A question I get frequently is where did the “Diggz” of “Johnny Diggz” come from? I figured that since I’m only 37 and it’s still (relatively) fresh in my mind, I’d fully document it. It’s the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s…Micky’s at my sister Cara’s bridal shower and I have nothing on my plate. And you, being my humble reader, have suddenly found yourself sucked into my story…

The “Official” Johnny Diggz story, the one that has been often reprinted is, of course, a fabrication. It’s not even a little bit true! Can you believe it? Blender Magazine’s Senior Editor Tyler Gray likes to describe the “official version”:

“Johnny Diggz?!?…oh jeez! Well the official story goes — and this is SO off-off-off the record — He was born in a tuxedo on New Year’s Eve / Didn’t know how to play, didn’t know how to sing / He saw those three wise guys and they started to jive / That’s when Diggz took the stage (Why?) Cuz he is alive!”

The truth is, humble readers, Tyler was just quoting the first verse of “(The Not Quite So) Ballady-Ballad of Johnny Diggz”. The REAL origin of the name Johnny Diggz is this:

When I was growing up I had a nickname “Higgs”. A few people still call me Higgs, but it’s pretty limited to my older sister and my Dad…and even then it’s rare. Higgs always made sense…I have the same name as my father and so rather than call us both John, they called me Higgs. It wasn’t officially a nickname until around age 9 when someone (I think it was my mom) got me a brown beach towel with the name H I G S patched across the top in big block letters.

This is also when I first discovered that no matter what your intent, until it’s actually PRINTED somewhere, a nickname is malleable. So, even though in my head it was spelled HIGGS, now that it was in print as HIGS, it was going to be an uphill PR battle to change the spelling. And that was a PR battle that this 9-year-old wasn’t willing to wage. Not in a Carter administration.

Between 1989-1993 I wrote and recorded a bunch of songs.  While I never actually “released” any of them, I gave cassette tapes to a few friends and family who I thought might enjoy it.  I titled that compilation “Higsmuzak”.

So flash forward a few years. I was dating Brenda and flying down to South Beach on the weekends. Southwest Airlines had this great deal…$44 roundtrip MCO to Ft. Lauderdale, which was like a 30-minute drive from Brenda’s place in North Miami Beach. So I used to go down on the weekends and go clubbing. Liquid, Groove Jet, Mac’s Club Deuce…lots of places that don’t exist anymore but at that time were “THEE place”. Supermodels, hollywood actors, internationally touring DJs…for the first time in my life I walked amongst the glitterati.

Let’s face it, there’s not a whole lot you can do in a nightclub. You have to scream to be heard over the music and you’re lucky if you can see more than 3 feet in front of you. Lights are flashing, $14 dixie-cup intoxicants washed down as fast as you can throw the bills at the bartender (assuming you can get their attention), the bass so loud it feels like your heart is doing hiccups. So you order drinks, and you dance and then you decide that the place sucks and you go on to club #2….and so on.

It was in this alcohol-chemical brothers-fueled world that I first discovered the “celebrity Disc Jockey”. Before then, to me a DJ was the guy at the skating rink or part of the “Morning Zoo” on BJ105. Not so in the club industry. Over the course of a couple of years, I got exposed to some of the cream of the trancey/housey/progressive DJ crop from around the world: Paul Oakenfold, Sasha, Digweed, Kimball Collins, Noel Sanger, Luis Diaz.

Coming from a music background, this phenomenon astounded me. These guys were playing RECORDS! And they were getting hot chicks! And flying all around the world and making fist-fulls of cash. I wanted me some!

I thought it would be funny to invent a character who was THE WORST DJ ever. The DJ would be Dumb-and-Dumber stupid. He’d have lots of tattoos and bling bling. He’d play only the most popular “anthem” songs and always talk over the big parts of the songs, pointing out to the bewildered dancers that this part…THIS PART RIGHT HERE!!!…was, in fact, his favorite part of the song. Sort of like a Tony Clifton with 2 turntables and a microphone.

I called him DJ Diggs.  I’ve always been a fan of names that sound like verbs.   “Sting” has a great stage name.  Diggs was an amalgamation of Higgs, super DJ John Digweed, and my friend JJ’s dog, “Mr. Digger”. And it was a verb.  And it was just sort of an inside joke between me and Brenda and a couple of close friends.  Nobody had actually ever met DJ Diggs, although I did dress as him for Halloween one year.

I actually found this recording (circa 1998?)  of Orlando radio talk show host, Drew Garabo, where he talks about the early work of DJ Diggs.    You can listen to it here —– > Drew Garabo talks about DJ Diggs

Check back for Part II:  “The Last Rave: Tortoise in the Sun”, and the birth of Johnny Diggz.