Before anyone else was streaming DJ sets, there was Tony Zeoli and Netmix. His talent, enthusiasm and vision were not just influential, but set the standard by which other Web sites at the time could only hope to reach. He was also incredibly generous and supportive of others — like myself — who were just getting started in the realm of online music. I’ll never forget the guidance and encouragement that he gave me.
- Jennifer Warner (Raves.com)

Tony Zeoli is a “warrior of dance music,” and has been for a long time.

“I feel like I’ve been involved from the beginning,” he says. “When I was a kid, I kind of grew up in dance music … I kind of was born and raised into it.” Zeoli’s father managed the platinum-selling disco band Tavares, so you know DJ Tony Z comes by his talents and abilities fair and square.

Tony describes himself during his early days in the Boston dance scene as a young member of a tribe of folks who lived and loved house, hip-hop and freestyle music on the radio, in the clubs and through associations such as his 11-year membership in the Boston Record Pool, one of the earliest and longest running DJ associations. He continues to live and breathe the dance scene of today with unabated passion, not only as a consumer of the beat, but also as a purveyor (and a purveyor on multiple levels).

He still carries the torch — from his beginnings as a bedroom DJ through over 20 years of club culture to the now, with his emergence as a respected interactive music and media industry executive. His work behind the scenes is as important — perhaps even more so — than his work behind the turntables. He has been and continues to be an active innovator, applying his creativity not just to spinning but to promoting the DJ dance culture in a variety of ways.

In short, DJ Tony Z remains thoroughly active in today’s dance scene. He is following in the footsteps not only of his father, but other mentors, legendary DJs and record industry executives who continue to support Zeoli’s efforts in supporting success and accomplishment in a genre and world for which he feels a deep love, with which he shares an intimate connection and about which he remains zealously driven.

It’s spirited human catalysts like Tony to whom the evolution of dance music and expansion of DJ culture owe themselves.

In essence, this DJ (and so much more) is more than a mere leader in the space; his warrior code of ethics compels him to keep “fighting the good fight, trying to present dance music in the best possible light, with ethics and morals and the courage to do what other people don’t really want to do.” DJ Tony Z staunchly eschews conformity.

Today, Zeoli boasts a position as VP of Music Services at Entertainment Media Works web site, StarStyle.com. By day, his fingers are involved in developing the organization’s music video platform, negotiating major and independent label streaming video agreements and plotting the web sites content strategy. By night, Tony’s actively involved in seeding the growth of the dance culture with a major presence at Netmix.com and his personal DJ site, DJTonyZ.com.

“The largest impact I personally made was with (my first company) Netmix.com [launched in January, 1996],” says Zeoli, “the first DJ culture site to broadcast dance music mixes featuring the world’s most influential DJs.”

Netmix was the first web site to air mix-sets from DJs Armand Van Helden, Paul Oakenfold and Lil’ Louie Vega. Tony was responsible for kicking off this pioneering online DJ culture effort, a forum for DJs to broadcast their mixes globally, something that had never been done before. He was also one of the first to convince companies like Sony Music to market their music on the web, persuading them to spend marketing bucks to promote dance artists like DJ Rap and the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars on the homepage of the Netmix.com Web site. There were major advertising deals accomplished, as well, including one with Sony for its mini-disc player, among others.

And as if Netmix.com alone wasn’t enough reason to put Zeoli on the map — a marvelous action that took advantage of a soon-to-burst media of mass communication, helping to increase exposure of dance music globally — there’s also the fact that Tony was among the first to actually sell an all-DJ culture Web site to a larger concern. (After the dotcom crash and other hardships for Netmix, DJ Tony Z managed to retain the rights for the site and it is again a noteworthy presence on the net. And more than that, it stands as a seminal effort by a scene-changing technology entrepreneur and innovator, one with his feet grounded in the world of the DJ, his music and the fans.)

