DJs: piano-dropping moments

(after playing The Clash's first record, B-52s first record, T-Rex, Black Sabbath)
"Keep the 80s stuff coming!"

and in the sheer idiocy category...
"can you play something good to dance to?" (song playing - "Cold Sweat" - James Brown)

It's really good!: It'll clear the club

Loads of people will dance!: Me and my mate Kev, if you're lucky.

There's a whole crowd of us!: I brought my dog.

It's only one song!: That the other 399 people will really hate.

Play some [insert obscure band]: Play an 11-minute undanceable soundscape with no lyrics that no-one else has ever heard of so I can show how cool my music taste is.

They're drunk enough to dance to anything!: Except what I'm about to request.

Great night!: You'll never see me again.

That was crap!: So I'll be back every week to moan about it.

Stop playing this [insert wrong genre] crap: I don't know what you're playing but it's not any of the three songs I actually like.

Play some indie!: Play some corporate sixties retro

Play some Charlatans!: Play some corporate sixties retro I've heard of.

Play "The Only One I Know"!: Play a Charlatans track I've heard of.

Play something decent!: I've no idea what I actually want to hear but I thought I'd come up and irritate you anyway.

Play something heavy!: I want to batter some people senseless on the dancefloor. It'll make me feel better.

Play some baggy!: Play the Stone Roses

Play some Stone Roses!: I only like one band.

Play "I Am The Resurrection"!: I only like one song.

Why won't you play it then?: Go on, explain it to me for the third time, but this time in monosyllables.

Have you got [really obscure band]: Bet you haven't got it!

Will you play [really obscure band]: Bet you won't play it!

I'll dance to it!: I'll wander sheepishly round the edge of the dancefloor for a while, realise no-one else is dancing then bugger off. But I'll be back later on to request something else woefully obscure...

You always play the same stuff! Why don't you play what you used to play?: Nurse! The logic circuits!

I have a feeling that message just sent. Anyway, maybe they wanted to hear something really Latin, as in, rhythms distinctive to Latin culture (salsa, merengue, bachata, cumbia, etc.). But I don't know whether this would even have been appropriate at this particular party, since most people most places don't know how to dance to it.

Most house is very annoying to me, including Latin house, so it's not something I consider good to dance to, though obviously lots of other people do. (Why? why? why?)

Boa around the neck=dud.

See, this wouldn't work with me, since not only did I like them in high school but I still have a few albums around here somewhere -- and not just the Syd Barrett years or anything. ;-)

Viz: the canon -- a fair of amount of blood, sweat and bytes have been spilled over on the Hendrix thread just now. I have no problem per se with liking stuff in whatever the hell it's considered to be, I just hate absolutism and automatic prioritizing without possibility of change -- which, to echo M Matos, I'm not accusing anyone else here of doing. ;-)

Now, let us think about how to get Tom over to NYC for a visit, and whether we can declare it "Official Tom Ewing Day" throughout the city when he does so.

ok: tracer is noting that his OWN attitude towards his customers is (potentially) condescending insofaras they require of music NOT that it conform to established and bedded-down critical categories BUT that they can dance to it, which they call "latin" when the cognoscenti (= tracer and, for extra rockist bonus point, all of us assumed-included) know that latin is [etc etc]. It's about assumed hierarchies of knowledge and understanding, trusting in an achieved and good- by-its-nature inflexible corpus of grasp. Rockism. (On the whole ILM's *hostility* to Pink Floyd, and to prog in general, takes rockist form.) (Phil MassTransfer's use of — and approval of — the Canon as idea and as artefact is superbly anti-rockist, though I doubt he'll thank me for saying so... )

I think it's a stupid term the meaning of which has been stretched excessively. If Tracer Hand's thinking that Latin House is better for his customers than whatever they wanted to hear is "rockist" then maybe the term has outlive its usefulness. (To far removed from it root, "rock.")

i'm treating (noun-adj) "genre" as a synonym for (adj) "critical" in case anyone acts up, because (i) it is anyway, and (ii) tracer's point wouldn't cohere if you didn't

so rockism stays (anyway, rock <=> rockism :::::: sex <=> sexism)

i explained what tracer meant by it (ie why he used it) (and how *i* use it, which relates pretty immediately to its original use when coined by pete wylie in 1980-81, to describe exactly this kind of thing) => funnily enough, i think deraymi has located why *i* think it's a good word, which is that it aims (or claims) to locate pockets of petrified or energy-draining thinking in discussion of music which is defined by its relationship to motion and/or energising

