We started a new feature series called "The Short Bios" in which we ask DJs and producers of Hardcore spectrum 16 questions so that they can showcase themselves, their music, their activities and so on.
So it's like a short bio / interview.
This time we asked GabberGirl
Hello! I’m Charm Dreier, and my DJ name is GabberGirl. I was born in California, but grew up in the Twin Cities. I lived in California again from 1997 to 2015, then found my way back to Minnesota. I currently live in a small house on 3 acres of woods, in the middle of nowhere (where the zombies will never find me), with my husband and pet chickens (although the chickens live in their own smaller house.) I am an empty nester (except all those chickens).
In the rave scene, I’ve been a DJ, event promoter, co-founder and operator of an internet radio station (Technostate, Inc. 1997-2001), electronic music producer, and also ran a DJ mix CD duplication service in the early 2000’s.
In real life, I am a gardener, finish carpenter, weekend entertainer, and elected board member for my town. I have been running my garden maintenance business for 23 years. Since 2015, I keep myself busy in the 6-month long Minnesota winters by building and remodeling houses. I was the Town Clerk for 9 years, now I am the Town Treasurer. At local pubs, I host Karaoke, DJ Bingo, and take music requests as DJ Jukebox. I also built and rent out a glamorous photobooth. I get booked to DJ mainstream music at parties and weddings, and income from that fuels my underground DJ “habit”.
I started raving when I was 19, and took up DJing immediately upon discovering raves. I moved to Portland, Oregon for 6 months, but the rave scene there was lame and infantile in 1994, so I spent most of my time practicing DJing, then moved back to Minneapolis so I didn’t miss out on the awesome rave scene there. My crew and I rented 2 houses in the same neighborhood, and had full DJ setups in both houses. When we weren’t dancing at raves, we were throwing house parties at either house, pretty much every weekend. We all played different genres of electronic music, and each took a DJ slot at our house parties. We became friends with a few older DJs and producers, like DJ Slip (Troy Geary) and Timeblind (Chris Sattinger) and they would DJ at our parties for free. One night they brought along their friend, Johnny Aquaviva! For a few of the house parties, we brought in sound systems for every floor—the attic would be the ambient chill room, the main floor was house, jungle, and techno, and the dark, creepy, haunted basement was the hardcore room.
I started raving when I was 19, and took up DJing immediately upon discovering raves. I moved to Portland, Oregon for 6 months, but the rave scene there was lame and infantile in 1994, so I spent most of my time practicing DJing, then moved back to Minneapolis so I didn’t miss out on the awesome rave scene there. My crew and I rented 2 houses in the same neighborhood, and had full DJ setups in both houses. When we weren’t dancing at raves, we were throwing house parties at either house, pretty much every weekend. We all played different genres of electronic music, and each took a DJ slot at our house parties. We became friends with a few older DJs and producers, like DJ Slip (Troy Geary) and Timeblind (Chris Sattinger) and they would DJ at our parties for free. One night they brought along their friend, Johnny Aquaviva! For a few of the house parties, we brought in sound systems for every floor—the attic would be the ambient chill room, the main floor was house, jungle, and techno, and the dark, creepy, haunted basement was the hardcore room.
DJ GabberGirl in the 90s
Eventually, some of my crew moved to Colorado, so we reduced down to one rented house by 1997. By then, I had also moved out and rented an artist warehouse loft down the road. I was addicted to DJing by then, and my whole life revolved around it. I stayed up til 4 am practicing spinning vinyl every night (about 6 hours of practice a day) and worked at a record store every day. I got first grab at all the new and used records coming in, and was in charge of stocking the store with hardcore.
Our perfect utopia of my warehouse and my crew’s party house evaporated in 1997. The warehouse owners started evicting tenants that were actually living there (as it was just supposed to be artist workspaces), so I moved back into the party house.
Shortly after, my friend Jules and I lost our rented warehouse space for a Spiral Tribe party we were hosting, so at the last minute we decided the throw the Spiral Tribe rave in our party house—bad idea! The house was condemned after the upstairs toilet backed up and flooded the house and basement. All my friends moved out and scattered, so it was a good time for me to move, also.
