January 9, 2005
Bluestatastic!
So now I've DJed at a club, I can check off another goal on the list and get started on that novel for real this time.
But seriously, bluestate was a huge success and I'd like to thank everyone who showed up to get down. It was my first experience playing music for people since the sixth grade orchestra concert. I was perhaps more nervous this time, which was silly because I didn't have to actually play an instrument, just cue up some CDs and records.
I quickly relaxed when my turn came up and soon started chatting with party-goers, waving to people in the crowd and generally enjoying myself. I had no problem with the equipment and had some surprisingly clean transitions in the early stages.
Then things got interesting.
Hoping for a clean switch into Talking Heads' "Crosseyed and Painless," I instead heard the overwhelming loud fuzzed-out guitars of The Hong Kong. I immidiately freaked out and started queuing up "Crosseyed" on the other player. But I hit stop instead of pause and lost my place on the track. Then The Hong Kong started skipping, a problem we had all night. In the middle of this mess, I remembered that I had an English Beat record on the turntable that I wasn't planning to play but had spinning in case of emergencies.
It couldn't have been more than three seconds of technical problems to the crowd, but the gap between when everything went wrong and "Mirror in the Bathroom" saved my first-timer butt seemed to last for an hour. Everybody told me it was "barely noticable," which either means that they were either very drunk or very good friends.
Speaking of stretching time, I realized about 40 minutes into my set that I had been cutting songs off too early and that my setlist would have to be expanded. Luckilly, I had a CD-R clearly labeled "Emergency Rawk" ready for just such an occasion. That second Futureheads song and "Don't Mug Yourself" were not planned, although I'm glad I played them, given the personal thanks I recieved from random strangers who came up to the DJ booth.
So if it looked easy, it wasn't. My original set list went out the window fairly early on and I spent most of my hour flying by the seat of my pants. In the end, I learned to program for a quarter more time than you expect to actually spin, know your equipment and always keep a track ready to go on a third piece of equipment. All screw-ups and wierd transitions aside, it was a blast and I'd love to do it again.
P.S.: All of the setlists will be online later.
UPDATE Setlists are up, as are lots and lots of pictures.
Posted by rj3 at January 9, 2005 2:29 PM
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Comments
Nice job - it was fun.
Posted by: Wendy at January 9, 2005 9:45 PM
Indeed, a good time.
Posted by: mgrass at January 10, 2005 8:41 AM
Seriously, you deserve props for a great set. Everybody had a blast, and the disruption you describe was barely noticeable (and for what it's worth, I was not drunk). When can we expect Bluestate II?
Posted by: snh at January 10, 2005 11:30 AM
Nice job; looking forward to the next one. And for what it's worth, I *was* drunk.
Posted by: tom at January 10, 2005 3:58 PM