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NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 2)

(photo of Trev and I ‘DJing’ at MLX8 by scott_aus)

This post is the second of two. In the first part (NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 1)) I rambled on about Sydney’s DJing culture at the moment, particularly in reference to its social dancing culture and basic demographics. This second part spends a bit of time talking about why DJing sucks and why I like DJing. At some point in the future I’ll try to write about how we might (despite all our better instincts) go about encouraging new DJs in the swing dance scene.

I’m going to carry on with the (increasingly ridiculous) point that we need more DJs here in Sydney. Because as things are going, we’re in pretty dire straits: NEED MOAR DJS!!1!!

How do we get these moar DJs?
One of the most frustrating suggestions I’ve heard lately is that we should “just put out an ad for more DJs”. Gee, why hadn’t I thought of that. As though there are squads of skilled DJs sitting about at home who hadn’t thought about DJing. Or rather, the implication is that any old fool with some music can DJ.

*headdesk* repeatedly

Here is where things get tricky. Yes, any old fool with an ipod or a laptop can just plug into a sound system and play some music. But this is what will happen 99% of the time:

They won’t play ‘swing music’. They’ll play songs that they luuurve and can’t believe no one ever plays. Because no one has every played that fucking Wham Jitterbug song, or Richard Cheese. They’ll play one fucked up song after another, and everyone will get shitty/bored and get drunk/go home.
They will play ‘swing music’, but they’ll be using shitty, shitty pirated mp3s that sound HORRIBLE and are unlistenable. So an experienced DJ/person will have to step in to help them fix the sound.
They will play ‘swing music’, but it will all be under 100bpm or above 200bpm, all from one small musical style, and all very samey. This’ll be fine for that person and their three friends, but everyone else will get shitty/bored and get drunk/go home.

The best case scenario in these moments is that the dancers will be ok with one of these DJs pulling this rubbish, so long as there’s a second DJ who’ll play ‘real’ swing music. Either way, you’re going to need a second DJ or some sort of technology-savvy person working with the new ‘DJs’ to help them actually make sound come out of the metal box.
And of course, we haven’t even begun to approach a DJ who has a) decent music, and b) knows how to combine it, and c) work the room so that people have a chance to breathe/get their groove on.

Who’d have thought. DJing actually requires some skills and knowledge.

So, yeah, just putting out an ad won’t turn up any surprise DJ gems. It might get you one or two people who have an interest. But what you’ll probably get is a bunch of guys with inflated egos who think DJing is ‘easy’. You might get one or two women, but they won’t have as much confidence as the guys. What will probably happen is that the few people who are actually interested in DJing swing music for swing dancers will pay attention to how things turn out, and then they’ll be disappointed and put off by the reality and the fallout of that reality.
As with building a swing dance scene generally, new DJs are more the result of long term plans and strategies than surprise discoveries.

This ‘just put in an ad for DJs’ approach is a clear indication of the value of social dancing and of music – low. This makes sense if your financial bread and butter is classes, and social dancing an optional extra. It’s also the antithesis of how I approach dancing. I see classes as a place for me to develop skills which make my social dancing better/easier/more fun/more creative. If your business relies on class attendance (rather than social dance attendance), it’s important to develop an institutional discourse which values pedagogy – learning and teaching – above all else, and which also articulates clear hierarchies of knowledge. Most importantly, learning is positioned as something which happens in classes, knowledge is bought and paid for, then passed from teachers to students like a little package.

What this really makes clear, I guess, is the way Sydney (and Melbourne, at least until about 2008) relies on dance schools to put on social dancing events. I don’t know if this happens in other scenes. But dance classes are the centre of the community, rather than the ground crew or entry point for a vibrant social dancing scene. I’m not sure why. Maybe we just seem to assume that running classes makes better business sense than running regular social dances? I mean, we only have three annual events, nationally (of a total of twelve or thirteen), which are all social dancing, with no workshops: Canberrang (Canberra), Devil City Swing (Tasmania) and MLX. MLX is the best-attended, largest of those events, and began as a workshop weekend. I often wonder if our national obsession with workshops has something to do with Australia’s small and geographically dispersed population. Or if it’s a result of our distance from the rest of the lindy hopping world. Historically, traveling to dance in Australia has been centred on workshops and learning rather than social dancing.

…but look, I’ve wandered off-topic again. It is relevant, because it explains why I think music and social dancing are so important to a contemporary lindy hop culture. It’s not just because I love social dancing above all else, or because I am a DJ, with much to gain from a community valuing my skills. I do think that a modern lindy hop scene cannot be truly socially and creatively sustainable if it does not include social dancing. Because social dancing is really challenging. And it’s also the place where dancing stops being a series of monologues and becomes an exciting, challenging discourse. It’s called social dancing for a reason. But let’s get back to talking about DJing.

There are other ways of encouraging new DJs.
I’ve written quite a few posts about getting into DJing:

Looking at that list, all I can think is:

NONE OF THIS IS ENCOURAGING. These are not helpful posts. tl;dr Too depressing. Too much thinking!

I need to write a post talking about how to encourage people to take up DJing. I really do. But this is not that post.

(photo of Tomo by Swifty, an American photographer, DJ and dancer in NY).

Basically, becoming a good DJ requires a lot of time. Yeah, some money. But the time is the biggest investment. Time to learn music. To learn how to use technology. To spend actually DJing and moving from sucking to being half decent and then, finally, good. You can be competent within a year, but it takes at least a couple of years to get good. Just like lindy hop, DJing for lindy hop is a long term project. Time spent sitting on your arse DJing instead of dancing. That always surprises new DJs: you don’t get to dance to the music you love that you’re playing? No, buddy, you don’t. Because there are very few people who have the ninja skills to pull off a good set while dancing to it. And 90% of the guys (and they are blokes) who dance while DJing aren’t anywhere near as good as they think they are. No, buddy, you’re not.

And if you’re just in the scene to have fun and dance, why on earth would you waste your time learning to DJing, and then actually DJing? Particularly when there’s an awesome band on every free night you have during the week?

So you get these people to start DJing. Why would they bother to stick with it? The hours are shitty. You aren’t treated with a whole heap of respect – there’s no line of groupies waiting for you after a set. There’s next to no money in it. Unless that money is the money you sink into your gear and music. You’re far more likely to get abused by some blockhead venue owner or manager than thanked. You’ll constantly deal with idiots suggesting amazing songs no one ever plays. By Wham. Most of the sets you do will be small time local sets for mixed range of dancers who’d really rather talk and flirt than dance. Unless you’re in a big scene with a core set of hardcore dancers. That means Melbourne, in Australia – we just don’t have that significant core group anywhere else, not in decent numbers. Even in Melbourne, though, most of your sets would be for smaller crowds. Because the smaller sets are the bread and butter of a swing dance scene.

Golly, with all that bad news, why does anyone DJ at all? Why do I DJ?

I love the music. The music brought me to dancing in the first place. And that’s why I stay. And that’s also why I get up and leave when some fucker plays Richard Cheese or that fucking Wham song. AGAIN. I love the music. It inspires my dancing. I go to dance classes so I can dance better(er) and do a better(er) job of making what I hear visible. I learn about dance history so I can understand what people danced to the music I love.
I’m a stooge. Yep. Some stooge has to make the music. So I’ll do it. I started DJing because I was sick and tired of the bullshit music I used to hear out social dancing in Melbourne circa 2004. If someone else was DJing every week, DJing the good stuff, I’d never have gotten into it. Perhaps. So, yes, I was that annoying new DJ playing ‘songs no one ever plays’. It’s just that everyone else was playing Wham, and I wanted to play some Lionel Hampton.
I like learning new things. I have a curious brain. And DJing is interesting. That’s one of the reasons I stick with it. The fundamentals of DJing are pretty simple: play music. But the practicalities are endlessly challenging: keep them dancing. Make them have fun. Make them crazy with pleasure. How do you do that, consistently? Their tastes and dance skills keep changing, so the DJing has to change too. There are no constants! Curious brain, inquires.
Collegiality keeps me with it. I do like to talk. And write. And DJing gives me something interesting to talk and think and write about. Not just on my own – with other people! I think my DJing makes me better at organising other DJs, so I also do it so I have some sort of empathy with their requirements.
The history of the music is interesting. Not the boring ‘jazz started in New Orleans’ rubbish. But the interesting stuff – such and such was in Person X’s band, but also in Y’s band, and both bands recorded the same song in the same year. And both bands were on different record labels. And the labels decided who got to decide what songs. And those labels affected which bands played which venues. And those venues were segregated/weren’t segregated. And that affected who danced to those bands live.
DJing feeds in nicely to my media studies/cultural studies background. I did a chapter of my PhD on DJing cultures, and I’m still interested in DJing as a case study/testing ground for various critical theories. I especially like the way DJing and dancing require participation, and I like the way that gives my research and writing mo cred.
It makes me feel proud and happy when people enjoy the music I play. I feel a sense of pride when I can make a crowd crazy. But I feel especially happy when someone tells me they like what I’ve done. Because I’m a hooman being, and I like the approval of my peers. I like feeling good about myself. And I like to facilitate other people’s fun. The hardest thing in the world is watching my friends dance like fools having crazy fun while I’m DJing. Without me. But then, one of the nicest things in the world is to see people I know – people I love! – having masses of fun to my music. I mean, what could be better than watching my partner dancing like an uninhibited adrenaline junky idiot to a song I chose because I knew he’d love it? Best exchange of presents ever.
Not many women were DJing when I began. It shat me to hear and see men being all holier than thou about DJing. Fuck, if they can do it, there’s no reason I can’t.
The hunting instinct. There’s something very satisfying about hunting down the perfect song, then dumping it into a set at just the right time and having people come running up to say “What was that SONG?” Yep, that’s a good feeling. But there’s something even more satisfying about going complete on an artist. On hunting down everything they recorded, and just having it. Because I’m a bit obcon, but also because… well, that’s the reason. Completists aren’t really 100% normal, are they? It’s also quite exciting to find a new artist or song or band and then testing it out on dancers. Is it as good as you expected it to be? Why not? I like that.
DJing is a good thing to do when you’re injured. I didn’t find my DJing improved while I was off dancing with an injury, but it gave me something to do at dances.
It’s creative. There really is something creatively challenging and satisfying about putting together songs in just the right way. Sure, you’re not mixing or making the music yourself. But no one else has played just this combination of songs at just this moment for just this crowd before, nor will they ever again. That’s a moment of creativity. And it’s exciting. When I’m really in the DJing groove, I feel as though I’m out there dancing every single song. I feel far more connected to the dancers than I ever do when I’m out there with them on the dance floor. I can see them all responding to each other and to the music. I can feel my own body responding – my heart rate elevating or dropping, my skin flushing, my pores sweating. I can feel the beat in my body, and the emotions of the music in my own… heart? And I use those feelings to make decisions about the next song I play. That feeling is really, really addictive. I think that’s what makes dancing so addictive. You get totally lost in the music, and nothing else exists. Plus: adrenaline, endorphins, physical contact. It’s all majorly addictive. And then revisiting those sets afterwards, figuring out why things worked or didn’t helps revisit those feelings. Contact high, yo.