No, actually I was getting the idea from ILM that it described someone who probably exhibited a number of these attitudes/beliefs:
Importance of craftsmanship/skill - usually in terms of 'actually playing' a semi- mechanical instrument instead of 'just pressing buttons' to control semiconductors
Notions of 'integrity' vs 'selling out'- purity of vision and starving artist in a garret vs becoming more populist in order to gain commercial success
Importance of artist/creator over performer - serious auteur ('Dylan') vs vaudeville clown ('Robbie Williams') - though attitudes to session musicians can be +ve due to behind the scenes work ethic craftiness
Dignity of Precedence - they did it/heard it FIRST
Dignity of Difference - they did it/heard it ALONE
Dignity of Difficulty - They did it IN SPITE of poor facilities/huge amount of effort/hard times, or listened to it IN SPITE of peer group derision/isolation/sonic harshness/musical complexity
Misapplication of Concepts - eg obviously the cleverer you are the more you like Beethoven/Jazz/Avant-Garde

Others are around, but I think they are variations on these themes. There are also some that seem to be yes/buts - eg 'The Music's All That Matters': Yes because we're not interested in all that plastic pop celebrity pish, but No because we do think that criteria based on things other than just what it sounds like are important.
So, am I correct in thinking that 'rockist' attitudes are really not limited to 'rock' fans - or are there different criteria for jazz/classical/dance fans too?
Trouble is, I think some of these criteria are perfectly viable ones to use in discussions - at its worst maybe this 'rockist' insult is really tending towards a kind of inverted snobbery, causing a fear of seeming po-faced, recidivist and leaden instead of being gloriously eclectic, relativist and, er, ironic.

mark s - can you explain the 'pop aesthetic' to me ? (And note previous disaster-free use of italics thanks to your html tutelage...er, tutorage....er....)

No no no no. Different incident. That was the stoned guy who I had a crush on all junior year. I'm thinking of when this guy (amongst others) bumrushed our DJ set. Remember?

Besides all the obnoxious requests (ie "play something we can dance to") that I have endured along with every other dj on the planet, there are two times I have wished for the cartoon piano. 1) a bunch of punk kids I know always request Vengaboys records about once every minute whenever they are around. I usually play New Order and that shuts them up 2) during a break in a party when we had to turn off the music to avoid the cops (aaah college life), I put on my headphones and "Songs in the Key of Life." Somebody came over to talk to me and his jacket hit the weight on the end of the tonearm, scratching half of side one (including the first track which is my favorite). This person was very drunk, and did not respond to my yelling at him to move at the moment, and he did not remember it the next day, making him wary of paying me for the damages or even apologizing. The fact that I had only recently found disc one of the album tucked into another record sleeve after MONTHS of searching made everything much more painful...

He said: if you've been called upon to play music for people at a party what moments did your satisfaction demand a cartoon piano to fall on someone's head and end your misery (and theirs)? last night i played "El Rey" a smoothed-out latin house track with a spanish talking-rap over the top and the co-promoter of the party comes over with big boa round her neck and goes "we want to dance!" (piano begins to be hoisted) "can you play something good to dance to?" like what? "something latin!"

to which I replied (in part): Anyway, maybe they wanted to hear something really Latin, as in, rhythms distinctive to Latin culture (salsa, merengue, bachata, cumbia, etc.).

Tracer Hand agreed (assuming he was not being sarcastic), saying: you're absolutely right, I'm sure that's what she meant.

mark, you commented, when responding to the questioning of Tracer Hand's use of "rockist" in this context: ok: tracer is noting that his OWN attitude towards his customers is (potentially) condescending insofaras they require of music NOT that it conform to established and bedded-down critical categories BUT that they can dance to it, which they call "latin" when the cognoscenti (= tracer and, for extra rockist bonus point, all of us assumed-included) know that latin is [etc etc].

Is that what's going on here? It seems to be one bedded-down critical category vs. another. You are portraying the request-maker as using some sort of untutored, folk classification (as in "folk psychology). It even looks like you might mean that you think the request-maker is using "Latin" to mean "good to dance to." But if she was using it in the sense I suggested, then she too was using it according to established critical practice.

Anyway, Trace Hand has agreed that the request-maker wanted one of the more distinctively Latin genres, but that he was unable to supply that.

(Or could you say they were both being rockist in failing to recognize that "Latin" is used several different ways?)

ie even if by latin she actually meant Satie's Vexations, this is sorta what he should have been attending to, PROVIDED SHE ENJOYED DANCING TO IT (he cd then enjoy thinking "blimey why are my punters such mentalists?' and afterwards enjopy asking her out to explain to her all the difft things latin is usually used to mean...)

also to the point: this was a joke, and jokes get very big and weird and complicated when you try and explain them, which is what (for some insane reason) i was trying to do

Possible turning point in my learning how to use the word "rockist" in mark s's sense. (I can't promise I won't forget it though.)

