SwingDJs

So I had to fly by the seat of my pants tonight...

At the last minute, I was asked to take over for a guy who had to leave early. I didn't have my laptop with me, nor my case of CDs. Instead, I had to rely on a couple home-burned "Mix Tape CDs" I had made several years ago for my then-girlfriend, now-wife. (Thankfully, she happened to have them in her car... She's A Keeper!!)

So without being able to Preview, nor really having any recollection what was ON those discs, I had to wing it!

And OMG! It was HARD! How quickly we start to take for granted all the conveniences of modern technology... Let that be a lesson, eh?

And the audience reaction was what?

Eyeball wrote:And the audience reaction was what?

Blithe apathy. Dancers don't care.

Actually, I worked with it -- one of the more respected dancers asked for a slow song, so when I heard the muted trumpet at the beginning of Ella's "I'm Beginning To See The Light," I announced that it was per his request.

So - you went in there wih unbusted balls and the reaction was pretty much the same as if you had busted your balls and anguished over each tracks bpm and whether or not to edit out a piano solo, etc., etc., etc.?

Where are you in the USA?

I've had the same freak-out when my software glitched once and I couldn't figure it out on the fly. I brought my CDs for a year or so after I started laptopping for just such an occasion... but that night (to make it worse) it turned out to be my "backup" binder (which is not quite complete and not nearly as well-indexed).

I doubt most dancers noticed, but, yes, I too was freakin out! Not nearly as fun as a usual night.

Eyeball wrote:So - you went in there wih unbusted balls and the reaction was pretty much the same as if you had busted your balls and anguished over each tracks bpm and whether or not to edit out a piano solo, etc., etc., etc.?

We bust our balls for self-adulation, though... I know when I've played a great set -- I can feel the energy in the room. I hear it in the way people thank their partners at the end of each song; I see it in the way people jump up to find somebody to dance with. Even if they don't "notice" the music, they're still influenced by it nonetheless. (That's COOL, BTW!)

All I want is for dancers to leave thinking, "WOW! *THAT* WAS FUN!"

I don't want them to sit around saying, "Oh Chauncey! Wasn't that Flugelhorn Solo simply divine!" "Indeed, Edgar. It underscores the marked superiority of the October 1927 recording for the Fratznab label over the earlier version with Joe Jack McGillicuddy on Zither!" (*Yawn!*)

But when your playing out and your hands are tied, it's REALLY hard to command the energy of the room.

Thankfully, yeah, dancers can be a little, uhm, "blissfully ignorant" of the song selection -- they'll dance to whatever comes on -- so even a mediocre performance will receive a perfectly acceptable reaction.

In the long run, however, it's nice to be able to say, "Hmm, the past four songs have all been slow ballads... I don't want to slam into Woody Herman's "Northwest Passage" just yet, maybe I'll ease into it with some Louis Jordan Jump Blues first." Or whatever...

Or the other way around... It's been all fast stuff and people are starting to demand something a little less demanding. You can't go from Benny Goodman's "Runnin' Wild" to a bluesy, soulful Little Milton or something. You want people to cool down ON THE DANCE FLOOR, not walk off saying, "Ahh! Finally a chance to stop dancing..."

Of course, I would never put those kinds of songs back-to-back on a "Mix Tape CD" so there's still *SOME* amount of "ball busting" prep work going on, but that's certainly why an iPod on Shuffle will never have the same impact as a Live DJ.

Such a sense of nobless oblige.

Eyeball wrote:Such a sense of noblesse oblige.

*bows*