Monday August 19, 2002 at 01:28 am

Ah so the weekend is over, and now I await my fate whether good or bad, I’m obviously hoping it will be good. See I kind of worked really late on Friday, and it kind of wasn’t approved by anyone, but then again there was no one there to not approve it, and I was technically working under a different dept, thus technically my boss as no say on the issues, since there’s 2 different managers.

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Lost yet? Let me fill you in.

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In one dept I generate emails that are sent to students, and then submit request for a 2^nd dept to create the mailboxes on our mails server. If anyone remembers a few months ago I applied for both depts., will I got accepted in both. So on Friday 2 people from the 2^nd dept called in and for the most part nothing was done due to all the calls that they were getting, and since I’m in both depts. I get both queues. Needless to say we sent out over 800 emails and generated the same amount of mailboxes. Normally these would be done by oh 9 ish. Unfortunately since 2 people didn’t show up, on top of the fact there were still 300 from the day before, at the end of the night there’s were close to 100 mailboxes to be created.

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Here’s where it gets sticky, the Manager for the 1^st dept doesn’t want us staying past oh 12:30, for whatever reason, whereas the 2^nd manager doesn’t really care as long as the work gets done. So Friday night 11pm rolls around and still nothings been done, so a few of us decided to stay late, I happened to jokingly mentioned ordering pizza and staying till 4 am, the other took it serious, even though I knew one of them for sure wouldn’t be able to hang, and the other would possibly stick till 3am but probably no later than that. We order pizza and got to loading down the exchange server.

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At 12:45, the 2^nd manager comes strolling in, and just laughs, some one of the other guys would already been at work since 10 am was a little delirious and started trying to crack on his name, which is odd since his name is Dan. Nonetheless he came up with a few used phases, like “it’s Dan the man”, to which Dan’s response in a somewhat I’m tired now tone was “What are you guys doing here so late, I know it’s late because last call was 10 minutes ago?” We explained how nothing got done and we were going to stay late and try and knock out the rest of the boxes.� Shortly after One o the guys said he was leaving because he didn’t want to get in trouble for staying so late, we bid him farewell by telling him how much a punk he was for flaking out. Then an hr later the 2^nd one bailed and as he left he explained that he actually didn’t get a chance to do any of the mailboxes because he was still creating classes, and that the 1^st guy had only made about 40.

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Oddly enough the 1 person to stay till 4 am was the only person who joking about it to begin with. As the early morning rays of light struggled to make it over the mountains to the east, there were still 525 mailboxes to be made.

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I had planned to go to work Sat but was too tired and figured 13 hrs in a day was good enough, besides it’s not like I’m 22 and can work 15 16 hr days back to back like I used to.

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Sat was a day of tragedy. It started out fine, went to the new Chandler mall with Mike for some odd reason, which I can’t remember why, and then headed back to the crib. On the way however Tom, called and told me the pool party he was Dj’ing at was off the hook and that we should roll by. I told him I was down for it, and then tossed the phone to Mike, as I was not about the try and relay info to him. After a minute or 2 Mike tossed the cell back and said he was down to roll. A few minutes later I called tom and asked if he had his digital camera with him, of course he didn’t so I told him we’d swing by the pad, grab it and the roll out, as well as grab a few choice picks of wax to throw down with. Well sometime, between the 1^st call, us getting to the crib and grabbing to bags of wax, Mike decided he wasn’t going to roll after all, which was kewl, but at the cost of ridicule from Crackhead and Tom, not like that’s a big thing.

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Anyway when I got there it was a fairly large gathering at a apartment complex pool jus inside the edge of “Snotsdale”, oops I meant Scottsdale for all those who aren’t from the Phoenix area. The mood was some what like that of a high school party almost, people were just kicking it enjoying themselves in the pool, apparently they had been worn out by Tom’s friends trance sets, and were dying for some hip hop flava.

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Right off the bat I had made a decision not to throw down, for a few reasons really. Okay 2 reasons, but each with sub context involved so to speak.

