The son of WWE Hall of Fame World Champion Wrestler Antonino Rocca, learned excellence at a very young age. His father was a master and pioneer in the wrestling ring, becoming an original superstar known throughout the world. A genuine living legend in his day, on the cover of multitudes of magazines and given credit as one of the two people that gave the public reason to buy a television set. The other was Milton Berle. In addition, he had a true love for music and soon mastered the musical arena as well. Having the ability to appreciate all types of music, and being an extremely close friend with the Italian composer Arturo Toscanini. Antonino Sr. Several musical albums, some with fantastic Latin flavor, this in turn allowed Tony Jr. to hear quality music from all over the world, whether modern or classical... Tony Jr. began to take classical piano lessons at 8 years but felt that the piano was not for him. The percussions, brass, and strings gave more of an honest interest to young Tony, and he began to play and master the Trumpet, Flute and Baritone Horn by age 10. He says, "I remember being able to easily warm up a trumpet session to playing Chuck Mangione's "Feel So Good," and then heading home and listening to the drum beats and rhythms of the early disco songs played on NYC radio stations 99X and the original Disco 92KTU." "Since I was always tall for my age, at 13 years old, I used to hit Studio 54 to listen to all the now classic disco hits thanks to a neighborhood friend who ran the security at the back doors to the club on 53rd street. I just scooted right into the club." "At that time I was just into the music, hearing it on such a loud Richard Long system was awesome and I really did not know what a club DJ was or what a DJ did for that matter period." "But as the years went by, a close family friend Andy "Rocky" Cinque started to play in a club in Long Island and he invited me a couple of weekend nights to see what a DJ was really all about." "Once I saw what a DJ could do.man was I hooked". "You could control a crowd, make them jump and chant, and I liked it very much" " To me it is similar to my father wrestling in front of thousands live, it is a performance of skill and technique that makes people get excited." "I was hooked and I finally bought for my first DJ setup in 1980, 2 belt drive turntables and an inexpensive mixer. I soon realized that spinning on those belt drive turntables was way to difficult so I really just practiced my beat mixing technique and blending ability. I blended in all sorts of different stuff, Latin drums with pure high energy disco and so on, nothing was taboo and I soon was able to mix all different kinds of music in a way in which it sounded correct and smooth. I saved up my money doing odd jobs, soon after got serious, and bought some real 1200 turntables." "Practice, practice, practice and then more practice I did for years, always getting the latest 12" cuts through Rocky's record pool that I was a member of. I remember in 1982 when Planet Rock was released, I made a 90 minute tape of just that record mixed back and forth. It sounded great played back on my JVC M70 boom box. That practice paid off and my first opportunity came in 1984. Since I am from Manhattan in New York City, I started to hit the clubs in the city, and the first one I went to consistently was Magique's on East 61st Street. It had hot girls and honestly that was one of the reasons I went. Actor Danny Aiello's son Rick was one of the doormen I remember, he was cool with me and usually let me and my friend in early before the regular 10pm crowd. The club was also the host to the Chippendale's show, so I just went upstairs and hung out waiting for the show to end then usually went down to the main floor to start dancing and mingling with the girls. One evening, I was upstairs waiting for the show to end and the DJ booth door opened and I looked inside and saw the my first club DJ booth setup. I introduced myself to the resident DJ, Frank Hullahan, and told him that I wanted to be a club DJ also. He was really cool about it and let me hang out in the booth for hours every week. One day he just said to me, "Take over," so I did. I will never forget it; my first record I played was "Colour My Love" by Fun Fun. I was a little nervous but got used to it pretty quick, and from then on I began to play sets with Frank watching. It was great, he was cool and very into the music as I was so it worked out great." "Soon after I started to go to club Visage on West 55th street in 1985, a very upscale club, and met the director Cornelis Craane. He actually lived in my building and he gave me a job with security in the club. However, I wanted to spin. Visage closed and re-opened as Club 4D in 1986. I tended bar initially and then started playing there, doing corporate parties and special events. In 1987, Scott Blackwell came over to the club and became the weekend man, and I played the main floor Thursday nights and the upper floor on weekends. Scott and I became good friends. 