So I'm just curious how everyone's tastes have changed while being a DJ. I just bought a 200 cd binder to keep all my cds in one place. I am putting stuff in there and I realize how much crap I had from back in the day. I have burned mix cds (which I'm getting rid of as I buy the albums with the songs I like from the mix cds), but they have so much crap. I found a Louis Prima collection that I've passed over so much, it's now collecting dust at the back of the binder.
Now I look through my stuff and I see Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Earl Hines, Fletcher Henderson, Lucky Millinder, Pete Johnson, Hot Lips Page, Andy Kirk, and the list goes on. I just can't believe all the crap I liked back when I started.
Harrison
Your Tastes
Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy
-
lindyholic
- Posts: 215
- Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 2:51 pm
- Location: Victoria, B.C., Canada
- Contact:
Your Tastes
www.lindyhopper.ca, Canada's Swing Site.
Educating yourself about any genre of music will either make you love it or hate it.
Usually if it's self-education, you can only keep it up because you come to love it.
Often at the expense of not taking the time to bother to listen to stuff you used to listen to all the time.
A lot of my old mix CDs don't appeal to me anymore, because I've made myself listen to the inticracies of old jazz, but only ever listened to them on a casual basis. Now I can hear a lot more in my swing-era stuff than I can in the songs I used to love. I still keep 'em around, though.
Afterthought:
I think my collection is a little skewed by the fact that I keep DJing CDs and teaching CDs in the same binder. I try to avoid my mixes for the floor; I only pull a song off one of my favorites when I simply can't find anything else before the end of the current track. It's too much fun to go flipping through albums...it's a neat game--me against the numbers (of tracks).
Anyway, if you look at all the "swing mixes" in my binder...I've still got Zoot Suit Riot in there. But it's different if you only consider the mixes I might even think about outside of a lesson context. I've still got plenty of, "What was I thinking?" tracks on those, but not quite so egregious.
P.P.S. Don't worry...I haven't taught any friends using "Zoot Suit Riot" in a year..."Splanky" and "Spinnin' the Webb" are my staples now.
Usually if it's self-education, you can only keep it up because you come to love it.
Often at the expense of not taking the time to bother to listen to stuff you used to listen to all the time.
A lot of my old mix CDs don't appeal to me anymore, because I've made myself listen to the inticracies of old jazz, but only ever listened to them on a casual basis. Now I can hear a lot more in my swing-era stuff than I can in the songs I used to love. I still keep 'em around, though.
Afterthought:
I think my collection is a little skewed by the fact that I keep DJing CDs and teaching CDs in the same binder. I try to avoid my mixes for the floor; I only pull a song off one of my favorites when I simply can't find anything else before the end of the current track. It's too much fun to go flipping through albums...it's a neat game--me against the numbers (of tracks).
Anyway, if you look at all the "swing mixes" in my binder...I've still got Zoot Suit Riot in there. But it's different if you only consider the mixes I might even think about outside of a lesson context. I've still got plenty of, "What was I thinking?" tracks on those, but not quite so egregious.
P.P.S. Don't worry...I haven't taught any friends using "Zoot Suit Riot" in a year..."Splanky" and "Spinnin' the Webb" are my staples now.
Last edited by kitkat on Thu Oct 02, 2003 3:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.
-
KevinSchaper
- Posts: 277
- Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 4:29 pm
- Location: Eugene, OR
That's nothing.. you started waaaaay after the great neoswing floods of 98 and 99...
check out this badboy from just under 5 years ago:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kschaper/h ... 01598.html
check out this badboy from just under 5 years ago:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kschaper/h ... 01598.html
-
mousethief
- Posts: 984
- Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2003 1:29 pm
- Location: dfw - a wretched hive of scum & villainy
Tee hee. Don West still has "Zoot Suit Riot."KevinSchaper wrote:That's nothing.. you started waaaaay after the great neoswing floods of 98 and 99...
check out this badboy from just under 5 years ago:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kschaper/h ... 01598.html
Kalman
One man's crap is another man's gold.
I have never stopped liking music that I once liked. I don't listen to it as often, of course, because there's always new music that I like.
Whether I want to DANCE to it is something else entirely.
