I Can Make You Dance

Saturday night double teaming.

2008-10-21T14:27:00.001-07:00

This was the main part of my weekend. These people spent a ton of money on this wedding. In addition to me, they also hired an irish band, tons of bartenders, and hella good food from Hutch's Barbeque in Pasadena. They rented out Pasadena City Hall and the gorgeous rose filled courtyard inside the main veranda. I wanted to have shit to talk about this wedding, but in all honesty the people were mellow and treated me with respect. They put together a pretty decent program of songs for me to play, and although there were some mis-steps (Chemical Brothers? What the fuck?), the majority of the dinner music they gave me was excellent and I couldn't have picked better myself. The irish band was two hours late, but they were able to get people dancing in one of those wacky irish-dance-circle situations:

As I prefer to bathe myself in as much stress as possible, I made the decision to leave this wedding when it ended at 10 pm and go play a friend's house party across town. I split DJ duty with my roommate, who did an excellent job and dropped all the hyphy hits. I think people had TOO much fun.

The fallout came with the bullshit I came home to the next morning. After the party I had gone to crash at my girlfriend's house, and the roomate came back to the pad with another friend of mine. The cereal bowl pictured below was filled with vodka + milk. Our cat had thrown up on my sheepskin rug in the living room. There was weed all over the kitchen table, and one of our kitchen chairs, sans seat and seat cushion had been repositioned over the toilet.

I know the jams were tight, but damn, G. Keep the party at the party.

Thank you.

2008-10-14T00:52:00.000-07:00

Best email in months. Not joking.

"hi, this is ______ here is the information you needed for the party for my husband
the adress is xxxx _____ ave, ___ _____, 9xxxxx. I would like you to arrive around 5pm.
i talked to my husband and here are the songs he would love to hear..

OLD SCHOOL HIP HOP:
JAM ON IT BY NEWCLEUS
AROUND THE WAY GIRL BY LL COOL J
LOOK OUT WEEKENDS - DEBBIE DEB
WHEN I HEAR MUSIC-DEBBIE DEB
THESHOW- DOUGIE FREASH
PLANET ROCK-SOULSONIC FORCE
RAPPERS DELIGHT-SUGAR HILL GANG
HUMPTY DANCE-DIGITIAL UNDERGROUND
I NEED LOVE-LL COOL J
GIVE IT ALL YOU GOT
THESE ARE THE BREAKS-CURTIS BLOW
IT TAKES TWO-ROB BASE
SUPER SONIC-JJ FAD
GOING BACK TO CALI-LL COOL J
BABY GOT BACK - SIR MIX ALOT
PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK - PLANET PATROL
DREAM TEAM IS IN THE HOUSE- LA DREAM TEAM

OTHER OLD SCHOOL JAMS:
THAT GIRL IS POISON-BELL BEV DEVOE
SPRING LOVE-STEVIE B
KNEE DEEP-GEORGE CLINTON
JUST GOT PAID-JOHNNY KEMP
OFF THE WALL-MICHEAL JACKSON
PYT-MICHEAL JACKSON
BILLIE JEAN-MMICHEAL JACKSON
THIS IS HOW WE DO IT-MONTELL JORDAN
GIVE IT TO ME BABY-RICK JAMES

NEW SONGS

GET MONEY-LIL WAYNE
I KISSED A GIRL -KATE PERRY
YOU CAN HAVE WHAT EVER YOU LIKE- T.I
PAPER PLANES -M.I.A
THE BOSS -RICK ROSS
LOVE LIKE THIS - SAVE THE LAST DANCE SOUNDTRACK VERSION
GASOLINA- DADY YANKEE
THE WAY I ARE -TIMBERLAND
GOOD LIFE-KAYNE WEST

