Celeb Shot: DJ Trumastr
SLAH sits down with the Capital Region's DJ of the Year ahead of next week's Shaken & Stirred party. PLUS: HGTV's Capital Region season, restaurant news and more.
Truemaster Trimingham (yes, that’s his real name) doesn’t make playlists.
“If something’s not working—if people aren’t dancing anymore—I’ll switch it up,” says the Troy-based DJ, whose friends know him as True. “If they really like what’s happening, I’ll play a couple of songs in that area.”
While True is talking about his DJing methodology, that go-with-the-flow philosophy also spills over into his real life. “I don’t make any plans,” he says, “because then things can’t go wrong.” But that doesn’t mean he isn’t prepared for anything life may throw his way—be it failing out of college in Boston, moving home to Westchester, going on to get his undergrad and master’s degrees in Albany, working as a museum educator for 16 years, or eventually becoming the Capital Region’s premier weddings and events DJ.
For True, life’s like directing a dance floor. You don’t know exactly where the music will take you, but when you arrive, you’ll know you’ve made it. “It’s like chess,” he says. “There’s a certain high point that I want to get to, and when I get to it, I want to stay there for a while.”
Earlier this week, True and I met up at Bud’s on the Hudson in Troy to hash out all of DJing’s metaphorical connections to his personal life, as well to discuss next week’s Shaken & Stirred fundraising event (support team Saratoga Living!), his favorite Capital Region party of the year (it’s happening next month!) and what possibly comes next for someone hell-bent on playing it by ear. In true DJ fashion, as soon as I turned on my recording device, True began.
TT: Can you hear me? Check one two. Camera one. Camera two.
SLAH: So, your name is Truemaster.
TT: True comes from the Latin root truce. Master comes from the Latin root maestro, which means teacher. Truce means an agreement—you know, a truce between two parties. So my name means “one who agrees to teach.” And I was a teacher before I was a DJ.
SLAH: What did you teach?
TT: I taught at Bishop Maginn and Hackett Middle School. Then I became a museum educator. I taught state and local history—gems and minerals, immigration, native peoples, geology, et cetera. I would walk the floor and take school groups. I taught over a million kids in my career.
SLAH: How’d you go from museum educator to full-time DJ?
TT: I grew up in a pretty musical household. My parents always played soul and jazz and funk in the house. When I got a little bit older, particularly in college, I started to work at record stores. I worked for Sam Goody for about seven years. So I was literally on the tail end of music being sold physically, before Napster started to make its way in and people started pirating music. I watched that transition and was actually a part of it. That love for music would eventually translate into becoming a DJ, because I had collected so much music over those years.
SLAH: Do you remember your first gig?
TT: A friend asked me to DJ a fundraiser for her sister who was in a car accident. I only had a little bit of equipment, but it was enough to play music seamlessly and effortlessly. And I got pretty good feedback.
SLAH: Nearly 20 years later, what would you say is the key to being a good DJ?
TT: One of the ways that I wrap up my phone interviews with wedding clients is I say, look, I’m a retired educator. The No. 1 rule as a teacher is to pay attention to the room. I have taken that philosophy and I’ve brought it over with me to DJing. I really do try to pay attention to the room. If something’s not working, if somebody’s bored, if they’re not dancing anymore, I’ll switch it up. If there’s a style of music that’s really getting them, I’ll stay there. If there are people who haven’t been dancing because they’re a bit older, maybe it’s time to put an oldie on—something a little bit more classic.
SLAH: Is there one song that people request the most?
TT: It varies from year to year. Right now it’s “Murder on the Dancefloor.” At one point it was “Shut up and Dance.” At another point it was “Uptown Funk.” It changes each year, but I have them all and I switch it up. There’s a really cool piano in “Truth Hurts” by Lizzo that goes really well with the piano at the end of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” So I kind of toy and manipulate.
SLAH: What’s something you’ve learned about yourself DJing all these years?
TT: Schooling and traveling have helped in my roundedness, but they really did let me know how much of an introvert I am and how comfortable I am having the table and the music between me and the audience.
SLAH: What’s your favorite Capital Region event?
TT: Easily the Soul Fire SOULstice, which is at Soul Fire Farm in Grafton. It’s a Black-owned farm, and they celebrate the solstice—because it’s so important to farming culture—with a party. They have food trucks, there are performances from like 6 until 11pm and then I DJ from like 11 to 2.
SLAH: What about Shaken & Stirred?
TT: It’s a pure rager. Teddy [Foster] and I go way back to when there wasn’t even a UPH. I’ve been doing Shaken & Stirred since the beginning. It’s just fun. I love doing it. It’s crowd-pleasing, singalong hits. And anything that puts money into performing arts? I’m all for it. Anything that’s putting money into education? I’m all for it.
SLAH: We’ve covered who you are as a DJ. Who are you when you’re not behind the turntable?
TT: Everybody knows me as a DJ, but I’m so many things. I’m a son, an uncle, a brother. I’m a traveler. I love decorating and design. I’m doing some bucket list things right now. I wanted to go to a Premier League football match, so I flew out to England last month. Before that, I wanted to live someplace for longer than a month, so I moved to Key West and lived down there for six weeks to see if I liked it. I did, and I already rented a place for two months next year.
