The music industry has become a pretty major passion of mine, thanks to my career and ministry in radio. Anything I do is a result of what the industry is doing, whether it’s good or bad. For the last six years that I’ve been developing my career in radio and mass media, I’ve had no choice but to keep my fingers on the pulse of the music industry.

Last month, I attended a funeral for the mother of an old friend. It was sad, people cried, but the chapel was packed. I honestly did not know my friend’s mother very well, but I wish that I had. She was a stand up person. Basically the exact type of woman Solomon talks about in Proverbs 31. Part of the eulogy for the funeral was from something this mother had written in her youngest daughter’s diary. The short version of what she said to her daughter was this: You know that you are truly following God’s will when you are able to give up all of yourself to God. It is when you are always thinking of others before yourself. It is when you take joy and pride in the successes of your friends and others around you even when you yourself may be suffering. It is also when you joyfully are willing to work in the background without a chance or the expectation of recognition. Lastly, she wrote that you know that you are in the center of God’s will when you do good deeds and all of those around you call them evil.

Steve Jeffery is a busy guy. With one hand he runs Rubik Records with his buddy Douglas Ross and with the other he helps out with 2Turntables.co.uk, an organization dedicated to teaching the finer arts of DJing to new DJs and to help all DJs network. As a label exec for Rubik Records, Steve has a drum and bass label that has already gotten the industry’s attention and is quickly becoming successful. Today, Steve takes some time out to talk to us about the challenges of running Rubik.

Back in 2001, a new label was formed by Mike and Nino to put out Christian dance music that could compete with the secular scene. They originally banded together with Tastyfresh.com to release a CD pool each month that featured some of the best in Christian dance music. That lasted about two issues for various reasons. After that, they released their one and only vinyl by Skywatchers called Anything. Despite the success of the vinyl, the label simple disappeared. Here’s the story behind that and the label’s rebirth straight DJ Mike Sunglider of System 3 records.

For my first lil’ chat, I asked a man that has been around the DJ and EDM arena for quite a while. Some might call him a radical in that no matter what happens or who says what, he keeps on coming with fresh musical ideas, and he keeps on tearin’ up those ones and twos every Saturday night on RadioU! Right now he’s got a hit going with Prophetica, and some other things in the works too (I won’t say anything here, though … I’ll leave that up to him!).

In the last issue we asked you to tell us what our number one goal should be as Christians in the EDM scene. We’ve talked a lot about this in the forums over the years and we have had many different answers. This proved to provide just as many as in past discussions. All of them fit into three categories. So, here are the summaries with some of the best quotes.

Well, it has been well… It has been much longer than I anticipated for this next issue. There have been several reasons for this. July was a month covered with vacations and changes in my life as well as Bill Sikes and Doug Jones’ lives. To make a long story short, in early August, Doug decided that he was not the right person to be the editor of this zine. Bill Sikes also left for various reasons which he has expressed in the forums.

I’ll be totally honest here. This is about the tenth time that I’ve started over on this article series. You would think that it would be a simple topic, but it really isn’t. Part of the reason for the difficulty in writing an article series about Christianity and the dance scene is that there is so much to explain and so many different viewpoints and reasoning about it.

Four years ago this Christmas, I was quickly and anxiously tearing open a perfectly wrapped present and excitedly pulling out my very first Playstation along with a game called MTV Music Generator. It wasn’t much of a surprise to me because I had been nagging my parents all year for it, but it was an awesome gift; something that would help pass the time away as I eagerly waited to finish high school and move on to my life-long dream of becoming a meteorologist.