Success - The Story of DJ TidalWave & CostaRica

2014

A Genesis
2014, this was actually the best year of my life. I started getting recognized by people in Schlitterbahn, the internet or other ravers. Schlitterbahn is the place we're we grew up. 'We' being me and Eli. Eli is better known as CostaRica because it's his stage name nowadays (My stage name is DJ TidalWave). Schlitterbahn, two really small, but popular islands in the middle of the ocean, always full of tourist. For fun, we started making our own music, Electronic Dance Music to be exact. We were really interested in the Rave Culture, a culture where people go to large music festivals to dance to their favorite Famous DJs play heir music, a culture of going to Nightclubs and that sort of life. Me and Eli started posting our music onto social media to get recognized by at least some people. A few months later, a record label named "Surfenburg Records" discovered our music. Surfenburg Records is a record label for EDM DJs in Schlitterbahn who wanted to promote their music. We both were offered to join. "Sure, why not lol" was our exact response that we said to each other when we read the email.

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Noticed
So we've now joined a Record Label. They're working on promoting or music to the open world for people to hear. It was about 3-5 times a week that some person started tuning in on our records. And it was out of now where, both me and CostaRica were getting offered to play at shows and raves. The first concert I ever played was the 'Blastenhoff HangOut 2014'. Its basically a small, but enjoyable concert at Blastenhoff Beach where different DJs would play their music while crowd members would either be dancing, hanging out at the beach bars they had at the concert or just things like that. It's an annual event in Schlitterbahn that almost everyone looked forward to. I've always loved it and it was such an exciting thing to get invited to actually PLAY your music at the festival for HUNDREDS of people to hear it live!

So yeah, that was basically the rest of the year: Play at a few concerts and waiting for your audience of listeners to grow around the world. That year I only played at 4 concerts, but they were all so worth it! Now I gotta tell you about Hurricane Ultra...it's a music festival in Hurricane Harbor, another small but popular island, but this festival is enormous. To me as a young, inexperienced DJ, the stage was GIGANTIC! It had L.E.D. screens flashing all over it, light beams zipping in all directions and fire and steam spewing out of the stage, a crowd with about 200,000 people!! "Man, Eli would love to be here," I thought. Wait, Eli didn't like playing in front of huge audiences at the time, lol that's why he wasn't there. But I gotta say, Hurricane Harbor and Schlitterbahn, is my home, my starting point. It's where I learned to live my life, it is where I grew into the person I am now. And it all happened on cloudy, misty days. This is why I absolutely love cloudy days, they remind me of my starting point, my "Nervous year" where I was excited but nervous in front of the crowds that ranged from big to small.

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A Good Years Closing
By the end of the year, we had a bit of an online audience. Random people in Schlitterbahn recognized me as that "Kid who makes some pretty good music beats" and, not to mention Hurricane Harbor too, I was getting some attention there as well. Once again, 2014 had to be the best year of my life.