Tuesday, April 19
come now my dissector
so, my set saturday was a typically eclectic one, even without any hip-hop or electronica (almost.) a lot of 60s stuff - mod/soul/garage - with some mid-aughts pepper, plus between. also a fair amount of reggae, as per suggestion, which was a fun change. i didn't genreclash much, but it was interesting to see what folks could get into. not the kind of party where people were constantly on the floor, more like spurts here and there. but i don't really think that was my fault - i think people were just more interested in talking. come to think of it, i don't remember seeing mari dancing at all. her mom was going wild though.
it was fairly unpredictable which songs would get people to dance. some of the most successful: "brown sugar" (obviously - this was the no-brainer), cm's "spoon," dj /rupture's "mosquito" (such a hot song), "don't leave me this way" (tara's right, this is absolutely brilliant, plus it sounds just as good at 33 instead of 45. that would be the screwed part, right, not the chopped?) on the other hand, plenty of should-be crowd pleasers failed to draw much response ("love train"?)
maybe my favorite bit conceptually was a bunch of motown stuff > you can make it if you try > you can get it if you really want > reggae version of i second that emotion, but you can't tell from the intro > boogie on reggae woman, which is not reggae. good requests. there was this really drunk guy who might have been obnoxious if he weren't as amusing, who asked me to play the eagles, twice, and then creedence clearwater (no, no, yes) - the latter led into the rock megathon set of rebel rebel > brown sugar > rock the casbah, etc, chelsea, and eventually "government center" which a couple of people got into, that was cute. and i liked going from that into "brick house" (another request.)
after the salsa set, the dancers got sparser, so i tried out everything from of montreal (that had only been repeating endlessly in my head all day, what's it called, wraith pinned to the mast, whatever?) to the four tops, shapeshifters/o'jays, ub40, finally got some of the kids out with "chewing gum," then pulled the "car wash" trick again. drunk guy was weirdly bent about it - "what you have is employees dancing!" he chid me (some swatties working the food tables), well, what do you want to hear? "…elvis presley. …now." okay, suspicious minds was a funny transition but almost made sense. that into "last nite," "1999," "you can call me al" (again, no/few dancers?), and that goes beautifully into "sunshowers." beautiful. people danced to that. then "dip it low," haha, so weird and delightful. then i had to stop as i was about to kick it into gear, because it was time for the party to be over.
that's when i dropped my phone. and i unthinkingly passed up a ride back to philly, which would have been the sensible option because of course herr jonas was busy passing out at the foot of some stairs in willow grove or something. the upshot there is that my djstuff is still out at swat, meaning not just my turntable and, oh, maybe 5% of my music collection, but also my desk chair (which doubles as a vinyl crate), so now i'm using the accordion case instead except that i'm actually just writing from my bed. which doubles as a bed.
hey, isn't this such a smooth line?:
she said "you a playa, ain't you?
you can have what you want, cain't you?"
i replied "i'm also an artist, baby; i could paint you."