I closed the MLX6 weekend with a ‘blues’ set in the cafe. We had about 30 people in the room, the mood was mellow and people weren’t quite ready to go home. Our last DJ had left, and if we wanted music, either Keith or I would have to play it. So I decided to play a ‘blues’ set that I really wanted to hear.
I favour ‘dirty nanna’ blues – heavy on the innuendo and also heavy on the puns and humour. Saucy, but light hearted. I also chose to keep the energy in the room higher, and didn’t want it to descend into the super-slow, super-sexy blues stuff that can lead to a really saucy room and a really low-energy vibe.
I noticed that the crowd responded to the higher-energy stuff.
There were also quite a few non-blues dancers in the room who really wanted to talk and hang out rather than dance seriously, so I leant on the vocals and funner songs rather than deeply emotive stuff.
I also started out with a bit of Aretha so as to segue from the previous DJs’ unswing emphasis. He and I actually traded songs for the first 4 or 6 songs – so imagine you can hear a few other tracks in there, after JB and before Aretha.
In retrospect, maybe I should have held off on the incredibly dirty lyrics (not explicit – just 100% double entendre). Especially with the Cow Cow Davenport, Alberta Hunter, Dinah Washington (Long John Blues) and Blu Lou Barker. But it wasn’t an official set, and I wasn’t getting paid. So I figured, I could do as I liked. Almost. I did make an effort to keep people dancing and keep the energy positive.
But here’s the set list (title artist bpm year album):
Son Of A Preacher Man – Aretha Franklin – 77 Greatest Hits (Disc 1)
Please Please Please – James Brown – 74 – 1991 – Sex Machine
Amtrak Blues – Alberta Hunter – 95 – 1978 – Amtrak Blues
Back Water Blues – Dinah Washington with Belford Hendricks’ Orchestra – 71 – 1957 – Ultimate Dinah Washington
Reckless Blues – Velma Middleton with Louis Armstrong and the All Stars – 88 – The Complete Decca Studio Recordings of Louis Armstrong and the All Stars (disc 06)
I Ain No Iceman – Cow Cow Davenport – 89 – History of the Blues (disc 2)
Long John Blues – Dinah Washington – 97 – 1948 – Dinah Washington:the Queen Sings – Disc 2 – Stairway to the Stars
I Feel Like Layin In Another Woman’s Husband’s Arms – Blu Lu Barker – 89 – 1946 – Don’t You Feel My Leg: Apollo’s Lady Blues Singers
Jail House Blues – Ella Fitzgerald – 63 – 1963 – These Are The Blues
Willow Weep For Me – Louis Armstrong – 90 – 1957 – Ella And Louis Again [MFSL]
Rocks In My Bed – Ella Fitzgerald – 68 – 1956 – Ella Fitzgerald Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good to You – Billie Holiday – 64 – 2005 – The Complete Verve Studio Master Takes (disc 6)
Hamp’s Salty Blues – Lionel Hampton and His Quartet – 86 – 1946 – Lionel Hampton Story 3: Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
Slow Down Baby – Walter Brown with Jay McShann’s Kay-Cee Stompers – 73 – 1949 – Big Ben – Disc 4 – Stardust
West Side Baby – Dinah Washington – 89 – 22 Original Classics
My Handy Man Ain’t Handy No More – Alberta Hunter – 76 – 1978 – Amtrak Blues
Resolution Blues – Cootie Williams and His Orchestra with Dinah Washington – 68 – 1947 – Dinah Washington:the Queen Sings – Disc 2 – Stairway to the Stars
Chittlin’ Switch Blues – Slim and Slam – 103 – The Groove Juice Special (columbia)
Category Archives: djing
a few preliminary mlx thoughts – djing
I’ve had a very busy week – from Wednesday last week til yesterday… well, let’s count today as well.
Firstly, we had three lovely houseguests arrive on Wednesday evening, an arrival we celebrated with a fairly extensive barbeque dinner.