So, really, there are lots of reasons to take up DJing. But how do you articulate all those things in the two minutes you have to talk to a dancer who may be interested in taking up DJing? Should you? It’s all very hippy and amorphous. And a little sweary.

I will try to write another post about how to get people interested in taking up DJing.

NB: There’s a nice, simple post about working conditions for DJs over at Words Pursued called Gotta Be Satisfied. This link came to me via a few people – Ryan Swift and (caution – FB link) Wandering and Pondering (also found at Wandering and Pondering.)
There’s the beginning of a discussion about related issues over at Swing DJs in the DJ Administration thread I started, but I don’t see that going anywhere.

As with most politically sensitive issues, most of the interesting talk will no doubt happen under the radar – on twitter, in emails, in private messages and face to face chats. I know I’m involved in about half a dozen conversations with people about these same issues. I tell you what, I’ve never been as aware of the role of unions as I am while talking about DJs. I’d never say it out loud (oops), but you can see how unionising – getting together as an organised group – is really in the interests of workers and bosses. The workers get more equitable working conditions and pay, the bosses get more consistent and reliable work from their employees. But shoosh. We won’t have any of that goddamn commie bastard talk here.

[EDIT: This is one of a number of loosely-associated posts about music in Sydney lindy hop today. This list includes:

‘Swing dancing’ and lindy hop in Sydney: an exercise in speculative fiction (Thursday, November 10th, 2011)
zoot suit riot (riot) (Thursday, November 10th, 2011)
NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 1) (Thursday, November 17th, 2011)
NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 2) (Thursday, November 17th, 2011)

]

NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 1)

In this post I ramble on about Sydney’s DJing culture at the moment, particularly in reference to its social dancing culture and basic demographics. It began as a huge post, but has split into two. The second one (NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 2)) spends a bit of time talking about why DJing sucks and why I like DJing. At some point in the future I’ll try to write about how we might (despite all our better instincts) go about encouraging new DJs in the swing dance scene. I’ll begin this discussion with a blanket statement: Sydney’s swing dancers like live music. I’ve written quite a bit about it in this post ‘Swing Dancing’ and Lindy Hop in Sydney: an Exercise in Speculative Fiction. But we also quite like DJed social dancing nights as well.

I think there’s a link between a scene’s age and its use of DJs. New scenes rely on bands for social dancing, and only use DJs to fill in after class or in informal contexts. Yes? Hm. That seems a long bow to draw. But let’s leave it for now, and move on to another spurious declaration. Older scenes develop fairly complicated and professionalised DJing cultures and DJs. They also produce better DJs, usually people who’ve been dancing for a while, but not always. In recent moments, though, some of the older scenes in America have returned to live music in a big way (Seattle), and scenes in cities like New York and New Orleans are seeing increasing attention to their live music cultures from local and visiting dancers. In these scenes DJing has taken a more supportive (though still essential) role. Sydney dancers traveling overseas to scenes like these are bringing this idea back to our city: live music is good. Their online discussion and interaction with dancers from those overseas scenes reinforces the radical ideas traveling dancers bring home to Sydney. The idea that ‘live music is good’ (and ‘cool’) is also circulating in other Australian scenes, and reinforced when Australian dancers meet up at events or talk online.
For an awful lot of dancers, the idea of what they should like (as propagated by teachers, influential individuals (teachers, etc), the programs of high profile events, etc) is more important than what they might actually like. For example, most people find themselves, mid-dance liking dancing to LCJO’s ‘C Jam Blues’. But most dancers who’ve been around for a while don’t like the idea of dancing to it. Because it’s too overplayed/slow/bigband/whatevs. This fascinates the part of my brain that likes to think about taste and cultures of taste and the influence of various digital media. It can really frustrate the other part of my brain that likes to DJ stuff I like, which doesn’t always coincide with popular trends (enough goddamn tuba-shouting-banjo for Ceiling Cat’s sake! For pity’s sake, give me a little classic big band swing for my lindy hop!) But, for the most part, it’s difficult to argue with this fad. Live music: it is good. It really is.

So there’s something of a tension between DJed and live music social dancing in Sydney. They often attract different crowds and are managed by different ideological, financial and political forces.

Let’s talk numbers.

Sydney lindy hop demographics. There are about 4.5 million people living in Sydney (and about 4 million in Melbourne). Sydney is the largest city in Australia, though not the fastest growing. DJing isn’t one of the largest pools of labour in the Sydney lindy hop community – there are only about thirteen of us. There are about fourteen teachers working regularly and occasionally with the two larger inner city schools, and many teachers are also DJs. There are a bunch of other teachers with the other schools in the outer suburbs, but I don’t know them at all really (I’d put them, conservatively, at about ten teachers). Unpaid volunteers number anywhere between fifty and one hundred across the two larger schools (this is a difficult one to quantify). I have no idea how many people take swing dance classes in Sydney. Sydney has hosted two or three larger annual events in the past (dropping to one this year) and a number of smaller workshop weekends. There is a great deal of cross-pollination with the Canberra scene, which is only a three hour drive away. No other Australian scenes are so close together – most are at least eight hours drive apart (I am blurring Geelong into the outer suburbs of Melbourne).

Sydney has lots of social dancing. Because we have lots of DJed social nights. We have three regular dancer-run DJed events: Swingpit, Roxbury, Jump Jive n Wail. JJW is mostly rock n roll, jump blues and neo swing, and it’s a gig managed by one professional DJing couple. It’s a majorly popular cross-over point between the rock n roll, rockabilly,’swing’ and lindy hop scenes. Roxbury and Swingpit are run by two different dance schoosl and are on fortnightly, on alternating weekends. Swingpit uses four DJs per month, Roxbury between four and six per month. They tend to draw on different DJing pools. Then there’s the new and irregular North Sydney after-class social dancing, which has one or two sets per month, give or take. DJs are also used for other occasional social dances – the (irregular) late night Speakeasy, band breaks for live music gigs run by dancers, and larger social dances run every now and then.

(Me, Ben and Kat, DJs for the SP performance ball this year. Not the most thrilling DJing gig; we may have been distracted by our own fun.)

Sydney’s complicated cultural architecture leaves us in a fairly tricky position when it comes to running DJed social dancing nights. Basically, we don’t have enough DJs to fill all our DJed social dancing spots. Our current venues use between ten and twelve DJ sets per month. That’s at least two sets per week. Of the ~thirteen DJs in our town, five DJ regularly and have solid skills. Only three of those DJ interstate, and only two or three would I hire for a big interstate event. We also have five DJs who DJ irregularly, but who would really rather dance. Two of the thirteen very rarely DJ any more (and haven’t in literally years). We have one or two or perhaps three or four who are really green. And then there are assorted blues DJs who don’t get to DJ anywhere any more at the moment, as our blues scene has pretty much collapsed.
When you look at the number of sets to be filled, those thirteen DJs don’t go too far. Some (like me) will do quite a few sets, but cap at about three per month. Most would rather DJ no more than once a month. Some are on complete hiatus.
At this point I simply can’t get enough DJs to fill the slots at Swingpit alone. This is partly because it’s November, and November is a busy month. Sure, people go nuts in December with parties and stuff, but in November people are really working their guts out at work. And Sydney can be an expensive town, requiring jobs that can be quite demanding. We’re also at the tail end of exchange season in Australia – there are about six large events in October and November, plus a round of christmas dances and festivals. So most of the DJs (and teachers and dancers) are kind of tired and burnt out. They just can’t manage DJing on top of everything else.

So we have lots of healthy social dancing nights, quite a lot of keen social dancers, but not enough DJs to do the DJed gigs. The obvious solution would be to put on bands instead of DJs. Bands pull numbers, and Sydney is busy proving there’s a clear market for live music events catering to dancers. So why don’t we just swap bands for DJs?

There are some financial issues at work. Neither Swingpit nor Roxbury could afford to put on a live band every fortnight. Both events are run on quite a tight budget, in part because they only charge $6 and $5 respectively for social dancing entry. That’s nothing. It’s hard to find a decent lunch for $5 these days, let alone a good night of fun dancing. An obvious solution would be to charge more for the social dancing nights, and to put on a band with the extra money. Two years ago I think you’d have had an outraged chorus of tightarsedness from dancers. But these days we pay anywhere from $10 to $40 for live music at venues with good dance floors.
Despite these brilliant(ly unthought out) arguments, there are a range of factors affecting the finances of these events which need to be taken into account. And even I know not to discuss these sorts of things in detail in public. :D
A shift to live music at our regular, dancer-run core social dancing events would mean a larger shift in the way social dancing events are run. Coordinating a band involves different skills and contacts than coordinating DJs. Bands need proper pay, and DJs are largely regarded as ‘hobbyists’ or volunteer labour. DJs are usually dancers and (preferably) know how dancers use music. Bands know music, but aren’t (in Sydney anyway) serious dancers, so they don’t know how dancers use music. More importantly, one gig for dancers a fortnight is not the most important thing in a band’s working life. They have other, more lucrative (corporate) gigs in their schedule. I think, however, the biggest and most difficult challenge in shifting from DJs to bands would involve prioritising music and social dancing, which organisations who make their money from teaching are not willing to do.

