VI.BE

Massimo Conecto (Belgium 1966) born as Dirk Stommels, dj since 1999, described as an ambitious, inexhaustible, passionate music lover in several styles.

Dirk’s grandfather - who had the honour of playing along the side of Toots Thielemans - was a jazz musician for 50 years and learned him on a very young age discovering the world of jazz… from there on he started to follow the mainstream in the world of music and his passion for music was born!

The first album he bought was Deep Purple in Rock. He grew up with jazz, rock, punk, disco, funk, hiphop, electronic & new wave, which all has an influence in his choice/style of music. Since the mid seventies, he’s been busy following the evolution of music, always searching for new or unknown sounds. At that time his good friend and dj Sven Van Hees hosted a radioshow together with Paul Ward called Liaisons Dangereuses. Every week they gave the best of what New Beat had to offer. A new style of underground dance music originated in Belgium at a club in Antwerp called Ancienne Belgique. Eventually House Music saw the daylight…and it never died like promised .

Although Dirk was almost born with music, he accidentally became a dj after somebody asking 'You got any cd’s in the car to play some music?' Of course! His first party was a fact. After a while he needed a dj name and one day he met the young talented dj Ken Bleys. He learned Dirk how to handle the pioneers but most of all he invented his dj name Massimo Conecto, because he saw how easily Dirk connects people in life, especially when he is playing music.

As time passed and his skills grew he started to play at private parties, not only in Belgium, the Karma Lodge parties at Planet Xancara in South Africa, Kae Funk in Zanzibar and an after-party by Cirque du Soleil already crossed his path. In his hometown he played at Café d’Anvers and Floorfiller Festival became a yearly tradition. With all his musical experience in life, he knows how to please the audience. After playing mostly private all those years Massimo Conecto aims to be a professional dj in the scene and producing will be the next thing.

Massimo Conecto’s identity is based on connecting the right people on the right place... music is a feeling, a feeling rooted in emotion and emotion being the very basis of humanity!