Tony’s tenacity, marketing savvy and promotional muscle was shaped during a two-year stint as one of the original team members of the Mega-Mixx DJ remix service back in the late 80s. As Director of Worldwide Sales & Distribution and A&R Coordinator, he began garnering interest for Mega-Mixx from mom & pop record shops and distributors while recruiting DJs for remixes, and much more. Whether at the Winter Music Conference, New Music Seminar or just working late nights in his office calling distributors in Asia or DJs in London, his influence was palpable, both on the phone and in person. Mega-Mixx, among other early DJ remix services, exists in an important niche in dance culture history. DJ Tony Z was one of the folks that helped fuel its growth, no mean feat — Mega-Mixx was only “one of the most influential remix services of the late 80s.”

After his time with Mega-Mixx, Tony began utilizing his talent on the turntables, mixing records in major Boston nightclubs like Roxy, Avalon and Venus DeMilo, ultimately achieving national recognition as a Billboard Dance Chart reporting DJ in ’92 and ’93. “That was a really important time,” he says. “I went to the Billboard Dance Music Summit in Chicago (in 93) and worked for X-Mix Productions, which was born out of the ashes of Mega-Mixx.”

Tony’s early efforts on behalf of X-Mix, for X-Mix founder Neil Petricone, helped the remix service achieve global acclaim and it remains today a leading remix service, record distributor and artist management group, more evidence of Zeoli’s behind-the-scenes but unarguably important influence. DJs of stature and dance culture importance such as Armand Van Helden, Todd Terry and Lenny B continue to call X-Mix home.

The list of professional associates Zeoli has helped along in their careers also includes folks such as DJ Phenix, who found himself hooked up with and signed to Defected UK … via DJ Tony Z, thanks to an accidental run-in Tony had with the label’s A&R head, Simon Dunmore, at the Amsterdam Dance Event. Also thanks to Tony, Phenix saw his “Do You Love Me” and “Voices” 12-inch singles make it to Defected and beyond, spun by Pete Tong in his sets on London’s Radio 1 and at the top of the DJ Magazine Hype Charts. DJ Tony’s success in bringing Phenix’s career to life ties in to Zeoli’s hard, behind-the-scenes work and sacrifice. His grass roots grunt work is vital — in this case sharing the costs by putting his own dough into cutting two 12-inches with DJ Phenix and getting them on record shelves around the world through a distribution agreement with Downtown 161in New York City that did 12-inch distro.

Prince Quick Mix is another DJ who can credit success to Zeoli for his efforts. With Tony’s guidance, Quick Mix was commissioned to remix 12-inches for Logic Records. This led to remixes for Epic Records on a couple of Gloria Estefan projects, “Brand New Day” by the Minds of Men and “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” (which featured Robert Plant’s original vocal track) on Perfecto Records. The latter was a 12-inch of Prince Quick Mix that had seen gobs of underground exposure as a white-label. Through Tony’s personal relationship with Paul Oakenfold, “Babe” found itself signed with the legendary DJ and A&R guru, who also did his own remix of the track.

Through Van Helden, who got his first major label remix (The Lightning Seeds’ “Jackie Lucky”) thanks to Zeoli’s connections, Tony Z met DJ Sneak at the Winter Music Conference in 1994. Sneak was working with Chicago’s Relief. It was only a matter of time before Tony and X-Mix were working with Sneak and handling management and booking duties for him.

Tony also managed X-Mix’s prolific hip-hop label, AV8 Records, for a time. In addition, he worked some international distro for X-Mix and did some A&R work, as well. By spreading the word on the dance scene and through launching Netmix.com, U.S publications including Billboard, DJ Times, Dance Music Authority, Streetsounds and Mixer, and London mags Mix Mag, Muzik and DJ Magazine, began to take notice of Zeoli as an influential force in the dance music industry, a fact of which there can be no question.

After the dotcom crash in 2000, Zeoli began his tenure at Cablevision’s MetroTV, where he was a team member working on the creation of TVDJ, the first ever iTV video-on-demand music video service in the U.S. From this sprang Fuse on Demand, yet another innovation and interactive music culture growth spurt Zeoli was in on from the bottom up.

