After moving from his New York birthplace, company founder & owner Chris Pangalos experiences living in the Detroit and Los Angeles areas as a child, then travels around the United States, Mexico and Canada before returning back home to New York at the height of the 1970’s dance music explosion and grows up in the musically diverse metro New York area. This exposure to all types of music greatly influences him.
1981 Chris graduates from high school in New York and is immediately drawn into the nightclub scene. Dancing nightly at legendary clubs throughout New York he watches some of the world’s top disc jockeys ply their trade and is immediately hooked.
While attending Keene State College on a soccer scholarship, Chris begins DJ'ing various parties around campus and becomes the public address announcer for varsity athletics at all home games. He plays the National Anthem, introduces the teams, entertains the crowds playing music, makes announcements, etc.
1986 After graduating from college, Chris begins working for a DJ Entertainment Company in the Bronx where he learns valuable lessons from an original Studio 54 DJ. He becomes one of the house DJ’s at a club in downtown Manhattan, near the World Trade Center.
1987 Chris relocates Rolling Thunder Productions down to Charlotte, NC. Bringing his professionalism, high energy, New York style of DJ'ing down South he blazes a trend-setting trail of fun, dancing and partying that never looks back!
1988 Chris becomes one of the house DJ’s at “Beau’s” nightclub in the Park Hotel (the only 5-Star hotel in Charlotte) located in the exclusive South Park area. The club’s popularity and attendance increases. Rolling Thunder becomes much more visible and the workload increases tremendously.
1989 Chris is voted “Best Club DJ” in Charlotte by Creative Loafing magazine for the first time. Business is booming so much for Rolling Thunder that Chris begins hiring and training DJ's in his award-winning style.
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1990 Spinning tunes now six nights a week, Chris helps turn Beau’s from an average hotel lounge into one of the hottest dance clubs in the city. As a member of the nation’s largest and most influential music distribution pool, Chris is nominated for “DJ of the Year” for the state of North Carolina and Beau’s is also nominated for “Club of the Year.” Rolling Thunder is the most popular DJ entertainment company in Charlotte for weddings, corporate events, pool parties and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs.
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1991 Chris enters and is one of the winners in a DJ spin-off competition sponsored by WPEG Power 98 Radio and Reliable Music, the area’s leading music equipment store. He is featured in the premier edition of a brand new DJ magazine out of New York called, Mobile Beat International. Rolling Thunder’s popularity spreads beyond Charlotte. Chris performs at numerous other clubs throughout the Southeast. Rolling Thunder’s exciting new interactive style make them a favorite request as popularity soars at middle schools, high schools and colleges as well.
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1992 Chris is once again voted the “Best Club DJ” in Charlotte by Creative Loafing magazine. Business has blossomed so well for Rolling Thunder that he decides to take a break from the nightclub scene and leaves Beau’s, the club closes within a year after his departure. He devotes his full attention to the running of his company and Rolling Thunder becomes the top DJ Entertainment Company in the Carolinas! Because of his tremendous success with Rolling Thunder, Chris is recruited to start and run a DJ Division for the largest entertainment booking agency in the United States, which he does quite successfully building it to a position of prominence unequalled in the Southeast. Rolling Thunder’s enormous following continues to grow.
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1993 Chris is the featured personality in DJ Times magazine, the world’s top Disc Jockey magazine.
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1994 Chris returns to the nightclub scene once more as the house DJ at the biggest nightclub in the Carolinas. As soon as the hot new Club 2000 opens it’s doors and packed dance floors rock to his beat, Chris is again immediately voted “Best Club DJ” for a third time by Creative Loafing magazine, the only DJ ever to win that prestigious award three times! Rolling Thunder is also voted “Best Mobile DJ Service” by Charlotte’s Best magazine.
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1995 Rolling Thunder Productions is voted “Best Mobile DJ Company” by Creative Loafing magazine in the first year that category is awarded and is also once again voted, “Best Mobile DJ Service” by Charlotte’s Best magazine for the second year in a row.
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1995-1999 After many years of hard work, Rolling Thunder is now at the peak of popularity and enjoying far more success than he could have ever imagined with multiple DJ’s performing hundreds of events year round throughout the United States. It is at this point that Chris makes a decision he’d thought about for a very long time. He puts a highly successful and very lucrative career with Rolling Thunder on hold for a few years to fulfill a lifelong patriotic dream. He joins the United States Marine Corps! Chris serves as a Machine Gunner in the Infantry for four years helping defend America and her interests around the globe.
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Bringing some of his DJ equipment along Chris travels the world from Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Japan, Korea and Okinawa to Greece, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Tunisia and Albania keeping up the troop’s morale while deployed away from home and entertaining people everywhere during his off time. Performing overseas in foreign ports Chris represents the United States so well that he is awarded a Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal! After finishing his tour of duty as the Machine Gun Section Leader of the Battalion’s Helicopter Assault Company as well as a Close Combat Instructor (hand-to-hand/knife/bayonet fighting) Sergeant Pangalos is Honorably Discharged and returns to Charlotte where he picks up right where he left off in 1995.
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1999 Upon his return to civilian life, Chris immediately begins working diligently to reinstate Rolling Thunder back to its role as the Carolina’s trend setting leader in Disc Jockey entertainment and his grateful clients welcome him back with open arms. He returns to Eastcoast Entertainment as the DJ Division Manager once again. For the much anticipated “Y2K” Millennium New Year’s Eve Celebration, four giant stages are set up in the center of Charlotte to entertain the huge crowds in one of the largest New Year’s Eve Celebrations in the Southeast. Three have live bands on them while on the fourth, Chris is selected as the only DJ to perform during the massive “Uptown-Downtown Countdown!” Chris enthusiastically steals the show with over an estimated 35,000 people flocking to his stage dancing the night away and ringing in the new millennium with Rolling Thunder. The next day the front page of the Charlotte Observer newspaper had a full color picture taken from the Rolling Thunder DJ Booth stage showing thousands of revelers enjoying the party of the millennium. It was a great way for Rolling Thunder to return and begin a new era.
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2000 Rolling Thunder is again named, “Best Mobile DJ Service” by Charlotte’s Best magazine.
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2001 Rolling Thunder is once again named the city’s “Best Mobile DJ Service” by Charlotte’s Best magazine. With the public now informed of his return, by renewing old contacts throughout the region and establishing brand new satisfied customers, Chris has come full circle and is back at the forefront of the DJ entertainment industry. The cutting edge, veteran Rolling Thunder Productions DJ Chris Pangalos continues entertaining people week in and week out throughout the Southeast as the most popular, most trusted and most requested DJ in the Carolinas!
2007 Rolling Thunder is selected to perform for MTV’s smash hit show, “My Super Sweet Sixteen” and the party is a huge success. According to the show’s producers, “Of all of the episodes we’ve done around the country Chris played the best music and really kept the dance floor jamming all night long. Definitely one of our top three shows!”
2011 Mobile Beat magazine celebrates its 20 year anniversary with a look back at two decades of DJ education, entertainment and success stories including another interview with Chris, the first DJ ever profiled in their premier edition 20 years earlier.
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Performing for anything from weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvah’s, high school proms, military balls and college events to pool parties, corporate functions, reunions, holiday gatherings and everything in between, there is nothing the creative, talented and personable Rolling Thunder DJ Chris Pangalos can’t do!
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Proudly Owned and Operated by a U.S. Marine Veteran!