DJ Dasai

[imomus]

I'm sad to announce that I'm DJing at my favourite Berlin record store, Dense (Danziger Str. 16, Berlin 10435, U-bahn Eberswalder Srasse, U2 line), tonight at 9pm. It's part of an evening featuring performances from Scottish bands Planningtorock and Vernon+Burns, and is loosely tied in with Popkomm, the big three day music conference currently going on in Berlin.

The reason that I'm "sad" to announce this happy occasion is that DJing is the least cool profession in the world. It's uncool for the following reasons:

1. Too many DJs. There are, as 2ManyDJs imply with their name, too many DJs. If I open the Popkomm brochure at the artist index, there are more than 20 sheep DJs listed in the D section. There's DJ Boozou Bajou, DJ Des, DJ Dirk Rumpff, DJ El Pogo, DJ Flush, DJ Johnny Fistfuck, and a team calling themselves DJs are Rockstars, amongst many, many others.

2. What do you stand for, DJ? DJ stands for disc jockey, right? A jockey is a short person who rides a horse, right? But instead of riding a horse, you ride a record, right? So you're really, really short, right? Where do you ride your record to? Fame and fortune? If DJs are really rockstars, where's your limo? Where are your groupies?

3. What do you create, DJ? Now, I don't want to be too rockist about this, but artists create something out of nothing. Well, okay, not exactly nothing, but we do manipulate the culture we find and leave it somewhat different, by "composing". But what does a DJ create that wasn't there before? A mix between two records, a match between two BPMs. It's not really very impressive, is it? Ah, you're a curator, I see! That changes everything. I'll picture you riding a very small horse around an art gallery.

4. You're hopelessly 90s, DJ! Let's see, it's the early 90s, the Pet Shop Boys put out a single called "DJ Culture", Simon Reynolds publishes a book about rave and ecstasy culture, Bjork sings "There's More To Life Than This" live from the Milk Bar toilets, and it's about sneaking away from the boombastic boredom of the DJ: "Let's sneak out of this party / It's getting boring / We could go down to the harbour / And jump between the boats..." And now it's 2005, and the Pet Shop Boys have made a soundtrack to "The Battleship Potemkin" with the Dresdner Sinfonica, and Simon Reynolds has written a book about postpunk, and Bjork is doing Eskimo throat singing and gagaku... and you're still DJing.

5. Beats are beat! The DJing I tend to see now is beat-free. Schloss Lanke, for instance, has a beat-free policy for its DJs, and when Anne Laplantine DJs she tends to mix children's music and musique concrete. There's nothing more wack than the unstoppable sequencer chaff that DJs spew out, especially when they're cigarette-lighter-in-the-air populists who start quiet and then get more, ahem, slammin' as the night goes on. Let me tell you, there's no connection between beats and dance. I love dance, and I can do it to anything. The dance I like to watch, contemporary dance by choreographers like Boris Charmatz, doesn't feature regular beats. You can dance to the sound of a washing machine on spin cycle! You can dance to the irregular sound of your bare feet hitting the floor and squeaking sweatily across it!

6. A music culture dominated by interpretive artists is a museum-bound culture. Sorry, crate-digger, your artform is an interpretive one, as museum-ready as most classical music. Like the classical music world, the DJ world is dominated by people who merely shuffle the sequence and interpretation of a fixed canon of masterpieces. Don't just spin and juggle the old stuff, make something new! Don't dig that crate, dig deeper and create!

7. Caveat Although DJs are inherently uncool (Japanese: dasai!, French: vous etes naz, les gars!) I wish to spare from the foregoing comments DJ Elephant Power, Nicolas Baudoux, who is very, very good. God knows what he was thinking when he chose his name, though.

Comments

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Exterminate all rational disco.

[(Anonymous)]

You may not want to get too rockist, but that's exactly where you're heading! You champion a pretty narrow notion of creativity. I also think (not in this post but in previous ones) you are too unthinking in your championing of experimentalism. The vast majority of experimentalism leads to self-indulgent dead-ends. Experimentalism that works tends to be ones that are riffing off conventions, ie we need the traditions as well. I do think it's absurd to say that an interpretive culture is a museum culture. After all, all those early British beat bands originally played covers, and look what happened to them.

(Also, no one has said "c'est nase, les gars!" in the past 40 years.)

やめて下さい！

[suemejack.livejournal.com]

Ha! I wish that someone would tell the Japanese that dj culture is "dasai," because I believe they must have more DJs per capita than any place I've ever been!

[alexmsk.livejournal.com]

ableton.

[artysmokes.livejournal.com]

live.

Losing My Edge.

[artysmokes.livejournal.com]

While this is a nice (semi-ironic?) rant, I think you're attacking a largely imaginary foe.
1. Yes, there are too many DJs, but there are also too many guitarists, too many artists. Too many untalented cunts, basically.
2. The top DJs do have groupies. Even ugly old Brandon Block can get a shag any night of the week from his star-fucking disco dollies. If you can't get a blow-job out of playing records in a club, I'm sure you'll at least get a nerdy tunespotter that will volunteer to carry your record bags. ;)
3. How many DJ's claim to be artists in their own right? While "creative" DJ's do exist, most will be happy to admit to merely "putting on a few tunes".
4. Nice references, but several people would (anomalously and possibly anonymously!) say that Momus is hopelessly 80s!
5. You can dance without the throb of a 909 kick drum to guide you, but what's the point?
6. If everyone was an artist, there would be no museums. We need curators to sort the wheat from the chaff, so that the general public at least has a canon to listen to.
7. DJ culture might well be uncool, but not all its members are uncool. You've got to be part of the system to change the system. Get out there and educate (on the wheels of steel).

