Robbo Fitzgibbons – Crafting Versatility and Building Success Through Word of Mouth on the Virtual Sessions 9/30/25

Robbo Fitzgibbons brings a versatile and seasoned perspective to his career as a DJ, producer, and radio host. Based in New York, Robbo blends hip hop, R&B, and house into his sets, reflecting his belief that a DJ’s role is to entertain across genres. From weddings and bar mitzvahs to clubs and festivals, he thrives on reading the crowd and creating memorable experiences. His studio, Eastlake, serves as the creative hub where he produces tracks, his radio show, and imaging work.

 

Robbo’s career took shape through word of mouth on Long Island, where consistent gigs built his reputation and confidence. He emphasizes the importance of cutting ties with unproductive relationships, noting that this freedom allowed him to focus on meaningful partnerships and touring opportunities with rap artists. Touring taught him the difference between performing in intimate rooms and commanding stadiums, helping him refine his approach to connecting with diverse audiences.

 

His upcoming releases, La Serenidad and So Funky, reflect his dual focus on tracks that resonate emotionally and deliver club-ready energy. Robbo views success as goal-oriented, centered on building a catalog, securing remix opportunities, and maintaining steady performance work. He highlights the role of creativity and technology in DJing, embracing tools like the REV7 for stems to create unique performances.

 

Beyond music, Robbo hosts his Monday Night Mix show, broadcasting on One Way Soul, Rewind Digital Network, and stations across the U.S. He remains dedicated to growth, collaboration, and inspiring listeners, whether through radio, production, or live sets. For him, the mission is simple: keep people engaged, entertained, and moving.

 

Topics

0:12 – Introduction and versatile style blending hip hop, R&B, and house
2:23 – Inside Eastlake Studio and multimedia production work
5:57 – Building a career through word of mouth on Long Island
9:08 – Defining moments: severing ties and touring with rap artists
15:15 – Experiences with remix projects and shaping house tracks
17:22 – New releases La Serenidad and So Funky explained
20:33 – Defining personal success as a DJ-producer
22:41 – Influences from Ronnie Size, Kid Capri, and personal mentors
25:17 – Views on DJ creativity, sync button debates, and REV7 stems
40:14 – Monday Night Mix show growth and radio syndication

Connect with Robbo Fitzgibbons

• Website: robbofitzgibbons.com
• Instagram: @robbofitzgibbons

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host Darran and right now I’m sitting in the virtual studios in my favorite chair in Seattle, Washington and coming in all the way from NYC, New York City, you know the Big Apple. We have none other than Robbo Fitzgibbons today on the show.

Rob, oh, how you doing today?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Hey man, what’s going on? How you doing?

[Darran]
Not much man, I got Enzo, the DJ Sessions doggy mascot over here trying to do a high five as well saying, what’s up?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
What’s happening Enzo? He seems like he’s very interested in whatever’s on the desk.

[Darran]
He is, he is. Well, we might have Doja the Cat jump in here as well earlier, the kitty mascot. But anyways, hey, it’s great to have you here.

Thank you so much for tuning in and watching some of our shows. Previously, I’m super excited that we got to connect through our mutual partnership, friendship, MN2S and Meg and the label services team over there. Got a lot of stuff working on with them and I can’t wait to talk with you about what you’ve been up to and what you’ve been going on.

So you are a DJ producer out of New York and has been doing this for a while and we want to get to know you, get to find out what you’re all up to. Some of the things I found though, you mix a style of hip hop, R&B and electronic music.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah, I guess it’s the definition of a DJ, you entertain, you know what I mean? So just to play one genre would be kind of counterproductive. So that’s just the way I learned and I still continue it to this day.

There’s things that I like to do, I like to play and then I get creative with that. So I do that, but then I get booked for bar mitzvahs and weddings and things of that nature. So I have to know pop music, I have to know cultural music and things of that nature.

[Darran]
You got to know how to take a request respectably.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Absolutely. I can’t get upset. No problem.

You want to hear it? I got it.

[Darran]
I take it you’re in your studio right now as well, right?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah, this is where all the magic happens, man. Eastlake, this is where it happens. I produce my show out of here, which is really cool.

Video and audio and then production, radio, imaging and all that is done right here.

[Darran]
Where are you distributing your shows right now too? I see you have a couple deals out there for radio, but you said video. Where is that all going out to and how did you get involved with that?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
I’ve always wanted to do the video situation. Well, not always. It’s been about a year that I’ve been trying to get that set up.

And finally over the past month or so, a month and a half, it’s been working out pretty well. I’m in the process and I think it’s going really well with the Rewind Network out of Pennsylvania that has an app situation and a digital brand that’s really doing well. And I think that’s going to be the home for my Monday Night Mix video-wise.

[Darran]
Awesome.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
So yeah, it’s cool.

[Darran]
Stress. I mean, I’ve been doing the show for 16 years and been in video production or production, public access, broadcast, television, podcasting and live streaming for over 30 years. And I think live streaming, podcasting and live streaming are two mediums that are…

It’s still wild, wild west out there, but definitely an avenue that artists can use to enhance their brand overall. Even if they’re not using it to produce music or play music, just having that session that can be part of their brand of talking with people, of talking about what’s going on, what’s happening. Even if they’re in the studio, they’re making a track.

I know a lot of shows, we started as a DJ show obviously online. That was our goal. But I also, when I opened up my studio, I had other types of programming coming out of my studio.

I produced a movie show, a couple of talk shows, a hip hop show, and I had people rent studio time out for me for 50 bucks an hour. And I’d come in and multi-cam produce their show and stream live from our studios here in Seattle. It was going for a little bit.

It was cool. I wanted bigger and I got bigger. I got bigger.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Definitely got bigger. Yeah.

[Darran]
But it wasn’t as easy to do what we had set up because I had the executive producer mindset back then, not the DJ mindset. You all worry about gear and getting tracks and owning a craft and beat matching and spending hours looking for tracks. I’m over here geeking out over the next camera switcher.