Thursday, the MLX began, with a volunteer meeting at 7.30pm, continuing with a free dance at our local venue CBD and rounding up with a gig at the Spiegeltent DJed by myself and Trev. From there the weekend continued at a frenetic pace (suddenly, I can’t seem to spell that word). Our last guest departed this morning at 5am, and I’ve spent the last couple of days lying in bed trying to be well. I have caught that horrible cold again and am pretty well crook. It’s a combination of overworking the last semester and then pushing myself to the point of destruction over the weekend.
I do have a bunch of photos to post, but they’re on The Squeeze’s computer in the other room and I can’t really be bothered sorting the network to get access to them.
I had planned to devote this post (and the following few posts) to random accounts of specific events over the weekend, but I’m so tired I’ve forgotten what I was going to write about.
But let’s start here, with a few comments on DJing (please note: these are just rough ideas and not well thought out. Nor are they representative of the mlx coordinating team – they are just some ideas that I have had).
Right now I’m sitting here with my new headphones on, a birthday present courtesy of The Squeeze – they’re Sennheiser eh250’s for the DJ nerds amongst you. Apparently quite expensive, and certainly very excellent quality. Perfect for people who’re losing their upper range of hearing – which, apparently, we swing DJs are doing. In spades. This is something which upsets me quite a lot, as I used to have phenomenal hearing. Now I don’t. One of the perils of DJing I guess.
So I’m sitting here in bed, drowning in mucous, fighting off dizziness and tiredness (it seems silly to go back to sleep after only being awake for 5 hours) so as to record some of the weekend’s events.
I’m also trying to get back up to date with my music, seeing as how I’ve committed myself (foolishly) to DJing a set at CBD on Thursday night, and have my last gig at the Speegs this weekend.
We’d booked a number (10, actually) of the country’s best DJs for MLX, and it was fascinating to see how DJs interact at exchanges. I knew that dancers thoroughly enjoyed getting together at exchanges to ‘exchange’ dance styles through actually dancing. But watching DJs pair up at the DJ booth and exchange incredibly nerdy DJing conversations was a joy.
DJs from different cities took great delight in arriving at the DJ booth well before their set to hang out with their DJ buddy who was playing the previous set, and many of the DJs (especially those in our cafe, a venue which became home to the silliest of no-rules dancing and DJing… no-rules in that DJs could do whatever they liked, so long as they didn’t dance during their set, and saved the floor if they emptied it) took the opportunity to ‘battle’ or take turns playing songs and working cooperatively on sets, rather than adhering to the more conventional one and a half hour set turn taking.
As a cultural studies person, my imagination was immediately caught by this cooperative approach to cultural production. As a lindy hopper and cultural studies person, I was doubly attracted to this idea of partnership in creative practice. Very much in keeping with the tradition of African American vernacular jazz dance, where dancers improvise within a shared structure. Much as jazz musicians improvise within a shared, orchestrated musical structure in blues and swinging jazz.
One of my regrets from the weekend is that we couldn’t set up a webcam and do a bit of live streaming lindy action – it would have been interesting to capture the event and send it to other dancers to see their response. But there’s always next year.
I think it’s also worth noting how the weekend exemplified the variety of local DJing practices and cultures there are even within a national DJing and dancing culture. I am giving a paper on this very issue (ie the way the ‘Australian’ swing dance community is more a network of local communities and cultures than a homogenous national whole) in Canberra next week, and I couldn’t help but note how exchanges make these sorts of ideas so very clear.
We can talk at one level of the various local musical tropes – the way each local scene has a particular dominant musical and DJing culture or style. Perth (to draw a long bow), is known for its attention to historical musical accuracy. There is a greater emphasis on music from the 30s and 40s, and on a particular tempo and style of swinging jazz. Of course, the fact that we selected DJs who play within this genre went some way to constructing what amounts to a cultural myth of Perth DJing – there are certainly dancers and DJs within that community whose interests are beyond the limits of this specific genre. It is also worth pointing out that the DJs who played the MLX might also have felt that they must restrict their musical choices to this style – so as to best adhere to our expectations as organisers, and to best ‘represent’ their community.