What if we did drop DJs completely and use bands instead? I’m not sure how things would go. I don’t think class-centred institutions like dance ‘schools’ could accommodate such hardcore ideological shifts. That’s a whole different way of thinking about dance and about profitable dance projects. An entire reshuffling of the social hierarchies and (commodified) knowledge values of a community. I think the modern Sydney lindy hop scene needs DJs, if only because it means that it doesn’t then need to reassess the value it gives music, and the knowledge and financial economy of the scene as a whole. Such a major change would involve a lot of ground-level effort, which Sydney isn’t really built for. Not at the moment. But even with an increased emphasis on live music for dancer-run events, there’d still be a place for DJed social dancing, if only on a smaller scale.

Let’s pause for a moment, and think about me.

What would I like? In a perfect world there’d be social dancing every week. Twice a week. At least. By social dancing, I mean spaces and events that are perfect for dancing. A decent floor that’s not covered in drunks and broken glass. They could be with live bands. That’d be cool. But I’d be ok with a really good DJed event as as well. So long as they were really good DJs. To be honest, in my perfect world, we’d have a DJed dance once a month that featured only really top notch DJing, was held in a dance-centred space (like a not-too-big dance studio) with an excellent, appropriate sound system, with a bar next door or attached or something so we could get drinks or noms. But the dancing would be the most important activity. And by good DJing, I mean mad crowd working skills and excellent solid swinging jazz. No neo. No rock n roll. No fucking novelty songs. Just 1920s-1950s classic swing and modern recreationist bands. Combined cleverely by a DJ who’s watching the floor. Four hours of that once a month, and I’d be happy. I’d complement that with lots of dancing to live bands each week. Unity Hall on Sundays. A Friday night band in a fun venue like the Camelot Lounge. Saturdays at different one-off events with different bands. A different band (or two) each week.

I’d be quite happy retiring some of our DJed social dancing sets. My DJ skills would slide a bit, but I do DJ interstate quite a bit, so I’m not really all that sad about it. And, by gum, I’d much prefer dancing to DJing myself! Right, now I’ve almost convinced myself that crying “DJ drought” is really my missing the point. Perhaps it might be more useful to rethink a (short sighted, isolationist) DJ-centred approach to social swing dancing culture. It seems a better idea to integrate live music more thoroughly into our everyday dance activities, to reduce our DJed dancer-run events and present entirely new types of dancer-run DJed events.

So, really, is it so sad to lose DJed social dancing? Hmmmm…..

I’m going to continue this discussion in another post, as this one is way too big already. The second part (NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 2)) will talk about the frustrating parts of DJing and this ‘DJ drought’.

[EDIT: This is one of a number of loosely-associated posts about music in Sydney lindy hop today. This list includes:

‘Swing dancing’ and lindy hop in Sydney: an exercise in speculative fiction (Thursday, November 10th, 2011)
zoot suit riot (riot) (Thursday, November 10th, 2011)
NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 1) (Thursday, November 17th, 2011)
NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 2) (Thursday, November 17th, 2011)

]

zoot suit riot (riot)

All that talk about neo swing in that last blog post has had me thinking about zoot suits.

There’s lots of bullshit ‘scholarship’ around about zoot suits. The best thing I’ve ever read about them was a book chapter called “The Right to the City in Los Angeles: Discourse and Practice of a Chicano Alternative Public Sphere” by Raul H. Villa in the book Masses, classes and the public sphere edited by Mike Hill and Warren Montag (2000) (on Google Books).

One of the worst things I’ve ever read was Stuart Cosgrove’s article “The Zoot Suit and Style Warfare” in Angela McRobbie’s edited collection Zoot Suits and Second-Hand Dresses: An Anthology of Fashion and Music (1989). I know it’s a bit of a big call, picking on Cosgrove. But that article is wrongity wrongtown. In so many ways. I haven’t read it in a while, though, so I could be completely mistaken. I just remember it being scarily inaccurate. McRobbie’s talk about second hand dresses in the 80s is a lot more useful.

What is a zoot suit?
This article ‘The Zoot Suit Riots’ (from Manong: The Story of Raymond G. Perla
Photographs and storys from the Manong Generation) isn’t such a bad place to start for a description of the actual item of clothing. Basically, they were really big suits, using lots of fabric, which were popular with some latino/chicano youth in Los Angeles during the second world war. Using lots of fabric was kind of shocking in a time of wartime austerity. Of course, race and ethnicity are the most important parts of this story.

What did a zoot suit look like?

This is a picture of Edward James Olmos in the 1981 film film Zoot Suit:

That film was strange sort of musical. You can find interesting bits of it on Youtube – search. But that’s an 80s version of the zoot suit. Here’s a cool photo of some bloke with Katherine Dunham in 1943. He’s not wearing a zoot suit, but he’s in a pose which looks a lot like a ‘pimp walk’, a key jazz step associated with zoot suits, pimps and swaggering cool. He may have mad skills and be super cool, but he’s not wearing a zoot suit.

Here’s a funny photo of Spike Lee (left) and Denzel Washington (right) in Lee’s 1992 film Malcolm X:

Even better, watch them strutting, pimp-walk style in one of the early scenes of the film here. Malcolm X’s autobiography has some interesting things to say about young black American men and zoot suits. Spike Lee’s film is interesting because so many hardcore totally legit and awesome lindy hoppers were involved in its production, including Frankie Manning and Norma Miller. The dance scene from the film was really influential in the burgeoning swing dance scene at the time. Enjoy the dubbing:

linky

Lee specifically intended to have the film pay homage to the greatest lindy hoppers of the original period: the Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, Frankie Manning, Norma Mmiller and so on. The dance scene from Malcolm X itself echoes iconic music and dance film sequences from the original swing era. You have only to compare that dance scene with the Jitterbug Contest from Keep Punchin’.

…but anyway, I was talking about zoot suits. Yeah, yeah, Malcolm X is good stuff. But it’s not really getting to the heart of the matter. Where are those Chicanos Villa talks about his fascinating story about Los Angeles?

That’s Cab Calloway. But by the time this photo was taken, he was majorly famous. So he’s not really representing subversive public spheres… or is he? Look, I can’t really explore that here, but it’s worth thinking about Cab Calloway, ethnicity, race, the Cotton Club and performing identity.

That’s a picture of Mexican star Tin Tan in 1945. I found it here on this interesting page about zoot suits. That page is actually part of a research guide discussing the play and film Zoot Suit. The play Zoot Suit premiered in LA in 1978 and was released as a film in 1981, “the first Chicano written, performed and directed feature length film in history” (to quote the site).

It’s also interesting to read Ephemeral New York blog post about vintage clothes in New York in the 80s. Forties and thirties fashion was kind of getting a reboot in the 80s (you can see it a bit in films like Desperately Seeking Susan and Pretty in Pink).

Wait. What has all this got to do with lindy hop today. WHY are the white ‘swing dancers’ in Sydney STILL wearing zoot suits?

Ok, so it’s the 80s, right. You’ve looked at that stuff I’ve just linked. Now, in the 80s, lindy hop starts getting a bit of a revival. Young American, British and European (Sweden!) dancers start hunting down living dancers from the 30s and 40s. You can watch a really cool interview with Al Minns, where he talks about the Swedes’ approaching him. In 1989 the band Royal Crown Revue is formed by Eddie Nichols, punk and son of a jazz singer.

Neo swing is getting started. It has its roots in punk, ska, rock and roll. That’s where I remember it starting – my friends’ punk bands were support acts for visiting American bands like Royal Crown Revue, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Brian Setzer, Squirrel Nut Zippers, etc etc etc.

Ok, now it’s the 1990s. The film Swing Kids is released in 1993, Swingers in 1996. Lindy hop has gone mainstream. At least in America. In 1998 Gap release this ad for khakis. If Gap are using swing dancing for ads, you know it’s mainstream. I start dancing lindy hop in Brisbane in 1998, only a little while after classes started there. But it’d been in Sydney for a little while already. It’d only just started happening in Melbourne. We have the rock n roll and latin dance scenes to blame for lindy hop’s popularity in Sydney and Melbourne, and the influence of immigrant Brits.

Yeah, yeah, ZOOT SUITS?!

In 1997 the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies release a song called ‘Zoot Suit Riot’. It supposedly has something to do with the zoot suit riots.

linky

Who’s your daddy? Yes I am.

I’m sure LA lindy hoppers watching that video can see lots of famous names and people. But when I watch that clip, all I can hear is the song, and all I can see is the first dance performance I did in public. ARGH. MY EARS.
And at the time, all those bright suits and big hats and black and white shoes had indy cred. That stuff was cool.

[EDIT: This is one of a number of loosely-associated posts about music in Sydney lindy hop today. This list includes:

‘Swing dancing’ and lindy hop in Sydney: an exercise in speculative fiction (Thursday, November 10th, 2011)
zoot suit riot (riot) (Thursday, November 10th, 2011)
NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 1) (Thursday, November 17th, 2011)
NEEDS MOAR DJS ? (part 2) (Thursday, November 17th, 2011)

]

[Edit 18/11/11: A nice little article about a Vintage Zoot Suit Auctioned for nearly $80K was posted to Yehoodi this week.]

Live Music and Dance Economies + beer

I’m afraid this isn’t a terribly well written or thought out post. Spring has struck, my sinuses are buzzing with histamines and my brain is running slow and foggy. But I wanted to join up all these issues before I forgot them.