How can I get more bandwidth into my place at that time? We had two megabit upload at that time we were working with and probably we’re getting 0.75. Nowadays you get gigabit, Ethan. I’m like, oh, I can stream 4K all day long.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Okay. I didn’t realize it was that. Wow.

Okay.

[Darran]
Yeah. You go back and look at some of our earlier episodes and you’re like, people actually watch this. And at that time it was hot, hot stuff.

Multiple cameras and DJs and celebrities. Anyways, you have to do it. Everyone’s doing it.

I encourage it. You ever need any support, let us know. That’s one of the things that we’re here to do at the DJ sessions.

Getting into the business side of things, what do you consider your biggest break that launched your DJ career?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Wow. It was early on and it was about booking, just being consistent. So I think the biggest thing that launched my career business-wise was word of mouth in my area on Long Island because I ended up doing a lot of gigs from private to clubs based off of word of mouth.

I wasn’t on radio. I wasn’t in anybody’s video as far as a DJ. I didn’t know the famous DJs.

I didn’t even know the famous DJs that live like 10 minutes away from me. So it was word of mouth, like, hey, this guy’s good. He did my birthday, get him.

So I think that was the thing that broke my career in a sense of confidence and knowing that, hey, I can really do this. So for years I’ve spent in every state that I lived in, I spent doing the mobile gigs and it escalated to like, okay, these are nice mobile gigs. I’m getting good money.

I’m meeting a lot of people and people know my name. They know my brand. And it never escalated to the point where it was a tour bus or anything like that until I started working with rap artists and making beats and stuff like that.

For some people, they wouldn’t think that that was a turning point, but for me, it’s about the music. So if I can entertain you and you’re happy with what I’m doing, I can transcend what’s in my head and what I hear out of the music and you get it and then you want me to come back, I’m good all day with that.

[Darran]
Nice. That’s a really great way to obviously build contacts and build on that side of the business. And that’s really where a lot of my friends are event DJs, the corporate gigs and the weddings and the bar mitzvahs and things like that.

Corporate gigs alone, you get in doing that and you’re good and they refer you and you keep doing it. You’re getting sometimes $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 an event. You do 10 or 20 of those events a year.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Not a bad deal.

[Darran]
Not a bad deal. And then all those people are seeing you and they go, we want to hire that guy for our wedding, for our birthday, for our bar mitzvah. They’re doing 200, 500 person events.

There’s your network right there. You don’t have to be the famous DJ making money. If you want to go for the fame and fortune and stardom of that and play the entertainment route.

But you might meet that person who’s a friend of a friend at a party that goes, damn, let’s bring you over here. Definitely networking that way. What was the best or what has been the best business decision or partnership deal you’ve ever made when it comes to your career?

Is there one defining moment that says, I’m so glad I did this. Or happy that I’ve did this.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah. It ended up being severing ties with unproductive relationships. I was bad at it at first.

And then as time got, went on, I was able to be a little bit more proactive. So I think there’s a few things that I can say was a defining moment, but that’s definitely one of being able to say, Hey, look, I can walk away from this and I still am going to stand on my own two feet. So that is significant.

And then I think touring with a rap artist, that was a defining moment. I learned a lot and so much that it was like, okay, now I know what this means. Now I know what it means to be on tour.

I was able to be able to communicate to a lot of people, like stadium full of people and be like, okay, there’s a difference between that and a room. So after doing it three years, I was good at it coming in, but I learned just how much work I needed as time went on. So I was like, okay.

So I learned and I got better and better and networked with a lot of other DJs and really started to understand what that was.

[Darran]
It’s kind of like what I call two things there. You brought up two different things. The first one, obviously, one of my PR people I worked with a few years back, talking with them, he’s worked with a number of top artists, broke artists out, brought artists up out of nowhere and made them successful in the industry.

He says, Darran, there’s sometimes when you just got to trim the fat. And I’m the executive producer, the owner, and you just got to, as much as you love people, if they’re not productive, they’re holding you back. I just went through a reband and had to shift some things around and be like, look, this is where we want to go.

We’ve got to go this way. And a very awesome book that I recommend so many people read from time to time is called Good to Great. And it was a New York Times bestseller.

And one of the things that it talks about, the whole book is based on taking these, I think it was like 15 or 20 companies or a certain number of companies. And they went and researched each of these companies and said what they asked them pretty much all the same information, looked at all the data, same questions, CEOs, executives, everything. And they came back with all the data and they found that all these companies basically followed the same thing, which took them from almost a no-name brand.

These are top fortune 500 companies in America, no-name brand with competitors up here owning the market to literally going, I’m coming to household names that you know of them today. And one of those things was, they talk about the flywheel, they talk about the momentum, but before that, they talk about this bus analogy and you got the company and everyone before they made the changes, everyone was on the bus. And if something’s going wrong with the company, everyone’s on the bus, it’s not going the right direction.

First of all, you got to stop the bus. And some of these companies aren’t able to do that because they’re a big steam ship in the water. It talks about it like this, you can’t just turn a steam ship and go around 180.

It doesn’t work like that. So they say you got to stop the bus. Then you got to make everyone get off the bus.

Then you got to let people back on the bus that you want. And when you put them on the bus, you got to put them in the exact seat that they’re going to be on the bus. Then you decide where the bus is going to go once you’ve done that.

And then you start that flywheel, that’s another chapter I go into there. But the point is restructuring, reorganizing the company to get it in the right direction to where it needs to go. And they said, there were companies there that had family members that thought they’d be a shoe in and they’re in a vice president position for the rest of their lives.

And they’re like, sorry, you’re gone. Sorry, you’re gone. There’s people, but boom, you got to go.

We got to get people in here to do this right. And that was one of the first things they did. Because you can’t have a bus going in a direction when people don’t know where the bus is going, or if it’s going on the right direction, it doesn’t want to change or turn or move and do all that fun stuff.