I spent a few months in Chicago, playing with the big boys of techno, but I constantly felt judged there. Instead of dancing, the crowd would stand in front of the DJ booth with their arms crossed, watching every move I made on the decks. I did end up playing my fastest set there—80 records in 60 minutes, even matching the beats.
While I was living in Chicago, I got booked to DJ at a campout in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. I was very well received, and made a lot of new friends. After that gig, I was determined to move to California, and I did in the fall of 1997. As one of the older ravers in Minneapolis, it was weird to be one of the youngest ravers of the San Francisco scene, at the age of 22. The scene was filled with young professionals, dot commers, entrepreneurs, and old hippies. I once partied with Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.
Although my first gig in San Francisco filled the club wall to wall, the novelty of GabberGirl wore off quickly. I heard people were saying things like, “Well she’s cute and little and has pigtails, but her music is evil.” I tried to explain that hardcore isn’t evil, that it’s a positive way to get rid of negative energy. The crowd I found myself in was all rainbows, glitter, hugs, and spinners, throwbacks from Grateful Dead concerts. I realized then I had to find my hardcore brethren and help create a hardcore scene for the San Fran Bay Area.
How did you get involved in Hardcore?
What was being played in 1994 at the Midwest raves of America was hardcore and gabber, driving hard techno and the hardest of acid. Naturally, those were the records I began to collect.
I had been dancing at all age clubs for years and knew commercial dance music and house music, but I didn’t even consider that they were related. Rave music was a completely new and different thing, and it drew me in, held me for a lifetime. Within a year, many other genres were introduced in my area, and the hardcore DJs began drifting to jungle, house, breakbeats, and minimal techno. I played out a few times as GangaGirl (jungle) and MadCow (hard techno) but mostly I held steady with my first and true love, hardcore, as it was the most creative, exciting, fun, intense, and humorous genre of all rave music, in my opinion. Not to mention the hardest and the fastest.
What inspires you as a DJ?
The music, which never gets old and is continually evolving, and my friends, egging each other on and challenging one another. We are all just playing for each other, while tempting the youth to join us.
There were three people who inspired me to come out of “dj retirement”. I had stopped taking gigs and shut down Technostate in 2002 to focus on raising my son and developing my career. In 2018, Jake Allen (FLINX) and Josh White (Analog Mobsters) convinced me to start taking gigs again, and Jon Emery (Hardcore Jon) pushed me until I started putting out sets again.
What equipment do you use?
I started on one Technic 1200, a used Gemini mixer, and a crappy thrift store belt-driven turntable. I think the challenging set-up helped me become a better DJ. I graduated to a better setup, Technic 1200s and Numark mixer.
What inspires you as a DJ?
The music, which never gets old and is continually evolving, and my friends, egging each other on and challenging one another. We are all just playing for each other, while tempting the youth to join us.
There were three people who inspired me to come out of “dj retirement”. I had stopped taking gigs and shut down Technostate in 2002 to focus on raising my son and developing my career. In 2018, Jake Allen (FLINX) and Josh White (Analog Mobsters) convinced me to start taking gigs again, and Jon Emery (Hardcore Jon) pushed me until I started putting out sets again.
What equipment do you use?
I started on one Technic 1200, a used Gemini mixer, and a crappy thrift store belt-driven turntable. I think the challenging set-up helped me become a better DJ. I graduated to a better setup, Technic 1200s and Numark mixer.
My current turntable setup are 2 Vestax PDX-2000’s with Ortofon Reloop Concorde Black needles and a used scratch mixer, the Rane TTM-56. I bought it from a promoter who bought it because he booked Mark Newlands of Nasenbluten, and he said he wouldn’t play on any other mixer. So Mark N scratched on my mixer! Learning to scratch is a future goal of mine.
Lately, most all of my mixes are digital—I use a Traktor Kontrol S4 with Traktor Pro 3 software, and a Dell Inspiron laptop.
What do you want to express with your music?
