Luke Marshall didn’t know what to say when his big brother handed him the mixers with a knowing grin.

“This is your gold ticket to success,” Cole Marshall told his then high school-aged brother. 

Luke didn’t fully realize it then, but big brother Cole was setting a course that has made Marshall a minor celebrity, especially among the bar crowds on East University Boulevard.

In the beginning, Marshall started experimenting. Basically, he was pressing buttons. He turned the volume up, then down. 

Then something clicked. The sounds started making sense and Marshall could suddenly see himself doing what his big brother envisioned for him. 

Marshall turned his hobby into a part-time job as one of a handful of University of Arizona students taking DJ turns at Main Gate bars. All along University Boulevard you’ll find students moonlighting as DJs.

“We love hiring young DJs because they attract a larger audience,” said Katie Heekin, marketing and entertainment manager for Gentle Ben’s, located at 865 E. University Blvd., and its sister restaurants on the boulevard, Bacio Italiano and Agave House.

Gentle Ben’s tapped Marshall after he had built a reputation DJing for UA fraternities.  

Ryan Eves came to Ben’s the old fashioned way: he applied.

Eves never intended to become a DJ, but when he was pledging his fraternity Sigma Chi, he was bestowed the name DJ Pledge. The name came with a job; whenever the fraternity needed a DJ, Eves was on deck. 

Eves experimented with mixes, asking the fraternity’s senior DJ how to work the board and how each button functioned. He learned by trial and error and before long had found his passion.

After slowly distancing himself from fraternity events, Eves started DMing bars on Instagram. It didn’t take long before he landed a gig. 

Eves did smaller bars on University before he turned 21 last year and graduated to working at Ben’s. 

Eves now works four nights a week on average, which sometimes makes balancing school and work a little tough, said the senior studying business. 

“There were definitely nights that I would work from 11:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. and then I would have class in the morning at 8 a.m.,” Eves said.  “I’ve learned to turn down late Tuesday night shifts because I know staying up too late affects my performance in class the next morning.”

UA film senior Natalie Othick is one of the few female DJs in Tucson and one of the better known, including among her male peers.

Othick took her cues from her dad, who DJ’ed at the UA when he attended years ago. During the COVID-19 quarantine era, dad dusted off his old turntables and started messing around. His daughter was so inspired she started playing around, teaching herself how to DJ. 

She went on to create a name for herself after starting out as Marshall’s opening act at Sigma Phi Epsilon shows. Before long, Othick had garnered a following and expanded to other fraternities and then the bars included on North Fourth Avenue. Othick then found herself booked at a number of bars.

Othick’s resume includes opening for nationally touring DJs Matroda, Odd Mob, Westend, Xandra and Notion, and she has also played the Dusk festival in Tucson and Decadence in Phoenix. 

“There are moments that make the job so worth it,” Othick said, recalling a fan stopping her on the street after one of her gigs.  

“She asked where I was performing next and said she loved my set. When I told her I was just heading home, she was shocked to learn that [Othick was a student],” she said.  “I sort of giggled at the fact that she couldn’t believe I was just a student walking back to my apartment. It was a surreal moment—she thought I was a high-profile DJ who had been flown in to perform.” 

Marshall had a similar star moment when he opened for the DJ trio Levity and rapper Lil Pump, which he described as a “pinch me moment;” Marshall was a fan of Lil Pump since middle school.

“Seventh grade me wouldn’t believe it,” Marshall said. 

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.