SLAH: What’s next?
TT: I’m training for a triathlon. I’d like to do a hot air balloon ride. I want to get to Egypt. The beauty about my life is that I never really know what I’m going to do. When I went to Key West, I ended up booking a couple of weddings. The guy who asked me to do the wedding goes, “Do you have the things that you need?” I had all the equipment in my car, so I said, “I came down here with no plans, but I came down here prepared.” And that’s how I move through life. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be DJing, because my interests continue to vary. But what I will say is that the Capital Region is in such capable hands when it comes to DJs. It’s very encouraging.
SLAH: Wait, are you planning to step away from DJing?
TT: No plans, no plans. A friend of mine said he’s got all these different pots going and he’s putting different ingredients in each of these pots. And one of them’s going to be really good—he just doesn’t know which one it is. That’s how I feel. I don’t know if somebody is going to wake up one day and be like, “I want to sponsor DJ Trumastr in the Ironman.” I don’t know!
SLAH: Even if you stop DJing professionally, will you ever really stop being a DJ?
TT: I have something that every person shares when it comes to listening to music. That thing is that when I hear something for the first time and I really like the way it sounds, the way it made me feel, I want other people to feel that. You can’t say to me you’ve never heard a new track and been like, “I want somebody to hear this because of how I just felt.” Everybody has that little nugget of DJ in them.
—Natalie
Quote of the Week
“The only cologne he’s ever worn is Marlboro.”
—Overheard at Hunter’s on Jay
Power Couple
The power tools-armed power couple behind Cheap Old Houses is back—and this time, Ethan and Elizabeth Finkelstein (she’s from Queensbury) are headed to the Capital Region. Each of the eight episodes of Who’s Afraid of a Cheap Old House (premieres Tuesday at 10pm on HGTV) focuses on a fixer-upper in the greater Capital Region, in cities such as Albany, Menands and Troy. “There’s so much variety here,” says Elizabeth. “This season features a bungalow from the 1920s and an old church in Granville from the late 1700s. There are so many different kinds of homes here since New York State started developing centuries ago.” The neglected home-loving couple—who live in the greater Saratoga Springs area—take a shopping trip every episode, so keep your eyes peeled for familiar faces and places. “We really wanted to show small, local businesses,” Elizabeth says. “We go to places all around.”
You Say Goodbye and…
Spa Cafe on Broadway fans, take note: You have less than a week left to grab your fix and say goodbye in person—owner Darin Palmetto has announced the popular eatery’s closing (at the end of business on Friday, May 17). He didn't specify a reason, but he acknowledged that he “can no longer sustain the business in any form.” The breakfast and lunch hotspot will be sorely missed after five years of whipping up egg-and-cheese perfection and crafting the next delicious sandwich or soup special.
…I Say Hello
Farmers’ market fan favorite Sara's Kitchen opened its brick-and-mortar to great fanfare in mid-April, but the hotly anticipated Middle Eastern eatery was forced to close its doors on Broadway mere days later—temporarily. (And in the restaurant industry, some would consider needing to hire and train more help a good problem to have.) After letting us know that on Tuesday she was set to be “FULL ON OPEN” (excellent all-caps usage), owner Sara Ali told us that she was “super-excited and can’t wait to have people back in again.” We are too—we’ve been missing her shawarma, hummus and crispy sambosak.
Book Corner
At least seven of the authors of The Grief Experience, a collaborative book (11 of the 20 writers who penned a chapter live in or near Saratoga) on, as the name suggests, grief will be at Glenville’s Sages Circle this afternoon from 3 to 6pm. The event promises to be a healing one for anyone currently being touched by grief, including the death of loved ones, the end of relationships, struggles with infertility, disenfranchised grief, anticipatory grief and delayed grief. “Most of us are professionals in our unique field,” says Glenville Funeral Home’s Brittany DeMarco-Furman, who wrote a chapter called The Last Responder. “From licensed psychologists and licensed funeral directors to psychics, it is quite a unique bunch! A lot of heart and soul went into this book.”
On the Run
If you missed online registration for tomorrow’s Mother-Lovin’ Mother’s Day run-walk to raise money for Kelly’s Angels, it’s not too late to participate. In-person registration is happening later this morning at Spa State Park’s Orenda Pavillion from 10am to noon, or tomorrow from 7:30 to 8:30am (the race kicks off at 9:15am). The energy will be high—a record-breaking 1,200-plus people have already signed up. In the crowd: The young man who placed first in the run last year and dedicated his performance to his mom. The team behind the run says they’ll never forget the year she watched her son cross the finish line before succumbing to cancer a few days later. “At that moment,” says Mark Behan, “watching them hug was deeply touching for everybody involved.” Kelly’s Angels was founded by Channel 13’s Mark Mulholland to help children who have lost a parent or sibling to cancer or other illness, or who are battling a life-threatening condition themselves.
Happy weekend, everybody—and thank you for reading this edition of Saratoga Living After Hours!