“While at Metro, I also produced music guest segments for The Daily Beat television show, a daily, hour-long music show airing on MetroTV in the tri-state area,” Tony said. His work with MetroTV also led to his being the recipient of a Communicator Award for Best New Cable Product for his efforts as senior producer and production manager on the country’s first (another one of those!) iTV weekly music news program, “The New York Music Rundown.”

While at Metro, he had his hand in sports programming, which led to being asked to participate as a panel judge for the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences Sports Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2003.

The list of DJ Tony Z’s accomplishments is lengthy indeed. And while he’s been putting his all into the scene, he’s been a beneficiary, as well. It’s been an education. Even difficult times like the dotcom crash that affected Netmix, the events of 9/11 and the subsequent layoff at Cabelvision were learning experiences, and they weren’t the only ones. “I’ve learned so much from my experience at Cablevision’s MetroTV, Major League Baseball (Streaming Media Producer), JP Morgan Chase (Webcast Producer), Lehman Brothers (Webcast Project Manager) and now the Associated Press.”

His impact on the world of dance music is not to be ignored or denied. Tony may not be among the list of so-called “superstar DJs,” but that detracts not the least from the importance of his work for dance music. Reflecting back, DJ Tony Z answers with an unequivocal “no” to the question of whether or not he envisioned himself making the impressive progress he’s made in this scene.

“I had no concept that I was going to be in New York, that I was going to start Netmix from my bedroom in Boston. When I was a kid, I knew there was something about me that would do something incredible, do something fun, do something exciting that would make people notice me. I never thought of myself as a performer or entertainer; I just thought of myself as someone who liked to play records — not necessarily wanting to be in the limelight, but wanting to make an impact on the world through the music I loved to play, my belief in myself, my skills.”

And, of course, besides all his string-pulling behind the curtain, DJ Tony Z also has done a lot of just plain old DJ grunt work, something he’s been at — professionally — since he was 16 or 17, doing what paying gigs came his way. (And Tony notes that he was spinning as far back as 11 or 12. “That’s how I started, back in 1979, 1980.”)

His work in Boston provides a good example of his work as a DJ, packing houses and watering the garden of the growing music scene there. The list of his DJ accomplishments continues to unfold. What about remix commissions with Logic Records, Epic Records, and other significant labels? What about getting Phenix a remix signed to Oakenfold’s Perfecto? That list unravels like a scroll. There’s just too much too mention (as though any more explanation or argument for DJ Tony Z’s place in the world is needed).

Much so far has been said about Zeoli, but to speak of a DJ one must speak of the music tender, if you will, in which he deals.

“I used to play hip-hop as a kid, and it was pretty much Public Enemy, LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Third Bass, that kind of stuff, Run DMC. Then I kind of graduated to house music, and then it was pretty much what we consider classic house today. A Guy Called Gerald, Jay Williams, Orbital, Cabaret Voltaire, Sandee, Ralphie Rosario, Fast Eddie” That was the late 80s.

He was hooked, and by the early 90s DJ Tony Z found himself into “that Eurosound” of Snap, Haddaway, Dr. Alban, Sound Factory, Two Unlimited. Tony was now trucking in the music that would later be recognized as the roots of the trance sound.

Early techno, such as The Prodigy’s “On a Ragga Tip” and LA Style’s “I’m Raving,” also found its way into the Tony’s sets. Soulful house, such as the work of Frankie Knuckles, four-in-the-floor stuff, was also part of the play at Boston’s after-hours venue, The Loft (not to be confused with David Mancuso’s legendary Loft parties in New York City). The late 90s found Tony in “darker, edgier sounds,” tech-house, etc.

“Now, overall, I’m into tech-house, house, deep house, some vocal stuff … G-Pal, Terry Lee Brown Jr. Kaskade, Timewriter, Ian Pooley, David Alvarado …” Tech-trance, too. And often more than one at a time. As the innovator Zeoli most obviously is, it’s only natural that one finds in his DJ technique the desire to blend genres and experiment. And it works … his dance floor population is a happy one.

“I just love music. And I love to just pick out unique-sounding material that I can find to layer over other tracks that tell this kind of warm, dark story,” Tony says. “Or, sometimes I’m into happy stuff.” When it all comes right down to it, he says, “I just like to bring new sounds to the forefront.” For him, where the rubber meets the road, it’s about “really trying to keep that dance floor moving,” to keep the people dancing and sweating.

