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?"