I wonder if I'm ignoring classical or techno more these days in favor of jazz? I think I still listen to as much heavy metal as I ever used to.
I have never stopped liking music that I once liked. I don't listen to it as often, of course, because there's always new music that I like.
Whether I want to DANCE to it is something else entirely.
I wonder if I'm ignoring classical or techno more these days in favor of jazz? I think I still listen to as much heavy metal as I ever used to.
Re: Your Tastes
I've noticed three things happening with me...lindyholic wrote:So I'm just curious how everyone's tastes have changed while being a DJ.
1. I'm listening less and less to the popular, Top 40 trash that's on the radio and TV (is there anyone who still plays videos? don't know, don't have cable). I'm just not interested in hearing the next best pop diva/hip hop thug/alternative wannabe served up by the music industry. This really started happening as I became more involved in dancing, it's just gotten worse now.
2. I'm becoming more schizophrenic with my tastes in "lindy" music. I'm being exposed to so many artists and types on music as I meet different DJs or read this damn board that it's starting to become overwhelming. I don't yet have a "style" when I spin because I'm trying different things... which is probably confusing to the dancers who listen to me. I'm not yet starting to hear voices in my head, but...
3. If I do, its vocalists. Starting to listen and seek out more vocalists, especially women. Mainly because we don't hear it a lot where I am, and because so few people really sing anymore.
Tina
"I'm here to kick a little DJ a$$!"
~ Foreman on That 70s Show
~ Foreman on That 70s Show
As for music for swing DJing, I've changed drastically. I started out with a book full of neo-swing. Then I was pulled to the dark side of modern jazz or "groove" or whatever the current acceptable label for that genre is. Now I realize how much I love hot jazz and early swing stuff.
-Jeremy
It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money.
It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money.
-
lindyholic
- Posts: 215
- Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 2:51 pm
- Location: Victoria, B.C., Canada
- Contact:
Yeah, I went through a REALLY short period of liking neo swing (like 2 weeks). Then I kinda liked the groove for about a month but then I bought a Count Basie cd and it was awesome. I have not looked back since and now all I love to play is early swing and hot jazz. It's good shit.
Harrison
Harrison
www.lindyhopper.ca, Canada's Swing Site.
Zoot Suit Riot and the Cherry Poppin Daddies isn't the half of it... The Big Six and The Flipped Fedora's bring back memories of GAWDAWFUL music from back then.mousethief wrote:Tee hee. Don West still has "Zoot Suit Riot."KevinSchaper wrote:That's nothing.. you started waaaaay after the great neoswing floods of 98 and 99...
check out this badboy from just under 5 years ago:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kschaper/h ... 01598.html
Of course, I still own all those CDs, as well as The Jive Aces. Egad!!My tastes have tremendously evolved over the years, mostly to broaden what I consider "danceable," as with the entire Lindy scene across the country. Many songs I found completely undanceable years ago are some of my favorites, now. The Mighty Blues Kings "Money Getting Cheaper" is one stark example. When I first bought the album, I rated the song undanceable. Now it is one of the only MBK songs I truly enjoy dancing to.
I also remember debating in Chicago whether small group jazz combos like Oscar Peterson, Nat King Cole, etc., were danceable, at all, and everyone agreeing that Swing Era pop songs like Benny Goodman's "Don't Be That Way" were FAR preferable to ANYTHING by Oscar Peterson. It similarly took a LONG time for Jimmy Witherspoon (with the Jay McShann trio) to be accepted; now he's "old school."
When I was in San Francisco a few months ago, Eric Hamilton shared his memory with Jesse and me of the first time Paul Overton played Splanky at a dance. Eric ran up to him excitedly after the song and asked, "WOW, what was THAT?!?!" Paul smugly smirked, nodded knowingly like he had discovered the messiah and brought him to the people, and responded, "Count Basie." Consider just how limited our musical tastes were in 1996 such that introducing COUNT BASIE was innovative.
Many dancers/DJs don't know how good they got it to start from where they did.
That evolution also puts all the present-day intolerant comments about "Wade," "Stormy Moday" and other, "non-classic-Swing" Lindy hits in context for me. I completely understand interpreting the rhythm of Lindy Hop and Swing dancing in a far more limited way because *I* once did so, myself.