Friday.

So me and my entourage roll up to the club in the stretch limo, and of course, by club I mean a local bar restaurant, by stretch limo I mean my fetal alcohol SUV, and by entourage I mean a dolly. It is ten o'clock, and I am charged with providing a three hour soundtrack of dance party music for whomever may wander in this friday night. I have been doing this every friday for close to seven years, and yet, this moment is the one which I still feel most terrified. I unload my giant coffin case, which I have come to call "the fully operational disco battle-station", and roll it into the bar on my entourage.  Invariably there are some dinner customer stragglers who are curious about this turn of events and often they enquire as to meaning of the big black box. 

"Gonna be playing some music?" They might say. "Whats in there, a keyboard? What kind of music do you play?" And because I generally turn to overly confident yet panicked absurdity as a defense against my profound insecurity I generally reply "No, no, not a keyboard. It is a harp made of calcified meat on which I play Welsh sea shanties!". Im not worried about the corkscrew nature of their eyebrows as I saunter forward with a purpose. They are not my target demographic anyway. It would probably be easier to explain Welsh sea shanties to them than it would electronic dance music.

I head to my corner and set up shop. Cables click, power-strips are engaged, and this beautiful series of machines come to life. I cue up the first couple of songs and Im ready. Now in the week prior, in preparation for this evening, I have probably listened to 300 new songs. I have selected a dozen or so that I think might work for this crowd, and integrated them into my library of already time tested and proven tracks. My iTunes at home is a mess, comprising of some 150,000 songs in this genre alone, but my battle-station is fairly distilled.

After a beer and a shot to calm my nerves, eleven o'clock comes and I am ready for the next three hours. Well, truthfully, there is one more step. I don a wide brimmed baseball hat. I found long ago that a baseball hat can replace the most powerful anti anxiety medications available. How? Well when one looks down at ones instruments, the brim blocks out everything else, and somehow, Im just back in my living room screwing around with machines that manipulate sound. No pressure, no one to please. Just fun.

But to be honest, the first hour is always fun. Its rare for anybody to dance for the first 45 min or so anyway. Everybody has to get their cocktail on because I mean, whose gonna dance if they are not at least slightly drunk amiright?  Thats just crazy talk. Hell, some of my regulars are probably just waking up from their disco nap. So I am free to play some stuff that I have found that I love. Some old chicago house music maybe, some soulful stuff… it varies, but truly, this first segment passes very easily. Too easily, in fact as before I know it, people are beginning to trickle out to the dance floor, and I know whats about to happen. 

The first questions will be easy, if not awkward. "Are you gonna play techno all night?" Inside my head I say "Well technically techno is a sub-genre of electronic dance music characterized by heavy four four rhythm at a much faster tempo, with acidic synth stabs and minimalist and heavily distorted vocal samples and I don't like it very much so, no." But outside my head, I simply say, "Yes". 

Then will come the first request, which will invariably be for one of the top three super mega pop hits. I have no problem with super mega pop hits, and I have them, although the versions I have are remixed fairly heavily. I have found that the pop lyric is the sugar that people need to allow themselves to experience electronica. Its my foot in the door and my stock in trade. In fact, likely the next two hours will be mostly a nonstop parade of remixed super mega pop hits. The funny thing is, I don't listen to super mega pop hits. When I have aural leisure time, Im more inclined to listen to NPR, or a radio documentary. I have very little knowledge of these little poptarts, and often have never even heard the original song. My gauge of a songs popularity is how many times it has been remixed by producers all over the world. It is very odd to be exposed to say, a Rhianna song on the radio, and to know that I have been playing it for months. Ahhhh. So thats what that really sounds like.

