Amateur Hour
Tonight, I went to a DJ night that claimed to be “50s punk precedents, 60s surf psychedelics, and French ye ye.” Sounds pretty awesome, eh? Of course, wouldn’t you know, the mastermind behind the night was out of town, and asked a friend to fill in. Instead, we wound up with a WOGL playlist, plus totally horrific Beatles mashups. (Look, if it ain’t the Cristina/Beatles “Drive My Car” remix, it ain’t worth it. Not hatin’ on mashups, they can be fun. But you know, three lackluster Beatles mashups is a bit too much.)
So what if the kids are young, this night sucked. DJ nights can be very fun, and yes, it’s all about the dancing. But I am deeply fascinated by the way we use music — whether that’s on a mixtape, the songs we sing to ourselves in the showever, or what we play out in the club. Pardon me for getting all James Carey on you, but these rituals are communicative and they create cultural resonance. As such, DJ setlist is very telling about the person’s discovery process. With this DJ, I sensed none of that. I didn’t even get the sense that they actually liked music.
When I started out, I would totally stress over these things. “Am I not playing enough obscure stuff?” “Is this too out there?” and so on. I would think about my DJ night weeks before it happened. Maybe I’m not great, but I care about what I play — and I hope the audiences can tell.
At the very least, the DJ could have stuck to the theme of the night. That could have helped cut down on the total feeling of disappointment.
