Re: [bomp] Re: DJ culture (and all that jazz)

[Dave Monroe <monropolitan@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- hoodoo3005@aol.com wrote:
 
> I said: "Hell, my preferred set is just plain stuff
> that sounds good, hit or miss."
> 
> Then Dave said: "Why go out to hear stuff I already
> know?B  Why spin stuff that everybody's already
> heard?"
> 
> You missed my point by three country miles.

Having long since gone metric, but, at any rate ...
well, I get a LOT of messages, at several addresses,
so I just got to this first response, sorry, I tend to
have conversations the way some play chess games,
several at a time, not a few in their heads, so ...

> Okay - when I select records for my soul night, I
> don't think in terms of whether it was super
> popular or not, I'm more like: will it fill the
> dance floor? Whether it was a hit or an obscurity
> is secondary.

Okay, sorry again, I have variations at least on this
discussion frequenetly, and I'm constantly faced with
teh atitude that the danceable IS the familiar.  And
for many, possibly even most, it is.  Which is
ludcrous, 'cos you have to hear/dance to anything for
the first (i.e., unprecedented) time sometime, but ...

But this is as often as not used as a defense 'round
this part for sheer laziness, on the parts of DJs,
club owners, booking agents AND clubgoers ...

But I don't know that it'd be anything less than
ludicrous to accuse anyone here of such lassitude, so
...

> Now, I'm not too proud to play the hits every now
> and then. When I heard those excited female
> shrieks during the opening bars of "Rescue Me" ...

That's an interesting example, as I recently came
across my copy of that recently, and accordingly
played it out, maybe even for a week or two.  Yeah, I
know people'll know it.  Hell, even an "obscurity"
becomes a known quantity once you play/hear it a
couple/three times.  But "RM" was something that I
hadn't heard much of in, well, decades, so ...

One thing I maybe oughtta mention here as well is that
I'm also on occasion apparently blissfully ignorant of
what might have been a "hit" ... 

> But remember, I said "every now and then."  I ain't
> no fool - I wouldn't play too many common songs
> back-to-back, or else the set would start sounding
> like the playlist of an oldies station. Or your
> cousin Amber's wedding

This is closer to what I'm aiming at here.  Sets that
might as well be someone crossfading betweem two
copies of the Nuggets LP.  Time/Life-ing it.  Though
let me clarify, I can't really blame people for
enjoying what they enjoy, or wanting to please people.
 I'm on the sceond year of an unhealthy Three Dog
Night "Shambala" obsession myself.  I even spun it out
last night (again) ...

I guess, to clarify, my real complaint is about DJs
who simply rest on "their" laurels, said laurels
hardly being theirs as they in turn rest on yeas and
decades of radio et al. play.  And THEN think that E-Z
crowdpleazin' is somehow superior to good ol' fashoned
digging ...

There are those who look at it as a job, those who
look at it as a platform for attention and popularity,
those who look at it as an art form, and those who
look at it as a mission, and any sort of combination
thereof.  Me, I weigh heavily towards the latter. 
There's not enough money involved here to consider it
employment.  And I only spin what I want, so ...

> It doesn't have to be wall-to-wall hits, or an
> all-obscure set. You can rock it both ways.

Indeed, but what I've seen is, you can wieght it well
towrads the latter, even with the unwashed, so ...


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