And this point of course emphasises the role exchanges play in presenting a particular notion of ‘local’ identity and culture. A notion which is of course representative of the dominant ideology or discourse of that community (and event-organising body) rather than of the more complex and diverse whole.
I wonder if the same comments can be made of Melbourne DJs?
We offered a range of DJs over the weekend, choosing DJs who specialised in a particular area so as to best suit the room or event they were playing. We did choose two local Melbourne DJs who favoured a very ‘Perth’ musical style. Though one of these demonstrates a more diverse musical taste when DJing locally. I regret not hearing her set on the Thursday nigh, to see how she chose to play the room. Two others were representative of a very different musical style – heavy on the groove, r’n’b and late testament big band. And also representative of the musical tastes of most Melbourne lindy hoppers.
In contrast, of course, the cafe gained a reputation as an ‘alternative’ room not only through our scheduling of DJs (on the Friday night we held the now-notorious ‘BSides’ event there – where DJs were encouraged to play outside the swinging jazz genre), but also through a general, cooperative consensus about how that space was to be used. This room was decorated so as to present a more ‘friendly’ and social space, as opposed to the main room, which was very much focussed on hard-core dancing: a more effective air conditioning system, a large, clear floor, no decorations beyond the room’s basic ‘ballroom’ fixtures, and a clear musical emphasis on ‘lindy hop’. I don’t doubt that the very layout and decorations of the rooms encouraged particular musical choices from the DJs, which were, of course, a response to the mood and physical interaction of the dancers themselves.
It was interesting to see two Perth DJs generally known for their adherence to historical recreationism (both in terms of dancing and music) produce two very excellent – and quite unconvention (by their usual standards) sets in the cafe. One of whom at least took great delight in playing ‘outside the square’.
This response (which of course demonstrated the flexibility of the DJs we hired) offered an example of how DJs do respond to the room they’re playing, and realise the brief they’re given by the event coordinators. And it was a pleasure to see the DJs taking our brief and do such creative work with it. To take delight in doing something a little ‘naughty’.
Our whole ‘Hot Sides’ approach, where we offered a second room specialising in something a little outside the mainstream of lindy hopping music seemed generally very successful over the weekend. We asked Trev to play a Gangbusters set on our very first night – a room devoted to very fast tempos. A room which consequently proved to be as high-energy an event as I’ve ever seen at a lindy hop exchange. And very popular with the dancers. My only regret is that I had to leave the venue early to set up for the Spiegeltent and missed the rest of this set.
We had the BSides night on Friday, of course, which was massively successful, a point paid testament to by the locker-room stench of the room when we tidied up after it at 6.30am.
On Saturday we held the Sugar Bowl blues night – slow, saucy, sexy music for very close dancing. I’m not sure it was quite as successful as the previous night, but it was definitely a popular room and was always filled.
And on Sunday we offered a less intensely alternative bracket, but I noticed that the pattern set by the previous nights encouraged the DJs in that room to play more ‘alternative’ music, catering to the less rigorously historical recreationist crowd.
And of course, one of the nicest parts of this two-room approach was not only seeing two rooms of dancers with quite different tastes kept happy, but seeing those dancers whose tastes are less codified lurching between the two rooms to sample both styles.
As The Squeeze succinctly put it “if the song sucked in one room, I went to the other”.