   I KNOW THIS IS A BIG LIST BUT MY HUSBAND IS SPOILED SO IF YOU CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN IT WOULD BE MOST
GREATFUL IF YOU HAVE ANY ? FEEL FREE TO CALL ME I BELIEVE YOU HAVE MY CELL # HERES MY HOUSE #
(xxx) xxx-xxxx     THANK YOU"

Future Drunk People of America

2008-10-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

Two parties this weekend (three if you count my iPod admin at a loft party downtown late Sat night, but we'll leave that one out). Friday night was a favor for a friend. I played at a USC house party for $80. Major favor. I have to admit though, that although college students are mostly loser assholes when it comes to being DJ customers, the crowd were relatively mellow and into what I was laying down. I got tons of compliments, three referrals and attention from a perky white girl who seemed kind of dejected when I mentioned my girlfriend. Actually, what am I saying? That party fucking ruled. Mostly because there was a dance circle of 4-6 chunky lesbian Latinas who aggressively shared my penchant for 90s R&B party bangers and contemporary radio rap with lots of hand claps and choruses about rubbing things, licking things, touching things and fucking things.
Every gig I play, I pick out my go-to dancers in my head. These are the people who I know will dance when everyone else is too shy. I try to make them happy. Usually if they are happy, everyone is reasonably happy. Maybe it's just because my mom is a big gay (NO ON 8, by the way! Spread the word...) but it seems that my go-too crowd are getting butcher, fatter and funkier lately.

If I keep on this track, I'm going to be sharing empanada recipes with crew-cut chola dykes in 10 years, talking shit about how they don't make good music like Moris Day and the Time anymore.

Pic #2 above is from the aftermath of the USC party. The plague of red cups are a historical legend. Those red party cups were actually the 11th plague of Egypt, somehow left out of the English translation of the Old Testament. If you peep the original Hebrew you can read all about drunken college sluts dropping those motherfuckers all over the house of the Pharoah's front lawn after every rager until the Pharoah let the Jews go. For real. Check it out. It's in there. Or just... you know... go to college for a month. You'll see.

Speaking of biblical things, I played a great party Saturday night for a bunch of nice Orange County church folk. I usually don't leave LA County for a gig, but these people seemed nice. I was handsomely rewarded with a $50 tip and (get this:) a dance circle of 6-8 black kids (how'd they get into Irvine? JK. Sorry) fucking CRUMPING. These kids gave me an iPod to play (normally against my policy, see previous entries) with some instrumental Hyphy jams, and then proceeded to dance battle each other for half an hour. I scratched some vocal samples over their mix in an attempt to be helpful, but they were way more interested in their friends battling each other. And for good reason! These kids could have thrown down with any of the fools in that Rize movie. No bullshit.
Mom and dad sprung for a ton of cool lighting effects, too. That's the full blacklight situation they got in the picture above. They gave me a cool T-Shirt, too. Dad works for a custom guitar company and couldn't resist showing me pictures on his BlackBerry of him partying with rock stars. Mom seemed like a pleasantly plump OC M.I.L.F.

I know there's a big anti-Christian, anti-Orange County, anti-soccer movement amongst most of my peers, but I say fuck it. Let those people do their thing. God knows the kids are just going to grow up and rebel politely while attending college, just like us.They'll probably go to USC, too. Maybe they can teach the non-chunky-lesbian party constituency how to dance.

Black Gay Dinner Party

2008-10-10T16:26:00.001-07:00

blacklove

It's good when it works. Bumped into some friends last night (who happened to be black and gay, which is always a good way to start a party), and started an impromptu dinner party with dancing afterword. My roomate (pictured on the left above) and I dropped all the R&B, funk and soul that our wood-floored, second-story apartment could handle at 2 AM. Sexiness ensued.

