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Meet the Lady DJs Behind San Antonio's Chulita Vinyl Club

Image via Tumblr/Chulita Vinyl Club
Claudia Saenz, one of the four DJs in the Chulita Vinyl Club, at an event last December.

From Texas Standard:

Music is undergoing a transformation – chances are you've not only heard of Spotify and Pandora, you're a subscriber too. The vinyl of old is long gone.

At clubs and bars, the DJs – most of them are men – typically work fake turntables controlling mp3 files. That's just the way its done today.

And that's fine for some. Try selling all this to Claudia Saenz and her friends. Better yet - don't. They're at the forefront of Chulita Vinyl Club, which has become more than just a club and something like a movement.

 

While they’re still new, they have members in Texas and California, and people wanting to set up chapters as far away as Brazil and Italy. We spoke to Saenz about her her wax-spinning ways.

"I know there are female vinyl collectors out there," she says, "Chulita Vinyl Club just needed to happen."

Saenz says people tell her stories about their families intertwined with this music: this song was their grandfather's favorite, their parents went to a concert by this band in high school.

"The thing is people my age grew up around that," she says, "riding in the back seat with their grandparents on the way to church."

Saenz says some people have questioned how committed she and other female DJs are to collecting and playing classic vinyl, but they're no poseurs.

"I've heard people think Chulita Vinyl Club is kind of a gimmick," she says, "to just bring the vinyl fad out into the public... But we're actually not."

Listen to the audio in the player above. Here's what you'll hear in this segment:

-Why she was attracted to music by Sunny and the Sunliners and other music of that era

-Why female vinyl collectors sometimes aren't seen as serious by other collectors

-What shows they're planning to celebrate their upcoming one-year anniversary

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