*

This rockism definition discussion reminds me of a question I have been asked more than once when I was working in the Literature Dept. of a library. Caller: I'd like to know the definition of "anti- Semitic." [I give definition.] Caller: Okay, what's the definition of "Semitic." [I give the definition.] Caller: So "anti-Semitic" should really include hatred of Arabs and other Semitic people. [I say something like: yes, logically, but that's not the definition, that's not how it's used. If I am feel helpful--or condescending?--I say something about how language doesn't necessarily follow logic and how meanings develop historically. Caller Generally goes away dissatisfied. I suspect that they consider this narrow definition of "anti-Semitic" to be some sort of wiley Jewish conspiracy.]

One difference though is that "rockist" has much less of an agreed upon definition than "anti-Semitic." But I guess I should drop it while we're both being conciliatory.

Him: Hey Charlie
Me: Hi
Him: Can you play some Hip-Hop?
Me: Uh... well I think I'm rather enjoying playing this stuff, it wouldn't go down so well with the tempo being the way it is and stuff - sorry man.
Him: Please! Please! Just for me? Please! I've gotta hear some HipHop
Me: Well to be honest I don't have any as it's all off the computer and I ain't got many HipHop MP3s.
Him: Oh man! I just HAVE to hear some HipHop (starts getting a bit pushy) GO ON YOU'VE GOT TO PLAY SOME HIPHOP! I'VE GOT TO HEAR SOME HIPHOP
Me: FUCK OFF OUTSIDE AND LISTEN TO YOUR WALKMAN THEN!

smashed guy ten minutes later: "man... my girl had to take off early, could you play some downtempo shit?"

me: "i think wednesdays are open here if you feel like this is something you'd want to do."

----

girl: do you have the faint?
me: nope
girl: do you have bright eyes?
me: nope
girl: do you have anyone from nebraska?
me: i don't know... but i don't have anything on saddle creek.
girl: what's that?
me: the bright eyes label.
girl: do you have any gwen stefani?
me: nope.
girl: do you have any no doubt?
me: nope.
girl: what do you have?
me: a lot of techno stuff and some weird disco and some hip hop and some funny stuff from baltimore.
girl: do you have any bloc party?
me: actually, i do.

then i played what was a 33 rpm record at 45... and she didn't notice and gave me a hug afterward.

----------
girl: why are you playing hip hop on a tuesday?
me: because i like to play hip hop.
girl: they never play hip hop on tuesdays.
me: i think it's ok.
girl: i hate hip hop.
me: sorry.

"Please play:

Black Box "Ride On Time"
Neneh Cherry "Buffalo Stance"
New Order "Blue Monday"

signed, The Would Be Dancers"

I swear I am going to do a band/project as The Would Be Dancers someday. also: I was playing Herbert at the time.

If not, is this because:

a) all people who like to dance are morons
b) the immediate gut reaction to a request is to assume it must be wrong

Just asking, like.

[i]Ever had someone make a request and thought "wow, that's a really good idea!"[/i]

Loads of times, although more often than not it'll be something that I don't have / don't have with me that night.

i was once so overwhelmed to be asked to play 'she is beyond good and evil' by the pop group that i got in a taxi and went home to get the record.

if i get asked for something i don't like i just pretend i've never heard of it. 'the stone roses? sorry, never heard of them'. the requester is usually so bamboozled that they very quickly leave you alone.

I didn't think it could be possible that ALL requests are bad...

I can so see myself doing that.

It's not that requests are always necessarily bad, but more that you can't possibly have everything people are going to want WITH you at the time. For that reason alone, I think people who make requests ought to cut DJs a little slack.

re requests:

they aren't always garbage but it's a bit annoying when kids request the song for a third time after you've already played it twice. for them i have a very special baby grand...

another joy of laptop djing is the occasional gig with an unsecure wireless network. a bunch of people were requesting tech n9ne's caribou lou so i jumped on the intertube and grabbed it. and they actually danced when i played it!! beats a taxi cab ride across town ;)

"can you play this waa waa nee track?" and I DID, even though it was AWFUL. and she didn't even dance!!

I don't own any Michael Jackson records.

I am wondering if I should get some so that I can shut drunk girls up.

I've always considered Michael Jackson the least of evils when it comes to shutting up drunk girls.

Pros: funk credentials, world-class production values, rocks a sound system, everybody knows it, nobody truly hates it, plenty of hits to choose from to it any occasion. Remixes might placate your detractors as well.