Re: やめて下さい！

[artysmokes.livejournal.com]

I've never been there, but I was led to believe that 25% of Japanese people are Elvis impersonators. Do they DJ on their days off? ;)

[urban-ospreys.livejournal.com]

And now young royalty want to be DJs. Which is hardly 'street'. When Prince Harry was caught with marijuana the number of young people admitting to taking it fell for the first time ever. We should get Beatrice and Eugenie crawling around on crystal meth as soon as possible.

[eptified.livejournal.com]

I think you do a disservice to the DJs who provide the tracking for avant hip-hop and are thus responsible for much of the best new music going. You're a cLOUDDEAD fan, aren't you? And hey, are turntablists "DJs" under your definition or real artists? And wait, isn't art all about re-arranging pre-existing ideas into something that appears novel? Nothing new under the sun, right? Shit, man, define your terms. It's exasperating.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting, that's less than 100m from where I live.
Guess I'll have to check it out, then. Hope you'll play actual records, not some Hazel Markus and the Jolly Relativists mash-up.

der.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I do like Jeck and Marclay and other turntablists. Obviously today's entry is slightly, um, humourous in tone. I just wanted to talk about very small horses galloping around art galleries, and this seemed like the best way to broach the subject.

[piratehead.livejournal.com]

a) What about producers?

b) If I like rock (among other things), does that make me rockist?

Digidasai

[(Anonymous)]

so what do you do with me ?

Antonin / Digiki

Re: Digidasai

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

the bin. isn't it a fine place?

Re: Digidasai

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

some bird picks it out for the serpentine and u are back on track.

[framework.livejournal.com]

I just want people to call me "DJ Too Fat For The Kayak."

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I love a museum with a good beat.

Re: やめて下さい！

[anti-peace-riot.livejournal.com]

The DJ WHILE they are impersonating Elvis.

[anti-peace-riot.livejournal.com]

Well you've certainley provided an amusing image in my head for today!

[scola.livejournal.com]

Version 5.0!

[lil-octopie.livejournal.com]

club dj = ipod shuffle

(#4 rocks!)

curating art

[dr--ben.livejournal.com]

there's been a trend for a while in london for visual art exhibitions to namecheck the curator and not the artists. now if that's not sinister, i don't know what is.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

So, what happend/will happen there? (29 minutes left).

Djs without beats? Sounds like something for me, I heard that Aphex twin once was a DJ at a avant-garde café. He brought some sand paper and a mixer. The people digged it.

Too bad I don't know any cafés that invites noisy Dj's. :'(

"A...culture dominated by interpretive artists is a museum-bound culture."

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

But isn't that also a postmodern culture? Every person a curator and/or critic, and all that?

everybody wants to be the dj

[yhancik.livejournal.com]

hahaha, that's a good one
discutable, of course, but fun

(and after all it can only be sane to make fun of DJs)

Re: Sinista

[peripherus-max.livejournal.com]

For Halloween, I've decided to dress up as Marcel Duchamp.

I like boats

[300letters.livejournal.com]

While many are forgettable, some DJs are worth their weight in vinyl (http://www.qaswa.com/mixes/).

[akabe.livejournal.com]

The vast majority of experimentalism leads to self-indulgent dead-ends

true, but there'll always come some advertising-type creative to pick up on it and put it to some good use later on

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

correct on some points...
wrong on some points...
generally interesting idea, perhaps not truly inflamatory enough!
most djs are uncool though... but only because of over-saturation & the enormous levels of non-initiated djs in the world... we are going through a period where hip has become the standard (as it does every 5-10 years) & thus, sub-standard & so, mundanity will cover this over...

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

only the people who are paying attention to it all are post-modern, & they are too post-modern at this point to matter, there is no longer a point of reference. so much is being ignored as well... there is no common culture to be "post". so, post-post-post-modernism must take place.
in other words; post raisin bran.

BUT...

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

there are too many artists though!

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

a. since there are too many musicians, producer is another step in the middle men.
b. you are a geologist, not a rockist or a rocker. also, if you have to ask... well, you know.

You're hopelessly 80s, DJ!

[dzima.livejournal.com]

You obviously forgot Bowie's "DJ"...

DJ

[steviecat.livejournal.com]

When I "DJ" it feels like it's a different thing to the whole "DJ culture" thing - I simply play records between bands, have no interest in beat-matching or any of that palaver. I only use one deck for one thing, relish it being a bit clunky and non-technically proficient so that people can see that I'm just playing records/CDs! No mystique. I'm much more traditional, in a Peel/Kershaw/Charlie Gillett vein, trying to play a wide-ranging variety of intriguing music people might not have heard before, with little thought as to continuity or slickness or whatever. It's the RECORDS which are important, not me ! I guess I came to live DJing via doing radio shows, and am influenced by late-night broadcasters who were/are supportive of unusual musics, as opposed to anything that's happened in dance culture.

dense friday night or your every day observations

[(Anonymous)]

dearest non dj momus..

thanks for a wunderbar atmospherical nite in the dense..althogh djs do suck everyone who loves musik..does and do appreciate when we can be enlightened with marching band children singing and sounds which we otherwise would search a lifetime to collect every bit that is out there and love to hear from someone else's ears. As Im working in the backroom now at staubgold i was pleasantly happy to experience the eve. thanks.

as too your everyday observations keep em coming..a overall mix of yet again things on the street one that im happy to have a connection to another view outside observations and opinions about...all the backjumps..political...enviorment..photo ex. and the evil that we all left behind in the old u.s.a.

to business: markus had asked me this week regarding planning our xmas party..record release for harald "sack" ziegler..beginning dec. roughly 9 or 10th..in berlin nbi or rotor salon...would you be intersted to perform on the bill?? no djing required unless inspired..let me know ..to be reached melissa@staubgold.com

best, melissa