I will think more about this and post again. Hopefully when I’m not so seriously high on cold and flu tablets and my own body temperature.
edit:
I judge a DJ ‘successful’ or ‘good’ when they:
– keep the floor full all the time
– can recover after clearing the floor
– work the energy of the room, using highs and lows, rather than one single ‘mood’ (ie varying the musical ‘mood’ from high energy and crazy to more mellow and moderate energy)
– respond to the crowd’s mood – if the dancers are looking to party like fools, they bring the partyfool music
I also expect a degree of professionalism from DJs at something like MLX (which had hundreds of dancers in attendance, and was really serving as a representation of Melbourne lindy culture), including:
– not dancing during their sets (something which proved controversial, and which I’ll return to later when it’s not so close an issue)
– arriving 15 minutes before their set was to begin, in order to touch base with the previous DJ
– beginning their set on-time
– having a basic understanding of the equipment they’re using – ie being able to adjust the levels and volumes in a way that makes for a more pleasurable dancing experience
These are not only my expectations, but also those of the MJDA who was running the event – we agreed on these terms before hiring our DJs.
And of course, we pay our DJs well (with better rates than other Australian events), and offer decent working conditions.
We also ask our DJs to send us a complete set list after the event so that we can forward this to APRA and pay our dues to that organisation. An interesting allusion to our stance on intellectual and creative copyright legislation.
Campus 5 = go!
… and moments after I typed that, they arrived.
gig mass index
I have as much free space on my* ipod as I do on my laptop.
I have about 30 gig of music on my laptop, but I haven’t been able to put all my CDs on there as it, well it just won’t fit.
You can fit 18gig on my ipod, I think.
I wish I had a bigger laptop. Or perhaps an external hard drive solution.
But I’m really bad at estimating/figuring out volume (?) so I could be wrong in all these calculations.
DJing at the Spiegeltent on Saturday my laptop got so hot I had to sit with it in my hands at the pub for half an hour afterwards so I could put it back in its little pouch without worrying that it would cook itself.
It reminded me of how difficult it is to do lots of exercise when you’re carrying too much weight.
*’my’ meaning The Squeeze’s.
Campus Five and Mosaic sets
Because I’m busy marking (up to 20 a day, mate – I am one speedy mofo), I can only blog really dull things.
Right now I’m pining after this:
for no real reason other than the fact that Trev said he was getting it, and now I want it too. Well, actually, I love Ellington a whole lot, and have a real passion for small group/combo swinging jazz. And we’re talking a Mosaic set here – 7 CDs worth of phenomenally good quality remastered hotness. That costs $US119. A little too rich for my blood, unfortunately. Especially since the scholarship ended (months ago) and the teaching paychecks are about to dry up. I do have a wad of cash squirrelled away from my DJing pay, but that $500 for a year’s worth of DJing… she ain’t going to go too far.
So I just think about that Mosaic set and then think about how I could arrange my life so that Trev lives in my house and lets me pretend that all his music is belong to me.
On other musically related fronts, I didn’t let that whole poverty thing stop me from buying myself these 2 Campus 5 albums:
I was convinced by the versions of Squatty Roo and Hop Skip and Jump on Crazy Rhythm (you can listen to them there on the site). I adore those songs (especially the former), and while the Artie Shaw and Ellington versions of these songs (respectively) are far superior, the appeal of a good quality recording of each cannot be ignored (particularly not when the issues I raised here are concerned).
If only I had some logic and didn’t impulse-purchase music in times of stress or overwork. I’d figure out that if I just restrained myself from these little splurges I’d have enough dosh to buy those sweet Mosaic sets.
But I don’t buy music sensibly. I am an artist – my musical selections are guided by impulse. Creative impulse.
The Charleston Chasers
The Charleston Chasers (self-titled).
Not the modern-day recreationist Charleston Chasers, but the early days doods from the 20s/30s.
Only existing as a studio-group (ie recording together but not performing live for audiences), the Charleston Chasers feature a pretty white cast of musicians (and sound it too), including Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Pee Wee Russell, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Jack Teagarden. Goodman was the focus of my interest in this album.
