October 30, 2008
dance m.f.er dance!
When I worked on the radio I would play music for a very specific audience. I played rock music with an alternative slant. I worked at three different stations over the course of about five years and each played basically the same thing. I knew all the music. I knew what the people liked and I didn’t care if I was playing something they didn’t... because they would probably like the next song. I had four to six hour shifts and I would ebb and flow over the time slot from fast to slow and I cared not one damn bit whether anyone was dancing. I rarely (if ever) began a new song in the middle of the one currently playing. If the song sucked I might not play it again, but I wouldn’t just fade it out and start over.
This is why I never was a club dj or a party dj or anything of the sort. But for the past two years I’ve done the Vampire’s Ball Halloween party. I do it as a favor for a really good friend, but it pretty much sucks. Old folks want “rock” music. I play Rob Zombie and they complain. The kids complain I’m playing too many oldies, the oldies complain I’m playing too much rap and the hip-hoppers complain I’m playing the wrong kind of rap. I pretty much don’t give a shit about “their” music and try to play halloween themed music. It’s a halloween party after all. They seem to not give a shit about this and just want to dance. I’m dance music deficient. I can’t hear the so called “dance groove”. People would rather dance to Def Leopard than listen to the Pixies or the Cure be sad... on halloween. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to see the girls dance. I even love to see the guys dance... when the floor is packed and you’re the dj, you feel very powerful. At the same time I can’t relate at all to it, so I find it difficult to fake and that makes it less fun for me. Plus you always have the hecklers. The one’s you can’t please and make you feel like you aren’t pleasing anyone. I’m really not sure about next year. This year was better than last, but I don’t think I’m going to do it next year.
Plus I didn’t get to see any of my friends. I was tied to the stage all night...
posted @ 5:51 PM
October 10, 2008
top ten things i’ll miss
This summer Christina and I went to see as many music shows as we could. By the end of the summer, the last show, we were exhausted and kind of ready for it all to be over. I had in my mind the whole time that this was the curtain call celebration. The final hoorah before necessity items became way too expensive and therefore limiting the amount of expendable income we had for things like concerts.
I knew about Peak Oil and I recently started my own construction business... which, due to the downturn in the housing market, has been struggling since it was created. I felt like the end was getting near and I wanted to have a really good summer to look back on. The final glory days. I had no idea the entire global economic system would come crashing down a few weeks after the final show. But it seems to be.
I’ve been making a list all summer of things (mostly luxury items) that I will really miss when it becomes too expensive to do, import and/or manufacture these things. We spent a year at a retreat center in California and our little house had no water heater for six months, we had an outhouse (but had toilet paper, thank god!), no central heating only a wood stove and our power came solely from solar. It was mostly a nice way to live, but man did I grow to appreciate certain things.
At any rate, whether you “believe”* in peak oil, or global climate change or the possible collapse of financial markets it’s good to think about the “what if’s” every now and then and do a little reflection on them. This is mine.
10. travel (beyond a very limited range)
9. movies
8. cheap clothing
7. central heating
6. toilet paper
5. shoes
4. recorded music
3. chocolate
2. coffee
1. instant hot water
* I use quotes on ‘believe’ because these are scientifically provable things. Oil is a non-renewable resource, to say it will last forever is completely asinine. Global climate change is agreed upon by every independent scientist and not up for debate as if it were a religion or a philosophy. Financial markets rise and fall constantly, failure is only a matter of degree and to say our economy can’t or won’t fail is also not looking at facts. It has before, it will is again.
posted @ 8:13 PM