Indignities

I like to say that I have no ego, but we all have egos.

1. I love South Carolina, but in terms of the music scene, it has to be DFL in the country. It is terrible here, some of the most lowbrow and despicable music around. Anyway. I thought it would be fun to try to get a gig at one of the college bars at Coastal Carolina University. There’s one in an old Jiffy Lube called The Coop that has DJs. So I went there one night and met with the owner.

Let me tell you, I can be pretty persuasive when I want to be, and it’s not hard when you’re up against a 107 IQ guy. Joe, the greasy-haired, ethically-challenged club owner, was skeptical, but I gave him my shpiel, told him that I’ve played all over the world, in some of the biggest clubs around, and that I had 17 years of experience, and after me spending about 15 minutes tugging on his ear, he reluctantly agreed to it. Over the ensuing weeks, he must have had a change of heart, because the day of, when I was packing my gear in my car, I got a text: no bueno. He cancelled it—and never contacted me again. Well, reputations are earned. Ever since then, I’ve been going around telling that story of Schmuckatelli at The Coop, and how he left me in the lurch. His name is mud. I mean, it’s his club, and he can do whatever he wants with it, but there is a general principle of integrity that you do what you say you are going to do, not what is convenient at the moment. Also, things happen for a reason, and there are no coincidences—he might have saved me from what might have been a terrible gig, with all the bimbos coming to the booth asking for Armand Van Helden. So I don’t dwell on it. Still, it would be nice to have a regular place around here to play.

2. Got an opportunity to play in Cabo San Lucas back in 2014, through a friend of mine, who was a part owner of a club called the Pink Kitty. The whole thing was a little sketchy—it was tough getting a straight answer out of the club as to what music they wanted. I figured I’d bring some bouncy tech house, middle-of-the-road stuff, and it would do.

I fly all the way out there and head to the club. While I was walking around downtown Cabo, I must have heard five different remixes of Avicii’s “Levels” from the bars. Not a good sign. I still don’t know what time I’m playing. I get to the club when it opens, maybe 8pm, and to my dismay, they’re playing hip-hop. Over time, the hip-hop turns into EDM. I’m getting nervous. The bottled blonde who was running the place wouldn’t even talk to me. Finally, I get in the booth and do my thing, and 40 minutes later, they eighty-six me, telling me that people are leaving the club, which was false—I had a big crowd and they were all dancing. Miss Pink Kitty just didn’t like the music. One of the things about bad DJ gigs is that you get emotional and you start forgetting shit. Almost forgot the power cord for my APC-40 in my hurry to get out of there.

Learned a few things. One, Cabo is clearly not an underground music town, which I should have remembered from my visit there in 1997, when I went to Squid Roe. But also, whenever you’re playing somewhere, expectations should be communicated clearly so there are no surprises. If I knew they wanted Avicii, I wouldn’t have made the trip. But they weren’t responding to my Facebook messages. Should have been a red flag. Also, nightlife people are terrible, some of the most disorganized people in the world. It’s not finance, let’s put it that way. Whenever you do come across someone who is professional, it is like a breath of fresh air. Most of the time, it’s jokers all around.

3. Got invited to play at a loft party in Soho in 2012. I was pretty excited about it. The owner of the loft was a high-up guy at Merrill Lynch (who was a subscriber) who was trying to do me a solid. We talked about the music ahead of time, and he said that he wanted it to be like what they played in the Dream hotel. Well, I had never been to the Dream hotel, but I figured it had to be good, maybe deep house or something like that. Insert the Trump “WRONG” GIF here. Anyway, it was a super fancy loft, and apparently Beyonce had just done a photo shoot in there the week before.

My pal Mike is warming up, playing the first two hours, and I’m playing the last two hours. Mike is doing his usual Top 40/House thing, and I’m getting ready to go on and drop some underground on everyone’s heads. My first track is a fucking awesome tech house track from the Bedrock label, and the second one is the classic Joris Voorn Magnolia Remix of Robert Babicz’ “Dark Flower.” So far, so good. But the next track cleared the dancefloor, and nobody came back. I could see the girls huddling up in the corner. A few of them came by to bitch about the music. Next thing I know, the loft owner, the Merrill Lynch guy, who was completely blotto, came by to tell me to get the first DJ back on. Shame, because it was one of the best sets I had ever played—I still have it up on SoundCloud. Mike started playing again and the girls were happy with their Top 40.

Let me tell you something about women and music. There is that quote from Rounders that said that in the poker game of life, women are the rake. In the DJ game of life, women are a menace. They all have terrible taste in music, and they think they have the right to tell you what to play. Dudes don’t care. Dudes are great. They’ll have a drink in one hand, and give you a thumbs up with the other hand, and do the head-bob and walk the other direction. You know what women want? They want to sing along. They want you to play songs that they know so they can have one giant singalong, dozens of them, on the dance floor, belting it out. Spend much time in Nashville, at the honky-tonk bars? Dozens of women in cowboy boots, drunk, in a giant singalong. If they can’t sing along, they are miserable, and they will take it out on you. I’d say that 17 years of DJing has turned me into a bit of a misogynist. If you find a girl that is open-minded about music, hold onto her—they are as rare as an arctic fox.

So I have suffered some indignities over the years. This is by no means a complete list. You have some good gigs and some bad gigs. Every DJ has stories. The one thing I will say is this—people have strong opinions about music. People get angry about music. Check that—women get angry about music. Happened two weeks ago, when I was in Miami—a woman, naturally. Add alcohol, and it gets even worse.

I should point out that there are two different kinds of DJs—let’s call them artists and jukeboxes. Someone who is a jukebox, who is a wedding DJ, you can request any song you want. If they have it, they will play it. That is what they are there for. If you go to a club and there is a DJ playing underground stuff, something he or she clearly put some thought into, then don’t stick your hands in the DJ booth unless you want to come back with a bloody stump. After all these years, if someone comes to the booth with a request, I’ll tell them that I’ll play it, and then I won’t play it. Usually, they forget (because they are drunk), and if they come back a half hour later, I just tell them again that I’ll play it. Stops a lot of arguments. But at 50 years old, with a head of gray hair, generally nobody fucks with me anymore.

If you want to listen to some really good shit, check out my latest mix Whisper on SoundCloud. I just sit in the groove for an hour and fourteen minutes. A couple big tunes in there. Check it out, you’ll love it.