So this is a story about liquor licensing, live music economies (financial and cultural) and dance cultures. It’s not terribly well researched or referenced, so please do go on and explore the issue rather than relying on my dodgy interpretation of events. I mean, buggered if I really know anything about liquor licensing in Australia and within Australian states.

The ABC story Live music injects $1b into economy (Lucy Carter and staff, Posted September 19, 2011 10:56:27) discusses a report on the economic value of the Australian live music scene commissioned by “industry stakeholders including the Australian Council for the Arts and the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA)”.

The study was limited to live music performances in pubs/bars, clubs, restaurants/cafes and nightclubs in Australia.

the venues included in the study were limited to those in live music venues licensed by APRA that staged live music during the 2009/10 financial year.

The study included only revenue generated from venue-based live music performances.

(pg 4)

The basic point here is that live music makes a significant contribution to the state and national economies, and is therefore important. This gains particular relevance in the context of ongoing battles over noise restrictions, the gentrification of urban spaces and the rezoning of areas where live music lives.
I need to note, here, that live jazz in Australia does not have broad appeal. It tends to cater to a much older demograph than most of the live music discussed in that report. But I think this is important. If live music is equated to ‘youth culture’ in popular discourse it marginalises an increasing (and increasingly influential) demograph and market: older audiences. I also think it’s important for jazz to reposition itself as a product for a more diverse audience. Bands like Virus in Melbourne did this well in the early 2000s, and New Orleans of course can pull this off because live music – of all types – is so thoroughly embedded in the mythos of the place. But live jazz is positioned as ‘art’ music rather than popular music in Sydney. Frankly, I think there should be more live jazz in everyday community spaces (like pubs), and this live jazz should be representative of the whole spectrum of ‘jazz’.

…though, personally, I want more of the hot jazz and less of the twiddlyfiddly arty stuff. Because it was designed and built as popular music and lots of fun to dance to.

My attention was caught by the fact that this was a study of venues serving alcohol and licensed by APRA because there’s been a recent discussion on Bug’s Question Of The Day FB page about paying cover charges, buying drinks and tipping at live music venues. The full question (15th September) reads:

I’ve noticed that, not only in New Orleans but every scene I’ve been to, dancers don’t want to pay a cover charge or tip the band. I’ve also heard from venue owners that dancers are notorious for not buying drinks. Why are we as a community resistant to supporting the musicians and venues? Do we not know any better? If so, how do we educate the community?

Drinking and tipping and cover charges at live music gigs are an issue for lindy hoppers because most dancers don’t drink much while dancing. Simply because it’s a demanding game, and drinking impairs your dance skills. So a venue that depends on drinking to cover the cost of live music is not going to make it, financially, if their clientele is made up entirely of lindy hoppers. The amount dancers drink really depends on the gig – the time of day, the vibe and so on. So they will drink, just not at every gig, every time. If we were to depend on live music for our entire scene, I think a reasonable standard of dancing would require spaces that focussed on dancing, rather than drinking. Ballrooms, dance halls and cabaret clubs with more physical room and a greater emphasis on dancing as well as bars and pubs where the social focus is more diverse.

I don’t think it’s a terribly good idea to promote drinking generally in a culture like Australia’s where binge drinking is a serious social issue, but I don’t want to suggest that I think drinking is wrong or bad. Basically, lindy hop events aren’t like other social events at licensed venues in Australia, and I think it’s a really good thing (and the thing I enjoy most about dance events) that young men and women (and older men and women!) can enjoy social events and dancing without getting shitfaced. I think that social and cultural practices and spaces should be centred on more than just drinking, not that social and cultural spaces should exclude drinking. Diverse cultural spaces make for diverse and vibrant communities, cross-generationally.

I don’t drink, so I don’t buy alcohol at live music gigs. I’m not a huge soft drink fan, so I don’t buy softies. I’ll buy a mineral water with lime, or some chips. But I like pubs. I like their casual drop-in culture where you can meet friends for a quick drink or a long meal. I like the way live music is an important part of pub culture. But I’ve been been struck by the differences between Melbourne pub culture (which I really like) and Sydney pub culture, which is a lot less pleasant.

There are different laws and licenses in each Australian state, and local licensing laws are often regulated by local councils – eg in Melbourne local city councils regulate licenses. A venue can lose its liquor license if it breaches noise level laws or serves under age customers. I have some problems with the way licensing works in Sydney, mostly because licenses are very expensive, and geared towards larger venues subsidised by on-site gambling (whether a TAB, Kino or pokies). Licensing in Sydney seems (at first and cursory glance) to promote pubs and licensed venues as places to get totally shitfaced, rather than places to meet friends, share a meal, listen to a band, play trivia, read, laugh, talk or get shitfaced. They’re simply more diverse community spaces in Melbourne than in Sydney. While even I’d drop into a pub in Melbourne on my own to drink or eat at the main bar, I’d feel a lot less comfortable at most Sydney pubs, because I’m not there to drop a million dollars in the pokies or the TAB or to drink a jug of beer on my own at lunch time.

This is where my knowledge really breaks down, but the way licensing works is affected by the influence of Clubs Australia, an influential interests group representing social clubs (like RSLs, Sporting clubs, etc). Pubs and clubs are different, legally and culturally, but in Sydney large corporations own a string of pubs and interests in clubs. Their main source of income from these businesses is gambling, or more specifically, pokies. Pokies are a scourge on the earth, encouraging people to sit and drop coins into a machine for hours and hours at a time. This type of gambling targets lower income earners and I think it’s promoters are ethically fail. Pokies also degrade the conviviality of a local pub – people sit in front of a machine rather than a bar, conversation is impeded by the loud noises and attention required to pull a lever. Live music and pokies are fundamentally incompatible: you can’t make good music in a room full of pokie machines. And pubs depending on pokies for revenue will devote valuable floor space (whole rooms!) to pokies rather than less profitable bands.

There’s been speculation about the effect of pokies on pub culture, and news articles like this Daily Telegraph one from earlier this year suggest that a focus on pokies has led to a neglect of drinkers. Of real, live people. I’d argue that chain pubs, run by an absent owner, are not community-oriented spaces at all. And pubs that are most culturally and socially relevant spaces are local spaces. Which is why one suburb in Melbourne can host so many small pubs – each serves a particular local clientele and offers a specific ‘experience’. Grand Final afternoon is perhaps the best example of this sort of localised specialisation, but the live music culture is just as useful an illustration of the cultural value of smaller, independently owned and operated pubs.

The federal government is currently considering revisions to the legislation affecting pokies, and Clubs Australia is spending an awful lot of money on advertising to drum up opposition to the changes. I’m curious to see how it all pans out. There are very few convincing arguments for promoting pokies, and many convincing arguments against it.

And here is where I’ll have to leave my discussion of pokies and licensing specifics, as I’m a bit histamine-crazy and generally ignorant of the facts. But I wanted to link up this news article, reference that Bugs Question, and the also something about the recent sale of the Unity Hall Hotel in Balmain to a corporate entity who owns a chain of pubs.

Unity Hall hosts one of Australia’s best jazz bands every Sunday afternoon. Musicians passing through town regularly drop in to play a few songs, so you’ll see all sorts of brilliant Australian (and visiting) musicians. For my money, this is the best dancing music in town. Dancers go there to dance, and there’s no cover charge. The bar staff charge the locals less for drinks than dancers (which is totally ok by me), but dancers who do turn up (and who pretty much count as regulars, though not necessarily locals) always buy drinks and chips and maintain a good relationship with bar staff and musicians.
While this is the best opportunity for hardcore dancing, it’s a small venue, and dancers need to share it with ‘nondancers’. Or, in other words, ‘normal folk’ who like to dance but don’t spend a million hours on dance classes. Because it is in a non dancer-run space, dancers need to engage their real social skills. Talking. Hanging out. Dealing with dickheads off the street. I think it’s a good place to learn floor craft (safety first!), to engage your social skills (conversate!) and to enjoy and support quality live music. Unity Hall isn’t as ‘good’ a pub as the best independent pubs in Melbourne – it does have a TAB taking up lots of space, and pokies, and it isn’t properly cross-generational (though it’s getting there), or multicultural (though even Melbourne pubs don’t really rock the multiculturalism). But it’s one of the better Sydney pubs, and I really hope the it doesn’t change for the worse with its new owners.

The sale of the Unity Hall hotel is indicative of how many pubs in Sydney are run: by big businesses who own a chain of pubs and treat them as warehouses for the real money makers – pokie machines. This is a bit shit when you compare it to Melbourne where there’s a strong independent pub culture, which results in brilliant food, child/family friendly pubs (which are also popular with the young and hip), live music venues and bar staff and owners who know their clientele and give a shit. Basically, venues which are owned and operated by members of the local community for the local community are more likely to give a shit about the local community and be important community spaces. Whether you’re looking for awesome food, locally sourced beers, live music, somewhere to dance, somewhere to talk, or just a quiet spot for a quick pint at lunch time.

I know my perception of Sydney pubs as community spaces is biased by my experiences in urban Melbourne (and I don’t mean to feed into the Syd/Melb rivalry), but I think state-based licensing laws are significant when we’re talking about dancers’ obligations at live music venues. Honestly, if licenses were less expensive, venues wouldn’t be so dependent on drinks’ sales and gambling to cover their costs. They could operate on a smaller profit margin, offering more specific and niche services – good food, niche music, smaller premises – and not need to rely on shit like pokies and promoting binge drinking. They could be more responsible and responsive community spaces.

[Edit: I need to read ”
A history of machine gambling in the NSW club
industry: from community benefit to
commercialisation” by Nerilee Hing]

No Meat Week: Monday (& Sunday)

We’ve been living the CSIRO lifestyle for a year or two now, and while I like the lighter evening meals (without carbs), we’ve been struggling, ethically, with the amount of meat the diet includes. Also, it’s bad for your guts. So I’ve instituted a week without meat.