The poptarts come in waves over the months. It will be Britney Spears for a while, then maybe a few months of the Gaga woman, perhaps whatever song was sung on Glee the night before, but its always something. Lately it has been this Carly Rae Jepsen person and her song "Call Me Maybe", which I can only surmise applies Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal to the world of teen dating. I cant be sure… but I do know it brings down the house when it drops. And now here is an Amber, or a Tiffany or whatever, waving their apple chocolate cosmo-tini precariously over $5k worth of electronic equipment imploring me to "play it now, Im leaving in ten minutes, squeee". In my head, while using ninja like body language to maneuver her and her dangerous beverage out of my battle-station's airspace, I am saying "Ah yes. I will play it now, shoot off my largest firework first, then you will leave and the rest of us will all sit and enjoy our collective anti-climax for the next two hours. That would be awesome." But outside my head, I simply say, "Sure", which, while technically a lie, I prefer to consider merely just a chronologically adjusted truth.

As the sugar cubes of pop lyricism sprinkle into my set, the dance floor begins to fill, and I am becoming caught up in the energy myself. I am here to please, and I do get tremendous satisfaction from filling the floor, from giving the people what they want. I get off on dropping in a few novelties, like say a disco-fied "Killing me Softly" by Roberta Flack, but mostly Im winding up the hits. I peak from my beneath my brim of shame to find that people seem tho be having a really good time. Excellent! Although I know, that this second hour is fraught with an altogether different danger. Lets call him the Steve the EDM Nazi. He's is the guy who probably just returned from europe, where electronic music fills 50,000 person arenas. He knows everything about electronic music. Obsessively. He is here to test me, and his requests are gonna be obscure. I mean really really obscure. You got any Fuselby Grotto by Funkderstoring. In my head I am saying "Isn't that that 18 minute german minimalist tech house piece that samples world war one speeches? Yeah that sure would fit in right about now. Bastard." But outside my head come the words "Oh you know? I almost brought that but didn't have time to load it at the last minute, good request though".

So now it is the last 45 minutes, my very favorite part. Everyone is plastered, and plastered people generally are easy to please musically. And since I denied Amber and Tiffany earlier, I have a full clip of hollow point floor destroyers to drop in succession. This is gonna be great! But wait! What horror could this be coming my way? Oh no, dear lord no. There adorned in sashes and novelty penis antennae is the kryptonite of any fulfilling dj experience - the bridal shower party. And not just any bridal shower party, its the bridal shower party at 1:15 am,  after a full day of disproportionate self entitlement and copious amounts of sugary liquor consumed through penis shaped straws. I know the deal. They are the center of a blurry universe and I am merely one of many asteroids orbiting in perceived servitude. They don't make requests, they make demands. "Play some rap!" "I didn't bring any". "I have some on my phone, can you plug my phone into your machine?" Sigh. "No sorry, I cant." But its Regina's bridal shower, and she really wants to hear Birthday cake by Rhianna!" In my head I am saying "You know what, I don't know regina, and unless you all are part some sort of Japanese Phallic Cult, I know that this is a bridal shower, and while I could theoretically plug your phone into my battle-station, I would rather eat my own young than accommodate your bleary demands just because Chad finally broke down and proposed after what has been no doubt been years of passive aggressive hectoring." But I got a party to rock, and the bridezillas wont remember any of this anyway, so outside my head I utter a firm "NO.", which is often accompanied by a dismissive hand gesture. I should feel guilty for this, but I don't. In fact, it gives me pleasure. Great savory unexplainable pleasure.

Last call has come, and after some explaining that I personally cannot rewrite Virginia's liquor laws in order to accommodate your unexplained and urgent need to hear the song that you will be no doubt listening to in your car in ten minutes, I wind down the tempo and volume and the evening winds to a close. The relative silence and sudden presence of non flashing simple incandescent light leaves my plastered party goers looking rather not unlike stunned zombies. As the bartenders herd the wobbly minions out into the night, I step outside for a sweaty cigarette. I cant believe I pulled it off again. I feel good. I return inside, and after the exchange of some anecdotes and some currency, I pack up the fully operational disco battle station, and roll my entourage out to the street, where my limo is waiting.