4D was a fantastic club and owner Frank Lynch was a great person. Many innovative things happened while I was there and met great people as well. The guys from Richard Long Associates who designed 4D's awesome sound system game me an education on sound system room design that was fantastic. We started the live broadcast of the Saturday Night Dance Party for Hot 103FM in April of that year and I along with Scott ran the live shows for acts such as TKA, Company B, Taylor Dayne, Information Society, Cover Girls, Safire.etc that went over the air. I always remember HOT103, s program director Joel Salkowitz, a great guy, sifting through our records to see what would be new to play on the stations airwaves." "The 4D years led into other opportunities to play elsewhere through the years, Palladium, Octagon, Underground, 1018, Limelight, Stringfellows, Cat Club, Redzone, Merlins..etc, as well as continuing to play special events for radio stations, record labels (Atlantic, Arista, Vinyalmania, Tommy Boy, Vendetta,..etc). I even played for Donald Trump at his birthday party, which was held at the Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center. I then fell into doing production work on several of my friends tracks, and kept focused on trying to better myself every time I went to play." "Concentrating on my primary career in the financial sector in the mid 90's I still played but not as much just do to the fact that I was too busy with other projects. I remember Club Miracles in Westchester and Metro 700 in Long Island, both a great place to play regularly as well as the many smaller clubs. Hitting the late 90’s playing at Carbon, (Downtown Julie Brown's East Coast Farewell Party, my favorite event there) and most recently Club Hush, working with friend Debbie Benitez, Jellybean’s sister, here in the city just reminded me of the days simply where it was all about the music. I feel very fortunate to keep enjoying the musical experience and applying my skills to be a true DJ, where it is an art, the turntables being your instrument. Twenty plus years later I can say with confidence; "Yes, I can play"."I started young and was exposed to commercial dance music early on. Those days of the 70's leading up through today's new millennium, I was absorbing every type of music that was available and applied these different sounds in creating distant DJ sets usually consisting of 3 or 4 turntables at once. This allowed me to created live sets where people would always come into to the DJ booth asking me how I just did that. All this experience leads into these new projects I am currently working on, which is the creation of mixed dance compilation CDs, where all types of dance music new or old is welcome. Great dance music is timeless and these CDs will demonstrate that." "My father instilled excellence in me since I was a child and my mother gave me the humility, therefore I know what I am capable of producing and really do not boast about. My results speak for themselves. For me, I give 150% of myself every time I perform. I get into a zone every time I hit the needle to the record and it feels great. I love being a DJ and the ability to make people move, groove and want to hear me play time after time. Just through music I have met great people, experienced great things and honestly loved every minute of it. Am I sure I am performing up to my father's championship level? you bet I am, for I see it in the eyes of everyone who I have been fortunate to perform for."
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The son of WWE Hall of Fame World Champion Wrestler Antonino Rocca, learned excellence at a very young age. His father was a master and pioneer in the wrestling ring, becoming an original superstar known throughout the world. A genuine living legend in his day, on the cover of multitudes of magazines and given credit as one of the two people that gave the public reason to buy a television set. The other was Milton Berle. In addition, he had a true love for music and soon mastered the musical arena as well. Having the ability to appreciate all types of music, and being an extremely close friend with the Italian composer Arturo Toscanini. Antonino Sr. Several musical albums, some with fantastic Latin flavor, this in turn allowed Tony Jr. to hear quality music from all over the world, whether modern or classical... Tony Jr. began to take classical piano lessons at 8 years but felt that the piano was not for him. The percussions, brass, and strings gave more of an honest interest to young Tony, and he began to play and master the Trumpet, Flute and Baritone Horn by age 10. He says, "I remember being able to easily warm up a trumpet session to playing Chuck Mangione's "Feel So Good," and then heading home and listening to the drum beats and rhythms of the early disco songs played on NYC radio stations 99X and the original Disco 92KTU." "Since I was always tall for my age, at 13 years old, I used to hit Studio 54 to listen to all the now classic disco hits thanks to a neighborhood friend who ran the security at the back doors to the club on 53rd street. I just scooted right into the club." "At that time I was just into the music, hearing it on such a loud Richard Long system was awesome and I really did not know what a club DJ was or what a DJ did for that matter period." "But as the years went by, a close family friend Andy "Rocky" Cinque started to play in a club in Long Island and he invited me a couple of weekend nights to see what a DJ was really all about." "Once I saw what a DJ could do.man was I hooked". "You could control a crowd, make them jump and chant, and I liked it very much" " To me it is similar to my father wrestling in front of thousands live, it is a performance of skill and technique that makes people get excited." "I was hooked and I finally bought for my first DJ setup in 1980, 2 belt drive turntables and an inexpensive mixer. I soon realized that spinning on those belt drive turntables was way to difficult so I really just practiced my beat mixing technique and blending ability. I blended in all sorts of different stuff, Latin drums with pure high energy disco and so on, nothing was taboo and I soon was able to mix all different kinds of music in a way in which it sounded correct and smooth. I saved up my money doing odd jobs, soon after got serious, and bought some real 1200 