Monday October 28, 2002 at 10:29 am
So the weekend has finally come to an end, and thank god for that. I learned a few things this weekend, mainly about the party, but 1st let me say this. The party sucked, and I mean really sucked, possibly not for those who attended and partook in the gathering so to speak, but for Tom and I it sucked, so on with this the lessons
1) Never Dj a block party that has “Bring your Friends and Family” on the flyer
2) You can never have enough music even though you will only play 25% of it.
3) Buy more whacked out compilations that I’d never play in a club, as it will at least subside the Bob Sieger and Poison fans.
4) The following will never be left out of the outlandish bag
a. Elvis
b. The Electric Slide
c. Planet X-Mix New Years Compilation (It has a 15 minute rock melody to tame the wild ones)
d. Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean (I used this for the 1st time ever in an very unappreciated house mix)
e. Billie Idol’s Mony Mony (I used this as well in a 1st ever mix for myself, I need to finds my own copy now)
5) When 12 year old are the only ones dancing, play whatever it is they wanna hear if you have it, there apparently the only ones paying any attention anyway.
6) A can of silly string will be kept at hand at all times for the next person who asks me to play Poison or Ratt.
7) Go through my records 2x’s once to narrow down to good from the bad and then again to add back in the better of the bad, because that is what will most likely be played.
8) Institute a mandatory play list for the clients, before accepting any type of funds. Most people seem to forget that turntable Dj’s are usually found in clubs and real house parties and raves, not the suburbanite family get together.
9) Get business cards printed ASAP
10) Buy a 2nd bag, to hold the hip hop
11) No more bullshit gigs
12) And the most important lesson learned “Mandatory Police Clause”, basically stated that if the cops show up we’re done, because no matter how low you turn down the music it will eventually go back up and then the police will return again.
Oh yeah did I say I’m never doing one of these again, and if I do, it will be straight CD’s and will be at least $200.
Now about the most important lesson learned, there are a few interesting points on this one and why it will be implemented and noted as such in any future contracts. The 1st and most obvious is the fact that if the police show up the 1st person they come to for a noise violation is the Dj, as he is almost directly in control of the cause of the aforementioned violation. The 2nd part is that for the last 3 parties we’ve done the cops have shown up, and every time it has been while I was on the tables. Now maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s what I’m now considering “Murray’s Law”, the long lost 2nd cousin to Murphy, whom I happen to be a direct descendant of. That law states that if anything goes wrong which it is destined that something will, it will go about doing so in the most damaging and non convenient manner. A good example of this is my car; it wasn’t just stolen once, no but twice in one day. So as of last night the police showed up for the 3rd party in a row, in which I was spinning coincidence I don’t think so. The funny part was about 30 min before they came, I suggested that we call the police anyway so that we could break down and go do something actually worthwhile. But alas, once they showed up, that idea was completely forgotten.
All in all it was cold and boring, I might as well just stop bring house/dance with me at all anymore, I never get to play them, unless it’s one of Chung’s parties and then it’s just pointless, because his party attendees are all his friends that just want to hear whatever he plays. The strange thing was I was unable to determine if I’d rather be doing one of his gigs than the block party. Granted musically I’d rather be doing a Chung party, but I got paid at the block party and Chung well, they can barely afford plastic cups so that tells you that much about getting paid at one of there gigs. Nonetheless, I’m in it for the music and the skill so yeah I’d rather have done a Chung gig, but the $$$ did aid in furthering the music selection.
I know Tom took some jacked up pics at the party, and I dread seeing all of them, but I’ll do my journalistic duty and post them once he has them uploaded to a drive or emailed to me.
So that was Saturday, today I slept till 3 even though I crashed at about 4am, I had much sleep to get caught up on, since I only got about 2 ½ Friday night, as I spent most the evening once I got home organizing my records. Not a whole lot happened today, went to Radio Shack with Steve to get a cable and a coupler for my AWE64 Gold soundcard, Steve is using the 450 till he has enough $$$ to have me build him one.
I met up with my Manager and another coworker to go kart racing at Speedway’s Indoor Kart Center, there was supposed to be about 13 of us, but everyone else bailed. It was pretty fun, even though it was a little more expensive than SOLO II racing, but since I don’t have a car to race anymore, it was the next closet thing. I did pretty well, for the size and horsepower of the karts and the fact I was probably the biggest person there, and the Karts are optimized for what appears to be 15 and under or midgets, okay maybe not midgets but definitely for people under 5” 5’.
So now I really don’t anything to look forward to now that the week is over, other than moving to the other side of the building when I get into work tomorrow. The next gig is New Years in which Tom hooked up, unless I get another gig as well, and then we’ll obviously do 1 each. Though Steve did mention wanting to throw a Halloween party on Thursday, after I informed of the Saturday night’s fiasco, but I don’t foresee that happening.
I guess now would be a good time to start practicing more Hip Hop and outlandish mixes in anticipation of not getting any gigs between New Years and now, and being prepared to follow Tom’s sets, which I have to say even after spinning with him for the past 9yrs or so, impresses me with his sets.
Well Xanga is still down now even though, it’s 2:30 am PST and the lil notice on the page says they’ll be up at 2 am EST, So I suppose I’ll just wait till I get to work and post from there.
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