I haven’t really had a chance to listen to the album properly, but I can say, the quality is surprisingly good for such old recordings, the ‘sound’ is pretty dang white (check out that above link for a discussion of this stuff in one of my earlier posts), but the music is still good stuff. Think ‘charleston’, a few slow drags/blues numbers, all with a bit of a ‘society’ edge (no guts, no buckets here).
Considering the cast on this one, I think my appreciation for this album will only grow over listens.
Maxine Sullivan’s My Memories of You
Maxine Sullivan’s 1955 album My Memories of You (remastered, etc) is very like Ella’s These are the Blues in its groovy, later-era swinging jazz vibe. I’d pop this one in the same family as Ella and Louis Again (Ella and Louis Armstrong), Billy Holiday’s later stuff from Verve (including Songs for Distingue Lovers) and some of the Oscar Peterson/late Louis Armstong All-Stars stuff.
Small combo, sweet production, older artist with a less-excellent voice, but nice phrasing and sophisticated musicianship. You have to love the way these ladies hang on the beat – they just wait out there til the very last minute.
My Memories of You is a really nice album – almost all very danceable/DJable (for a groover crowd, mind you), as I discovered at the Spiegeltent this weekend. I played far too many songs from the album, but it was just so appropriate for the dancers who were there – a version of Massachusetts which went down really well as a birthday song (and I like it because it reminds me of her much earlier version which I really prefer), as did Christopher Columbus which doesn’t really hold up to too many replayings, but has a sweet sparcity and velvety sauciness which plays on the memory of Fats Waller’s (decidedly dirty) version in a nice way.
Max manages to avoid the dirty lyrics, but their absense (if you know the Fats version) is emphasised rather than coyly ignored (as in the horrible Andrews Sisters versions of things like Hold Tight), so ends up feeling saucy – the delay in her phrasing, while not a patch on Billy Holiday, seems to let you know that she knows this is saucy stuff, but won’t go so far as to piss of her record company with dirty lyrics.
This is a nice album. I’ve listened to it a bunch of times, and I know it’ll be a sure-fire winner when DJing for groovers. But after about a half-dozen, or maybe 10 times through, I feel like I’ve pretty much heard all there is to hear. Unlike Billy Holiday’s later stuff, where you feel you can keep going back and finding more interesting things. Max isn’t the consumate muisican Billy is. Nor has her voice weathered as well as Ella’s in that period. But there’s something really appealing about this mature voice with a mature approach to swing.
[NB: I heard Jesse spruiking this one on his radio show and made an immediate impulse purchase. It’s a damn good thing I really don’t like Earnestine Anderson or I’d have spent my (non-existant) savings on groover crowd-pleasers by now)]
Ella Fitzgerald’s These are the Blues
Just a quick entry to blog the lately arrived members of my CD collection.
These Are the Blues by Ella Fitzgerald.
Ella really rocks, and this is a really great album. One of the late-Ella recordings (1963), there’s some sweet organ action, some lovely solos, etc etc from the combo supporting her (I don’t have the linter notes handy, sorry – story of my laptop-life). It’s all blues, and it’s all very blues-danceable.
Yet I am not entirely convinced that Ella really knows how to sing anything other than happy. She has an amazing voice, amazing musicianship, but it feels like she has a limited emotional range. Listening to a version of Christopher Columbus on another album last night, I speculated to The Squeeze that Ella could sing the naughty version of that song have it come off sounding entirely innocent.
But this is still a great album – truly great. If you like groovy, smooth blues. And Ella, of course.
animal encounters
Last night riding home from die Spiegeltent (where I am currently doing a few DJing gigs – Nov 4th and 18th and Dec 2nd if you want to catch up – it’s a glorious venue, there’s a cheesy dance class (which every one loves – especially the kids) and there are cheesy performances (which you can’t help but enjoy) and cheesy jokes (and I don’t care if it’s only me who adores them) and some fricking AWESOME DJed music – all for $10. Though it’s $10 for a beer(!!!!) )
… yeah, so on the ride home, we saw ten cats. I kid you not – ten cats. I usually see three (often the same ones, though not always), but last night we saw four ordinary cats and then six feral cats down near the railway line. I don’t know who thinks feeding feral cats is a good idea: if you do, you’re ON CRACK. The Squeeze got off his bike and tried to chase one to give it a squeeze. He stopped when I warned him that he’d have to sleep in the shed if he caught one.