I’ve lived the vegetarian lifestyle here and there over the years, most prominently in a share house in Melbourne between 2001 and 2003. I’d moved to Melbourne from Brisbane, taking the coward’s approach to ending a long term relationship, and moving into a huge terrace house in North Melbourne with a bunch of younger students. They were all about 20 and I was about 26. I loved it. It was a delight to no longer be living unhappily in an New Farm flat with one other person. It was wonderful to suddenly be eating with a household of 5 other people (including ever-present boyfriends and girlfriends). I had my own shelf in the larder, my own milk in the fridge. I took my trolley to the Vic Markets every week, and I walked everywhere. I gave up meat. Alliances shifted within the sharehouse, and two of us began cooking together, tired of being third or fourth in line at the stove each night. We now occupied two shelves in the larder.

At the end of that first year, two of us left the strange sharehouse anchor guy to set up house in another, smaller terrace in Carlton North with a new housemate. Vegetarianism turned into vegan coeliacism as one of us discovered gluten intolerance and hardcore eating issues (masquerading as ethics). Each week I bought a trolley full of veggies from the Vic Markets, a trolley full of tofu, various not-wheat grains and dried goods from the Melbourne uni co-op and a trolley full of assorted canned goods and giant bags of rice and rice noodles. We were three fairly hardcore athletes. I was a newly addicted social lindy hopper, dancing two or three nights a week and walking or cycling everywhere. One housemate was a serious cyclist/climber/runner with a similarly-afflicted boyfriend in his very early 20s. The other house mate was equally active, but male and voraciously hungry. All. The. Time. We ate all the time. I ate two dinners almost every night. I got skinnier.

In 2003 we moved to another house – a gorgeous free standing colonial in Brunswick. We gained a house mate, the coeliac’s boyfriend. I gained a Squeeze. Eventually the coeliac had to call defeat as her doctor gave her supplement injections and demanded a return to nonveganism. Eggs entered our diet. Milk.

During those three years we ate a lot of what we called ‘veggie slop’ – misceleneous vegetarian curries drawn from Kurma‘s book or our increasingly beleagured imaginations. I remember one particularly awful meal in our third share house together. Kidney beans. Rice noodles. Some sort of rubbishy greasy sauce. But those years also brought kicheri and a new appreciation for tofu. Firm tofu, cubed, thrown into a coconut milk/tomato based vegetable curry. Tofu marinated in lemon juice, honey, miso and ginger then stir fried with vegetables. Brown rice. Basmati rice. Jasmine rice. Arborio rice. Pulao. Biriyani. Fried rice. Rice pudding. Rice noodles: flat, narrow, sheets, fresh, dried. Mung bean noodles. We made delicious dinners, for the most part, though I’ve never really eaten that way since.

But this week we’re going to revisit the vegetarian days of yore. We’re going to eat the way we used to in Carlton North, crowded around the dining table or camped out on the second hand, re-covered sofas in front of the television.

It’s already been a bit of a trip down memory lane for me. Last night we had spinach and ricotta cannelloni. Something I started eating in Brisbane, along with a million zillion other people, when San Remo included a basic spinach and ricotta recipe on the back of the cannelloni boxes. But we substitute a chunk of fetta for some of the ricotta, and we use fresh spinach rather frozen. Delicious.

Tonight we had this easy Cauliflower (queen of vegetables) and onion dish (recipe c/o Madhur Jaffrey’s Invitation to Indian Cooking):

1 medium onion, peeled and chopped coarsely
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped coarsely
2 inch long, 1 inch wide piece ginger peeled and coarsely chopped
1 large head of cauliflower (I just used half a big cauliflower)
8tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 medium fresh or canned tomato, peeled and chopped
1 tbs chopped fresh coriander (I used more than this)
1 fresh hot green chilli washed and finely sliced or 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (I used 1/4 ground chilli)
2tsp ground coriander
1tsp ground cumin
1tsp garam marsala
2tsp salt
1tbs lemon juice

Blend onion, garlic and ginger with 4 tbsp of water and blend to a paste.

Break cauliflower into small flowerets, not longer than 1 to 1.5 inches, and not wider at the head than 1/2 to 1 inch.

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed 10-12 inch pot over a medium flame, pour in the paste from the blender, and add the turmeric. Fry, stirring for 5 minutes.

Add the tomato, green coriander, chili or cayenne, and fry for 5 minutes. If necessary, add 1 tsp of warm water at at time and stir to prevent sticking. Now put in the cauliflower, coriander, cumin, garam masala, salt and lemon juice.
Fry and stir for 1 minute.

Add 4 tbsp warm water, stir, cover, lower flame, allow to cook slowly 35-45 minutes. Stir gently every 10 minutes or so. The cauliflower is done when each floweret is tender with just a trace of crispness along its spine.

Easy.

We had it with rice: brown half an onion cut into rings in some olive oil, add some finely chopped spinach, half a tsp of ground coriander and half a tsp of sweet paprika. Mix it all in. Add some washed basmati rice, mix it all up. Then add water and cook it absorption method style. I do all that in the rice cooker.

And finally, I grilled some haloumi cheese we’d bought on impulse. And we ate it all. The rice was particularly delicious – the browned onion and greasiness of the olive oil making a perfect match for the cheese. The cauliflower was just a little sour around the edges, from the lemon and ginger. Delicious.

I’d had dodgy rice cooker risotto for lunch, using up tomatoes, zuchini, capsicum, mushrooms, some herbs from the garden. It was a bit boring. Needed some rehydrated porcini mushrooms.

I’m not used to all these evening carbs and feel decidedly full. Tomorrow I’m going to reduce portions and drop the hardcore dairy. I’m thinking the ‘asian style’ pumpkin soup from Stephanie Alexander’s big orange book. Or something involving chick peas. I adore chick peas.

it’s raining here, a bit

It’s raining a lot in Brisbane, and I’ve finally managed to ascertain the whereabouts of the various family members who’ve been Left Behind while the rest of us fled south. I am now also sure my Brisvegan friends are safe and well. No one is injured or missing, and we southerners are very relieved. Meanwhile, I’ve had a flurry of emails from people I first met in Brisbane, and who are spread out all over the country and world. I think the shocking stories from Queensland have reminded us of each other.

When that man on the 7:30 Report, that Stalwart Australian Man began to weep a little bit as he told us about not being able to stop to help people who were floating away on the roof of their cars or in boats, crying out for help, I wept a little bit as well.

I liked it that he let us see that all that talk about Stalwart Australian Men being stony faced and impervious to emotions was rubbish.

But then I saw a story about fires in … Western Australia? South Australia? where another Australian Man was telling us about how his home and everything he owned had been burnt by fires started by an arsonist, and how he just didn’t know what to do. He was weeping too, but he was wearing dark glasses, so it was hidden. I think that was even more touching.

It has been a hard week for Australians all over the place. But I keep thinking about those folk who live in truly remote communities, where there’re no buildings to be washed away, and no sewers to flood sewage into people’s backyards. I feel sorry for those people, because when the army arrived there, they had their money controlled by the government and nobody let them tell the story about calling out to neighbours to see if they were alright, and we didn’t see the footage of the stranger helping that family rescue their belongings.

I’m trying not to think those sorts of thoughts, but it’s making me angrier and angrier to hear stories about ‘strong’, ‘good’ communities that ‘help each other’ when there’s just as surely child abuse and drugs and violence and so on in those communities as well. But we don’t hear those stories, because these people are all white.

I am trying not to think like that. It’s not helpful.

I like the look of Anna Bligh. She’s turning out to be a fairly awesome leader, politician and all-round rock star. Be patient with each other. That’s what she said. And Kirsty’s right, it is a good thought.

In other news, I spend a lot of time in Ashfield these days. Sometimes I go to Burwood. Sometimes to the city, or perhaps to another neighbouring suburb. But mostly I stay here. I haven’t got a job (yet) (yet?) and I haven’t many prospects. But I don’t much mind. I am feeling healthy and well and have getting a lot of exercise. These are all good things.

Be patient with each other. This is what I think when someone who’s not from Ashfield goes shopping in the veggie shop. Be patient. Don’t take up so much space. Don’t try to make eye contact quite so desperately/aggressively. Take time to make a joke. Help someone reach something. Ashfield isn’t for everyone. The streets are fairly dirty, and the underpass, the one under the train tracks, where the children painted all the pictures and there are photos from the olden days, that underpass floods badly when it rains, and very quickly. And then as it dries out it smells badly.

Be patient with each other. This is a nice thought. I like it as an instruction for timing. For dancing. In swing, you get back there behind the beat. Wait. Don’t rush. Be patient. And let that man finish his solo.

Here, I’m wondering why there just aren’t any women in these bands. It’s like Australian jazz is just one big Bechdel fail. There’s an occasional one singing. Or someone hidden in the brass section. But, mostly, it’s just men.

It’s raining here a bit. Off and on, a clear day here and there, to help us dry things out. But it’s still raining in Brisbane. And there’s more flooding to come. Do be careful, friends.