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1)���� I was no where near prepared

a.����� I had no time to get a bag and a set prepared, this was totally spur of the moment for me

b.����� I have not spun a Live Hip Hop set in well over 4 yrs, so I’m somewhat out of touch with the technical ins and outs of today’s hip hop music. And yes there is a technical end to dj’ing if you wanna be good.

c.����� I was not mentally prepped for a live performance

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2)���� I didn’t like the setup being used

a.����� The decks were too far apart, forcing you to reach much further than our normal setup would require.

b.����� The mixer being used is a great studio mixer with lots of kewl built in effects and tweaks, but is useless as a live Club/Party scene Dj setup, which I why they invited Tom, and in turn Tom invited me. They wanted to see hear Hip Hop Dj’s and the flare they provided to music, of which the mixer being used was not sufficient to be used.

������������������������������������������������������������� i.����� The decks were not setup correctly for a Hip Hop set

1.����� In a standard setup as seen in the picture the tables are turned to allow full access to the platter, thus providing much needed room for fast paced cuts, and large scale tricks i.e. flashing.

2.����� The weighting of the tone arm and the anti-skating were way off, thus any intense cuts were completely out of the question as the needle would fly out of the groove on the 1^st pull back.

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Obviously none of this sank in, or peer pressure got the better of me, as I ended up going on after Tom’s 30 minute set with no game plan at all. Tom had left me with a pretty good amount of instrumental beats from his last mix, yet I found myself self lost like a child in the woods. Finally I snapped out of it and began to “step up”, and found the next song to mix in. As quickly as the wave of nervousness hit me the 1^st time, it came back again 3x’s fold. My hands were shaking uncontrollably, and I found myself not being able to “drop in”. It was like it was the 1^st time I ever Dj’d before, actually I take that back it was probably worse. The 1^st time I Dj’d my hands weren’t shaking, mainly because I didn’t really have to do the mix in, Robbie had left Sugar Hill Gang’s instrumental playing and Tom mixed in the 1^st record for “boot the Booty”. All I was doing was a short flash set followed by some flares, going back to an even shorter flash set. Tom then Mixed in Lisa Lisa’s “Skip to My Lou” Instrumental, so I could mix in the accapella with some transforms followed by 1^st official mix, by mixing in Onyx’s “Slam”, as they used the exact slam beats.

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Normally before I go on I get in a few scratches to loosen up, within the headphones so no one else can hear them, It kind of shakes of the jitters, but this time I couldn’t as I stated above the mixer was not meant for it, not mine at least, as I have long since moved from dominating the left turntable as the primary scratch table, and have since evolved to the left side for quicker sharper cuts, and patterns.

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I glanced over and could see by the grooves I only had about 2 more sets of beats before the song ended. I was stuck, no matter how much I tried to stop my hand from jumping I couldn’t and every attempt to drop in was way to far off and I’d never be able to back spin it enough, and match the beats before the instrumental faded out. I was about to grab tom and have him do a few fader less cuts on the 2 table to extend the beat out, when I saw a girl light up. I had left my pack of smokes in the car and definitely needed one, I called out to her and asked her for a drag, which she interrupted at 1^st if I could have a whole one, I then quickly explained I simply needed a drag. Whoever she was, she was a life saver, and within the 30 seconds of exhaling I was clamed enough to drop in right on cue.

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Stab…

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Stab…

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Stagger…

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Stab…

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Stagger…

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Stab…

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Stagger…

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Stab…

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Stab…

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Slam!

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It was over, the 1^st Live Hip Hop mix, in over 4 yrs was over, and all would be well again. I went through few brief trips as I had no clue where what wax was, other than what I had brought, and the wax I brought I hadn’t looked at in over months. Overall, I did well, and received some props from the surrounding patrons. 6 songs later I was ready to call it quits, as the crowd was beginning to regain there vibe for non vocalized trance. Which would have normally been the time when I’d be called up but alas I started the day with no intentions on spinning thus, all my house wax was left at the crib. We have a few pics from the day which I’ll have to get form Tom’s camera, and I’ll post them later in the week

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Tom’s friend Chong, was next up, and simply let my record fade away, as he used the built in special effects on his mixer to bring in house groove. Tom and I packed up our bags and made our way out. I mentioned to one of the organizers of the party who had kept asking if I was going to play to let us know when his next party was so we could bring our decks and truly represent. He said he was down for it, and had no problem sponsoring local underground Dj’s for gigs like these. On the way out I told Chong next time, we’d have 6 decks, and it would be on.