So I like that revamping, reassessing, partnerships, friendships, even personal habits can be a huge thing in this industry, mental health habits. I was telling you pre-show, I took an eight and a half month hiatus off of doing the show for 16 years. I’ve burnt out a few times in my life, just spinning the wheel, trying to get things going and wondering why things weren’t going.

And then now I just say, now my new saying, I can’t say the first saying, but it’s funny when my friend’s going to put on a t-shirt or probably going to sell them on the site. You’ll see that later in life. But the next one is when somebody doesn’t want to work with me or something doesn’t go the way I pitch somebody or do something, I go, you know what?

Less work for me. It’s less work for me because if it wasn’t a go, it didn’t resonate. I’m not going to beat a dead horse or go after it and waste my time.

Less work for me there, I’ll go figure it out over here. And most of the time when that happens, it’s what they call dodging a bullet. It just wasn’t clicking.

You don’t see the potential. I’ve laid out everything. Have a nice day.

That’s the first half of the statement of what we’re going to put on a t-shirt, have a nice day. There’s a moniker that goes with that, have a nice day. But it’s not safe for work, family, friends.

But anyways, yeah, you just got to make sure you’re healthy and know where you’re going. That’s mental health, is dead weight and pulling in the wrong directions can be a bad thing. So congratulations for getting through that and noticing that and then moving on through that.

Going back to the business, the DJ side of things, do you participate in the remix competitions or are you just affluent in making remixes? I think I saw something in there that you’re involved with doing remixes and things like that.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah, I’ve done remixes in the past. Actually, it’s been a couple of years. Label out of Paris, France.

I did well. It was techno, actually. The original was a techno and then I kind of brought it back to my style of house, which is really house, maybe a little bit deep.

Yeah. So it was cool. It worked out really well.

I still spin it and it works. So it was really cool. But I’ve never been in a competition.

I’ve never looked at music and DJing. To some degree, DJing is a competition, but not to the point that I would enter. When I was a kid, I tried it once or twice and it just wasn’t my thing because I need more time to show them what I wanted to hear.

And I wasn’t going to get that in a 10-minute set.

[Darran]
Yeah, I think that would definitely be hard.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
A scratch DJ, a turntablist, they do that. That’s what they do. They can get their point across in 10 minutes, a 10-minute set.

[Darran]
Yeah, not too long ago, I went and saw a DJ competition. Actually, it was a producer beat making competition kind of thing. DJ Qbert was one of the guest hosts for that.

Always nice seeing Qbert around.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
He’s in Washington, right? Is he in Washington? I think he’s based out of LA.

[Darran]
I don’t know. I have his number in my phone, but I’m not pulling up during the show. That’s one thing I highly guard is my Rolodex.

Not that I would show anyone his number, but Q, we’re talking about you right now on the show. But you also produced your own tracks and you gave me a privy of these and they’re coming out soon. Talk to us about those.

Tell us about those two tracks and the names and what’s the thought process behind those two tracks. You’re excited to release these. I know you are.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah, excited. Definitely excited. I caught up with Georgie over at MN2S and he heard the main single, which is La Serenidad, which is Spanish or Latin for serenity.

The vocal part of it is the serenity prayer. There’s wordplay with that throughout the track. I thought it was a really cool track and he liked it.

He’s like, yo, we could put this out. I was like, oh, okay. But I didn’t think that it should be out by itself.

I thought that it required another track in the release. I’m always working on something. If I press my drum machine right now, something’s going to play.

There’s always something. I had some stuff that I was like, all right, let’s see what can make this, what can compliment La Serenidad. It took a minute.

That was probably one of the hardest things to do is try to find something to compliment because La Serenidad is more electronic than it is house, but you can dance to it and it has a nice flow to it. It’s heavy and bottom wise and stuff like that, which is what I like. It’s a very clean track and to me leans more towards tech.

Leans more towards that. Then the response to that was something that I wanted clubs to play. You’re going to play it at maybe not the main stage at a festival, but definitely maybe like forward motion.

You’ll play it at forward motion because that’s how I DJ. I needed something that was going to hit the decks that I know I’m going to play. La Serenidad is, hey, you want to play something that’s cool, you’ll play that.

Maybe it can get picked up sync wise and this and that because it’s a really cool song. The next song is called So Funky because it is so funky. It’s definitely a club banger.

A lot of bass bend, rattling, hi-hats. It’s a really cool song. I played it on my show the other day and it fit right in.

It was really cool and I’m really excited about that. We’re waiting to see. I think that we’re going to get a good response from both tracks and it’s going to be really cool.

It’s going to be really cool.

[Darran]
How do you define success as a DJ producer? Would it be a Beatport top 10 hit or a sold out tour if you planned one? What are your thoughts on this?

It’s your definition of what should be defined as success for a DJ slash producer.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
There’s a couple of ways to define it. For me, it’s goal-orientated. Those definitions stare my goal.

Securing more work. Other people want to work with you. Remix work, stuff like that.

And playing out. I’m not expecting one single to automatically get you gigs like that. I think it takes a catalog to be like, hey, we like what he does.

Right. And as I say that, some gigs have come in because of the single. And it’s only the first one for MN2S.

So I’m like, gosh, I wasn’t expecting that. So when I define it, it’s a very loose definition because the music industry is without any boundaries. Success without anything could become a success.

And the next record is not.

[Darran]
True. All moves in cycles and waves. I’ve heard a lot of artists that say, to be successful, really produce what you want to produce and find the niches in that.

Don’t try to follow the hot trend because by the time you get in there, that trend’s gone. And it’s like, nope, that’s not what’s happening. So, you know, definitely your guns and building your own library.

I think that’s a great, great way of building your own brand. Awesome. So question for you.

And I know I usually know the response to this one because I get it sometimes myself. I got to ask, who’s your favorite DJ slash producer out there? Can you tell us why?

It’s a loaded question because I won’t get you in trouble.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Um, gosh, some people would be surprised by my answer, but Ronnie Size. You wouldn’t think it would be Ronnie Size, but yeah, Ronnie Size. I’m a big Opal Opal fan.

