Music by the Pound

"There are times in a DJ's career where you can see that they've just lost it; they're all about the money," says Greg Diehl, better known as DJ Dealer. "And there is money out there for the higher echelon of people. Those kind of people get paid well, but a lot of them don't deserve a dime."
Such sharp-tongued comments are typical of Diehl, but he's talented enough to back them up. Simply put, he is one of Denver's most innovative beat-mixers, and his work on his own or as part of the Pound Boys, a partnership with DJ Craig C ("Grade C," May 8, 1997), has started to garner international recognition. He already rules the local dance scene, and a broader constituency is knocking at his door.

Diehl spent his formative years in Chicago--"from sixth grade through college," he says--and he grew to love the music that moved clubgoers there. As he puts it, "I was this suburban white kid who thought dance music was what everybody listened to. House music was Top 40 for Chicago. I was there from the beginning of Chicago's dance scene, and that's given me the perspective I have now."

He could hardly have found a better training ground. Artists based in Chicago exerted a major influence on electronic production both here and in Europe. "Initially there were the 'Hot Mix Five' and the 'Hot Mix Six' DJs, and they played all the radio shows, all the parties and all the roller rinks I went to," Diehl remembers. "Farley Jackmaster Funk, Ralphi Rosario, Julian Jumpin' Perez--those were a few of the first generation of famous Chicago house-music DJs. And then you had the really underground types, like Derrick Carter and Mark Farina, who came along in the late Eighties."

When he reached college age, Diehl left Chicago for a small school in Nebraska. While there, he became an on-air DJ at the campus radio station, and he subsequently served as an intern at a pop-oriented commercial outlet in Omaha. "It gave me the chance to hear all the new music as it came through," he says about the latter. "And that's one thing I've always loved."

That remains true to this day: Unlike many of his hipper-than-thou peers, who pay more attention to hype than music, he doesn't shy away from spinning worthy songs by mainstream artists. A case in point: Diehl was the first Denver DJ to play Cher's "Believe," an incredible house single produced by the team behind UK sensation Gina G that's fast on its way to becoming the country's top dance track. This decision doesn't mean that Diehl is a pushover for pap, as his negative remarks about the pairing of Lionel Richie and New York house figure Todd Terry make clear. ("Why does Lionel Richie need to be in the clubs?" he asks. "He's already reached millions and millions of people. Why does he have to get the last hundred thousand?") But he's also too smart to turn up his nose at strong, sentimental melodies.

"Music is very emotional for me," he says. "I don't understand how some people can have no emotional response to music. The most touching, most poignant music I've ever heard has always been ballads. That may sound strange coming from a dance-music DJ, but it's the truth."

These views have served Diehl well in Denver, where he moved upon graduating from college. His first job as a DJ here--at East Colfax's Gold Nugget disco--wasn't especially rewarding, but things turned around after he met Craig C, who remains one of his closest friends and collaborators. The pairing works, Diehl believes, because each gives the other room to be himself. "We established ourselves as distinct individuals while at the same time working together on a regular basis."

As the Pound Boys, Diehl and Craig C introduced house music to Denver during their 1993-1996 residency at the Compound. More recently the pair has been grinding out the grooves at Club Amsterdam, an after-hours warehouse-district space that opened Halloween weekend to record crowds. The venue, conceived by a posse of Greek entrepreneurs, is targeted at gays, lesbians and anyone with hefty disposable incomes and a growing resentment of Denver's archaic shut-'em-down-at-1:30-a.m. bar policy. Open from midnight to sunrise on Fridays and Saturdays, it sports a black interior, costly lighting and sound systems that will instantly remind well-traveled clubbers of New York's Twilo and San Francisco's 1015 Folsom, and a spectacular cast of nightlife celebrities that includes door warden Chocolate Thunder Pussy. The time is right for such a combination, Diehl feels. "We're not looking for 5,000 people to fill up Club Amsterdam," he says. "Denver has the crowd to keep this place plenty busy, and we would be perfectly happy with 500 people a night having a good time." He adds, "I think it's going to be the next chapter in the Denver club scene."