Edmonton DJ’s with girl power on the decks

By Declan Riley

Local Edmonton femme DJ duo Jaclyn Panylyk and Suzy Kenny have been a staple in the Edmonton party scene for the last 10 years. Kenny and Panylyk’s stage name is Girls Club DJs and they have worked with popular brands like Red Bull and Lululemon. But it isn’t just their music that has led to their success in the newest saturated market of the party DJ scene.

Kenny is an experienced communications and design professional, and Panylyk is a human resources guru—both possess the skill sets to succeed and understand what it takes to be the top brand in entertainment in Alberta. I sat down with Girls Club DJs to hear about spinning the ones and twos, and the business of everything and life in between.

“Girls Club is the answer and solution to always being stuck listening to the music we didn’t like,” says Girls Club co-founder, Suzy Kenny.

Like almost all university students, Jac and Suzy were friends with a group of guys who had an old crappy house that they were always throwing parties in. Though the parties were fun, the music was never quite what the ladies wanted. So Suzy and Jac both started learning how to spin the ones and twos. A hobby grew to a passion and the passion lead to performances. Suzy and Jac, along with two other former founders of Girls Club, started a residency at Halo—a legendary club on Jasper Avenue (now the Bower).

Fast forward 10 years, hundreds of gigs, tears and tabs, and now Suzy and Jac are pursuing their passion of spreading the Good Vibes, full time, with no white collar, nine to five job to hold them back.

In the last 10 years, Girls Club has transitioned from hosting some of the wildest parties in Edmonton and crushing out beats at Edmonton’s busiest happy hours, to being the go to name for some of the most elite and premium events in Edmonton. Because of the connections and the relationships that they built in the early days of their DJ careers, along with the reach and network that they both have from their prior careers, the women of Girls Club have unparalleled reach when it comes to throwing, planning and sourcing out the biggest corporate events in Edmonton.

Though both Jac and Suzy are thrilled to see how far their DJ careers have come, the road ahead is equally as promising.

“We want to create a space that has the facilities for all of our passions,” Jac says.

With big dreams, Girls Club hopes to open a space that includes a fitness studio, retail space, a coffee bar and a kitchen, and some studio space. A space like this would allow people similar to Jac and Suzy to follow in the footsteps of the Girls Club.

“We want to bring people together, aligning with cool brands to create unforgettable experiences,” says Suzy. “Watching people’s moods change when a specific song comes on or seeing the vibe in a room change because of the music—there’s nothing else that makes my heart feel so full.”

With Edmonton’s summers slammed with festivals, Girls Club will be hard to miss, but in case you want to change a vibe with the ladies, check them out each week at Central Social Hall, spinning all genres every Thursday.