So, yeah. And there’s a guy that’s in Texas that I play a lot of his music. I forget his name off the top of my head.

Then there’s people that I work with personally that I hear their air and their flavor and everything. Good friends of mine that, you know, I’m like, oh gosh. So I consider him to be Michael Allen.

He’s a good friend. So shout out to my man, Mike. Everything he puts together, I’m just like, he has incredible air, you know, and he hears, he listens and it’s like, how did you hear that?

You know, how did you decipher that? So, uh, you know, personal friends of mine. Um, and then there’s the stables.

Um, I’m a kid Capri fan. Uh, I’m a kid Capri fan cause, and people don’t realize why I saw him, uh, come in and do a mobile at my college. Uh, and I patterned how I did mobiles off of what I saw him do.

And it wasn’t even about DJing. It was about having the staff coming in with vinyl and how he operated. And I was like, that’s what I need to do.

And as soon as I started following that, that’s when things started really falling for me as, as a DJ mobile wise going, because if you’re carrying records, everything’s a mobile at that point. So even if you’re not bringing equipment, you still need a squad to bring records. So, you know, I followed big car.

So, and it had to stay there the whole night. You couldn’t leave middle of the night. And then I’m like, Oh, you know, so, uh, so I, I guess to answer the question, you know, we go from Ronnie size to kid Capri, you know, hip hop has had a turntable as a culture for many years.

[Darran]
I mean, it’s kind of part of that culture. Do you feel that electronic music DJ should become a bit more creative with their mixing on average? Um, you know, you have a lot of DJs that get up there and they have the gear, they have the CDJs, you know, and they have their cue points and they have their, their, you know, the beat matching tools, the same button.

If ones are using that, I know that’s a taboo environment world its own, right?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
No, I don’t consider that taboo at all.

[Darran]
Well, you have people out there that said, use the sync button. That’s not fair. That’s not beat matching.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
And it’s like, I’ll tell, uh, we’ll, we’ll touch on the sync just for a minute. I am. I, I don’t use the sync button because it just doesn’t just the need to, right.

Um, I worked hard at learning how to do it the way I do it. So, um, it doesn’t make me any better than the person that does the sync button because the end result is a listener. And, um, that’s, like I said earlier, I need more time.

I can’t give 10 minutes. It’s not enough time. So I need the person that’s listening to me to be happy.

You know what I mean? Whether I’m making a record, making a remix or I’m DJing for Bar Mitzvah or I’m DJing in a club. If they’re not happy, you know, then it doesn’t matter.

So I’m sitting in front of a rev seven, right. And I’ve been working on this not long. It’s less than a year prior to that.

It was the turntables, right. And I’ve been doing that ever hasn’t changed. I didn’t even touch CD days probably wouldn’t be good on them, you know, cause I had to like figure out where everything was.

So the reason why I got to this is because of the stems, right. And the access to them and the way you can manipulate them. And in my mind, I only make a change with equipment wise, um, when there’s something significant.

So I dreamed of doing what this does now. Years ago, I was like, I need to be able to take this baseline out because that I’ve always been that way as a kid. I was like, yeah, I want this part to play here and this and looping records with a tape.

You know, that was always my thing. So DJing is just an extension of that. And when REV7 came with the access to stems the way it does, I was like, okay, now I’m able to have more control of every song and I’m really giving you a performance.

[Darran]
Yeah.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
So, uh, to answer your question, yeah, I think all DJs should do some sort of manipulation that’s entertaining and makes you stand out from the next guy. Cause anybody can press play, right. And then it just goes, that’s not what we do.

Not at all. You know, so, you know, it’s, uh, you gotta, you gotta do something. You just can’t sit there and press play.

Even if your selection is off the chain, it’s gotta be something.

[Darran]
Speaking about the crowds, uh, going into that, do you prefer playing more sort of bigger scale events or do you prefer more intimate club settings? Like, uh, some are maybe 300 to 400 versus, you know, 1000 plus.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Um, I like them both. Um, because, uh, it’s, it’s a challenge. Um, I, I did, uh, gosh, uh, remember ruckus records?

Rockets. I’m about to be saying it wrong. Rockets R-A-W-K-U-S most def was on it.

Late nineties, early two thousands.

[Darran]
Yes.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Okay. Yeah. Um, I did one of their parties when I lived in Atlanta and it was a small at a small venue.

It was like maybe a hundred, 350 people there. And I’m just hitting them in the head with hip hop joints and mixing them and this and that. Everybody’s having a good time.

And I played a record and I was playing, you know, with the fader in and out. And everybody at the same time was like, so loud that they just started laughing. It was like, yo, I can’t believe we were all feeling that vibe at the same time.

So it’s that those type of things that you probably can’t get out of a big room. But then at the same time, I’ve worked for Christian, a rap artist. And I was able to usher in the spirit with a certain record.

And that was the same type of response. So it was a challenge to be like, okay, how can I get you into, how can I get you into my head to hear these records the way that I hear it? You know what I mean?

So every time I play, it’s like, okay, how do I get you to take, you know, the shirt off and be like, okay, let’s get it in. You know what I mean? Whether it’s on the radio, whether, you know, how do I get you to have a good time?

You know, how do I take you back to, oh, this is the old record or take you into like, that’s a dope record, you know, with a house track that ain’t nobody heard, or it’s just something that needs to be replayed or something like that.

[Darran]
You know, and as a DJ, do you follow the charts and what’s hot, or do you just follow your heart and try to bring that to the dance floor?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Depends on where I’m playing. When it’s house, when it’s house music, I play by my vibe and what I want you to hear. And it’s very personal when I play house music.

It’s very personal, especially when it’s deep house. Soulful house, it’s kind of like, okay, I make, it’s like R&B to me to some degree, depending on the crowd, right? If I’m just trying to get like a crowd to dance and they like house, they say they like house, but they don’t have a clue because house is so many different fractions, right?