Cons: Makes you feel like you hit the "easy" button instead of earning your packed dancefloor. Funds MJ's delusional detachment from reality (easily avoided: buy used).

D'oh! I thought this was a thread for DJs who srsly drop the piano like this guy (who actually isn't a dj but is called DJ Lebowitz):

http://weheartmusic.vox.com/library/post/beware-of-the-piano-dj-lebowitz-rockin-your-ass-like-the-donkey.html

Yeah I always think this thread is about what happens on dancefloor when big piano riffs come in - e.g. CeCe Peniston's "Finally" or K-Klass's "Let Me Show You Love".

"Hi. I just - Oh, we've met!! What's your name again? Right. I didn't know you DJed. Well look, I don't mean to be - you know - but I think.. I think it's time to kick this up a notch. You know what I mean? I'm here with my friend Catherine - Catherine this is Tracer - haha - yeah, anyway, we're ready to dance! So - let's kick it up! What kind of music do I like? Oh I don't know, dance stuff! What? No, no... I have to say, house music is not really my thing."

next record is "Girls and Boys" by Prince, I look up from putting prev record away and the two ladies have VANISHED - i see them again 40 minutes later, by the bar

them: "play something i like" me: "this IS what you like!"

― Tracer Hand, Monday, July 29, 2002 12:00 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i mean this is it in a nutshell - i had been playing hip hop, disco and house music for an hour

once again i was reminded that all it takes is ONE PERSON, or one group of people, to decide they want to dance, and that just sets it off. then you have something to work with. before that it's just throwing on one record after another to see if anything sticks.

"play something I like" more of then than not means "play something I recognize"

http://www.canyouplaythatonesong.com/

I still want to hear the George Clinton story too.

"and in the sheer idiocy category...
"can you play something good to dance to?" (song playing - "Cold Sweat" - James Brown)"

I've had this exact experience.

As have I! I've come to the saddening realization that, for many younger, suburban types, JB doesn't equate to "Great, let's dance!"

40-year old's birthday party -
TRACK PLAYING: Anita Ward - Ring My Bell

Middle-aged lady who's literally just walked in: "Can't you play something good?"
Me: "What's "something good"?"
MALWLJWI: "Well I work for a music company, so I'm used to hearing good music... Can't you play something by the Zutons instead of this... shit?"

This week I had something similar happen. I was DJ'ing with a friend and we had been watching this guy and girl dancing wildly down by the front windows. After a few songs the guy comes up and asks me if I can play something they can dance to. Total headscratcher. They'd been dancing for a little while already. I put on Baby Can't Stop and they really went for it, doing some type of modified Lindy Hop or other organized old school dance. Totally bizarre.

That is kind of awesome though.

Playing Stevie Wonder - Superstition a bar in my home town when fat bitch comes up and says "this is shit, can't you play some motown, we love motown"

DJ'd a big house party on Saturday. All went off great and people had good requests; my favourite being Hercules & Love Affair. Later on, started to slow things down but bizarre insistent request from a girl that I play "My Funny Valentine" really soon (!) so that she could sing along to it..?! (eventually obliged via spotify on iphone)

Actually, I'm not counting that as a piano dropping moment, b/c it led to me just queing up lots of trad-jazz and standards on the iphone, and worked quite well with the thinning, totally wasted crowd.

I was spinning a song off Bleach and this knucklehead in Longview, WA came up to ask if I had any Nirvana.

More recently, I was hosting a metal night and this crowd of college kids came in. I really did my best to cater, but I just hadn't brought the right records to switch gears that hard. On my iphone, I had an old Street Jams comp with Newcleus, Afrika Bambaata, Twilight 22 etc.

These kids came up and had not only never heard these songs, but they didn't know who Herbie Hancock was. I wanted to strangle...

Finally a girl asked me for Madonna so I put on Morbid Angel and gave up.

Into The Groovy would have been a good half-way point in that situation.

a packed dance floor and I'm playing a Pilooski edit or something of the sort...a girl loitering around the booth while her friends dance next to her and she gets my attention to say:

"can you stop playing techno?"

My old roommate told me once about a time he was DJing and a bunch of Mexican dudes came up and asked for reggae. So he started playing Bob Marley from his laptop or whatever. And they said, "Why aren't you playing reggae?" He said it IS reggae.

They wanted reggaeton. My old roommate knew this. He was fucking with them. My old roommate is an asshole. And I'd have rather heard some reggaeton than whatever college "No Woman No Cry" bullshit he surely played.

I haven't gotten many requests. One time a dude asked us to play Telex, which I happened to have some, but that was when I used to overprepare. Another time someone asked for New Order, but a b-side or something. That I could do too.

