DJ FRED SAVAGE

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen said it best: “Where words fail, music speaks.” Savage (real name Frederick Puzon) shares this sentiment. “When I get depressed, I turn to music,” he says. After a very trying year, Savage compiled New Beginnings, a 30-track mixtape that served as “musical therapy” and features remixed songs from artists such as Camp Lo, A Tribe Called Quest and DJ Jazzy Jeff with Savage’s signature smooth sound, which he describes as “hip-hop meets neo-soul.” The cover art features the scratcher himself schlepping a suitcase up a flight of stairs, a metaphorical image he says reflects his life. “As you can see,” he says, “I’m on the very first step. This is a whole new chapter in my life. I’m out to make a name for myself, and I’m eager to see where this journey takes me.”
While most of his contemporaries are strictly digital, New Beginnings comes from a back-to-basics vinyl set.

“Nowadays, you can just go out, buy a Serato [vinyl emulation program] and say you’re a DJ,” he says. “Half of the fun of being a DJ is going out and digging for vinyl. That’s how it all started and why I choose to mix live.”

Stats: He can be found Fridays and Saturdays at Jimmy Love’s and is the man behind the ones and twos at Altitude’s monthly Social Saturdays series. When not warding off “lame top-40 requests” and the occasional drunken Gaslamp bro asking him for the whereabouts of Winnie Cooper, he likes to unwind in his Rancho Peñasquitos home while watching the adventure reality series Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel.

“That show is crazy, man. I love to eat crab, and these guys risk their lives for it,” he says. “Last show, a couple of them drowned. It’s crazy what those people do just to make sure you get crabs.”