{"id":861,"date":"2015-04-29T16:45:51","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T23:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.evergreen.edu\/martydjculture\/?p=109"},"modified":"2015-04-29T16:45:51","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T23:45:51","slug":"switch-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/switch-sf\/","title":{"rendered":"Switch SF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was what I had been preparing for this whole quarter– I had gotten asked by my friend Jenna Riot to DJ her party called Switch SF which is a queer women’s night in the Castro part of San Francisco at Q Bar. I basically spent all day working on the set (not to mention the practice I’d put into it before arriving to California), and then took the BART from Oakland where I am staying to my friend CJ’s house in SF. We grabbed some food and then I just went back to practicing until it was time for me to be at the bar for soundcheck.
\nI hadn’t seen Jenna since I’d been on tour 7 years ago when we played in SF, so it was really fun to get to see her DJ and hang out. She started the night out with a 45 minute set, then I followed, then her DJ partner DeeJay Andre. We swapped posts a second time around so I was able to close the night out when the bar was busier, and I played another 45 minute set with some heavier dance music to suit the mood. DJing at Switch SF was a blast, Jenna, Andre and her friends were all so friendly and fun to hang out with. I also got paid more than I ever had before for DJing which was nice.
\nSomething that I have been wondering about is where I can move to after I leave Olympia that would allow me to have a sustainable DJ career, and I have been fortunate to have many friends here who are willing to hear what I want and give great feedback and advice on what might work best for me. I even got some helpful advice and support from Jenna and her friends who I’d just met last night! One person who bartends at Q Bar told me she really enjoyed the music I was playing, and went on to explain that in addition to bartending she also puts on events; she asked what I charge for my DJ services (to which I had no answer), and told me that if I did decide to move to the Bay, she would hire me often for her events! That was one of the best moments of the night, to know I can reach people beyond my friends and that they are responding well to what I do and want to collaborate and support what I’m doing with what they are.
\nTo change gears a little, I want to comment briefly on the architecture of San Francisco: It is a compressed city and there’s lots of people, but the architecture is so appealing to me that it somehow seems to make it a little better than other congested cities. There are so many homes\/apartments that are all different kinds of colors and shapes and sizes. Another thing I love is that there’s so many different little shops all over the place; a little sushi place next to a shoe repair shop with a great sign and a thrift store on the other side…a store selling watches, and San Francisco tagged items like shot glasses and shirts. Things like that so that you don’t have to go to one boring corporate store to get the one-stop shopping experience and everything is always the same. I love that about bigger cities.
\nI’m going to play a show here in Oakland tonight with a several other DJs, two of whom are friends who used to live in Olympia. I’m learning that the connections I have made with the transitory population of Olympia makes for a great time in other cities while visiting for various reasons like what I am doing. My friend Isador was able to throw a show together for me at a bar that has other notable shows, and she wants this one to be the jumping off show for a series of other ones she would like to throw. Since most of my friends live in this area of the Bay I’m excited to know that more of them will be able to make it out to this show.
\nOakland, like SF, also has very diverse architecture and I have been trying my best to think about what is different. So far I have only come to the more obvious conclusion that Oakland is far more spread out than SF, and there’s some homes in SF that are so particular to that city (think Full House) which I haven’t seen here in Oakland. But there are some victorian buildings here as well, and again, as a lover of signs there’s some really great ones here too which I’m trying to remember to document when I can. I will do my best to post some good pictures of it all!\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was what I had been preparing for this whole quarter– I had gotten asked by my friend Jenna Riot to DJ her party called Switch SF which is a queer women’s night in the Castro part of San Francisco at Q Bar. I basically spent all day working on the set (not to mention […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1064,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[],"tags":[99],"geo":{"latitude":37.7616043,"longitude":-122.4353104,"description":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1064"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}