“The mix speaks to you…it shows the inexplicable mutability of sound as different people share the memories brought about by the same songs. It demonstrates the uncanny power to metamorphosize, through audio alchemy, the passage of sound into a kind of unspoken story, that like its predecessor, the oral tradition, can pass on “tales” of songs.” -DJ Spooky

The night after my show in SF, I played in downtown Oakland at a Bar called The Rock Steady. The event was put on by an old friend Isador who wanted to have the night be female and/or femme identifying DJs only, and they (Isador) called it Hard Casual. Aside from Isador and myself, there were three other acts, the openers being a pair of DJs who did a back to back set. They went by the names MegaLow and Pariah Carey, and are in a really good band together called Silver Shadows, who I had seen play over the summer when I was in LA. One half of the duo was Margot, a good friend who I’d shared a practice space with in Olympia, and seriously one of the best musicians I’ve ever played with. We were in a Runaways cover band together roughly 5 years ago. Megan, her back to back counterpart that night I’d met just very briefly in LA, and I had heard that she used to DJ with producers and DJs in LA who I have been really excited about at events called Mustache Mondays and Night Slugs. Her and I got to talking throughout the night, and realized we had quite a bit in common with our musical interests, and when she found out I was thinking about moving to Oakland she told me I definitely should. After my set she explained how she is part of a people of color DJ collective called Browntourage (love that name) and said she would be interested in starting a monthly event with me if I moved to the Bay. She also offered to try to connect me with the aforementioned DJs and producers in LA which I can’t explain enough how exciting that is even if it doesn’t pan out! Those people are some of my absolute favorite artists right now. Needless to say, both of my shows were so incredible positive in feedback and opportunities. Plus it was great to see a group of old Olympia friends show up to see me play.
I was asked in a comment to describe my process for preparing a DJ set so here goes:
I consider several things before I even look through my music selection–

• Where am I playing? (venue, house party, all-ages space, bar)
• Who will my audience be?
• Who asked me to play?
• Who will I be playing with and what is their style?
• Do I need to match my style to the other performers or not?
• What is the vibe of the venue space, and the particular night that I am playing? What kind of music usually is played there?

I do that research, and often ask these questions to whoever I am in contact with about playing the show. If possible, I talk to the other DJs as well. Then I get an idea of what type of music I want to play and I compile a playlist that is often at least 3 times longer than the time I will be playing for. I

I work through that playlist by doing practice sets with minimal arrangement, though sometimes I do start out with a good chunk of songs I know I wanna play and have ideas for their placement in my set. Eventually, I am able to eliminate songs that will not work for the set. I often start recording my sets during this part of the process so that I can listen to them when I am driving or walking somewhere to see how they sound to me when I’m only listening and not actively mixing songs. After that, I come up with a series of songs I know I want to play, and I think about the flow of the songs, so I start to think about what order they would sound best in. Then I put those together and leave at least an extra hours-worth of songs in the playlist that I can use if those songs don’t all get played how I planned, because a huge part of DJing is reading the crowd, and intuiting what they are responding to. Maybe I have a solid set but the audience loses it over the song I play halfway through my set and suddenly I know that theres this other song they would like and it wasn’t planned but I throw it in next and go from there.

That’s what I did for my shows in the Bay, but I do that for every show, to an extent. Being in school and working part time sometimes doesn’t allow me to go as deep into my process as I would like to, but all those parts are always there. How much I practice is really the thing that changes from show to show.

One last thing is that I’m reading an essay in Audio Culture: Readings In Modern Music that really resonates with me, and reaffirmed my need to refine my research question to this:

What does the DJ represent in the music scene?

The essay I am reading is by Paul D. Miller who is famously known as DJ Spooky (also sometimes known as That Subliminal Kid). The intro to this essay is kind of ambiguously written, I think the author of the entire book wrote it about Miller, but it perfectly encapsulates what Miller does go on to say in the essay: “…the DJ is not merely an entertainer but an information handler who selects and guides the flow of audio data. The DJ’s mix is a composite of fragments drawn from a heterogeneous array of temporal, spatial, and cultural locations. Hence, according to Miller, the DJ regulates not only data but also the construction of time, memory, subjectivity, and experience.”

The two quotes I posted speak to me in that I think heavily about the journey/story I am telling through the tune selections that I make and the order in which I make them. This is excluding the technically able part of DJing that is also important to me, but in all honesty, is secondary in importance. When I DJ I think about how I am creating an atmosphere for people in which they can sit and talk, get up and dance, fill the awkward silences with, and bob their heads to. Especially when I am not playing a dance party setting, I really think about what kind of atmosphere I will be creating so that it is just engaging enough to include my audience (that whole thing about the construction of time, memory, etc. applies here) but not in a way that overpowers their ability to engage with each other and have a good time.

(See media page for my latest mix which I submitted to a radio show right before my trip)