MSF set 2.5 + fan-gush for falty’s djing

Ok, so when I heard Falty was teaching at MSF, my first thought was not ‘oh, wonderful – nice classes’ or even ‘hellz yes; yr gender norms, we will fuck them up‘ but ‘oo! can haz DJ?!’ I’m organising the DJs this year for the event, so I just dropped an email off to the man, and – ta da! – we had DJ.
Mike very kindly did a set at the late night last night, and it was (and here, you must understand, I am understating the case) frickin neat. He did a really fucking great set. The sort of stuff that I’m really loving at the moment; lots of energy, grunt, dirty rhythms, etc etc etc.
I was doing the set before him, to warm the room, and I did an ok set – nothing too exciting, mostly things people’d heard before, etc. I was really trying to just get things cooking a little, and not to kill people after their night with the tempo-ly challenging Red Hot Rhythmakers and before Falty introduced them to the Kicking Of Arse.
After he was done with that (and after he exposed his person to a room full of appreciative dancers of all genders), I kind of chilled things off a little with a lo-fi, medium-slow tempo set of stuff I adore, but which I rarely play for dancers. By this point people were a) pissed as newts, b) absolutely knackered, c) drained like sinks, d) mixed like dodgy metaphors. So I kind of mellowed it. This weekend I’d been asked to go easy on blues with DJs, and really to offer a program packed with lindy hop. So I didn’t want to go solid blues, but I did want to ease off the tempos.
side note:
It’s been really fun, actually, to work with the DJs this year. They’re all really capable and together, AND they’re all really good DJs. I’ve been super happy with their work so far. I hope I don’t jinx things, but they’ve done just the right stuff all weekend. The band breaks have been DJed masterfully (Loz warmed the room perfectly on Thursday, Keiran did a lovely ‘sophisticated swing’ introduction to the 20s society band style of the Rhythmakers in the fancy Fitzroy Town Hall (which he then shifted over into more raggedy lindy hopping action). Lexi did a fucking scorching set at the late night on Friday, which made me dance and dance and dance til I thought I might pass out (I’m spinning around!). I didn’t hear all Sharon’s set, but she was moving nicely from Lexi badassery to more mixed lindy hopping goodness when I left. Last night Falty was superfine, and I was actually pretty happy with the set I did after him. I started at 3 (with workshops the next day), so the room did empty out a bit, but the numbers stayed, and I was glad I didn’t go down into blues or keep trying to push the tempos. I really wanted to play seriously scratchy, lo-fi stuff with silly lyrics, dirty lyrics and familiar lyrics done a little wackier.
Tonight the band is the Sweet Lowdowns, who I do love. They’re a smaller subset of Rhythmaker folk, but they do hot combo style rather than a bigger, more society type 20s sound. The brief for the late night (which is at the same venue as the band) is for ‘blues/lindy combo’, which is going to be a bit challenging. I have Keith doing the first set, so I’m hoping he’ll do a straight lindy transition from the band. Then Manon is booked to do a lindy-blues mix. Her style is a little different – she’s really the only hi-fi/heading-towards-groove DJ on the program, and to be honest, even I’m ready for something a little slicker and saucier. I’m closing the night after her, and I’ll probably do the same sort of stuff… or whatever the crowd are digging. It’s going to be lots of fun.
That’s my last set for the weekend. I’ve been doing all the little fill in jobs over the weekend, the ones that I don’t like giving other DJs because they’re little and a bit shitty. So I’ve done the social breaks during the comp (that was boring. Watching comps is boring, I’m afraid), I did 4 songs for the charleston comp on Friday, I did a real set last night to warm for Falty, and I did a small closer set after him. And I suspect tonight’s set will be a littlie as well. I did have some reservations about putting myself on all those sets, but the only one that actually really felt like a good, solid DJing gig was the one before Falty. I have also tried hard to put the other DJs on good, solid gigs as well as any band breaks. But there’s not a lot of solid DJing this weekend, because of the bands, so it’s been hard. There’ve been hour long blocks before the bands, then 30 or 15 minute breaks during the bands, so those band break DJs are getting some solid action, I hope. The bands are, though, really really GREAT.
These are issues I struggle with when I coordinate DJs. I pick DJs I think are great. And then I want to show them off. But it’s hard to flaunt a badass DJ when they’re supporting a band – the band is the main attraction after all. I’m beginning to feel that it’d be easier to just put a CD on in band breaks. I mean, it’s not like the olden days in lindy hop, when the bands were so bad you really _needed_ a good band break DJ. But then there are lots of annoying jobs during band gigs that require a real DJ – playing music for performances, welcome dances, etc – so you actually need a DJ who’s really responsible and together…
It’s a hard set of decisions, really. I think it’s a better idea to keep the number of DJs at a gig low, and then to use them in a few settings. So long as they’re cool with that. But then you get other problems: DJs who aren’t involved feel left out; the DJs who’re working a lot get a bit tired; if you’ve blundered and misjudged the type of DJs you’v chosen, the crowd are stuck with them all weekend. The last one isn’t really a big problem, I don’t think. I put a lot of effort into finding out exactly what the organisers want from the music – old school? A mixed platter? What’s their creative ‘goal’ for the event? Do they want ‘all really experienced DJs’? A mix of old and new so as to do some community development with encouraging new DJs? All local? A mix of interstate/overseas and local?
These can sound like wanky questions, but it really helps to talk to the organiser and find out what they want the final event to be like. Then I make suggestions and try to put together a list of people I think will work for the event. And then I get the organiser to check that list and give me the nod. It can get tricky if the organiser isn’t a DJ or doesn’t really get into music in a big way. In those cases I try to be a bit more active in my thinking, and to ask questions about their ideas for the event in a more general way. Then I try to come up with DJs who’ll help make the event work that way.
The next step is, of course, to invite the DJs you want. It can be hard to persuade DJs from out of town to come to an event where they’ll only get free entry, and then be paid $20 or $30 per hour, and without any meal or flight payments. I’m also thinking that it might be a worthwhile investment paying DJs more and giving them better packages, just so we can guarantee their presence and work. They certainly do that in America at the bigger events.
This issue is really indicative of a transitional moment in Australian swing dance culture – we just don’t seem to value DJs that highly. Which of course suggests that social dancing isn’t that important. I think this is changing, though. But we are beginning (as a scene – there are individual exceptions of course) to see broader cultural shifts in how we value DJs and music. But the sheer fact of geography has meant that dancers are unlikely to travel _just_ for a social dancing event, unless it’s guaranteed badass, has a good reputation or offers something else along the way (eg the Hellzapoppin’ comp).
These are all issues I have to think my way through. I’m still not entirely sure how I’d plan my ‘ideal’ event. Would I get in just a handful (as in 4 or 5 maximum) DJs, pay them really well, and give them great deals, then use them quite thoroughly on the program, promoting them heavily as a key feature of the event? What would this do to the status of the bands, though? Bands are, really, the best fun and the best part of a weekend. If they’re good bands. Do I really think it’s a good idea to create a sort of hierarchy of knowledge and status with DJs somewhere higher up? I mean, isn’t this a bit self-serving, speaking as a DJ? Why should DJs be more important than the people who clean up after the dance?
Part of me argues that DJing requires a significant investment of time and money, and the development of skills and professional contacts and networks, so really it is more value-laden than cleaning up after the dance. But then there are clear gender divides happening here. DJs are usually men, and the cleaner-uppers and volunteers generally, are usually women. It’s actually been nice to see in the last few years, that this gendering is shifting. Women are over represented in volunteer labour (as they are in the broader community), but they are steadily creeping into the DJing ranks. MSF features five women DJs and three men. This has to be a first in Australian DJ terms. I’ve never been at an event with more women than men DJs. And I have to say, they’ve been absolute GEMS.
I’ve _never_ had such a professional, capable team of DJs. No one’s been late to a set, no one’s lost anything essential, no one’s missed a set (!!), no one’s failed to bring the right gear. Everyone’s been really keen to pull out their best work, everyone’s been really conscientious, everyone’s done really top quality sets, everyone’s been an absolute pleasure to work with. It’s been a really wonderful experience working with this group. This isn’t to say that I haven’t also had good experiences with other DJs at other events, but this one just seems to be working really well. AND I’ve had some really good dances.
My one concern, though, is that the heavy emphasis on music from the 20s, 30s and 40s has alienated some of the punters, especially the ones who’re new to the dance, or aren’t actually into old school music. This type of music is quite chic with the Melbourne teachers at the moment, but it hasn’t always been. Some of this stuff can be a bit challenging if you’re not used to the low audio quality, the musical structures, or if your dancing is really limited to just a few basic steps. The more dancing skills you have, the more experience with historic dance forms you have, the more accessible you find this stuff. It’s helped that the teachers for the weekend are into this action, so they’re teaching with this type of music. But part of me is thinking ‘isn’t it time we went hi-fi here?’ All of the DJs (pretty much) have dropped contemporary recordings into their sets, but the music these modern bands are playing is still pretty old school.
On the other hand, I think that Australia is approaching the point (finally) where we can actually specialise musically at each event. I think it’s a shame not to produce events with particular musical or stylistic focuses. I like to see events that have a consistency in the branding (logos, PR material, individual event PR), bands, DJs, competition structures, performances and classes. So Soul Glo is successful in part because it presents a soul-focussed event for swing dancers, with a strong blues sub-focus. Hullabaloo in Perth has always had an old-school focus, but that event is more of a complete package, and they offer such a quality event the music is really only one component of a very solid program. I think MLX could actually do with stronger branding on this front. It’s been ‘solid swinging jazz’ since 2005 when it went all-social, but I think this branding needs updating and strengthening. I can see why some events wouldn’t want to take the risk of alienating potential punters with such specific branding, but then, I wonder if it’s not worth taking a risk? As a dancer, I’m certainly looking for a particular experience when I go to an event. And a ‘good weekend of dancing’ isn’t really enough any more – I want something a little different. But still within the vernacular jazz discourse, though… unless I am at Soul Glo, and I know what I’m getting.
Ok, so that’s enough of that.
Here’s the set I did after Falty last night.
title band album bpm year length
It’s Your Last Chance To Dance Preservation Hall The Hurricane Sessions 179 2007 4:31
Georgia Grind Louis Armstrong and the All Stars (Trummy Young, Edmund Hall, Billy Kyle, George Barnes, Squire Gersh, Barrett Deems, Bob Haggart, Velma Middleton, Yank Lawson) The Complete Decca Studio Recordings of Louis Armstrong and the All Stars (disc 05) 124 1957 3:23
Deep Trouble Les Red Hot Reedwarmers King Joe 179 2006 2:55
Blue Leaf Clover Firecracker Jazz Band The Firecracker Jazz Band 111 2005 4:59
Do Your Duty Bessie Smith acc by Buck and his Band (Frank Newton, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, Chu Berry, Buck Washington, Bobby Johnson, Billy Taylor) Classic Chu Berry Columbia And Victor Sessions (Disc 1) 121 1933 3:31
Wipe It Off Lonnie Johnson and Clarence Williams acc. by James P. Johnson, Lonnie Johnson, Spencer Williams Raunchy Business: Hot Nuts and Lollypops 122 1930 3:20
I Like Pie I Like Cake (but I like you best of all) The Goofus Five (Bill Moore, Adrian Rollini, Irving Brodsky, Tommy Felline, Stan King) Goofus Five 1924-1925 188 1924 3:15
Don’t You Leave Me Here Jelly Roll Morton’s New Orleans Jazzmen (Zutty Singleton) Jelly Roll Morton 1930-1939 143 1939 2:23
It’s Tight Like That Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra The Jimmie Noone Collection 144 1928 2:49
Downright Disgusted Blues Wingy Manone and his Orchestra (Chu Berry) Classic Chu Berry Columbia And Victor Sessions (Disc 5) 129 1939 2:31
How Do They Do It That Way? Henry ‘Red’ Allen and his Orchestra (JC Higgenbotham, Albert Nicholas, Charlie Holmes, Luis Russell, Will Johnson, Pops Foster, Paul Barabarin), Victoria Spivey and the Four Wanderers Henry Red Allen And His New York Orchestra (disc 2) 139 1929 3:20
On Revival Day (A Rhythmic Spiritual) (06-09-30) Bessie Smith acc by James P. Johnson, Bessemer Singers Jazz Cats – Jazz to Wake Up to 163 1930 2:58
That Too, Do Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra (Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing) Moten Swing 123 1930 3:20
That’s What I Like About You Jack Teagarden and his Orchestra (Charlie Teagarden, Stirling Bose, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Catalyne, Max Farley, Adrian Rollini, Fats Waller, Nappy Lamare, Artie Bernstein, Stan King) The Complete Okeh and Brunswick Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer and Jack Teagarden Sessions (1924-1936) (disc 6) 166 1931 3:27
The Blues A Artie Shaw and his New Music Self Portrait (Disc 1) 123 1937 2:52
The Right Key But the Wrong Keyhole Clarence Williams and his Orchestra Clarence Williams and His Orchestra Vol. 1, 1933-1934 103 1933 2:36
Falty had played a set with quite a few contemporary New Orleans bands (Jazz Vipers, Preservation Hall, etc), and a lot of bands quite like the ones I usually play. In fact, we had a few of the same songs on our short lists when we compared our sets just before we swapped over. This was really exciting – I got a chance to dance to stuff I adore, but don’t DJ very often. Then Mike’s status allowed him to take risks I couldn’t, and his actual DJing _skillz_ made it work for him. From here, I could take more risks with the music I played. That’s why I went old school. I didn’t try to make people crazy and upenergy the way I usually do, as people were shagged, and Mike had really done that action quite thoroughly already.
I played the first Pres Hall song as a way of moving from Falty to something else. I was feeling a little emotionally battered myself, so I thought I might ease it off afterwards. I think that song was a bit in your face for a first song, though. I had kind of tossed up between that and their version of ‘Sugar Blues’, so as to completely change things up, but I chickened out on such a bold move. I also didn’t want to signal ‘this is where the blues begins!’ so clearly and risk losing half my (dwindling) crowd.
I played ‘Georgia Grind’ because I love it. Falty had played a way up-tempo, scratchy version earlier, and I thought it’d be cute to signal my change in vibe by playing a hi-fi version by Armstrong. It’s a little twee in parts, but the band is so good it really overcomes that later on in some of the choruses.
I <3 Les Red Hot Reedwarmers. Make sure you search for them on youtube – they’re a great little French band who do wonderful, wonderful Jimmie Noone stuff. This song is kind of cute and mellow, but also musically amazing, and recorded live. Props to them.
‘Blue Leaf Clover’ always goes down well, if I prepare the set for it properly first. It’s by the Firecracker Jazz Band, which was kind of a reference to my charleston songs the night before. This is such a great band.
Really, I was headed towards Bessie Smith all the time. I find that whenever I play her, people love her. They really respond to her versions of songs they know, but also to her more obscure stuff. This song is super neat, and you can’t really go past the line up in the band. This was a transition (with its brass solos) from the Firecrackers to the next song with its piano/guitar combo. It’s a little lighter hearted than Bessie, but it’s much dirtier. And it’s really fun. These are two of my most favourite songs of all time. I especially like the man-singing-like-a-woman vibe, which I revisit later with the Teagarden/Waller duet.
I had to play this superior Pie/Cake version which Trev put me onto ages ago. Go Goofus Five! I think this song is a good example of how exchanges are super inspiring for DJs – they give us a chance to hear other DJs bring their wickedforce and then rip it off for our own gain. Ha ha! I like this version because I find the Four Clefs version a bit twee and overplayed, but I love the melody. I hoped it would twig the ‘favourite’ nerve in the dancers, but then twist it with a more uptempo vibe.
Jelly Roll, because, well. Jelly Roll. This is a nice, chunking, _pushing_ song, that doesn’t drag – you feel like you’re going somewhere with it. It’s an easy tempo, but it has a bit more energy. We needed that energy if I was going to sit down here on these lower tempos. I actually think the vocals are just right – a nice, rollicking, swinging rhythm that contrasts really nicely with the slightly more straight-ahead rhythm section.
Jimmie Noone! I do love this man. And I love this song. More suggestive lyrics. But the expression ‘tight like that’ is kind of cool because it sounds like a really cool way of describing how something is just plain good stuff – “man, it’s tight like that.”
Wingy Manone, for a little more swing, and back in that 1939 later swing rhythm. Mike had played a few Manone songs, and I wanted to reference them a bit here.
I had wanted to play some Spivey/Henry Red Allen win, but all I could find was the slower stuff, and I wanted to avoid the bluesy vibe. But then I was reminded of this, which is one of my super favourites. I’d just been crapping on to Mike about how I liked the Spivey/Allen combination, and how it reminded me of the Rosetta Howard/Allen combination, and how Howard was the one who led me to the Hamfats in the first place (we’d just been talking Hamfats).
Bessie Smith. Because. People liked this, but it was a little uptempo, and a little too jesusy for serious dancing. But it’s fun, and people like it.
Bennie Moten, while I’m there. Because Basie always wins. And the Jimmy Rushing addition (with the ‘Good Morning Blues’ lyrics) is full of awesome. Gotta love a bit of a accordian solo in there.
The Teagarden/Waller duet ‘That’s What I Like About You’ was perhaps a bit mistimed – too fast, too straight for this time of night. Having said that, it’s also wonderfully queer-as-fuck to hear Teagarden (sigh) singing a love song with Fats Waller (double sigh). They would have known exactly what they were doing. This is queer in so many wonderful ways. These guys were pretty transgressive (a black guy and a white recording together in 1931, who also played together live in Chicago*; all the drug references; the gender-play in this song itself), and this love song with the humourous twist _almost_ undoes the queer… and then it doesn’t. It’s still Jack Teagarden, who has the sexiest, swingingest voice EVER, singing a love song to Fats Waller, kind of comedic timing and also king of poignant understatement. They’re singing a song about mismatched, chalk-and-cheese love. It’s perfect.
I closed with Artie Shaw because that song is nice and swinging, it’s easy to dance to and it’s really nice. It’s also pretty slow and mellow, but also kind of chunks along and doesn’t drag.
I really enjoyed this set. Though the room slowly emptied out til I called it at 4am, people were still dancing.
Hoo-rah for lindy hop.
* The Fats Waller/Teagarden connection is quite cool. They also did a song called ‘Lookin’ Good But Feelin’ Bad’ (Fats Waller and his Buddies (Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Jack Teagarden, Albert Nicholas, Otto Hardwicke, Larry Binyon, Eddie Condon, Al Morgan, Gene Krupa), 1929) which Les Red Hot Reedwarmers do superhot. That band is pretty much 100% rockhard awesome. The ‘That’s what I like about you’ band isn’t quite as good, but it is sporting Adrian Rollini, who I have a bit of a thing for. At any rate, it’s all Chicago, and it’s all quite subversive stuff.
Teagarden is also interesting for his work with Louis Armstrong – more race stuff that kind of fucked the mainstream American conservativism about. In the early days at least.
I wrote about Armstrong, race etc in these posts:
What again?
magazines, jazz, masculinity, mess
pop culture, jazz and ethnicity