So I’m going to play the sped up R&B that’s now called house, right? So you want to hear that remix of some old record that’s now house stuff or somebody doing a remake. Yeah.

So I’m playing for you at that point, but you know, I’m going to play the remix that I think is dope, right? So, and then it’s going to fit with everything else that I’m doing in this one vibe. But when it’s a house event, um, it’s personal.

I’m trying to get you to really get inside my head and be like, I can get everybody like head nodding and they dancing and going off and my job is done.

[Darran]
Yeah. Do you remember the first record you ever purchased as we’re mentioning, or is it embarrassing?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
No, I’m not. I’m not. I’m not embarrassed by any music that, uh, that I like.

Um, it was, uh, it was an old record. Uh, the 45, um, dancer by Gino Socio. Look that up.

That was Gino, G I N O S O C C I O. I think he’s an electronic producer.

[Darran]
Okay. A 1979 crossover disco single by Canadian born producer. I’m going to see what happens here.

Let’s see what happens here. I don’t think I can get away with it. I can get away with about that much.

That sounds fun. I’m going to play that when we’re done with the show today, I’ll play it in the background. I don’t have the licensing for that and I don’t want to get sued.

That sounds a lot of fun. Yeah.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
It’s a cool record.

[Darran]
It was 1979. Um, I hit number one on the disco chart for six weeks and was the first of two times he would reach the top spot. Also crossover the soul singles chart.

All right. All right.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Big record, big record in New York.

[Darran]
Yeah. All right. There we go.

That sounds fun. Fun to listen to. Thank you for that.

You know, when we get to your stage performance, do you become a different person when you get on stage or when you’re on your radio show? Are you a different person off stage or is it Robbo is Robbo ready to go?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
I’ve always Robbo ready to go.

[Darran]
Yeah. You know, some performers get on stage. I mean, I, I, I have learned that, I mean, while we’re having this free flowing conversation, in a sense, I’m still on a stage.

I am still performing right now. Um, probably people would say I’d be more animated, more talkative off the mic than I am on the mic, but they’d probably be like, Darran, you’d be in a TV show, radio personality type guy. That’s right up your alley.

Cause you can talk for hours and keep it going. So, you know, but sometimes, you know, when I get off this, when I’m off, I’m like, I’m off camera right now. But when I’m on camera, here I go, I’m ready to fire up, you know?

And so there is a little bit of performance, but you know, you get on, you got your stage game, you got your, you know, off stage game, but is it just the same? You said it’s the same whether you’re on stage, off stage?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah, to some degree. Um, I think if there’s a change is when I get tired and then I’m like, okay, I got to lay down, you know, I’m tired. I’m like, okay, I’m tired.

Um, and sometimes I have to tell myself, wait, you’re tired, but, uh, you know, yeah, I don’t think there’s much of a difference. Um, I think, uh, there’s definitely a difference radio voice wise. I think maybe, you know, uh, I might perform in that type of way, uh, on air.

[Darran]
Hell, I I’ve had that happen with guests behind the stage. I’ve talked with a few times on the show that, you know, I’m backstage during the event, there’s already hoopla and everyone’s going on. It’s crazy.

The artist is flowing in. I got them for five to seven, 10 minutes, maybe tops sometimes. And I’ll be backstage and I’ll be like, all right, cool.

So here’s what we’re going to do on the show. It’s going to be really calm and cool. Who’s going to ask you a few questions and we’ll sit on the couch and then I’ll be like, all right, ready?

Yeah. Ready? Okay.

I’ll look at the camera and go. All right. In five, four, three, welcome back to another episode of the D and they go, see him go in the background and they just be like, whoa, damn, I didn’t know this is checking their shirt or something.

Cause I got the footage from all three camera angles going on. So when I go back and edit it, I may not see how they’re reacting because I’m looking at the camera like this, but when I go back and edit the footage, you can see him just, okay, this is real. And I come up with like, dang, that was a really good interview, man.

I’m like, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Wow.

It’s kind of like lights, camera action here, man. I got to keep my, my viewers engaged, you know, maybe wake them up in the middle of the night. They’re watching it on replay or something.

Well, Darran came on last night. It was a good interview. Cool.

But you know, sometimes that happens, you know, speaking of stage performances, have you ever had anyone else ever screw up a performance of yours on stage and what may have happened and how did you recoup from that?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah, absolutely. I screwed up. Yeah.

I take the good with the bad. Gosh, I think the biggest thing that I’ve ever screwed up was I was DJing with a band and I didn’t know the direction or show the song, the set list. And I changed it with a record, you know, but fortunately, the only ones that noticed it was us on stage.

We look confused, but because I threw the record in with a scratch, when they heard the scratch came, it was on beat. So it was just like, and then they kind of, the band just kind of fell back. And then the artist was like, I’m not supposed to be doing that record, but he just did it anyway.

So fortunately, the artist wasn’t like James Brown and gave me a doc, my pay or anything.

[Darran]
I always love Eddie Murphy’s impression of James. I mean, I think it was delirious. It was delirious.

He did that impression. That’s a classic dude. Delirious man.

Wow.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Oh my gosh.

[Darran]
Hey, I hope that doesn’t get me flagged for anything. James Brown track. No, I didn’t know.

He used it right there. We’re suing you.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
You gotta be so careful nowadays. Let me tell you.

[Darran]
I know, right?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
What’s going on?

[Darran]
Yeah, definitely. That was one of the biggest questions people asked me in 2020 was, I literally had hundreds of people contact me doing a show like this for 10 years. And our main primary goal or focus was music.

And they’re like, how do you get around the copyrights? How do you get around the copyrights? How do you do this?

I bought the track on Beatport. I own it. I can do what I want with it.

I love it a lot. I’m like, no, that’s not how this works. Okay.

It’s called licensing and you don’t have it. And I know you don’t have it because if you knew about it, you’d have it and you wouldn’t be having this conversation with me. And it’s very simple.

