Elijah Amitin is a musician-producer from NYC. He plays bass in the indie-rock trio Zopa, produces and mixes electronic music under the alias Community Room, composes music for picture

DJ Merritt is one of those premier DJ's that was not only  comfortable on stage in front of thousands, but also spinning to over 250,000 people every week on his famous Saturday night mixshow EdgeClub for almost two decades.  Merritt carried that realization when he went back to college in Shreveport, La. and on his startup college radio show on Centenary's KSCL.  "...I had a show called the Friday Night Rave.  Nobody had ever even heard the term rave before, but the weird thing was people were starting to take notice.  This was a tiny station with not much footprint and yea... people were listening."  Merritt was still living and attending school in Shreveport and was having friends smuggle tapes back so they could hear the newest sounds.  "Hearing Jeff K do Edgeclub was validating what I was doing on the college station.  I knew I had to get back to Dallas."  The scene was moving fast.  The time was fresh, "...and we knew we were on to something special" Merritt recounts. "The scene was growing, but the number of players were still small." Merritt, still shy of his degree in college,  "..knew I needed to be closer to the action and found a school an hour away that would take all of my credits from Centenary.  I would work all weekend and sometimes during the week driving back and forth to my apartment at East Texas State University in Commerce, TX."  

The schedule was rigorous, "I remember getting off work at 4am on Sundays at the Lizard Lounge, getting back to my apartment around 6am and then be in class at 8:20am for a full day."  The hard work paid off when he received a call from his mentor Jeff K.  "I remember the call vividly.  It was the first week in October [1994] and I was outside after one of my classes.  I get a call from Jeff asking to help him out each Saturday on Edgeclub." 
In 1996 Jeff K took up an opportunity to move to LA and help start the county's first electronic music station, GrooveRadio. After the nerves settled, Merritt took Edgeclub to new heights.  "It was crazy.  Everybody and their mothers were listening.  Here we are playing unfamiliar music and we're the number 2 show in all of Dallas/Ft. Worth."  By 1999, the show was enjoying it's highest ratings ever.  Edgeclub's market share was showing 1 out of 4 people listening to the radio on Saturday nights were locked in to DJ Merritt & Edgeclub.

With over a quarter million listeners it was inevitable that DJ Merritt would start producing music.  "I had started to accumulate some gear here and there.  A sampler, synthesizer, and a computer to tie it all together."  The summer of 1999 saw the first release from Merritt, "Slappin' Skinz" on the Torchbearers Compilation.  "From that point on it was a new bug... producing."  DJ Merritt has worked in the studio and released numerous tracks with Dave Aude, Left/Right, DatGuy, LehtMoJoe, Darren DuVall, Funk W, Kelly Reverb, Blake Potter and many more.  2001, saw the major label release of American DJ, Volume 2: Dallas with DJ Merritt at the helm.  
Over the years, Merritt has provided the opening sets alongside greats like: The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, Todd Terry, Fabio & Grooverider, Groove Armada, Frankie Bones, DJ Dan, Derrick Carter, Fatboy Slim, Moby, Sven Vath, Paul Oakenfold, Sasha, John Digweed, Ferry Corsten, & Green Velvet, Mark Farina, Carl Cox, & Dub Pistols to just name a handful.   
Edgeclub ended in November 2010.  It was the longest running and highest rated mixshow in the US.  Merritt has won the "Best DJ in Dallas" award a staggering 6 times from the Dallas Observer and in January 2015 was listed in the SunTimes as one of the top 100 DJ's in America.
He resides in Dallas with his wife, Kimberly, and 2 children.

Luke Thomas is a leading voice and analyst in the sport of MMA whose work routinely crosses media platforms. He currently serves as the host of SiriusXM's The Luke Thomas Show on channel 156. He is also a former editor and podcaster at MMA Fighting, where he hosted the Monday Morning Analyst and Promotional Malpractice Live Chat podcasts as well as studio shows such as The MMA Beat and The MMA Hour. Thomas helped create the co-branded USA Today/SB Nation Consensus MMA Rankings. His written work has appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, ESPN and dozens of newspapers across the country.

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