Page Hodel Bio
For over 40 years, Bay Area native Page Hodel has been an integral part the soul of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. Her phenomenal success as a dance club DJ, a radio Mixtress, and a club promoter has established her as a world-renowned institution in the music industry. Page’s extraordinary career has always been grounded in two things: a profound love and respect for the fiercest soul music; and a dedication to creating entertainment events that celebrate diversity.
In 1972 Page began her musical pursuits with a trip to Paris to study classical guitar at the Conservatoire de Musique Jean Courbin, at the age of 16. She returned to the United States to follow her focused passion for music, playing with several local funk bands here in the Bay Area including Mama Says Funk.
This drive and determination was to become a hallmark of her renowned career as a DJ and nightclub promoter. What began as a yearly tradition throwing her notorious birthday parties, quickly lead to a regular DJ booking at Amelia’s, a popular Bay Area dance club at the time. It was during this time that her career as a disc jockey took flight, following with bookings at the Oasis as their resident weekend DJ, and virtually every major dance venue in San Francisco, as well as clubs in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Paris. Page’s DJ career has taken her around the globe, including regular bookings in the 90’s on Olivia Cruises as their resident disc jockey.
During the early 80’s, Page became the first female mixer on a major market radio station, mixing the legendary “Noon Mix” on KSOL which was followed by a regular spot recording the LIVE 105 “Mid-day Mix”. In addition she occasionally recorded evening mixes on KMEL.
With crowds suddenly lining up around the block at every venue Page was spinning records, it seemed that once again the party always followed Page. In 1987 her nightclub promotion career was born when Page started “the Box” and “Club Q”, two of San Francisco’s legendary and longest running dance clubs. She enjoyed an unbelievable 11-year run with “the Box”, creating an unprecedented spirited “dance community” of gay and straight men and women of all colors, celebrating our beautiful diversity together, and an extraordinary 16 year run with the smash success of “club Q” a once a month dance party for women and friends.
Page’s dual role as DJ and promoter was a winning combination. The music industry took note in 1988 when Billboard Magazine selected her to serve in the much-coveted “Dance Chart Reporter” position, recognizing her intuitive talent to monitor the pulse of the dance music scene in the Bay Area. Page represented San Francisco, as one of the country’s one hundred dance chart reporters for Billboard Magazine for 16 years.
To date, Page has won numerous awards and honors including many Cable Car Awards for “San Francisco’s Favorite DJ”. Which after receiving the maximum number of awards allotted, the Cable Car Awards organization inducted her into their “Hall of Fame”. Page has also won San Francisco’s Bay Guardian awards for “Best Dance Club” for the Box, and “Best DJ”. Page has been selected by the BAR “Besties” two years in a row as best female DJ in Bay Area.
She is a dedicated fund raiser constantly donating her services as a DJ for many organizations including the AIDS Dance-a-Thons in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, the AIDS Walk, the Women’s Cancer Walk, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Curve Magazine Legal Defense Fund, the Project Inform Volunteer Appreciation Parties and many more.
Page has also DJ-ed at numerous outdoor events, festivals, and pride parades around the country including serving as the stage manager of the Dance Area at the Folsom Street Fair for its first eight years.
Hodel is also an accomplished carpenter whose renovation of a forty foot school bus, “Roxanne, Roxanne” into her gorgeous, hand-built redwood one bedroom home landed her on the pages of Dwell magazine, and on HGTV’s “Building Character”.
Before her long running career in music began, her days in San Francisco delivering parcels as a bicycle messenger climbed telephone poles and spliced cables at the phone company.
In recent years, in honor of her beloved partner Madalene Rodriguez, whom she lost to ovarian cancer, Page compiled a beautiful collection of photographs of one of a kind hand made hearts she constructed and photographed every Monday for 11 years following her death to celebrate their love. These images were sent via email to 3500 people all over the world every Monday helping page bring her mission to life to “Blanket the World in LOVE” These images were complied into a beautiful hardcover book “Monday Hearts for Madalene” published in 2009. Please visit www.mondayheartsformadalene.com for more information about this project. A portion of the proceeds of the sale of every book and card and print was donated to the Women’s Cancer Resource Center.
Page now splits her time between her full time job as Operations Manager of Living Jazz a beloved Bay Area non profit whose mission is to “Transform Lives through Music” and as DJ with a full schedule of private and corporate events as well as currently building a 16 foot “tiny house”.
With plans to go full speed ahead, Page’s tireless energy and ebullient enthusiasm, fed by her passion for humanity and diversity and a never ending joy in bringing music and art to our lives, will undoubtedly continue far into the future.