I don’t much care for cats. I certainly don’t like to see them out on the street, looking for things to kill.
We have also seen a lovely small corgi tied up outside our local shops a couple of times lately. Last time it was outside the Safeway, yesterday it was outside Nino and Joes. I think I’m in love. I suggested The Squeeze squash it into his backpack and then make a quick getaway, but the owner overheard and didn’t look too impressed.
That is one fine corgi – it is gentle and sweet and has lovely fur and huge ears. Unfortunately, generations of inbreeding have left it with stunted feet.
Tomorrow is dentist appointment #3. The second one wasn’t so bad (just two small fillings), but tomorrow is the follow up on the surprise root canal. I am a bit scared, as it seems that side of my jaw is more sensitive than the other. I have promised myself another trip to the cinema (we went to see Children of God tonight at the Nova) and I think I’ll let myself see anything I want, even if it’s Little Miss Sunshine which The Squeeze wants to see as well. Either that or that dullish biodoco* about that architect bloke. I like films about buildings. Really, I’d prefer a chick flick, but they’re all out of them at the cinema. And I doubt they’d have it at the Kino, which is across the road from the dentist. Nor the Nova, which is my second choice.
So I guess I’ll just have to settle for some insane spontaneous CD purchasing instead.
*Sounds like something I’d buy at Nino and Joe’s, huh? Nope. But I did buy a lovely rolled turky roast this weekend. I love turkey, and this was some great action. Stuffed with something sweet with nuts (shh, don’t tell The Squeeze – he hates nuts but didn’t realise). Took two bloody hours to cook, but man, was that some tasty giant fowl.
–edit–
Note to self: turkeys aren’t big on the swimming.
Henry ‘Red’ Allen’s World on a String
I have my eye on Henry Red Allen’s World on a String after reading about the version of St James Infirmary discussed on SwingDJs here. The song caught my ear while watching the ULHS finals (which I talked about here).
I don’t have any Red Allen, but I’m definitely interested.
As for my stalking yet another version of SJI, alls I can say, is that if obsessing about multiple versions of particuar songs is good enough for Jesse in his October show, it’s certainly good enough for me.
Although, on a side-note, one of my reasons for seeking out the older or ‘betterer’ versions of particular songs is motivated by the current musical clime in Melbourne lindy hop. There’s been a recent rash of new DJs in our town, which I do applaud. I am particularly happy about the fact that most of (if not all of) these noobs are women. But I do have a great deal of issue with the fact that they’re all into boring old groove, and that most of the Melbourne DJs playing this sort of action don’t actually own their music – they’ve ripped it off someone else. Which is problematic not only for the fact that they’re, well, ripping people off, but just as importantly for a community of dancers, it means that the same old music is being recycled through the speakers every night. We hear no music – only poor quality versions of ordinary songs someone’s downloaded illegally (in a shitty mp3) and then shared around.
So when I hear a particularly shitful version of a song, I’m immediately motivated to play a betterer version so people can hear that there is more to the jazz world than fucked up versions of goddamn Lou Rawls goddamn version of SJI!
Dang – I am SO on my high horse here!
…the thing of it is, though, that un-groove is out of style here in Melbourne town, and even if I do play a ‘better’ version, it’s unlikely that there’ll be any dancers there who’d value it in the same way I do!
argh.
So, yeah, I’m hot for that Red Allen album, but goddess knows when I’d get to play it for dancers. Guess I’ll just have to love it on my own. Like I loves de McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and early Cab on my own…