DJ leslie was a young
activist punk who somehow found herself at a
Skinny Puppy show when she was 16. Moved by the visceral, raw element of the music, as well as the politics that seemed to flow over from punk to
industrial, she soon became a fan of the music and a regular club attendee.
Louis Ducharme,
Ottawa's prime industrial DJ of the time, offered to teach her to play and she later joined him for guest sets throughout Ottawa and Hull at clubs like
Zinc,
Le Bistro,
Café Deluxe,
GiGi's and others. When
DJ Louis stepped down, DJ leslie filled his spots and soon developed an audience of her own. Her philosophy about DJing underground music includes a commitment to playing new, challenging music in addition to ignoring the pigeon-holing that takes place in electronic music, playing whatever was underground and dark that fit with her set.
When DJ leslie began to play, there was one local industrial band named
Zykotik K9. Soon after their formation, she got involved with them to try and give them a hand with publicity and promotions. She shortly realized that nobody in Ottawa was remotely interested in
booking and
promoting live,
underground acts, leaving her to try and take this on herself. Her first live event took place in 1995, showcasing underground acts from
Montreal and
Ottawa, and while she lost money on the show, she had learned much and continued to seek out talent to bring to Ottawa in a way never seen before.
At the time of this writing, her weekly Industrial night at
Zaphod Beeblebrox has reached the 10-year mark, having brought acts to the city such as
Juno Reactor,
Alex Patterson,
Download,
Imminent,
Scorn,
Gridlock, and many others. The year-long series of
Dark Carnival festivals was also successful in bringing underground art and underground music together, and highlighting much of the talent within Ottawa's own
art community.
Ottawa also can proudly say that it now has many local industrial and underground
electronic acts, many on
international record labels.
Iszoloscope on both
Ant-Zen and
Spectre Records,
Antigen Shift on
Frozen Empire Media,
Liar's Rosebush on
Flesh Made Word, and many more locals like
45 CEP,
Subsektor,
Five Ways,
Lou Cypher Project and others all havereleases out already or on their way.
She has made a name for herself both locally and internationally, DJing at events all over
North America. She also played both the pre-party and closing of annual 3 day Industrial/
Power Electronics festival
Maschinenfest, held in a
bunker in
Aachen,
Germany.