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I’ve always used Tom as my reference on my performance, which is kind o the standard as he and Robbie both taught me how to mix and scratch many moons ago. On my own scale of 1-10 on my ability to mix hip hop at all, with no practice in over 3-4 yrs other than scratching, I gave myself an 6, as there was one mix in which I miss timed the break and ended up slamming vocals even though the beats were on. As for the overall performance I gave myself a 3 as Tom, did as well, along with himself.

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Thus that day plans were made, motivation was returned, the protocol son, is returning to his roots, of being a hip hop Dj. Granted Saturday was the catalyst of this decision, it was not the sole reason. Ever since my last party, I’ve noticed that most of Phoenix has only felt the vibe of trance and has shunned progressive house into a category of shame, which from a Dj perspective if absolute crap. I like both, I like all forms of house music, I even like trance and often times teeter upon the edge of it when I do my house sets. But I have never and will never strictly play trance house, its appeal is its speed and its energy, which at the same time is its downfall, as well as the lack of vocals, to accompany it. Because of this lack of vocal or sparse amount of it, mixing trance is the easiest form of Dj’ing with turntables.

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I now realize why Tom and Robbie didn’t want to me to learn house music before I learned Hip Hop. With Hip Hop, you are forced to learn the music as well as develop the skills to utilize the knowledge one has gained from learning the music. With Trance there are no words to contend to, there is no real need for a break down as ever 4^th measure is just as good as the breakdown to mix in or out of. In hip Hop you must contend with versus and choruses. I had learned house music early and excelled in it, thus placing my true skill of Dj’ing on the back burner to revel in the small success I had with house music. It was at one of my 1^st paid gigs when I realized I had lost touch with my hip Hop side and vowed I wouldn’t let it happened again, when mix went terribly wrong, leaving the dance floor jumbled, I had experienced my 1^st public train wreck. A train wreck is when to songs are beat synched and playing through the speakers at the same time, and fall off beat, thus leaving 2 completely different sets of beats being played at the same time, clashing against one another, thus refereed to as a train wreck. These wrecks are common when learning how to Dj, but should be avoided at all cost when playing live for an audience.

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After Saturday’s mid derailment I have vowed to myself to if not surpass, but to at least achieve the same level of Hip Hop Skill that I once had before, thus leading to Sunday’s event.

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Technically it’s Monday now, but since I haven’t gone to bed, it’s still Sunday for me, which was chill day. Tom and I rolled down to Circles on central, to get caught up on new wax, as well as stopped by a new shop that just opened recently Called London Records. I’m not sure about Tom but I doubt I shall be retuning to London Records anytime soon, as their shop is configured like Swell’s, thus one must have at least 4 hrs to burn, in order to meander about and search out, listen, and then determine if the music is up to par. This is a trend for Import shops, and it pisses me off, unless you have absolutely nothing better to do that stay on top of the gazillion singles put out overseas and in the US, then there’s no way top know what is what, or where anything is. No I believe I shall stick to Circles, and Just Dance Records, even though there selection is smaller, I’m am not forced to meander through countless racks of junk before finding a prized record. Besides if they don’t have it we can simply order off the net or through Remix Warehouse like we used to do back before there were no records shops available.

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Ironically this week has been filled with Dj’s references leading up to Sat. A guy at work wants to buy my 2 CD mix set, and then earlier in the week 2 people called and asked if I wanted to collaborate with them on some Hip Hop projects they were working on in their home studios. So it’s kind of no surprise that I did spin this weekend, funny how things like that happen.