Humor, fun, creativity, and I also want to promote that feeling in people’s bodies where they can’t help but dance, and smile. I also like to tell a story with my themed sets, and sometimes I want to spotlight a certain style, genre, label, or artist. Sometimes I can kick out a set with no planning (which I call Bedroom Sessions), but I normally spend days or weeks or even months on one set. I get an idea, usually inspired by tracks I already own. Then I search for more tracks that fall within that idea, for example reggae-inspired hardcore tracks, or maybe gabber tracks about clowns with carnival music. Then I listen to the tracks over and over before I attempt to start putting them together. Then I mix in my headphones for hours, practicing and experimenting, before I spin the set out loud, two or three times before I put it out.
Experiences with gigs and parties:
In 1994, I attended my first rave and was blown away. It was in a dark warehouse with perpetual fog drifting and flashing strobes creating a dream-like environment, backed by hard, intense electronic music. It was confusing and it must have shown on my face, as one of the promoters approached me and asked if I was okay. I said that I didn’t understand the music, that it was the longest song I ever heard. The promoter laughed and led me up a ladder onto the scaffold that held the DJ booth, and explained what was going on. Even with the mystery of the music shattered, raves were still a magical realm.
I raved straight-edge for years. I didn’t need drugs or alcohol to feel that I had entered an unwordly, alternate state of being at these dark, underground events. It was awesome, understated, but never scary. And the people were my people—kids like me who had always been the artistic outcast at school. There was love and acceptance that I had never felt in all my previous years.
I was the Mama to my friends, I took care of them and entertained them if they wanted to get messed up. I loved this role. Sometimes I would get them all balloons and then put on a puppet show for them while they were sucking.
I don’t attend as much as I did when I was younger, and the scene is changed a lot, but there are still exciting things happening in America. In the summer of the Midwest, there are a lot of campouts to attend, which are my favorite type of rave. Although the Midwest covers numerous states, the campouts (and internet) unite us, so some of my closest friends live hundreds of miles away.
In the 90’s, I was flown around a lot to various states, put up, and paid to DJ. Or I road-tripped with other DJs, like Dan Efex, and we would get paid plus gas money. It seems different now. I will get paid for club gigs, but within my Midwest scene, I can be booked and expected to drive 6 hours with no recompense, and I will because I like to support our scene, and share my music. Although hardcore was the go-to in the 90’s of the Midwest, now I am one of the only hardcore DJs in my region.
Smurfit, Dr Nog, and GabberGirl
I really love NIKAJ’s new Retartedcore Podcast. The sets are multi-genre, which can be challenging for a DJ, and way more interesting for a listener.
There are two mixes up on Mixcloud by a Midwest DJ called The Demix that are so weird and wild, I am now convinced that The Demix is an alien. They are shocking and surprising, and everyone should give them a listen. “Land of Sunshine 2019” which was a live set recorded at Even Furthur ’19, and his Format.FM 092819 set.
Stories in my hardcore history:
I have so many fun stories and great experiences at parties, it is hard to pick a few, but I will try!
In the late 90’s, the European concept of Love Parade came to San Francisco. I had booked Martin Kleihm (Trauma XP) of Germany to play at one of Technostate’s bunker parties, and as the founder of the F**kparade in Berlin, he explained it to us, and my friends and I decided to do our own in SF. I’m certain his was a lot bigger than ours, but my small crew of hardcore heads, maybe fifteen or twenty of us, would make up the counter parade on the day of the SF Love Parade. While the trance and house music pounded from the giant floats heading west on Market St, my friends and I marched east against the Lovers. Our F**kparade “float” consisted of a shopping cart loaded with a pair of Fisher Price “turntables”, a giant speaker, and a whisper-quiet generator. Over and over again, we would have to book it to a side street as cops spotted us and tried to remove us, only to sneak back to the parade a block over.
At the end of the Love Parade, all floats plugged in at the Civic Center Plaza for an outdoor day rave, and us F**kparaders would steal a bit of sidewalk to set up our tiny hardcore set up. The cops would tell us to go away, so we just set up somewhere else. The following year, the Love Parade promoters shrugged, accepted our rebellion, and set aside a spot for us to set up at the CC Plaza.
