Re: Why DJing is headrushingly beautiful in 2000

From: sobrown@teknorapex.com
Date: Thu Apr 13 2000 - 16:44:55 MET DST

  • Next message: Steven Gnagni: "bbe stop and listen"

    >Its just i'm sick of the fact that hardly any dj's are willing to play
    music
    >that everyone doesn't know. I always try to push new music and play
    >absolutely rockin tunes that other people won't know and most of the time
    >all i get from people is 'have you ever dj'ed before?'

    I run into this all the time djing college radio. I play a mixture of acid
    jazz, idm, ambient, drum and bass, trip hop, techno, Detroit inspired
    stuff... and I get calls saying, "what's this?! play some house! or
    techno!". I think a good DJ will do a little of both: playing old favorites
    and also checking out the new music. There's always so much new music that
    you could devote your show to entirely playing recent releases, but I think
    trying to seamlessly explore the new while paying tribute to older music
    (the classics) is a good balance. Too much music seems to disappear after a
    year... I don't want to see electronic music share the transient
    characteristics of pop/top 40 music, which prepackaged, corporate spoon-fed
    fad-driven, MTV playin' mediocrity never endures a year's time. So I like
    to "dig through the vaults" during every show.

    The good part is that as a college radio dj, I don't have to care so much
    if everyone is receiving the music well (you can't please everybody so
    don't even try), whereas a club dj feels a lot of pressure to play to the
    crowd's taste even to the sacrificing of innovation... call it economic
    reality clashing with individual style and creativity. Thankfully this
    country is slowing starting to be more openminded towards new sounds and
    styles, but it's a slow process. The music industry in this country has for
    years been too incestuous, with far too few radio stations pushing the
    common held envelope. However, my optimism is fueled by the greater number
    of electronic records and CDs that used to be only available as imports,
    but now are domestically released.

    Steve Brown
    Cumberland, RI

    Dj, WSMU 91.1 FM, North Dartmouth, MA
    UMass-Dartmouth

    >Its just i'm sick of the fact that hardly any dj's are willing to play
    music
    >that everyone doesn't know. I always try to push new music and play
    >absolutely rockin tunes that other people won't know and most of the time
    >all i get from people is 'have you ever dj'ed before?'



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