Wednesday January 1, 2003 at 04:22 pm

New day… New Year…come to work…and it’s the same ole shit…nothings works right…and everyone has their thumb up their asses discussing how things should work instead of fixing it so it does work. But hey such is life here, and nothing will ever change about it, so I shall move on.

The party was alright, okay so it sucked that there’ wasn’t more then 25 people in the building at any given time throughout the night, but is that such a bad thing. My best friend Aaron and I discussed this beforehand and agreed that having to stand in line for 20 minutes to get a drink you’ll finish in less than 5 minutes, and paid close to $10 for pretty much sucks.

This of course is in comparison to having a entire club to pretty much you and your friends for the new year and birthday, no lines, cheap strong drinks, TV’s and pool tables, but I guess for some they enjoy the latter. I personally have no qualms about either venue, however to expect the person who for the most part organized, promoted, and dj’ing the party to bail simply because not enough people showed up prior to the evening even really getting under way, is for lack of a better word asinine. That would be like having a club owner spend $1000 advertising and because less than 50 people are in the door by “x” time he’s going to close and go do something else instead. Besides with my luck within 15 minutes after tearing down, the place would fill up, and everyone would leave before I had the chance to re-setup and entertain.

Okay enough of the bantering for now, and on to the review.

I never got around to making the CD’s and I now realize just how important those would have been, if Tom’s gig had not been cancelled and accompanied me to my gig. Tom has totally been enveloped with his new karaoke setup and even made the bold statement of “No more vinyl!” And I can somewhat see why now. For the most part club gigs and weddings are the only areas to make decent $$$ as a DJ, and unless you have the same people you hang out and listen to the same music with pack the club whenever you spin, you’ll never be able to please everyone in the crowd. And unfortunately without the aid of security to block off access, you’re sure to hear about it at some point in the evening.

I got to Landsharks at about 6:30pm, and had everything setup before 7pm, just as Tom arrived for the sound check. Up until this point I simply let the bartender’s ambient neo jazz play. I didn’t want to start playing too early and then burn out, especially if it was to hopefully pick up later in the night. With everything setup and ready to play, Tom seemed to be dying to play some of his newly acquired CD’s, like a kid at Christmas, but I think mainly because the current selection was putting him to sleep.

What followed was a barrage of various mixes, ranging from 18 minutes to 80 minutes, until I finally decided that we had reached peak size for the evening and began spinning at 10:30pm. I’ll regress to note that by this time Mike and his crew for the evening had already come and gone somewhere else, prior to Aaron and his crew showing up, who stayed throughout the evening. Tom ended the warm-up session with an 75 minute Dj Rectangle mix, allowing plenty of time to mingle with the with everyone there, and get a few drinks in.

So thinking I was all set, to through down the set I had so diligently planned out I started out, and just as the 1^st song hit it’s break down, I remembered that Mike never gave me the play list I asked him to bring with him, as I had originally forgotten it at home with a last minute bag change. I remembered the 1^st 2 or 3 songs, but midway through break down of the 3^rd, I looked through the bag and decided to simply wing it, based on the amount of tracks I had already labeled with BPM’s (Beats Per Minute). Ironically this was the same dilemma I was faced with during my 1^st solo gig in Sierra Vista, which happened to be a New Years Eve party as well. After a few tracks the usual nervousness with spinning Hip Hop after so long subsided and I soon found myself hearing the mixes in my head within the 1^st chorus, like I used to do. It felt like I had found a long lost friend, and flowed through the tracks like skiing through fresh powder on a perfect day. Mixing old school tracks like Hip Hop Hooray, Back to The Hotel, It Takes Two, in perfect unison with new tracks like Hot in Here, Family Affair, and Slim Shady.

Amazingly enough the persistent staying power of Hip Hop lost its luster with the crowd just before midnight, leaving them begging for some more up-tempo tracks. Goose bumps ran down my arms, and the trumpets of the Superman slowly began ring throughout the room. Almost every party I’ve been dj’ing at as of late as been exactly the opposite, begging for hip hop and biting their thumbs at the high energy naturally produced with 125 and above BPM’s, and for once, the cops wouldn’t be called. At 11:50pm I played the last Hip Hop track for the evening, initially it wasn’t going to be, but seeing as it was late and the mix in was the 1^st of then evening that was off minutely, I figured I’d call it quits while I was still ahead, rather than trying to push it further and unable to recover.

