Coming out of Retirement to Bring Norfolk Back to Life and Back to Reality: The Senior Citizen’s DJ Movement Rewinds Music Back to the Future

In the early 2000’s, Norfolk’s Granby Street was undergoing some major renovation, both physically and musically. One of the key figures in bringing the All School Multi-Genre Mashup movement to this area was Greg Placides aka “DJ Greg Again.”

Like many local natives, Greg Placides was born in a Navy family in California. They soon moved to Hampton Roads. From growing up in Virginia Beach, Greg knows a little bit about the local music scene.

You could find him, back then, at Backstage Café, Scotty Quixx and at several other venues changing minds and breaking the mold of what folks thought DJ’s were supposed to be doing and what folks thought music was supposed to do.

His mold-breaking approach won him several local awards, including the Best Local DJ Music award from the former Port Folio Weekly.

Greg’s mixes reached the ears of one of Virginia Beach’s best known musical sensations, Pharrell Williams, through the ears of Eric Green, a Virgin Record rep. In an unexpected offer, Greg was asked in 2003 to go on tour with N.E.R.D. and Neptunes as they were headlining and making a name for themselves.

Returning back to the battleground of middle Norfolk, Greg says he found that the local DJ music industry had lost its feel, vibe and soul; which, lead to a hiatus, on his part, to search for what was missing in the city’s disc jockey music scene.

Today Greg is back on the scene and he’s partnered with Paul Deluna, aka “DJ Padawan,” to rewind a new movement of mashups and vibe mixes by taking folks back to the older genre of lost music by planting the “Senior Citizens” flag hard and heavy into the music scene.

DJ Paul Deluna is also a local resident to the area and has his own unique blend of hot vibes from the 80s through the 2000s. Paul believes that today’s artists are not pushing the envelope as hard as they should be and believes that artists like the late Prince showcased that mentality by reaching far above and beyond the music of the era in a timeless fashion.

Both said they have grown weary of music that is created using corporate recipes, losing its content and soul in the process.

If you feel the same way, you’re not alone. Greg and Paul have decided their mission is to fill that void in the music market with their unique sets of mixes and mashups.

With No Handcuffs, both DJ Paul and DJ Greg will be launch the “Senior Citizens” movement at FM Backstage Cafe, Granby Street, on May 13 from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. and at O’Connor’s Brewing Co. on May 14 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. to play “Rewind!”