Dinner pary tracklisting (from memory):
Beyonce' - Single Ladies
Khia - My Neck, My Back
R. Kelly - Feeling on Your Booty
Jodeci - Sweaty
Jackson 5 - I Want You Back
Evelyn Champagne King - Love Come Down
Brass Construction - Attitude
Bootsy Collins - Body Slam
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Ain't No Fun
Nate Dogg - Where I Wanna Be
David Sanborn - Wake Me When It's Over
Da Brat - Funkdafied
David Banner - Play
Aaliyah - Are You That Somebody?
Ol Dirty Bastard - I Got Your Money
R. Kelly - Same Girl
Janet Jackson - That's the Way Love Goes
Jodeci - Come and Talk To Me
Ne-Yo - Do You?
Michael Jackson - Rock With You
Aretha Franklin - Jump To It
Destiny's Child - Bug a Boo
Ginuwine - Pony
Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack
TLC - Creep
Adina Howard - Freak Like Me
Brandy - Sittin Up In My Room
Michael Jackson - Baby Be Mine
Blackstreet - Don't Leave Me Girl
Keith Sweat - Nobody
Alicia Keys - No One
Michael Jackson - Do You Remember the Time?
R. Kelly - Bump n' Grind

Woah. Just realized this after the fact: proof positive that you can rock a black, gay, social situation in LA without dropping a single song by Justin Timberlake, MIA or Missy Elliot. How did we pull that off?

You can't rap. I'm sorry.

2008-10-07T14:13:00.001-07:00

Before I begin - let me just say that I don't object to hip hop as an institution. In fact, I love hip hop in (almost) all of its various flavors, and it probably gets the majority of my listening time. I believe that freestyle rapping is a definite skill, and I have done my share of verses dropped off the top of my fuzzy little dome. I even put together a rap "album" with my friend in 2002.

With that being said, let me stress that 2002 was SIX YEARS AGO. Even then we were a bit late to the whole wave of "conscious" or "underground" four-elements-stressing, verse-spitting, b-boy-document-rocking rap that (in my opinion) peaked in 1999 with Mos Def, People Under the Stairs, Quannum Projects, Quasimoto's first album and the Rawkus records stable as a whole. It was fun. It was dope. It was fly. Save it for the cypher, dog. It's over.

That being said, PLEASE DO NOT GRAB MY MICROPHONE WHEN YOU ARE DRUNK AND INSIST ON FREESTYLING WHILE THE PARTY WINDS DOWN. It's loud. It's tacky. You're corny and arhythmic. I'm tired. And your breath smells like booze. Keep in mind that I'm sober, you're not, and I still have to carry about 500 lbs of gear out to my car when this night is over. I've been on my feet for 6 hours answering requests to play Lil Wayne. I haven't heard of you before, I don't want to "peep your mixtape," and I don't know anyone who can sign you. I'm not that kind of DJ. I'm the kind who gets paid.

Okay? Great, thanks! :) :) :)

Teenagers refer to cocaine exclusively as "blow."

2008-10-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

That party I wrote about in the last post with the girl who is probably going to get way too into rave culture? Total success. Well, kind of. I nailed my DJ set and got everyone totally pumped, to the tune of a $60 tip. Some of the party goers didn't fair so well, however. The party ended at 11:15 when 911 was called to help the kid who overdosed (allegedly) on ecstasy and "blow." Oopsie.

Man, I almost feel bad about calling that girl out for being a future raver loadie. I don't want to be that right.

That girl's parents put sooo much money into her party. I DJ'd inside of a 30 x 60 dance tent complete with intelligent gobo lighting and fog machines (the picture above is the tent with all the kids cleared out, attending to the "emergency"). Mom and dad also sprung for a photobooth and a couple hundred dollars worth of glowsticks and glow necklaces. Kids are spoiled as shit, I swear. 17? That's not a birthday. 16. 18. 21. Those are birthdays. 17? Pshsh.

I saved myself a bit of stress by giving the kids some of the nastier work I usually don't feel like doing. When a little pimply kid came up and asked if I could request, on microphone, for all the ladies to get on the dance floor, I came up with a compromise. Instead of being the creepiest 25 year old DJ ever requesting for a party of teenage girls to come dance for me, I handed him the mic.