reports

Running report: I can run for 28 minutes without stopping. I’m at run 3 of week 8 of the c25k. I am badass. I am considering some sort of fun run situation.

DJing report: went to BBS and DJed. DJing for blues dancers is a bit boring. Blues dancing events are a bit boring. Having said that, I had a very good time. For my money (and it was), BBS offers the most interesting bands and venues at any Australian dance event. G$ has some great photos here. That’s one of his there with this post.
My DJing was ok, and I think I did a pretty good job on the… Sunday night I think it was. On the whole I didn’t hear a whole lot of really inspiring DJing over the weekend. Most of the sets seem to lack coherency or flow. And they tended to be really low energy. The low energy is a real suck at an entire weekend of blues – you really need to keep the energy up there so people dance. One exception was Chris Haarm, who did some really nice work warming the room on the Friday night. I think his set was my favourite.
The bands, though, ROCKED. And that’s how it should be.
I don’t think I’ll bother with another blues weekend. I ended up going for a run on the Sunday because I didn’t feel like I’d had enough exercise. And that’s just wrong for an exchange.
Learnz report: I am working my way through this pgrad diploma. It’s really hard not directing your own learnz. I don’t like waiting for someone else to decide when I’m ready for the next bit of learn. I also much prefer following my own interests rather than having to follow someone else’s curriculum. Remind me to talk a bit about this more later on.
Intertubes report: I have neglected this blog for twitter. And my learnz.
That’s it.

