Nightmare at 130 Beats Per Minute
Pepi
The nightmare gig is a rite of passage for every DJ, live band, actor, stand up comedian, performance artist, and all others who must face a public crowd. The nightmare moment in an otherwise well-played, or at least passable gig is less discussed. Those moments are the brief turbulence during a flight that will eventually reach safety, or the stumble down a set of stairs before one makes a safe landing at the bottom. I can proudly say I have more well-played, or at least passable gigs than I do nightmare ones, but a particular nightmare moment sticks out in my mind when I think of slip-ups.
It was the Sining Shelter Christmas party, 2023. I knew the crowd wasn’t one much into clubgoing. That’s fine, but these crowds of course call for some adjustment. The combination of Christmas party + non-club crowd led me to the conclusion that it’s time to whip out the vocal tracks and edits and have a bit of silly fun. I was playing to a room that consisted of 50-70% friends anyway. It was essentially and quite literally a set for a house party.
And for the most part, the gig went great. I was doing fine, the intimate Christmas crowd was responsive and seemed to be enjoying themselves too.
But I say “for the most part” because what I’d mentioned earlier had taken place: the nightmare moment. It wasn’t the galloping of mismatched kick drums nor a stretch of awkward post-song dead air. There were no curses nor boos nor volleys of tomatoes.
The nightmare moment was defined by a decision in poor taste. Playing on one deck was the Florentino edit of “Music Sounds Better With You”, and for at least 60% of its duration, there was nothing on the other deck. Visible on its screen was frantic UI motion, my hand twiddling the knob of our borrowed XDJ, before landing on a track that finally fit.
With maybe a minute or thirty seconds left remaining on the first deck, I brought the other fader up and out came the sounds of DJ Technics.
“Fuck fuck fuck! I just wanna fuck fuck fuck! I just wanna fuck fuck fuck! I just wanna fuck fuck fuck! I just wanna fuck fuck fuck!”
In every other situation I’ve played that track, I was certain I’d made the right decision. It’s an amusing, horny curveball to throw after an assortment of weirdo bleep bloops, or a safe little follow-up to other Baltimorean music. Fader up, EQ, build up into backspin. Easy.
But in this case it was a last resort played with haste, a track I only chose because it seemed like nothing else could come in. And I regretted it the moment I hit the play button.
“Music Sounds Better With You” and all its versions (that I know of) brim with a powerful love and joy. They are life-affirming pieces that celebrate the experience of companionship. To follow it up with a song not only about fucking, but about only wanting to fuck is a horrifically transformative misfire, a total shift in the narrative. The idea stops being that music sounds better with someone you love. It becomes the story of a manipulator, someone who lies about love for sexual conquest, someone who cruelly tricks another for a fuck that means everything to one and nothing to the other. It is to me, the most despicable transition I’ve ever done, and I didn’t even want to go through with it at all.
It felt like the room shifted for that brief segment of the set. My mind may have been warping everyone’s faces for me, but I thought I’d seen discomfort in the expressions of the previously happy crowd. I actually wished I’d fucked up on a technical level, that way they’d be aware this was a literal last minute choice I’d made.
I can’t say how much the transition actually meant to people for sure. For all I know, they all went home that night with every track blending together in their memories, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the transition was total shit.
***
The principle behind the good, the bad and the interesting in a DJ mix is, to me, similar to the principle we see with the Kuleshov Effect. Originating in Soviet montage theory, it describes the way that an image isolated will create a different emotional response with the context of a preceding or succeeding image. DJ storytelling is similar in this regard. We get the preceding track(s), the succeeding track(s), and the element much more essential to DJing than film in which tracks co-exist: the blend. You can play with this framework of sequence in so many different ways.
A track about love is one thing. It becomes something stronger when followed by a track about thanking God. A track of brooding breaks is one thing, but attains new layers of emotional complexity when mixed with heartbeat kicks and deep house pads. A Drake song in a hip-hop set is entirely different from a Drake song that plays after an hour of oddball dubstep, bass, and techno. The choice of succession is everything in a set.
I could’ve followed that edit with another happy love song. Maybe I could’ve followed it with a breakup track or something. The move could’ve been to drop a wordless party banger and just leave it at that. All I needed to do was not drop a song about casual sex.
But I did.
My fumble was not a mismatch of beats, or keys, or EQs, but a fatal case of bad decisions.
***
For years, assorted people have fallen victim to the notion that technicality is the key to a good mix, or good art in general. And yes, we all appreciate the technical wizards of the world. But what’s the technical wizard without spells worth casting?
The technical can certainly make the mix or painting or write-up or whatever better. It is not however the key to making something good in the first place– the idea is. And to me, technicality is only there in service of the idea. Go overboard with the technical and the idea gets buried, perhaps killed. Go overboard with the technical for the wrong idea and you send everybody straight to hell. Sometimes the easy move is the best one, and sometimes the hard one is just unnecessary.
The idea, the purpose and the decision–those are what matter most. Track selection over technical skill always. I’d rather see someone fail technically in the pursuit of expressing good ideas, rather than someone succeed in executing an idea half-baked, soulless, or wicked (and not in the junglist sense). Yes, you should have your basic fundamentals, but a track that gets out of sync for 5 seconds will not haunt you the same way the wrong sequence will.
Or at least that’s how it is for me. Maybe when I say “you” I mean me. But if you are in fact anything like me, please take this reminder. Cause I, overly critical of myself and everything I do, would certainly say I need to.
So to myself, DJs just starting, and all those whose neuroticism overemphasizes skill over vision (replace words that don’t fit your medium with the ones that do):
It’s all about making choices that matter. Technical skill is only there to make a meaningful choice work best. When you get hung up over your transitions, you only hurt yourself, and when you get too obsessed with flashy technicals, you only jerk yourself off.
Be prudent. Consider the medium. Consider the styles that you’re playing. Consider what tracks might be about or the feelings they evoke. Consider all the elements that make up every layer of the music you are playing. Consider historical context. Consider the room around you. Consider the world around you. And then consider the execution.
The optimal technical skill will follow with enough thought and enough practice. What matters first and foremost is the meaning behind the decisions you make with your skills.
This is the credo I wish to ride out till the end with, in music, in all creation, and most importantly, in living.
***
P.S. My friend, who wishes to be referred to as “Ramon Rodrigo”, shared an interesting perspective with me on this piece:
Argument is sound - but my two cents: as a reader and a friend, i find the ’faux-pas’ hilarious - and interesting. I see in the selection an intriguing, different story - perhaps one listener could see it as cynical (love is just a manifestation of animalistic desire) or a cheeky nod to the multiplicity of perspective (some dance with their loves, others with desire for touch, some I fear even do it for both) or even a triumphant championing of both romantic and carnal as equal - but I wasnt in the audience, and based off what you saying, wasn't how it was read - my only thought is I could see a world where it was a good idea lol”
Shelter head Tonchi Mercado/PK Shellboy feels otherwise. As someone in the crowd that night, they say they definitely felt a vibe shift, but not one with the severity that I describe, something more like a “Damn”, in their own words.
Lots to be discussed about perspective and interpretation here, but that is, of course, an article for another day.