In 1997, I threw an all-mainstage hardcore party in the Twin Cities, which was unheard of by then. I had DJ Tron (Chicago), Doormouse (Milwaukee), Fishead (Winnepeg, Canada), and myself GabberGirl all on the mainstage, and the second room was for live hip hop (Atmosphere and Beyond both performed). This memorable party called Heavy Mental was in Crazy Louie’s Emporium, a weird eclectic store I loved to peruse as a child, and it cost $6.66 to get in. Doormouse and his friends threw beer bottles at each other during his set.
Optic, Fishead, Dr Nog, DJ Aneurysm, GabberGirl and Smurfit
In 1996, I played in a big circus tent at the legendary Even Furthur festival, the same one that Daft Punk made their American debut at. My tagteam partner Earache helped me with my set by assisting me when I decided to play Josh Wink’s Lumpy Oatmeal on a Fisher Price turntable we had plugged into the main mixer. As it wound up, I set the record on fire. The crowd cheered. I mixed out, Earache put the fire out, then cracked the record into pieces and chucked them out onto the muddy dance floor.
In the fall of 2020, I made my digital DJ debut after dinosauring around with vinyl until then. It was at a campout on the St. Croix River (the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin) on the Minnesota side. My set was so loud and intense, the cops were called—in Wisconsin.
What other artists do I admire?
I admire the hardest working DJs, promoters, and educators of our scene. To be honest, I really look up to Low Entropy and the Hardcore Overdogs. LE has been making music since late 90’s, collecting and sharing encyclopedic knowledge of the hardcore scene, plus discovering and promoting new and old artists through his pod cast and various record labels. And he brought DJ AI to life, the first AI DJ. Kudos also to NIKAJ, who is prolific with his DJ sets, pod casts, passion, and vision. Big ups to DJ Asylum who collects fresh DJ sets and promotes artists with weekly listening parties on HCBXCast, as well as being a DJ. I’ve been working a lot with these dedicated artists lately.
I also admire the Baroness Jennylee, Jay Maniakal, and Capelli for everything they are doing for the New York City hardcore scene (party promotion and RTDF Rave Radio). I admire Brenda (Chicago) and Encounter (Minneapolis) for their plethora of excellent, thoughtful techno sets. I admire Clakbastard for his super creative, driving sets of hard techno and hardcore. I admire Serenity and her crew for jumpstarting Hard Dance in Minneapolis again.
I also admire Kurt Eckes of Drop Bass Network, for starting a religion in the middle of the pandemic so we could still get together and dance. He already was a co-founder and main promoter of the famous Even Furthur festival, but he upped his game with his exclusive A Kult Weekenders, where a super talented DJ will have an entire night to themselves to weave 4, 6, 8, or even 10 hour sets. I’ve had the honor of experiencing extended sets from some of the best DJs in the world at A Kult events—Somniac One, Ghost in the Machine, Neil Landstrumm, Headless Horseman, Freddy Fresh, and Perc, to name a few.
And I have always looked up to DoubleD (female hardcore DJ from Canada) and Heather Heart (female hard techno DJ from NYC) for paving the way for female DJs in North America. I might be the first female hardcore DJ in the USA, but these two came before me.
What are my goals with my music? What is my vision, what I want to achieve?
I have several current goals for my music. First of all, I want to start making tracks. I have been tutored in Ableton by Freddy Fresh, but have not put the time aside to start this new major undertaking.
Secondly, I am ready to introduce Mechanical Clown to the world. This will be my new DJ personality, but so much more. Mechanical Clown will be an experience—performance art, costumes, pageantry, plus music! Sent from the future to study the past rave scene, Mechanical Clown landed in 2025 instead of 1995, but still has plenty to learn, and share from it’s futuristic perspective. A multi-genre dance music DJ dressed as a clown but with metallic skin and robotic movements, it can mix, produce tracks, and dance, but it’s only dance moves are “The Robot”.
Favorite records or tracks?