"Uh... Hello? Um. Can like... all the ladies get on the dance floor? Yeah, [with renewed vigor] I need all the ladies on the dance floor!"

I'll be damned. All the ladies got on the dance floor.

You're hired, kid.

Your daughter is headed for burnout raver hell. Bummer.

2008-10-04T02:00:00.001-07:00

It's about 1:30 am as I write this and I've been working on tomorrow night's party for the last 3 hours, easily.

I'm geting music ready so that I'm prepared when teenagers are yelling at me to play whatever song is momentarily popular at their shitty high school in the Inland Empire.

I shouldn't care if people judge me for not having EVERY SONG EVER MADE, but I do.

I've found that my new problem lies in how best to stop these dissapointments before they start. I try to let people know as diplomatically and professionally as possible that they need to tell me about specific / obscure / totally-fucking-pointless-and-unpopular songs BEFORE i get to their house, because:

1) I cannot download songs off of illegal P2P services while I am DJing. I'm sorry. It takes way too much effort. I don't care if you have a wireless network available, I don't care if you do it all the time, I don't care if you are drunk and TOTALLY have to hear this song right now.

2) I cannot play YouTube or MySpace through a 2 channel DJ mixer. Again, I'm sorry. Actually - that one is a lie. I technically could. But I don't want to hear some shitty 96kbps streaming YouTube audio come pouring out of my 800 watt P.A. system at whatever drunken volume you are suggesting.

3) I cannot play CDs. If I were rich, I would have CDJs in addition to my Serato setup. But I do not. I am poor. If you buy me CDJS, I will totally play your sister's mix cd as loud as you want me to.

4) I cannot play songs off of your iPod. This is more of a matter of personal contention. You hired me to DJ your party. I will do a good job. I will try really hard to create a special environment for you and your loved ones to dance and make memories. I do it every weekend and I am very good at it. If you are socially awkward and scared to dance, that is not my fault. That is your fault, and the fault of whoever made you scared to dance and play and express yourself while you were young. You crowding around my mixer with your friends while skipping from song to song on your iPod makes me look and sound stupid. It makes you look and sound stupid. Just release control for one hour and trust me.

So I have people email me playlists ahead of time. Or give me Mp3 cds. Or regular CDs. Or original vinyl. Whatever. It's all good. Usually they do a shitty job. They either give me a 5 song playlist of top 40 hits that I already have (and then complain during the party because I don't have whatever random song is bubbling out of their drunk brain), or they give me an Mp3 cd full of HOURS of boring shit from their lackluster music collection that no one wants to hear.

Or I get a list of 60-70 techno songs from the 17 year old girl whose party I'll be playing tomorrow night. I can't find the majority of the shit she wrote down. The list is infested with MySpace-only dj's, obscure P2P memes, and totally adolescent go-nowhere techno jams with names like "Take Your Pills" and "Work This Pussy" produced by artists who's monikers all begin with DJ followed by a cutesy word with way too many constonants, like DJ Hixxy.

This would be way less weird if I wasn't negotiating the invoice with her very nice, very reasonable (if not indulgent) parents. I don't really know how to break it to them that based on her music selection alone, their daughter is headed down a dark path of shitty "massive" raves in Riverside, crytal meth tainted E pills, pimply guys in cargo shorts, and agonizing community college essays about drug law reform.

Fuck it. You can't save 'em all.

Sure. I can play that. Asshole.

2008-09-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I played at some rich guy's birthday in the Palisades. He told me he was "in the music industry for years." Apparently he is the A&R who signed two very well know hard rock / nu-metal acts in the 90s. This is moderately interesting, but more interesting was that this moderator of corporate media showed a complete inability to nail the musical tastes of his own guests. He emailed me a list of more or less boring anglo-core (the Replacements, U2, Coldplay, Better than Ezra) and tacked on this little gem of a request:

"Then for the dance portion, some classics to get them on the dance floor.
Sofie Ellis Bextor “Murder on the dancefloor”
Paul Okenfold – “Stary eye’d Surpirse”

We like trance type euro beats. Armin Van Buurin,

Do you do any mash ups at all?"