Ask Kat BMI CSAC or contact the artist directly. Have a nice day and pay them their money and get a contract through license to use the music. If you read Beatport or you read any of these places, it’s not licensed for commercial use.

Okay. And everyone knows. So yeah, I had that conversation a lot back then.

But we’re pretty protected with what we got over our end. So I’m not too, when we, I was telling you earlier, when we got made a featured partner on Twitch, that was one of the concerns they brought up to us is that we were very successful on the front, after the front page of Twitch. And I said, Hey, I want to go back up front.

And they said, well, Darran, you might have an issue there. And they were being really helpful to me. They didn’t say yes.

Okay, good. Go ahead, Darran, beware and let the, let the, let the fires burn. You know, you’re going to, you’re going to persecute, go after it.

They said, you have 470 videos up on our site and they all have red flags on them. I’m like, yeah. And I said, okay, well, if we put you to the front page of our site, you know, some of these Sony universal, they might come after you for stuff.

I went, huh? And I go, so I should pull them down. I go, yeah, I’d pull those down.

And they go, but also we put you up in the front of your site. You have 1300 other videos on your website. They come up to you for as well.

So you sure you want to go to the front page? I’m like, let me go take care of everything.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Right.

[Darran]
Exactly. Spend time taking care of everything. And then people are like, how come you don’t get in trouble for it?

Cause I took care of everything.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Right. You got to pay the price.

[Darran]
You know, so, you know, that being said, speaking of radio shows going live and all that fun stuff, putting stuff out there, you have a radio show. So you just did one. This was just this Monday.

I’m not sure when your last yesterday, yesterday. Yeah. It was yesterday.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Monday night.

[Darran]
Master mix. Yeah. Master mix.

Is that your solo show? You have a couple of different shows going on or is that your main show you have going on right now?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
That’s that’s my main show. Um, I’m excited about it because I get to play live and get to play new music and really talk to people real time, real radio. That’s tagged.

It’s a tagline at this point. Now it’s like real music, real radio.

[Darran]
Um, and, um, you know, you’ve been doing that for a while now. And I had a question about that cause I saw a, there we go. There’s that picture.

That’s the one I want. I’m going to screen from a screen share here. We, I rarely do this on the show, but this is going to be fun.

I want to know what this setup is.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Cause I’m like, that, that is, um, an edited super edited picture of how the old studio was, which was in the basement of this home. So, uh, it, it was, uh, it’s AI at the end of the day. Oh yes.

AI.

[Darran]
Okay.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah. So AI, but it’s like, it’s lifelike and it’s like, wow, that letter R is right here to my right, you know? So, uh, I see it now that it’s AI generated.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause I was like, it came from, it came from an actual picture.

[Darran]
Oh, okay.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah. It came from an actual picture, but it just rendered everything in whatever the style that was picked. Right.

And then, um, I just kind of blown up to, you know, to the specs for it, for the internet and stuff like that. And I have a few of them that are like that, but, uh, I thought it was really cool. Um, and it was different.

It made people look so, uh, yeah, it was cool.

[Darran]
That looks like a really nice little studio living room there. Now I can see right, like right, right. If you can see my mouse kind of like right here.

Anyways, that’s why I was wondering, I was like, what kind of gear is that?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
It’s those turntables right here is this setup right here. Right. And then that there is a letter R in the studio.

It’s not high, but like where it was the other time it’s right here to my right. But, uh, yeah, but it took the room and just animated, but I thought it was a cool picture.

[Darran]
And how long have you been doing that show for and where do you distribute that? So where does that show go out? Cause I know it’s on a couple, you’ve got a couple of stations you work with, right?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah. One away soul.com, which is a fantastic platform for hip hop and R and B and house. And it’s based here in New York.

Um, it’s run by a gentleman named Jamie Roberts, um, which he actually owns and runs a comedy club in Harlem, uh, comedy in Harlem that a lot of people go to. I go to there every Saturday night after my show and I’m the food and the comedy, everything’s off the chain. So, uh, you know, he runs dad and he does a lot of stuff in broadcasting and put the station together.

And, um, you know, it’s just really good. It’s, uh, uh, it’s just talent on the station. It’s really cool.

So I’m glad to be a part of that platform. So that’s really cool. And then, um, it’s also on, uh, rewind digital network, which is based out of the Poconos 97.5 FM. So that relationship is getting better and better. Um, and then it’s also on, uh, Dallas, uh, radio network, which is down in North Carolina. So that’s doing really well.

And then there’s a few others, um, that we broadcast live on, but, uh, I’m excited about it. It’s growing. I’m looking for more, uh, um, relationships and connections with people that are really moving the needle.

So, uh, so we’ll see, you know, growing now.

[Darran]
Are those shows, are they self syndicated by you knocking on the doors of the stations or are you using like PRX to submit those shows?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
How are you doing on the doors? Okay. It’s Monday night madness.

Make a Monday night master mixes me knocking on the doors and, uh, it’s been working out really well.

[Darran]
Nice. I recently just had an opportunity to meet with a station and, or actually a friend of mine is getting to go on a station and I approached them. And one of the things that I found out about that I did not know, cause we want to start syndicating our shows is a PRX.

Are you familiar with that?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
No. Um, I was working one time with, uh, gosh, I forget the name of it. It’s overseas.

I waste time trying to think of it, but it was, it was, uh, it was a really good network, but it was all based overseas and that was like maybe 2017.

[Darran]
Yeah. What I found that was really awesome about PRX and for those of you that don’t know, um, it basically is a place where you can take your shows and when they’re radio formatted, you put them into their database and then people can find your show and then syndicate it. And basically they pay for the syndication of you can set your pricing for it and everything.

Um, and you just, you make the file the right way. That’ll go into the new digital format for radio stations and you can get syndicated all over the place and podcasts can syndicate you. Radio shows can syndicate you.

It’s pretty awesome. I was like, wow. And I’m not, I don’t work for them.