mid-week report

This is just going to be an account of things I’ve done lately, as I’m trying to get my brain in gear for doing readings and some writing.
Today I did the third run of week five of c25k. That was 5 minutes walking, 20 minutes running, 5 minutes walking. I ran for twenty whole minutes without having to stop. I haven’t been able to do that since I was in an athletics squad at thirteen. It’s pretty bloody amazing. And it wasn’t as hard as I thought. My knees did get a bit sore from the impact, and I really felt the limited range of movement in my right ankle, but otherwise it was ok. I’m pretty tired now, and I don’t have that massive, crazy adrenaline-charged energy I usually have on days I run, but I don’t feel terrible at all. In fact, I am tough.
Tomorrow I’m off to Melbourne for Blues Before Sunrise, a blues dancing exchange. I’m not doing workshops. I never do any more – I’d much rather spend the daylight hours being a tourist and socialising. I’m not interested in any of the teachers either, which is usually the deciding factor. I’d really like it if Damon Stone came back so I could do some historically informed blues dancing classes.
I’m doing some DJing there (as I mentioned earlier), and I’m interested in seeing how Melbourne’s social dancing is going these days. I’ll probably play the sort of set I do at Roxbury these days, as Melbourne used to have slightly higher tempos than the Sydney SP gigs, but I’ll also keep an eye on the lower tempo range as it’s an after-class gig.
I’m also looking forward to buying a good sports bra. I’ve lost a bit of weight since I started running and this has meant that most of my clothes no longer fit the same way. Most of my wardrobe is cope-with-able, but I’m finding that I really need to get a smaller bra. I’ve got three super awesome Berlei ones that are actually still in good shape, even though they’re about two or three years old. Apparently the elastic goes in bras after a few zillion washes, so you should replace them. But I like these and they were fricking expensive ($70 each). They’re not, though, really fitting properly, and I’m getting some bad bounce which actually gives me a bit of a stitch. Egads. So I’m going to go in and get fitted at Myer and then have a look at the outlet store in Brunswick to see if they have what I’m after. I really do have to buy at least one good one for running in.
The semester has started and I’ve been to two of my three classes. There’s an option of getting credit for one subject because of my previous study, but I’m not sure I’ll take it. I should, because it’ll save me heaps of money and make the workload easier, but I’m actually interested in the content. It’s really just basic semiotics and critical thinking, but it’s applied to information systems and data management, which is interesting. I really could just do the readings and guide myself through the content on my own (seeing as how I’ve spent a couple of higher degrees learning just how to do that), but I think the discussions in class could be interesting. At any rate, I have until week four to make up my mind and then withdraw without academic penalty. I should withdraw – it’ll save me 1.5 thousand dollars.
Classes have been interesting. The one I’m thinking of dropping was a little frustrating. It really was like being in a first year semiotics/intro to cultural studies subject, but in a very light weight way. It felt as though the discussion was going really. really. really. slowly. Partly because the group doesn’t have the sort of discussion skills you get from an arts degree, but also because the tutor/lecturer is kind of adversarial, and this shut down the contributions. It’s also because it seems as though information management people are only just discovering concepts like cultural diversity, active readership, meaning as a product of reader + text not inherent in text, etc etc.
The literature is equally slow – it’s very tentative about its claims about audiences and users and the status of texts, which is very ANNOYING. These things are so standardly basic in cultural studies, it feels as though we are reinventing the wheel, but without actually using any round shapes. It’s a bit interesting because it also makes clear the fact that info management really does rely on the idea that texts do have innate or essential value and meaning. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t collect and catalogue them and libraries wouldn’t exist. The very nature of cataloguing is that texts and items carry meaning within them.
I think this is why the field is having such difficulty accommodating the idea of users as a diverse bunch with different needs and interests. If your text is the important bit, you really have to assume that readers have a shared value system and shared approaches to text. I’d like to see how the literature ultimately deals with this stuff, but right now articles published in the 1990s are all ‘you know what – anything can be information! Even a building!’ and I’m all ‘oh fuck, didn’t we talk about this thirty years ago?’ So it’s very frustrating, but also reveals a whole lot about the way museums and libraries and things work.
It’s super frustrating because I’m used to teaching these things to undergrads, and I’m not particularly enjoying the way the tutor in our classes is handling discussion. This stuff really requires a lot of talk and testing from students; they really have to actually do the whole ‘meaning is made not innate to texts’ thing in class through their own discussions and exploration of readings. But this can’t happen if your (white, male, hetero, alpha-male…) tutor can’t let the discussion move away from him-as-focus. It’s really emphasising the way patriarchy relies on masculinist ways of communicating and engaging in public talk and the negotiation of ideas to maintain the status quo. And while this tutor is all about ‘multiple approaches to texts’ and so on, he can’t see that his own discursive style is enforcing boring old hierarchies and status and modes of engagement that marginalise women and not-patriarchy-types. This is way poop when your group is 90% middle aged women with badass careers behind them. I mean, you’ve gotta be doing something wrong if you manage to reduce a loud, enthusiastic, cooperative group of mature aged women students to silence. Self-reflexivity, please.
But I am really really really enjoying being back in a class again, as a student not a teacher. I did have to fight my instinct to manage the discussion in the first tutorial (especially when I could see the tutor squashing the discussion). It is hard to change the way I work in such a familiar setting. Tutorials are so clearly hierarchical. The tutor really is the alpha, or at least the guiding, structuring entity. And while I don’t mind being in the beta position (yahoo! no lesson planning!), I’m finding it hard not to act on my instincts to lubricate discussion. I think in part it’s because I’m also used to being in academic discussions where everyone knows how to talk – you know how to keep things rolling along.
I also think it’s a part of being a woman in talk – women tend to do more affirming, active listening and general social lubrication. I’ve noticed that women tend to respond to alphas in a particular way – affirming, listening, agreeing rather than volunteering ideas, disagreeing or asserting themselves. In a group setting, when faced with an alpha, I tend to square up, to assert myself. And I’m trying not to do that in this class because it then encourages a sort of competition between me and other alphas, but it also provokes a particular response from the women in the group – agreeing, nodding, etc. And while that’s all very nice, it also shuts you off from the sort of serious, hardcore communicating women do in all-female groups. Sure, there are particular hierarchies and power dynamics at work there, but they’re not such blunt objects. So I need to chill and step back because a) I’m not responsible for the smooth and productive running of the tute, and b) these are my peers, not my students and I’ll gain a lot from remembering that.
Basically, this has reminded me of how challenging being a university student is, and of how academia is – despite all this talk about discourse and collegiality – absolutely all about competitive, masculinised interaction. While it was professionally a good idea to learn how to do this type of behaviour when I was teaching, it’s actually a fairly shitty way to be in a cooperative, collaborative class setting. So I’m trying to – once again – stop talking and to listen more. To not be the first one to answer questions, and to not ‘take control’ of the discussion or social setting, even by doing things like massaging conversation or discussion, or heading off at the pass disruptive influences.
It’s also a real change to be a student within the university. I’m used to the status and privilege of teaching and researching. But as a student, no one will provide my reader, no one will tell me where to be at any one time, no one will organise rooms for me. Staff deal with me in a different way (I’m definitely lower status). It’s super-nice to have other students treat me as peers, though. It’s strange because though I’ve always tried not to be a ‘we are gods’ type academic, I’ve still benefited from the higher status of being staff. But I just haven’t noticed it. So that shift in status is kind of destabilising.
I noticed it most yesterday when I couldn’t find my lecture room. When you’re doing the teaching, everyone has to wait for you to find the room. But when you’re a student, things just continue whether you’re there or not. I found this a bit daunting because it was the first class of the semester for a new subject. So coming in late, I found it tricky to catch up.
This class was discussing stuff I really know nothing about – the internal architecture of information systems like google or databases or search engines. It’s taught by a computer science dood (who’s really a very good teacher and a lovely guy) and it’s run a bit like a computer science subject – practical lab work and lots of contact hours, but NO READINGS (that blows my brain). So I’m going to have to learn how to learn in this new type of setting.
I’m kind of lucky that I do do dance classes regularly – I have ongoing experience learning how to learn in a class, and being comfortable with not knowing things. I think that dancers in the lindy world are very much about learning and knowledge… well, most of them are. The ones who are interested in historical dance forms tend to be very interested in learning. Learning new steps, routines, etc. But there’s a great deal of difference between learning a routine from an archival clip or being in a dance class, and learning how to construct databases in a computer lab.
So being a student again is challenging. But it’s also very exciting. I really love being in a group again, rather than working independently as you do during a PhD. I love hearing other people talk about their ideas, and having my own brain fired up by their saying things I’d never have come up with. I love this part of teaching, but when you’re part of the group it’s as though you have permission to just let your brain go, and follow ideas much further. When I’m teaching, I have to stay on track and keep the discussion within some sort of structure, as you have some goals and definite things to achieve. But when you’re a stood, you can just let your brain run on and on and on. It’s fabulous, and I love it SO MUCH.
Meanwhile, less fabulously, the bathroom renovation continues. The tiling is going on as I type, insulated by my headphones. The floor will go in today (hopefully), and then it will be tiled tomorrow. The vanity should be in by the end of the week, and the plumber in and doing the bits and pieces that make water work and the toilet exist. Next week they put in the fittings and shower screen. So, really, it won’t possibly be done by next Wednesday, unless we’re really lucky. But it should be done by Friday.
I haven’t had a shower since Friday, and though I’m doing a good job with buckets, I’m looking forward to showering in Melbourne. Especially as I’ll be dancing so much. But the bathroom will look good, and I think I did a good job choosing the tiles. It’s all white, but the shade of white matches the old tub. The shiny (rather than matte) tiles mean it’s already far brighter in there, and the whiteness is really good for light. There’re no external windows, just a skylight, but the new downlights have also made a big difference. I’m not entirely happy about the vanity, as it will just eat up room, but we just couldn’t afford a custom-made one, which is what would be required. Well, we could have afforded it, but it’s not a good investment in a flat we won’t spend the rest of our lives in.
And that’s just about it, I think. I have some readings to do now. :D

Pacific House noms on Sunday

We did eat other things in Melbourne after the stupid eggs. Masses of seafood at Pacific House in Richmond. And salt and pepper fu.