turntables." "Practice, practice, practice and then more practice I did for years, always getting the latest 12" cuts through Rocky's record pool that I was a member of. I remember in 1982 when Planet Rock was released, I made a 90 minute tape of just that record mixed back and forth. It sounded great played back on my JVC M70 boom box. That practice paid off and my first opportunity came in 1984. Since I am from Manhattan in New York City, I started to hit the clubs in the city, and the first one I went to consistently was Magique's on East 61st Street. It had hot girls and honestly that was one of the reasons I went. Actor Danny Aiello's son Rick was one of the doormen I remember, he was cool with me and usually let me and my friend in early before the regular 10pm crowd. The club was also the host to the Chippendale's show, so I just went upstairs and hung out waiting for the show to end then usually went down to the main floor to start dancing and mingling with the girls. One evening, I was upstairs waiting for the show to end and the DJ booth door opened and I looked inside and saw the my first club DJ booth setup. I introduced myself to the resident DJ, Frank Hullahan, and told him that I wanted to be a club DJ also. He was really cool about it and let me hang out in the booth for hours every week. One day he just said to me, "Take over," so I did. I will never forget it; my first record I played was "Colour My Love" by Fun Fun. I was a little nervous but got used to it pretty quick, and from then on I began to play sets with Frank watching. It was great, he was cool and very into the music as I was so it worked out great." "Soon after I started to go to club Visage on West 55th street in 1985, a very upscale club, and met the director Cornelis Craane. He actually lived in my building and he gave me a job with security in the club. However, I wanted to spin. Visage closed and re-opened as Club 4D in 1986. I tended bar initially and then started playing there, doing corporate parties and special events. In 1987, Scott Blackwell came over to the club and became the weekend man, and I played the main floor Thursday nights and the upper floor on weekends. Scott and I became good friends. 4D was a fantastic club and owner Frank Lynch was a great person. Many innovative things happened while I was there and met great people as well. The guys from Richard Long Associates who designed 4D's awesome sound system game me an education on sound system room design that was fantastic. We started the live broadcast of the Saturday Night Dance Party for Hot 103FM in April of that year and I along with Scott ran the live shows for acts such as TKA, Company B, Taylor Dayne, Information Society, Cover Girls, Safire.etc that went over the air. I always remember HOT103, s program director Joel Salkowitz, a great guy, sifting through our records to see what would be new to play on the stations airwaves." "The 4D years led into other opportunities to play elsewhere through the years, Palladium, Octagon, Underground, 1018, Limelight, Stringfellows, Cat Club, Redzone, Merlins..etc, as well as continuing to play special events for radio stations, record labels (Atlantic, Arista, Vinyalmania, Tommy Boy, Vendetta,..etc). I even played for Donald Trump at his birthday party, which was held at the Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center. I then fell into doing production work on several of my friends tracks, and kept focused on trying to better myself every time I went to play." "Concentrating on my primary career in the financial sector in the mid 90's I still played but not as much just do to the fact that I was too busy with other projects. I remember Club Miracles in Westchester and Metro 700 in Long Island, both a great place to play regularly as well as the many smaller clubs. Hitting the late 90’s playing at Carbon, (Downtown Julie Brown's East Coast Farewell Party, my favorite event there) and most recently Club Hush, working with friend Debbie Benitez, Jellybean’s sister, here in the city just reminded me of the days simply where it was all about the music. I feel very fortunate to keep enjoying the musical experience and applying my skills to be a true DJ, where it is an art, the turntables being your instrument. Twenty plus years later I can say with confidence; "Yes, I can play"."I started young and was exposed to commercial dance music early on. Those days of the 70's leading up through today's new millennium, I was absorbing every type of music that was available and applied these different sounds in creating distant DJ sets usually consisting of 3 or 4 turntables at once. This allowed me to created live sets where people would always come into to the DJ booth asking me how I just did that. All this experience leads into these new projects I am currently working on, which is the creation of mixed dance compilation CDs, where all types of dance music new or old is welcome. Great dance music is timeless and these CDs will demonstrate that." "My father instilled excellence in me since I was a child and my mother gave me the humility, therefore I know what I am capable of producing and really do not boast about. My results speak for themselves. For me, I give 150% of myself every time I perform. I get into a zone every time I hit the needle to the record and it feels great. I love being a DJ and the ability to make people move, groove and want to hear me play time after time. Just through music I have met great people, experienced great things and honestly loved every minute of it. Am I sure I am performing up to my father's championship level? you bet I am, for I see it in the eyes of everyone who I have been fortunate to perform for."