I haven’t signed up. I’ve only started making my account there to explore it and see how much, how much more it’s going to add to the already Darran Bruce DJ sessions workflow, but it really isn’t that much from what I explored, but we’re definitely going to put our shows up in there. I just got to make sure that I keep them in a certain format.

That’s the only thing is I like doing a free for all. And if our show is supposed to be 50, it’s supposed to be 59 minutes. I do a show that’s an hour and three minutes.

I got to now chop out three minutes, you know, right, right, right, right. To make it and that’s work.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
That’s work.

[Darran]
It is. Cause I don’t like cutting my episodes cause they’re always awesome stuff. And I don’t want to cut out the funny stuff or the bad stuff.

And there’s also FCC guidelines. You kind of got to go by. And I mean, if you say a swear word and you bleep it or you, you, you take it out, you have to put those notes in there that that’s why I made that bleep or that’s the word that was said that I made that bleep.

Yeah. It’s a little, it’s not just throw my, throw my audio file up and let it go, you know, very strict. And you got to make sure, cause it can be, it can be syndicated anywhere.

And you don’t know if it’s this radio station has these policies or this listener group or this has to be able to play everywhere. You know? And I think that’s some of the things they have to do for reporting.

So they don’t get fined by the FCC. You know, I’ve been told it could be up to $500,000 per fine or something like that.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
It’s no joke. It’s heavy.

[Darran]
Oh, not at all. Not at all. So that being said, as far as shows go, you have your own show, but do you listen to other shows?

And if so, podcasts or shows, do you have three kind of top shows of your go-to that you go to listen to or that you recommend outside of your own show?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
These are dangerous questions.

[Darran]
I’m going to get in trouble now.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
No, you know, there’s a, a one-way soul. I listened to DJ Bilal. You know who DJ Bilal is?

[Darran]
Bilal Sansour.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah. You remember the hip hop group, Groove B Chill? They were in the movie House Party.

[Darran]
Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
So he’s a DJ for that group and he’s on One-Way Soul. And he’s always playing some real cool hip hop and doing, you know, cool blends and mixes. So I always try to catch his show on One-Way Soul.

And then who else do I listen to? I listen to Benzo Cain on WHCR 90.3 FM. He’s an overnight show.

He plays drum and bass. So I listen to that. And there is, there’s some house mixes that I listen to on YouTube.

And I don’t know who the DJs are. They just sound really, really cool. And then DI-FM, I listen a lot to DI-FM.

All right. But that’s pretty much, you know, and then in the car radio, just XM, listening to Che 45. I tell you, too, really, I always try to catch DB from the Sway in the Morning show.

I don’t know if you listen to XM, but…

[Darran]
No, I’m in the world of electronic music now. I listen to that all the time. But everyone knows that I’m into, if anyone that knows me knows me, it’s Groove Salad by Soma FM out of the Bay Area.

I’ve been listening to him for probably 22 years now. And it’s what’s on in the background. If I’m doing work, it’s what’s in the car.

If I’m not at a concert or venue or event, it’ll probably literally, I am talking about getting a solar panel put on my gravestone that will download and play Groove Salad. And you can be like, that’s what he’s listening to right now. I just love it.

It’s down-tempo, ambient, lo-fi, acid jazz. It just puts me in kind of a mood. I would love to open up a bar or have a space that would say, okay, this is what’s playing all the time.

You come in, it doesn’t interfere. There can be lyrics on some of the tracks, but a lot of it’s like more mood music in a sense. And it’d be something you’d sit back and have a martini or a beautiful and kick back and be like, ah, cool.

Okay, I’m just chilling. It’s not going to interrupt the environment or the social environment that you’re in.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
I definitely got to send you some music. I think you’d like it.

[Darran]
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
I got to send you some stuff because if you’re digging out to lo-fi and the hip-hop beats, I press my drum machine right there.

[Darran]
You’d be like, oh yeah, that’s it right there. It’s interesting thinking back on how I got into that genre of music because I used to be very heavily into hip-hop rap in the 80s, 90s. And I started going out to the dance clubs, the electronic music clubs, and got introduced to electronic dance music as opposed to top 40 hip-hop, the top pop stuff, bubblegum pop.

And so there was always a difference. It was hanging out at the hometown club and listening to the top 40, top pop hip-hop, or going out to the underground nightclubs and getting the disco, the house, the trance type stuff that was coming out there and later went into the more electronic music stuff. But I started getting involved in the trip-hop.

And that’s where I got introduced to, I mean, most people know Massive Attack, Tricky, Out of Massive Attack, Portishead, things like those. Kind of almost what I would say, James Bond theme song kind of stuff. But that’s where I was like, because I’m a huge James Bond fan.

If my phone rings right now, it’s the James Bond theme song. So that really appealed to me, that down-tempo, ambient, sultry, sexy, spy movie kind of thing. But you take Mos Def from Massive Attack and get them out there, and it’s hip.

I was like, damn, there’s some thoughts still that I like behind those lyrics that come into play. That’s what’s up. Yeah.

So I’d love to hear more of your stuff. We definitely are going to hear more of your stuff. I’m going to have you on the show, but I got to know something because I was going to be out in a couple of weeks ago for an event, and I got to know, what would you say?

This may even be a big trick question since it’s about New York City. What’s the best thing one should do when coming to visit New York City? I mean, take Empire State, take Central Park, take Statue of Liberty.

Okay, okay, great. Those things. Times Square, okay.

What’s the best thing? Maybe something that’s off the beaten path. It’s like, you want to go see something, go do this.

Is there a top suggestion you have for people that’s coming to visit? I know you’ve never seen this show.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
There’s an area in Brooklyn. It’s not Flatbush. I forget the name of the area, but they have tons of cool underground clubs and have been sponsors for some rave-type-sized events.

I forget the name. I know how to get there. I just forget what they call the area.

Could be Flatbush. It might be East New York, but you definitely have to go there.