Okaaaay, dude. So it looks like you are expecting an eclectic bunch who, in addition to digging Better than Ezra, love late 90's, crossover electronic pop singles (with no airplay in the last 7 years) which polarized audiences and exemplified the sellout superstar DJ archetype? No prob.

Not only did the wet fart of a Paul Oakenfold track not do anything special for the party, but "trance type euro beats" absolutely destroyed what little was formed of a dance session in front of my turntables. I indulged him in the trance for a couple songs and happily took the request of a 37 year old woman who came up to me and sweetly requested that I play "Bust a Move" again.

This is what people need to understand. A DJ picks music for a reason. We do it because we are good at it and care about it more than everyone else does. Admittedly, there are some "DJ's" who are 18 year-old pimply boners with a penchant for aggressive male-dominated electronica who will take a big fat steaming drum n' bass shit all over your party when given the chance, but the rest of us know what the fuck we're doing.

When I see 17 year olds, I play Lil Wayne. When I see a party full of younger middle aged black people, I will definitely drop some Frankie Beverly and (most likely) some Zapp and Roger. When I see 35 year old white people who can't dance, I will play Madonna and Prince (and yes sweetheart, I will play Bust a Move for you. Again.)

No matter what I say, people will try their hardest to kill their own party.

Bye for now, I have to go respond to this delusional turd of an email:

"Hi, can you play country and reggae? I also need to have a certain song too. It’s called the samoan wedding song. My wedding is going to be in El Segundo. Also do you have 11/08/08 available?"

A brief introduction.

2008-09-29T00:19:00.000-07:00

I'm a mobile DJ in Los Angeles, CA. I own my own setup and P.A., and I post ads on craigslist advertising my services. I show up in whatever attire you'd prefer and play whatever you want me to play.
I've been doing this for a couple of years now, and I tried to make a list last night of all the different gigs I've played, just for my own knowledge. This is by all means a very brief list. I know I'm leaving out tons of parties I've played. This was what I could come up with in a couple of minutes though. If looks kind of racist and sexist and homophobic. Sorry. It was just for personal reference. I'm totally a race-loving, gay-loving, sensitive dude. But my room mate saw the list and thought it blog worthy. So starts this project.

Gregg the guy who signed [two famous 90s nu metal bands] (bad white dancers)
Juaquin's hipster party
Gyron (Dolce)
Retail store in Santa Monica that sold Yoga clothes and hated my music
Dee's Friend - party with dogshit in the backyard
Dee's Friend - party where they tried to sell me a gun
Dee's Friend - other party
El Cholo, Pasadena
First gig with bad funk selections
Retard home
Funk party place in Claremont
Funk party place, 2nd party
Little tokyo that wasn't little tokyo
Kiddie party in santa monica rec center
Loft party downtown, black people
Brick and mortar sunset
Brick and mortar sunset #2
Brick and mortar santa monica
the Smell
Chas' lesbian wedding
Weird party in Acton
Leslie's wedding
Thomas' wedding
Wedding in malibu
Bianca's husband's party, compton
Pamela's son in hollywood hills - rich Jewish kids
Neal's wedding
K-Town thing
Body's birthday party
Gregg's gay wedding
First wedding ever - mexican ravers
the Terrace for Emmy's friend
Tara DJ gig Orange County
Brianna's party
Child actor party in the valley
Woodland hills wedding reception
woodland hills party where I met that girl
Creepy house party for new years, ALL GAY DUDES
Asshole kids in South Central
Girl's party in Inglewood - nice black people
First gig ever - Elizabeth's daughter
Chinese wedding in the 909
Fillipino girl in central LA