And one time I basically took the role of mobile DJ for this English pub an hour away from where I lived. That was one of the worst nights of my life.

Kinda the opposite but the other night a stripper tipped me $2 for playing Metallica. Getting tipped by a stripper made my night.

a couple years ago i had an anarchist roommate whose friend kept coming up to me during our halloween party and requesting "intelligent hip-hop"

also nate, a few months back i was in portland and went to one of your sunday nights at ground kontrol and was vv impressed! so keep dropping the pianos, this way lies true happiness etc

its gotten to teh point that i will do pretty much anything to avoid anyone who comes up to the booth and wants my attention

xxp you should have given her a lap dance

I had em all on Saturday - a cool dad's birthday party with kids and family. very difficult to please everyone:

Aging ex-raver mum: "Have you got anything we can actually dance to?"

Uncle Thinks-he's-cool: "I'm going to be your guide for the next half hour. Play dubstep, but nothing too hardcore, start with Katy B"

Obnoxious ten-year old: "Not THAT Rihanna song. No I won't go and dance, I hate dancing. Play Jessie J now. What are you going to play next?" (for, like the whole 6-7 hours)

My favourite was a lady who came up with a note reading: "PLEASE for an old woman, play Billie Jean / Michael Jackson xxxxxxxxx"

I recently got asked for about 4 hours to play 'safety dance'. Eventually I did and looped it for about 15 minutes until the girl in question sat down.

You guys do realize that you DJ for the audience, not for you, right?

:O

frogbs - yes, but when someone decides that THEY are suddenly the DJ and get bossy/threatening/condescending about it, that's when you start winching up the pully. Also, people are idiots who've got no sense of timing or occasion. They always want you to play Pendulum just before the father of the bride's speech or Annie's Song right when everyone's getting down to Warren G or whatever. And it's these people who are the loudest and most insistent prats. I very nearly told the cool uncle to piss off as he was literally standing over me telling me what I had to play.

yeah - but I've seen things go both ways. if you're just DJ'ing as entertainment and not as part of a celebration, it's great to play your own shit, but when it's a party or someone or whatever you realize pretty fast that nobody wants to hear anything they haven't heard already.

I agree the "play some fucking dubstep!!" people are annoying, they're the same as the people who want to hear "trance" or "techno" referring to like David Guetta or some garbage. That said, you really can't go wrong with Michael Jackson, pretty much everyone loves his music and nobody can really blame the DJ for it

I'm DJ-ing tonight and I'm wondering whether to wear my "FUCK OFF - I'M MIXING." t-shirt.
― wogan lenin (dog latin), Thursday, September 14, 2006 10:37 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

This works insanely well btw. I kept forgetting I had it on and was wondering why people looked so affronted when they came up to the DJ booth.

xpost See, that's why I didn't mind interrupting the climax of my dubstep section for the polite old lady who asked for Thriller.

http://www.cityofmadison.com/police/newsroom/incidentreports/incident.cfm?id=15213

As for the guest of honor, he said his friend – the hostess who set it all up – ended up ruining the party. What had been a very happy birthday ended on a really bad note

I sense a lawsuit coming. Wonder what the dj was playing and how many drinks the hostess had before she exploded?

"when are you going to play some old school hip hop?"
while Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" was playing…

that was the club owner. only lasted another week there...

Well look, I don't mean to be - you know - but I think.. I think it's time to kick this up a notch.

I'm going to be your guide for the next half hour...

Have had both of these interactions several times. I really don't DJ much anymore, and this is kinda why.

On the bright side, it doesn't sound like you had that Madison, Wisconsis dj's experience:

The bloodied and shocked disc jockey wasn't exactly sure what it was he had played to make the hostess so angry.

Haha, yeah it could always be worse, I guess.

v loudly so everyone could hear, at a rather low-key house party:

"THIS IS TOO SHORT, RIGHT?"

"Yeah"

"HE'S THE ONE WHO DIED OF AIDS, RIGHT?"

"No. You're thinking of Eazy-E."

"WELL THEY WERE IN THE SAME BAND, RIGHT?"

"No"

"WELL THEY WERE AT LEAST THE SAME ERA, RIGHT?"

biiiiiiiiiitch...

Piano dropping moment:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6546267.stm

https://thump.vice.com/en_uk/article/life-lessons-learned-from-the-dj-who-didnt-realise-his-set-was-totally-silent

that nu-Vice thing where they drag out a brief paragraph's worth of observation into about 1000 words is one of my absolute least favourite styles of writing atm

might be slightly coloured by it regularly being done by that complete prick who used to post here

Oh yeah it's unquestionably terrible but let's not let that spoil the thought of this EDM dickhead's misfortune.