popped my DJing cherry

Last week.
Me: So at the PMC thing on Tuesday, can I DJ?
Alex: Hahaha.
Me: No, seriously. We can hit Rob and Omri over the head with a frying pan, lock them up in the broom cupboard and bum rush the decks…

Yesterday, 12:00pm
Alex: So you can spin tonight – be there at ten, bring vinyl or CDs
Me: [Gulp] Ummmm all my vinyl is in London-
Alex: Okay, CDs are fine-
Me: You won’t leave me alone will you?!
Alex: Nah – see you at ten.
[hangs up]
Me: [432 words into a 2000 word essay that has to be handed in in 2 hours, and with an exit interview scheduled to last all afternoon] Oh FUCK!

Well if I’m gonna talk the talk, guess I’ve gotta walk the walk, right? This entailed burning home as fast as after the interview [which went swimmingly; my work thinks I’m a star, I’ve got all As and Bs in my classes and the big cheese of the school/program think I’m an outstanding “candidate” and has offered me a very nice reference. I know, I’m so great…] then theoretically should have been burning CDs and playlists [I have very few CDs as I just listen to music off my computer] but I spent it talking to my bro James who sent me a ton of awesome tracks. And of course my computer decided to be a complete joey and stop burning CDs after a while. So off I ran, underprepared being an understatement, to Lolita on Broome and Allen in the LES.

And it was straight in at the deep end. Rob was spinning when I got there. Alex showed me what everything did, told me to choose a track. Rob had just thrown in Paint It Black so I lined up my first tune to lead in from that – Blank Generation – Richard Hell & The Voidoids – and away we went…

Alex stayed with me for the first few songs, then disappeared leaving me flying solo. It was actually a hell of a lot of fun, and I only made one major boo boo [pressing pause on my ipod, forgetting I was currently playing a track on it, oops] and got yelled at once for playing hip hop [felt slightly vindicated when a dude came over to talk to me a few minutes later and asked for some Biggie. Had to tell him I wasn’t allowed to play hip hop – not gentlemanly enough for the PMC, apparently…]

Track listings:
Richard Hell - Blank Generation
Louis XIV - Finding Out True Love Is Blind
[Alex’s choice]
The Cars – My Best Friend’s Girl
[Alex’s choice]
Madonna - Burning Up
Kim Wilde - Kids In America
[Alex]
Jonathan Edwards - Sunshine Go Away
The Beatles – Gotta Get You In My Life
[Alex]

And then I forget the order and exact tracks, but including a Beastie Boys/Beatles mashup [the one I got yelled at for], The Jam/Going UndergroundBlur/There’s No Other Way, Maximo Park/Apply Some Pressure, Doves/Black & White Town, Dandy Warhols/Bohemian Like You, Graham Coxon/Freakin’ Out, and The Futureheads/Stupid & Shallow… Not the most amazing tracks, and there were so many better ones I wanted to play, but like I say, it was my first time, I was kind of scrabbling around figuring out what I was doing. Next time...

It was a Private Men's Club meeting, of course I had to wear a fake mustache
[for the first five minutes, anyway...]







Full set of photos here