped Adagio for Strings and lights flashed with smoke pumping out from underneath the booth as we descended. It felt like a total Tiesto moment and was incredible. If only you got to do that once every few weeks, life would be amazing! IF YOU COULD DJ ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD IT BE? Like many DJ's, it's still a dream to one day grace the decks in Ibiza, the European clubbing mecca. WHERE CAN WE FIND YOU PLAYING? It seems to be changing from week to week so best bet is to check my FB www.facebook.com/AndyPulzar. Lately Rob in the Absolute Infinity Office has had me playing at the Bristol Arms ‘Retro’ Hotel on Fridays and at the Hard Rock Cafe most Saturdays, which may continue into 2012. Although at both of those venues I'm not really playing club music, it's more classic party sounds. |
