On Friday, Jan. 2, alum Zach Baumgarten, also known as “BAUM,” posted his initial claim to fame on TikTok. Baumgarten uploaded a video on his account, @baum_dj, promoting his planned sunset disc jockey (DJ) set on Jan. 10, hosted at Battery Boutelle, near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Immediately, Baumgarten reached hundreds of thousands of views overnight, surpassing over 9,300 followers on TikTok and 8,600 on Instagram.
“It was a surreal feeling watching my initial post blow up,” Baumgarten said. “ I knew that I had to step up after seeing thousands of people engage with my content online.”
Baumgarten has experimented with DJ’ing for around a year, mostly playing alone or in small crowds at his fraternity at the University of Arizona, Sigma Nu. Baumgarten has always been musically inclined, but never expected this much output from his work.
“I’ve always loved music,” Baumgarten said. “I ran a music review account on Instagram in middle school and throughout parts of high school, as well as being in band classes.” Baumgarten’s experience with DJ’ing has gone smoothly, picking up the hobby easily.
“I [began] DJ’ing about a year ago and I [quickly] understood it,” Baumgarten said. “I started practicing a lot and understood the theory and basics by learning the techniques, and eventually it came naturally to me.”
After blowing up on social media, Baumgarten began to take DJ’ing seriously.
“I always knew I had potential to get really good, but it was a crazy jump going from playing in front of 60 people to hundreds,” Baumgarten said. “When the time came, I had to trust myself and start playing.”
With the large turnout at his Battery Boutelle set, Baumgarten was unsure of how much support he’d receive from the crowd.
To Baumgarten and his fans’ disappointment, his initial show was short-lived as it was shut down about 30 minutes after it had begun.
“It was really stressful trying to pivot after the [first] set was shut down,” Baumgarten said. “Luckily, we heard music in the distance, and we noticed the crowd was moving and somebody was playing at a peak near me, who let me hop in for a little over an hour.”
Afterwards, Baumgarten received tremendous amounts of support on social media with hundreds of posts and reposts on all of his social media platforms, even seeing encouragement and recognition from large names and pages in the industry, including Diplo, a famous house music artist. Accounts that posted and reposted Baumgarten’s work on Instagram include: @technoandhouse (5.2m followers), @cultureofhouse (991k followers), @onlyinsf (353k followers) and @san_francisco_now (41k followers).
“Seeing that amount of support from big platforms and influencers was nuts, a feeling that made me feel endlessly grate
ful,” Baumgarten said.
Students have begun idolizing Baumgarten. Senior Julian Krantz, known as “JUJA,” has also been DJ’ing in front of large crowds and was in attendance for Baumgarten’s performance at Battery Boutelle.
“I went to his set at [Battery Boutelle],” Krantz said. “[Baumgarten] was unreal, everyone in the crowd loved him.”
Following his highly successful set at Battery Boutelle, Baumgarten announced that he had been offered the chance to open for Lost Kings, a DJ duo playing at The Independent SF on Saturday, Jan 17.
Baumgarten’s opening for Lost Kings was nothing but successful as he was able to please another crowd of hundreds of people.
“It was a similar number of people that came to the Battery, 500-600 [people],” Krantz said. “When I got there, it was maybe 30-40 people in a confined space, but when [Baumgarten] played, I was surprised how quickly it filled up.”
Baumgarten’s presence on social media has inspired many, including Krantz.
“When I saw him blow up on TikTok, I thought it was awesome,” Krantz said. “Seeing what [Baumgarten] did made me want to do something just as cool and engaging with the community of the Bay Area and San Francisco.”
Looking forward, now back studying at the University of Arizona, Baumgarten was offered to play at Fuku Sushi, a Japanese restaurant located on campus in Tucson, Arizona. He played and won over a large crowd of students and fans once again.
Baumgarten plans to return to the Bay Area in the coming months and has hopes of playing in front of another large crowd once more.
“I can’t wait until I get back,” Baumgarten said. “We’re going to run it back, and do something special.”
