1. Spoc-3P0 (Shawn DiFiore) Cowfish Dance Club. Find on Facebook. 

2. DJ Supa J (Jon Smith) Find on Facebook. 

3. DJ Smuve (Bobby Green Jr) Find on Facebook and Instagram. 

Entering Cowfish Dance Club in downtown Eugene is like entering a colorful club from the 1970s. A wavy wall of glittery tile shines down on you as you dance the night away on the pale blue floor, and you can even sit at the bar and observe the fish in the large tank on the wall. 

If you come on a Friday night, DJ Spoc-3PO, aka Shawn DiFiore who owns Cowfish Dance Club and Cafe, will provide your soundtrack for the evening. And, yes, he will take your song requests. 

“It’s not about me anymore,” DiFiore says about choosing music for his set, noting that some DJs criticize him for taking song requests. “It’s a club. It’s about the whole room.” 

DiFiore says the critics argue that accepting song requests takes away from the artistry of being a DJ, but to him, the music is for the people dancing in the club. He says 80 percent of DJing is selecting the best songs for their set, and the other 20 percent is technique — or blending songs together. 

For DiFiore, the technique is where artistry comes in. And he says he never pre-records his sets to play — he mixes songs together at the show, never replaying the exact same set. 

“I always play on the fly,” he says. “I have taught myself how to mix almost anything together within some proximity of BPMs.” In music, BPM refers to beats per minute, or how fast the song is played. 

DiFiore has been DJing in Eugene since 2004, and he says he is grateful to all the people who he works with, including Cowfish staff as well as those who come out to dance. He is especially grateful for the people who come out to dance that respect the space and other people.

“It makes it a community,” DiFiore says about people being respectful at the club. “It makes it a different type of space than a lot of group spaces that are allowed to happen in our society.”

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