[Darran]
I was back there in 2021 and to go see a friend of mine open up at the Brooklyn Mirage for a very prominent artist. I should have been going to bigger clubs and leaving the West Coast years ago. I had never been to a club like that before.

I’ve been to major events, concerts, venues, tens of thousands of people, stuff like that, but not like this, not like the Brooklyn Mirage. I was blown away with that place. Even the RFID tags was something that I’m like, why don’t we have these everywhere?

You just go up to the machine, pop your card in, put your tag on, and you’re walking up everywhere. I ended up, funny enough, befriending the person who worked for the company that got those installed for the Brooklyn Mirage at an event, connecting with them. I know the Brooklyn Mirage is kind of down.

There’s another club that came up and opened up. There’s a bunch of stuff going on over there in that area now. We stayed in a place right in Brooklyn, really nice Airbnb, about half a mile from the club.

It was awesome. I was blown away. Definitely want to come back and visit some areas.

Yeah, if you can give me some pointers on where to go in Brooklyn, I would definitely make it back out there again.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Let me know when you’re coming.

[Darran]
Make it happen. Definitely will. I was supposed to come out there too and work with a house group.

They do a Friday night house thing. Do you know Herbert Haller? I heard that name before.

I heard that name before. Yeah, Herbert Haller does a show, and I just interviewed him recently. He put me in touch with some house people.

They do this house thing every Friday from 7 to 11, or 7.30 to 11. They get a group of dancers in a studio, and they just play house music and dance, dance, dance. I was going to come out there and also interview them while I was going to go cover this event, but it ended up going out.

I was really excited to definitely collaborate with them and meet up with Herbert, meet up with you, meet up and stay in the city for four or five days and get some experience. Yeah, man. Quick stint out there.

Here’s a question for you though. This is also getting it from the best thing to do in the city, more appealing to the foodie in me. What do you think the best restaurant is to go to in New York?

Maybe for that city, top five. Here, here, here, here.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yeah. There’s some places that I just go to because they’re just staples. So Fritos is one, been around for a long time.

It’s like not even brand new, but the food is always great. Specifically Puerto Rican food is what they’re specializing in. So I’m a fan of that.

So I’m always eating there, but I’m on Long Island most of the time, which is like 30, 40 minutes away from the city. So there’s places on Long Island that’s off the chain and some right in my town. So there’s an Italian spot called Patera’s that I’m always eating at.

And there’s coffee shops that have great, gosh, their list of coffees and teas is off the chain. So come out to Long Island once you get into New York and there’s a bunch of places.

[Darran]
There you go.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
But in Manhattan, I only know a few, but every time I’ve gone in Manhattan, I’ve always had something good. Nice.

[Darran]
When you’re not entertaining others and behind the decks and doing your radio shows and all that, what do you do to entertain yourself? What do you do off the clock? Or are you always on the clock, but not off the clock?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Always on the clock. Yeah, I’m always on the clock. There’s always something that’s running through my mind that I want to create, especially over the last, over the summers.

Production started getting heavier for me over the summer. It slowed down where there weren’t deadlines or anything like that. It’s been like no deadlines for like a year.

So I was just like always making something, always making something so that I have something to reference or whatever. But since the summer, maybe mid-summer, deadlines started coming in, people asking for specific things, whether it be radio jingles or tighten up this mix. I’m looking for a kick that resonates and all right, well, let’s bring the mix in.

So I can do some editing. I don’t do full out mixes here, but I’ll help you get your mix right and then take it somewhere else and get it mixed and mastered. This is more production.

So to start, you’re going to be here. I got a rack with a cassette player and turntable and CD player and I’m sampling from that or just listening to music and stuff like that. It’s always something that I could get myself into.

Buzz now, Eminent, Eminent 2S and I have a remix coming out with the artist that’s I think he’s in Canada, I think, or upstate New York. I’m looking forward to that remix coming out. So that’s really cool.

Just shout out to Jay Cabrera. So that’s going to be real, real funky. He heard a snippet of it the other day.

So he’s excited. We’re all excited. I’m told his team is excited.

Awesome. Is there anything else you want to go ahead? It’s going to be really cool.

Yeah.

[Darran]
Oh, yeah, gotcha. Is there anything else you want to let our DJ sessions fans know before we let you go back to work or play or work?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Work, food and play, right? Yeah. Um, gosh, I think the biggest thing that I want people to know is about the Monday Night Mix.

Tune in. I think you’ll enjoy some of the music. We’re playing a lot of good music, some, some rehashing, some stuff that hasn’t been played in a while.

And then some brand new stuff. That’s like really funky. It’s like, wow, check this out.

[Darran]
Nice. Best place for people to go and find out that information. Where’s that at?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
My website, Robbo Fitzgibbons. Robbo, R-O-B-B-O, Fitzgibbons, F-I-T-Z-G-I-B-B-O-N-S. There we go.

Simple.

[Darran]
Robbo Fitzgibbons.com. Check them out. Well, gotta give a shout out to the MN2S crew for putting this together today.

Meg and the label services team over there. Thank you very much for that. Robbo, we’re definitely going to be in touch with you and keeping up to date and speed in the mix with whatever you got going on.

We’re going to have you back on the show. I think we’re going to be getting an exclusive mix from you too, right?

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Yes, absolutely.

[Darran]
Awesome.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
That sounds great.

[Darran]
And we’ll see more of you on the DJ sessions in the future coming up.

[Robbo Fitzgibbons]
Perfect. Thank you, man.

[Darran]
You’re welcome. Thank you for being here today. On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com.

Go ahead and click that QR code right there. Check us out. We go to over 700 news stories every month.

We’ve got over 2,700 past episodes, live interviews, exclusive mixes, a new music section coming out. Oh, what else? We have syndicated shows.

We got our nightclub and our mobile app version 2.0 coming out soon here. All that and more at thedjsessions.com. This is Darran and that’s Robbo Fitzgibbons coming in from NYC.

I’m coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington for the DJ sessions. And remember on the DJ sessions, the music never stops except for when I forget to hit a button.