>I've always thought DJ's make too much of 'reacting to a crowd',
when really
>it's a matter of having the right crowd for the assembled lineup.
i definitely disagree...
Whenever I see debates like this (to crowd or not to crowd) I think of an
anecdote from my friend Dean who recalls the time that he DJ-ed before some
band (at the time a "name"...Dead or Alive - as you might have guessed,
this was a few decades ago). His DJ booth was up a ladder, way over the
floor - which made it a drag to lug up the record case. He was tired of the
gig (he had a residency there), tired of lugging the records and feeling
spunky, so he decided to try something different. I should add here that
Dean always was a bit off the beaten path - at this stage he was the only
DJ I knew who specialized in (his own terms) "25 cent cha-cha records".
He determined not to play anything he couldn't find en route that night. He
stopped at a Salvation Army outlet and found the old Joe Tex "I Gotcha" and
Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" 45s. Instead of playing the tape which
Pete Burns *demanded* of him, Dean proceeded to play both of those songs
(only) at varying speeds for the whole evening. I guess that lands on the
former extreme of the spectrum :-).
jeff
ps
BTW, this is the same Dean who owns the Buddha Bar on 8 mile.
Still hilarious.
