akmed

AH yes! We discover that again, the more one lives, the more one tends to be uhm. Dipped in, previously.

What this means is that we existed before the drought of 1990-2006. There was a lot going on in the 70s and 80s. We had the crusting-up with grunge, then poof. Tumbleweeds. Not much to choose from (which I think is changing now, but that tons of people just don't know any better).

I was spinning recently at Haven and threw down a ton of new music, really creative stuff that had a kick-ass vibe and was quite vivid. It was instantly labeled as Techno. I was like, WTF? Don't you see how this stuff ISN'T techno?

People aren't digging enough or aren't saturated enough with wildly differing alternatives. Even cars of the 50 through the early 70s strove for differentiation. Fords didn't want to look like Chryslers which would die if they looked like Buicks. The same was in many ways with fashion and with music.

A lot of people are also plain scared of really experiencing things. I mean, we're all playing with our XBoxes shooting people in our nice warm homes but get out ther and really experience something, to really feel the electric wire that's sizzling and jumping in the puddle at your feet leap up and wrap around you is something that scares the shit out of people. We're all too cozy watching the patterns of shadows echoing on the walls of the cave than to step outside and see actual stars.

the very very end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s was a very very exciting time for music in dance clubs because you had a generation of people of age and going out who had experienced part of the 60s( maybe if only from their older siblings), had grown up in the 70s, come of age in the 80s- they had an appreciation of rock, punk, new wave, rhythm and blues even the early very good disco that allowed them to be accepting of such a vast range of music in a night of dancing. as a result you had a range of house music and ' techno' that was so varied it allowed you to play almost anything and have people enjoy and get it. you didnt hear missives about how the music someone was going to play was EBM or the millions of definitions people give to try to make music seem different when it is not or at least to not be called techno or house music because that's like being gay or something- so not cool.

those late 80s where white hot-arcing sparks- you could go to a club with white people and asians and blacks and goddamn eskimos and everyone would dance all night to whatever. you were there to dance and if it fit the groove it fit-not in an ipod shuffle way but in a spiritual way.now we can have 50 different djs in a night and it does no good- because theyre like preprogrammed one genre ipods and their audience seems to be a generation of relatively unpaticipatory clothes hangers.

i dj'd a party for a friend 's teeneager who was graduating a few years ago. they asked for requests and were personable and nice but they all just stood around or sat glummly in little packs. i thought they had a horrible time and felt bad but come to find out they were thrilled and told all their friends about their great party and their own fucking dj etc etc. could have fooled me. the kid's dad, who is a jazz musician from brazil, and i were talking and we were both commenting on the fact that when we were kids that age and if we had a dj and beer and food and our freinds we'd be hanging upside down from the light fixtures screaming and singing and fucking dancing.

it's not just that we have an unparralled access to so much music at the click of a mouse and still have some seriously tedious dance clubs- more and more people, who's wishes and needs are expected to be filled instantaneously, are apathetic, not scared, of the unknown.

MM. I think you hit the nail on the head with apathy being the dominant frame today, and secondly with the one-genre mindset.

When I listen to music I'm primarily interesed in the emotion and how it makes me feel - I like playing with music that drifts all over the place style-wise but hits a constant theme of emotion - I frequently love to go from spooky slow stuff to eerie mid-tempo march-step stuff right into crazy ominous breakbeat - covering house, goth, EBM, IDM, Electro, Industrial and all sorts of things. I also love stuff that's silly and amazingly well put together at the same time: recent examples of this on iTunes are:

(Artist / Song Name)

1L / Wanna be startin' somethin'
Clever & Amit / Motherland
Bit Meddler / Shitmix2000 (which is hysterical and absurdly well put together)


But. As you say, it's about the music and nothing else. So, armed with that I forge ahead, stitching together little journeys for people to experience. A few people *have* gotten what I was doing, and completely, utterly freaked out in a positive way.

Being able to talk about this with you (and discover that I'm not insane) really, really helps.

i walked away from a very lucrative djing 'career' . the problem with me was that i couldnt view it as a career . people would ask me how much i charged to play and id be dumbfounded- like money was making it dirty for me. the more successful i became and the more money i generated the more i was expected to act like a sort of half alive juke box. and although i eventually made good money all these other people were quitting their day jobs and building their careers out of trying to micromanage me to their fucking destiny. i was being pushed to change the music, to change myself to fit this master plan. i nearly lost my fucking mind.

i had become 'successful' because of the way i put things togther- any fucking chimp can dj 10 songs that are the top ones that robots will dance to- hell there are even ipod dance nights . your fucking tone deaf dead great great grand pa can be a fucking ipod dj. you have to say something as far as im concerned or forget it. what is the point if youre not trying to communicate?

talk about insanity. i used to come home and cry. i used to come home and couldnt bear to listen to music in the house.when i realized i was hating one of the things that was most important to me- connecting to music and connecting to other people through music, i stopped.i didnt want to sell a lot of drinks( but i was), i didnt want to make some fucking greedy vampire a club promoter (but i did times 3 or 4) and when it came down to changing the way i related to music, i couldnt.

it made me very very sad. i was profoundly depressed for a long time- not being able to dj was devistating. however, i needed to rediscover the core of music's meaning for me and if that meaning didn't have the form of expression i was used to, that's ok. the environment that was condusive no longer existed.

the advent of house in the late 80s was a very unique time. i just consider myself lucky i was there for it and participated on both sides-dancing like a happy fucking monkey, oblivious or weaving my demented little turntable tales that some people ' got.' that's good enough for me, but at a time of my walking away, it wasnt. i was overwelmed by the system - the loft house parties where anything went were no more. dance music became corporate and the audience that really thrived on the new, the experience instead of the product were gone, daddy gone. maybe i'll dj again sometime- i dunno but at least now i know i did what i had to to preserve my passion and love.

in the meantime i cannot help but feel frustrated with people's lack of openess and lack of any sort of knowledge about music- they just consume without thinking, react knee jerk instead of feeling. no one's going to get any message if they refuse to think. we're not ameoba's- we're equipt to do more than just react physically to stimulous.

free your mind and your ass will follow.....

They have goth karaoke down here!

If I had a penny for everytime I watched some tired ass drag queen do a Supreme's number, I would be a Zillionaire.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Karaoke and had them hold the music so I could do Nazi Punks by Dead Kennedy's.

I love Siouxsie. I would shit myself in Diamonds if I could see just one of them do Mittageisen (Metal Postcard).

I am also an avid Deitrich fan.

The problem with most things in life start with the homogenization of that which is already pure, and the lack of spontaneity by an entire culture calling Sublime punk (Vomits) and embellishing what seems to be piss instead of techno.

How about Beat Boxing some Misfits while we're all at it, and sampling, resampling, the same horrid rancid shit we are.

It's like remaking movies. The jackass who thought up a remake of When A Stranger calls is one of those homogenized copycats I want to shot with blow darts right between the eyes.

However,flailing sweaty moshing carcasses always make me happy. So does people who embrace themselves and live life to the absolute fullest without regard or care to others around them.

I had my battles with the dark forces of others calling things what they weren't. I'd rather have someone jab me with pitchforks and run me over with a lawnmower before I would ever consider repetition as my Dark Mistress again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nicoheroin.JPG

What a lovely.... Her and the Manson Squirrels would have reigned supreme.

Viva La Nico!