Thoughts on playing popular music

I'm a DJ. Now to some, that really means something. It promises untold cool. People look at DJs and imagine a glamorous world filled with hip-cats, all discussing cool, obscure records. They hang in hip bars that no-one else knows about and get free coke in the back room. Mostly, that isn't the case at all. Far from it.

Fact is, DJing puts you one rung below the bar staff in a venue, but with far more agonies. Bar staff, ever popular because they can give you exactly what you want... namely 'a drink'... turn up at work without much thought beyond 'I can't be bothered with working tonight' or 'payday!' DJs, not so.

You prepare your records mentally for months in advance, hunt out new tunes that'll dazzle in your set. You sit amongst piles of 45s, flicking through each one, making mental notes of what tracks goes with what. You pull out the slow-burning psych funk thing that you've never been able to categorise and know damn well that it'll go down a treat kinda early on.

You haul your arse, along with a heavy bag or two to your chosen venue, getting slight shoulder ache and wondering if anyone will notice that you've got sweaty pits from your brief manual labour. And then what happens?

You get let down.

Most people who read this site are invariably bonded by a love of obscure records. Garage punk, raw soul cuts, prog hammond breakbeat monster jams... whatever. If you got every one of us together, and mates... like minded people... you probably wouldn't fill an average sized football stadium. As such, the chances of us starting a super successful night full of people who totally Get What You're Trying To Do are slim to shit.

The best you can hope for is a handful of people you don't know who are willing to take a chance on your tunes. Your friends - if they turn up at all - are great to see when they're having fun... but it's a bit of an empty victory. You like the same records as them pretty much. That's why you're mates. You aren't switching them on to anything new. And on you plug with a notion that some day, you might end up with a floor with a thousand people getting their mind's blown by this amazing music.

Of course, there are successes. I've had full floors with people demanding to know what that record was, or what do you call this kinda music. It's great. However, far more frequent is the inappropriate request. In a garage punk/psych set, I got asked for 'Toxic' by Britney Spears. Not a bad track... but the chances of me having it were nil. I've been asked for 'Last Christmas' in August at a psychedelic night. I've been asked for Jason Mraz when I was playing predominantly '60s music. During a set which saw me playing mostly funk and soul, a man came along and said:

"Got any Whitesnake?"

When I said no, he made an assumption.

"Oh well, it'll have to be The Proclaimers then." And off he walked. I shouted him back to tell him I didn't have any of their stuff either, and he looked at me eyes that said: "Are you sure you're a DJ?" As a peacemaker, I played an instro and told him to sing what he liked over it. And he did. Very loudly.

Yet, at no point did I question myself. I had this nonsense courage of my convictions that I was somehow right and that he was somehow wrong. I don't need to play popular music because I'm more than just a tune jock. I'm here to educate as well... or some other claptrap you convince yourself with when faced with a largely empty dancefloor.

It's pretty much given that all the DJs I know care far more about the tunes being played in a public space than any other human on the face of the earth.

And so, the day after Michael Jackson died, I was asked to fill in at this bar. I duly took it up and planned a night of cool music and shit. Thanks to MJ's untimely death, I figured it would be pretty churlish to not make the night an ad-hoc tribute. Records by Michael Jackson, The Jacksons and The Jackson 5, alongside those that inspired him and artists that were big when he was in his full '80s pomp.

This meant, playing popular music.

And you'll never guess what happened. People went nuts. I've never had a crowd like it. I threw on 'Get Into The Groove' by Madonna and people were dancing on tables. People bought me drinks when I played 'Fascination' by Human League. People punched the air and copped off with each other during 'Do You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'? Diana Ross' 'Upside Down' had people hugging, pie-eyed and loving the moment. They were young, fashionable, pretty and impossibly thin, throwing money at the bar staff to get more drunk... to loosen them up for more fun and fumbles in the taxi ride home with a stranger.

Miles better than playing 'Psychotic Reaction' to two dozen blokes in Cramps t-shirts and their long-suffering girlfriends.

Of course, this won't stop me playing my niche records. I'm too far gone. I'm hooked on playing records that say This Should Have Been Famous Way Back When And Now I'm Giving It The Air It Has Been Deprived. I can't help it. It's programmed into my DNA now. However, thanks to a rollicking night of classic pop (which, of course, didn't include anything remotely new and was justified in my head with some record collector guff) I've been offered a second monthly night, away from my Chin Stroking. They want me to play pop music. I've said yes.

So now, into the unknown. The populated dancefloors of popular music I go... [Mof Gimmers]

Comments

[nialldoc]

congratulations (!?)
i reckon it was all down to myself and dianaimh being there!
although with our impending arrival upon your town we can look forward to enjoying the aforementioned evenings of obscure niche music you will be playing!
i'll do m,y best to get just as drunk and boogie as much as possible - as long as you play wonderwall of course! oh and 2 pints of San Miguel when you get a chance, where are your toilets in here?

[Murray]

I was once asked to play "something from the '80s"... So I put on "Goo Goo Muck" by The Cramps. It didn't make him any happier...

[eskamiya]

Great read.

stay strong my friend!!

[Matt]

Hey - nice read man. I think a lot of djs have to do pop sets or commercial sets every so often either tom pay the bills or make connectionsd so they have the power and pace to do their own things.... guess it just depends what you're into