The bartender Ashley had brought some CD’s of her own in with some new hip Hop tracks, and asked her to run out and grab one while I finished off the set, took a small break and queued up the “Auld Lang Syne” for the final 30 second countdown. Unfortunately the local station covering the countdown in Vegas stopped showing their minute countdown at 45 sec and resumed its visual aid at 22 seconds, but unlike the 1^st time I played this track 9 years earlier, I also knew how many rotations were needed to hit the 10 seconds mark from the 30 seconds cue, without out missing a single beat, fading the song in exactly sync with the 10 second countdown to ring in the new year right on beat.

The celebration was definitely short lived, but then again it could have been the fact that I found myself sitting on the edge of the table back throbbing as if an alien were trying to escape and leg pounding with pain as if I had just broken it again. I though about how the last year and a half has affected me and overall led me to sitting on that pool table edge, and wondered how much of it would be bleeding over into 2003, with quick punch to the arm from Aaron, I realized there was no need to wonder, just have to deal and move on, leaving all the bullshit from the last year behind. It’s a new year, time to start with a new slate.

I told Aaron, I’d play him and Breanna some LL Cool J, so immediately following the housed up version of Auld Lang Syne, I faded over to “Doin it”, it seemed appropriate, nearly everyone was drunk, and couple were still hugging and kissing, So I saw it has an opportunity to possibly get some people on the dance floor for the 1^st time in the entire evening. Aaron and B, both gave props for the song, but the room still wasn’t feeling the need to dance.

Sleep deprivation was soon finding its own 4^th wind and making a last ditch effort to take me out, thankfully for me mixing any high energy, house, progressive, or trance track can easily be done, and doesn’t require that much of my attention. Aaron and B left 1^st and were soon followed by Sean and Fawna. Strange really I started the night alone and ended in the exact same manner. I able to relax a bit more, with some of the more extended mixes eventually ending the night, not with my traditional set closer of 2 Bad Mice’s “Bombscare”, but instead with a Groove Armada’s “Who the Hell Are You”.

I took my time packing up the gear and loading, the pains in my leg were getting worse and I soon found there was no real comfortable position I could stand in that would make it feel comfortable. My back was almost as bad, but years of it acting as such I’ve become accustomed to its unique forms of pain.

So how would I review the evening…

As a bystander – The night sucked, there were no more than 30 people in the bar the entire night, making likely the least attended New Years Eve party advertised in Tempe.

As a Dj – The evening sucked due to low attendance, thus no one was dancing, and the only plus was the on the fly, no pre planned beat mixing and song selection.

As me – The night was the shit, perfect mixing, and perfect crowd, nice atmosphere. If it were my birthday and New Years Eve I would have rather stayed at Landsharks with all my friends, cheap bar and most of all�the entire place to ourselves.

The Aftermath

I waited about 30 min before leaving Landharks and heading home, Mike had already called to say that some people were coming over, to which I really didn’t care, my fight with exhaustion was taking it’s toll, and unless it involved Olga the 7 ft Swedish masseuse snapping every vertebrae in my back, pretty much nothing held any relevance to my existence at that moment. When I got home, no one was there, but almost every light was on, so I quickly unloaded the equipment and walked back out for a bit of air and coolness. At that moment I realized I could breathe, that the bug that had plagued our household had lost its grasp on my respiratory system.

Mike and his guest finally showed up a few minutes later and I sat for a minute or two to mildly entertain them as Mike was in the process of uploading some picture they had taken that evening onto the net. This was soon interrupted with Mike yelling form his bed room for me, as previously stated it didn’t meet the requirements, thus held little to no relevance. However it did turn out to be important and we ended up having to drive across town to pick up his sister, who was having a mild case of drama at her possibly now ex boyfriend’s house. I won’t delve into details, but I’ll say this, one of the put a whole new spin on the aspect of talking about someone’s mama.

Finally reaching mi casa again, at 3 a.m., and all the guest had left, and I finally made my way to bed. I would like to say that I was asleep before I hit the sheets, but it took 2 Vicodin’s and a shot of Rum, to finally get the muscles relaxed enough for me to welcome sleep, to which was a very welcomed relief.