“I am trying to be one with that dance floor. I am trying to feel their vibe, feel what they’re feeling at the time. And I’m also trying to elicit through my own sensibilities my loves and passions for music and relate that to them in some kind of storytelling way.”

Tony’s reward is to hear fans say, “Oh my god, I’ve never heard anything like this record; how come no one ever plays this kind of music? … How is it you have the ability to really mix it up and these other DJs don’t?” This, he feels, is how dance music changes people’s lives. “They look at dance music in a different way. They look at it from my perspective. They feel the love that I feel for it. They celebrate it as I celebrate it.”

That is music as ambassador, Tony Z style. That is the communion between DJ and dancer. That is why Zeoli is a “taste-maker.” He prides himself on being a leader — not a perfect leader, perhaps, but a leader nonetheless, he says. Tony is a man who embraces challenge and thrives on pushing the envelope, seeking growth and change.

“A jack-of-all-trades, master of none, so to speak, but maybe I have mastered some things and I just don’t realize it.” (It’s a tribute to DJ Tony Z’s personality that, while aware of his accomplishments, one cannot say he doesn’t come across as anything except a proud but modest laborer in the dance music scene.)

As evidenced by his many roles — and success in those roles — in the dance culture, Tony has truly made himself one with not just the dance floor, but also the scene itself. This culture is his life, through and through. “I have more experience doing more things in dance music than most people could ever dream of.” Still want a list of evidence? How about some of his work at the present? How about his work with MetroTV and interactive television products, such as Fuse on Demand, another first? How about The Daily Beat television show? For that he’s brought in Boy George, Groove Armada, and Paul Van Dyk. He’s done video editing and now he’s got that gig with The Associated Press.

It goes without saying he’s a hard worker, known, in fact, for his long 4-to-6 hour sets. “The days of 4-to-6-hour sets by one DJ obviously have changed. To spin a 4-to-6-hour set and keep the audience grooving … it really takes skill. It really takes knowledge of your music. It really takes understanding how to move a crowd and what records are going to convey what sense of energy at any given time. One mistake and you’re done … you’ve cleared the dance floor, maybe never to recover … killed the energy in the room and lost the spirit of the crowd.”

That Zeoli is a hard worker is hardly in question. Only once has his relentless work in the dance culture suffered any kind of hiatus. In 2002, after a long haul in dance music, he took a somewhat forced break from the scene. The emotional and economic effects of 9/11 took its toll both on Tony himself and the climate afterward in New York. Many hearty dance music veterans decided to pause, “take a timeout,” he said.

But Tony’s back with renewed vigor and energy, writing his daily blog , podcasting and getting ready to launch a weekly streaming radio program at Netmix.com, along with some other activity, like, for example, consulting work with Chicago’s Inside Worldwide for DJ Lady D and DJ Dayhota. “Little by little, I’m putting my toe back in the dance music water.” He may have gone on a short hiatus, but the love never left, and now it’s back in action.

The present finds Tony working hard both within and outside of the dance culture. Zeoli is also a student at New York University, studying Digital Communications and Media with a concentration in digital media. He’s managed to nab 3.5 GPA. This achiever recently completed his second year; he should graduate in 2007.

“I’m taking these courses because I feel strongly about digital media and I really wanted to get a grounding in it, make it a career so I can utilize that experience both in the corporate world as well as in DJ culture, online and off …” He’s also taken up amateur digital photography. (On a more organic note, he also digs graffiti art.)

Obviously, the incredible DJ Tony Z and his active and inspiring career are anything but done. He isn’t finished, not by a long shot. The future still stands open wide in front of him. He’s helped mold the music culture for the last 25 years and it’s a safe bet, God willing, he’ll be doing the same thing for many years to come. And whatever dance culture work he finds to put his hands to, he’ll do it standing by the philosophy that has propelled and protected him all these years: “Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident and money takes wings. The only thing that endures is character.”

by Kristofer Upjohn