Damn it feels good to be a last song
There's something to be said for finishing out the night with "Damn It Feels Good To Be a Gangster."
Friday was Zachary Allen Starkey's CD Release party, which (as the man is prone to do) had so much promo that I had friends of mine calling saying "I see you're djing tonight!" which was funny to me in that I don't really think about it. I've become acclimated to djing at least once a weekend now, and its usually for bands that my friends don't like so I don't egg them on just to come listen to me play in 60 and 45 minute spurts. After that Bethany and I went to Don, Heidi and Joe's house for a party where I knew people, and apparently Chris, one of the bartenders, knew no one but his girlfriend knew Basak. They knew that I knew Basak by my MySpace page. Woo Internets!
Saturday was Agora which was amazing, overwhelming, and went from 5 until 2am. Well, I went until 2am anyway.
I started that night out with mellow downtempo and samba type stuff for the first two hours as mostly families with kids were there. Then I started picking it up with some funk and soul for a while, dropped into rock for about an hour, and then fell between new dance rock, techy stuff, house, booty bass, and 80's and 90's hits and misses for the remaining five hours.
Charles came and relieved me for a half hour or so around 10:30, keeping the electro vibe up that I had been playing for a while at that point. I can't even begin to assemble a track listing from that night. I will say that "In The Morning (ft. Andi Tomi)" by Junior Boys is a beautiful song, as is "Boy From School" by Hot Chip.
I was so exhausted when I finished loading out that I left the gear in the car and unloaded the next day.
Sunday was the private Spoon show that Jack Daniel's put on. If I can find pictures of me as white trash Jack Daniels DJ, I'll post them. There were free staff shirts and hats, so I had my trucker cap on sideways, a staff tshirt tucked, and a short sleeve button-up staff shirt with the sleeves rolled up over that.
All shades of grey.
Running lights for Spoon was interesting, really mellow vibe even though Autumn and I were dancing in the light booth. I couldn't use "rhythmic strobing" or really anything that interfered with the band looking good for pictures (which meant most of the lighting options were out.) The light board at Skully's has three sets of colors: reds, blues, and magentas. That's it. The white spot was burned out again (its so high power and high use it goes out monthly.)
There were so many people upstairs at one point that Dave, the security guy had to clear the dj booth because there were too many people up there.
When it came to djing, things were a little crazy. Spoon had their own music, which makes sense, at least at the start of the show, however Skully wanted me to spin for a bit, so he killed the cd before the opening act, Times New Viking, and I played for about a half an hour.
After Times New Viking, the sound guy for Spoon was ordered by the band to put their cd back on. The mixes they had were awesome, just not "mixed" so there was quite a bit of dead air between songs. The first cd was mostly modern selections, the second one was completely awesome punkish stuff. I would love to get a tracklisting of that disc, it had the best energy of all the selections played.
Of note, starting from 7:30 until 11:45, there were two huge high intensity lights at my ankle level that smelled like they were setting something on fire. Wearing jeans never felt so good. I was constantly checking to see if my headphone cable or my pants were on fire.
The band played, the upstairs was packed, good friends showed up and hung out. I was told by a friend of Skully's that Skully said to dj after Spoon finished their encores. After the encores the sound guy proceeded to put the "send everybody the fuck home" disc.
It was the best interpretation of end credit/get stoned tracks ever put on cd without being a cheesy downtempo compilation. Never mind that the bar was still open for another TWO FUCKING HOURS. Let's hear it for screwing the bartenders out of tips. Piece of advice to bands playing venues that have hired djs or their own selection of music: If you finish well before the venue closes, and you have preplanned music to "rush the crowd out," scrap it for the staff's sake.
Of course I can understand why they had the music, it made it very easy for the band to get to and from the V.I.P. area to the stage.
The crowd flooded out like gravity had been turned sideways, the only people escaping its grasp were the ones with tabs still open or a desire to drink further. Skully finally shined the flashlight from the soundbooth to let me know to start playing, and I started putting feelers out for what the remaining dregs would really get into. Once I dropped a few funk tracks, the vibe warmed up and a few people hung about, so I tried to keep it in that vein.
My short attention span kicked in and I switched up to some rock, which led to some dance, and then I got into my favorite, really really obnoxious track for the past couple months, "Hungry 4 Love" by Curses! which was the point where Sky and Lauren came up to say goodbye and request the Klaxons. I dropped "Totem" as I don't have the original version of Golden Skans in my arsenal yet, and then that led to me wandering about the disco punk territory for a bit. Most of the people were out at that point (1 a.m.-ish) so the rear sound system got turned down, and the staff started cleaning up the floor and stage.
I started taking requests from the peeps on the floor cleaning up, and played another Prince track (it was a remix of "Kiss" as I don't have the original. I know, sacrilege. I don't play 80's typically, since Thursday nights have the monopoly on that shit, so I have remixes to get around that "rule.") I played Gil Mantera for Elliot. They're his favorite band, and he goes crazy whenever I play them. Erica really likes Yelle right now, so I dropped the remix of "Ce Jeu." I got Vicki to dance by playing "Get Down Saturday Night" by Oliver Cheatham, a bad-ass mellow funker that Daft Punk and house heads have sampled left and right. I dropped some old hip-hop after that, including a remix/make of "The Message" by Datashat (originally by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, of course.)
I got lost for a bit in some of my favorite tracks including "Wayfarer" by Kavinsky (which is like a video racing game in the 80's) and "Fuego" by Pitbull (which is like being set on fire by Pitbull.) The tempo dropped back down with Common, Lyrics Born, Jay-Z, and finishing with of course, "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster" By the Geto Boyz.