I couldn’t pin it down like that as I love so many tracks. If you’ve ever listened to my mixes, you will know that Technohead’s “I Wanna Be A Hippy” is my theme track—I have used it in at least half of my sets, and have maybe 20 remixes. I love a lot of producers, and I follow and collect tracks from: Outside Agency, E-Noid, MC Pornslide, Flail, Klerreherriekrew, DJ Mutante, Le Bask, Speedfreak, Terrorclown, C-Tank, Der Cherup, Manu le Malin, and Tieum.
Any upcoming gigs?
I am mostly focused on putting out mixes on various podcasts and internet radio stations right now, but I do normally have a few live DJ gigs per year. This summer, I will be playing at the Disco Chicken one year anniversary. Disco Chicken in a fried chicken restaurant in Rockford, Illinois that is always playing loud dance music, and often book live DJs. It is owned by Paul Sletten, restauranter and rave promoter—he threw the best rave of the 2010’s called “Party Like Its 1994”. I’ll also be playing as GabberGirl at the Sparnfunkel campout in Wisconsin mid-August, and at a club in Minneapolis in the fall.
I hope to book some shows for Mechanical Clown before the summer ends.
What do you think of the hardcore scene now?
The what now? Not sure there is such a thing, lol. Unless you are in New York City or Los Angeles, it is hard to find a hardcore scene in US. Its more like there is a hardcore DJ at a techno party. But there are two small crews in the Twin Cities who throw club nights and book hardcore DJs. One is focused on Happy Hardcore, and the other loves Hardstyle/Euphoric/Reverse Bass. So none are my style, but the Hardstyle crew books me once a year and lets me do my hardcore thing. I would like to see more youngsters getting exposed to hardcore. As soon as they experience it once, they will likely fall in love.
What music besides hardcore are you into?
I love hip hop, dubstep, breakdance music, B’More dance music, alternative rock (like The Cure, Bauhaus, Skinny Puppy, & Ministry) and party pop. Hip hop is my favorite, and I am especially obsessed with Run the Jewels, Tech N9ne, & E-40. For party pop, I am way into Black Eyed Peas, Will.I.Am, Die Antwoord, Icona Pop, and Lil Jon. I also love some music that doesn’t really fit into a category, such as Igorrr, Gravelhands, and Noga Erez.
What are your other interests or activities?
I have a lot of hobbies; not just DJing. I am a writer, and written a trilogy of apocalyptic young adult novels. I let them sit for a few years, and am currently now editing them for self-publication. The novel I am working on now is about a pair of raving sisters a thousand years in the future, and their robot Mechanical Clown whom they have programmed to DJ.
DJ GabberGirl in 2020
I also spent a few years trying out stand-up comedy. I did a lot of shows in my area, focusing on “up north” Minnesota humor, but I have also done several raver comedy shows at festivals and clubs. Although I haven’t performed since 2023, I plan on doing a fresh rave comedy show at a festival this summer.
I also like to do art when I have the chance, or when I am not inspired to work on music or writing. I paint landscapes and sunsets with acrylics, and also taught pour painting at my local art center. I am into “tweaker art”—aka diamond painting—but I can do it without tweaking, or twerking. I love making collages, but lately do my collages digitally and call them DJ set covers or fliers.
I also love reading, hiking, and dancing.
Anything else you want to tell our readers?
Party On, and Be Excellent to Each Other.
Social Links:
GabberGirl on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-948838612
The Demix DJ Sets (recommended above) on Mixcloud:
https://www.mixcloud.com/thedemix/the-demix-land-of-sunshine-at-even-furthur-2019/
https://www.mixcloud.com/thedemix/the-demix-on-formatfm-originally-aired-092819/
HCBXCast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGqNX2ZGL81_KWFmEb56JH4zkiBO4lQHX
Retartedcore Podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/nikaj-scheres/sets/retartedcore-podcast-multi
GabberGirl on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-948838612
The Demix DJ Sets (recommended above) on Mixcloud:
https://www.mixcloud.com/thedemix/the-demix-land-of-sunshine-at-even-furthur-2019/
https://www.mixcloud.com/thedemix/the-demix-on-formatfm-originally-aired-092819/
HCBXCast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGqNX2ZGL81_KWFmEb56JH4zkiBO4lQHX
Retartedcore Podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/nikaj-scheres/sets/retartedcore-podcast-multi