ArCee (real name Rene Schilder) is born in a small village near the city of Alkmaar. His love for music started at a young age when he joined a brass band as a drummer. Here he developed a good feeling of rhythm. Around the age of 14 he became a dj at a local community home for the Friday disco night. A year later, a second deejay job was added on the weekend. He did this for several years, every weekend.
At the age of 17 he started clubbing himself, so he stopped deejaying, but after a few years he wanted to do something again with music. So, after reading an ad in a local newspaper, he joined a radio station. This was an illegal FM radio station called Action radio, only broadcasting on the weekends, but he really loved it.
After a few years of radio, House Music made its appearance in the Netherlands and ArCee loved it from an early start. So much, that he also started to play some house tracks in his radio show, as one of the first radio dj’s in his country, but this wasn’t appreciated by the owner of the radio station. A conflict followed, and house music was banned from the station. And with that ban, ArCee stopped being a dj for the station, and started his own radio station called Contact 103 FM. At Contact 103 he started a radio show with only imported house music. The show was called Bassline, and it was very popular with a lot of fans of house music. Also, Contact 103 became bigger as the station he left, very quick. The ultimate payback.
At the same time, he also visited several house events and house clubs. That was where he met a person that, later, became a good friend and also a dj. He, and some others went to a lot of events together, and at some point, the idea was born to create our own house event. So, with 3 people we started planning it, and in the summer of 1990 we had our first house event under the name of Power Raving. The idea was to do it once, but it was such a success that we planned a second event the month after, and another, and another…..
When we stopped, we had played 14 house events. Almost all of them sold out. After that periode ArCee took a break from music, because of some emotional family affairs.
After several years, ArCee got interested in deejaying again when Trance came to life. He bought some new gear for playing at home, and after some time he started playing at a small radio station on the internet called TotaalFM. He was the 5th dj at that radio station. He started talking with the owner, and he asked ArCee if he could find some deejays for the station. Since he had some contacts several new deejays joined the station pretty soon, and the deejays kept coming in after that. So, he became the programming leader for the station. In 3 years, the station grew from 5, to more than 220 dj’s, playing trance, house, techno and club music. Around 2011 ArCee became the owner of the station, because the official owner had no more time to run it.
In 2013, the station also became too big and too much work for ArCee, and he sold it to a new, French owner. Unfortunately, the new owner died soon after, and TotaalFm came to an end.
ArCee took another little break from music, and came back with a new sound. At a young age he started as a dj with disco, soul and funk, and he rediscovered this music. But, in a new, and more housy way. Disco re-edits, Funky house, Jackin house, Nu-Disco and so on. And this is what you hear, every week as I play my Disco Today radio sessions.
ArCee – Disco Today. Classic grooves, Today’s rhythm.