So, this weekend was one long show with sleep in between acts.
Friday was Zachary Allen Starkey's CD Release party, which (as the man is prone to do) had so much promo that I had friends of mine calling saying "I see you're djing tonight!" which was funny to me in that I don't really think about it. I've become acclimated to djing at least once a weekend now, and its usually for bands that my friends don't like so I don't egg them on just to come listen to me play in 60 and 45 minute spurts. After that Bethany and I went to Don, Heidi and Joe's house for a party where I knew people, and apparently Chris, one of the bartenders, knew no one but his girlfriend knew Basak. They knew that I knew Basak by my MySpace page. Woo Internets!
Saturday was Agora which was amazing, overwhelming, and went from 5 until 2am. Well, I went until 2am anyway.
I started that night out with mellow downtempo and samba type stuff for the first two hours as mostly families with kids were there. Then I started picking it up with some funk and soul for a while, dropped into rock for about an hour, and then fell between new dance rock, techy stuff, house, booty bass, and 80's and 90's hits and misses for the remaining five hours.
Charles came and relieved me for a half hour or so around 10:30, keeping the electro vibe up that I had been playing for a while at that point. I can't even begin to assemble a track listing from that night. I will say that "In The Morning (ft. Andi Tomi)" by Junior Boys is a beautiful song, as is "Boy From School" by Hot Chip.
I was so exhausted when I finished loading out that I left the gear in the car and unloaded the next day.
Sunday was the private Spoon show that Jack Daniel's put on. If I can find pictures of me as white trash Jack Daniels DJ, I'll post them. There were free staff shirts and hats, so I had my trucker cap on sideways, a staff tshirt tucked, and a short sleeve button-up staff shirt with the sleeves rolled up over that.
All shades of grey.
Running lights for Spoon was interesting, really mellow vibe even though Autumn and I were dancing in the light booth. I couldn't use "rhythmic strobing" or really anything that interfered with the band looking good for pictures (which meant most of the lighting options were out.) The light board at Skully's has three sets of colors: reds, blues, and magentas. That's it. The white spot was burned out again (its so high power and high use it goes out monthly.)
There were so many people upstairs at one point that Dave, the security guy had to clear the dj booth because there were too many people up there.
When it came to djing, things were a little crazy. Spoon had their own music, which makes sense, at least at the start of the show, however Skully wanted me to spin for a bit, so he killed the cd before the opening act, Times New Viking, and I played for about a half an hour.
After Times New Viking, the sound guy for Spoon was ordered by the band to put their cd back on. The mixes they had were awesome, just not "mixed" so there was quite a bit of dead air between songs. The first cd was mostly modern selections, the second one was completely awesome punkish stuff. I would love to get a tracklisting of that disc, it had the best energy of all the selections played.
Of note, starting from 7:30 until 11:45, there were two huge high intensity lights at my ankle level that smelled like they were setting something on fire. Wearing jeans never felt so good. I was constantly checking to see if my headphone cable or my pants were on fire.
The band played, the upstairs was packed, good friends showed up and hung out. I was told by a friend of Skully's that Skully said to dj after Spoon finished their encores. After the encores the sound guy proceeded to put the "send everybody the fuck home" disc.
It was the best interpretation of end credit/get stoned tracks ever put on cd without being a cheesy downtempo compilation. Never mind that the bar was still open for another TWO FUCKING HOURS. Let's hear it for screwing the bartenders out of tips. Piece of advice to bands playing venues that have hired djs or their own selection of music: If you finish well before the venue closes, and you have preplanned music to "rush the crowd out," scrap it for the staff's sake.
Of course I can understand why they had the music, it made it very easy for the band to get to and from the V.I.P. area to the stage.
The crowd flooded out like gravity had been turned sideways, the only people escaping its grasp were the ones with tabs still open or a desire to drink further. Skully finally shined the flashlight from the soundbooth to let me know to start playing, and I started putting feelers out for what the remaining dregs would really get into. Once I dropped a few funk tracks, the vibe warmed up and a few people hung about, so I tried to keep it in that vein.
My short attention span kicked in and I switched up to some rock, which led to some dance, and then I got into my favorite, really really obnoxious track for the past couple months, "Hungry 4 Love" by Curses! which was the point where Sky and Lauren came up to say goodbye and request the Klaxons. I dropped "Totem" as I don't have the original version of Golden Skans in my arsenal yet, and then that led to me wandering about the disco punk territory for a bit. Most of the people were out at that point (1 a.m.-ish) so the rear sound system got turned down, and the staff started cleaning up the floor and stage.
I started taking requests from the peeps on the floor cleaning up, and played another Prince track (it was a remix of "Kiss" as I don't have the original. I know, sacrilege. I don't play 80's typically, since Thursday nights have the monopoly on that shit, so I have remixes to get around that "rule.") I played Gil Mantera for Elliot. They're his favorite band, and he goes crazy whenever I play them. Erica really likes Yelle right now, so I dropped the remix of "Ce Jeu." I got Vicki to dance by playing "Get Down Saturday Night" by Oliver Cheatham, a bad-ass mellow funker that Daft Punk and house heads have sampled left and right. I dropped some old hip-hop after that, including a remix/make of "The Message" by Datashat (originally by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, of course.)
I got lost for a bit in some of my favorite tracks including "Wayfarer" by Kavinsky (which is like a video racing game in the 80's) and "Fuego" by Pitbull (which is like being set on fire by Pitbull.) The tempo dropped back down with Common, Lyrics Born, Jay-Z, and finishing with of course, "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster" By the Geto Boyz.
So, this weekend was one long show with sleep in between acts.
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