A very short thread on DJing relating to the below. I'm in an interesting position coming back to DJing as an old bastard - in some senses a very fortunate one, that I'm old enough and ugly enough to take a few steps back from the relentless hustle.
Also because it's not my main focus in life, when I'm lucky enough to get a plum gig like @spiritland, I get to really bask in it. Being plugged into an outrageous soundsystem, and play your very favourite tunes / hear your mate do the same is 👌👌👌 mixcloud.com/Spiritland/tom…
The set I'll be playing on the 11th won't be ambient, though, it'll be more like this thread
Oh shit school run time - back to this later.
Was about to specifically address this point as it goes... Will do shortly.
So most music journalists are also DJs. Some are borderline apologetic about it, some make parallel careers of it. I earned money from DJing before I did from writing and Saturday night pub DJing has kept the wolf from the door at points...
No really @posthuman this was the point I jntended to address. As well as understanding the industry, spending all day every day thinking about the finer points of influence and connection in music can feed back into DJing, especially if you play eclectically.
But it works the other way too. DJing makes you listen in a different way: it can be REALLY valuable in stopping you over-conceptualising about musical structure and connections, learning to trust instinct etc.
So that applies to “proper” DJIng: since I decided to bite the bullet and teach myself to mix with some degree of skill instead of winging it, I listen to electronic tracks for reviewing with refreshed ears mixcloud.com/joemuggs/xdj-m…
But just as much, doing bar DJing / home playlists / the kind of set I’ll be doing at Spiritland on the 11th hem hem, makes you think instinctively about sequencing, and thus deeper connections between sounds open.spotify.com/user/joemuggs/…
Sorry was in seeing Black Panther 👌So anyway this question was genuinely going to be the next point.
In club culture, but also more generally because of playlists, "everyone is a DJ nowadays". And that's a blessing and a curse, right?
In club culture, but also more generally because of playlists, "everyone is a DJ nowadays". And that's a blessing and a curse, right?
On person's democratisation is another's devaluation of the form. Obviously some pros fairly or otherwise feel threatened by the market being flooded - attackmagazine.com/features/colum… - me, essentially being an amateur, I think "the more the merrier".
[Forrest Gump voice] "DJ is as DJ does". The bedroom DJ is vital to the life-blood of music, for example, especially if it's young or otherwise marginalised ppl gathering around a mate's kit, swapping tunes and ideas: this is where new sounds are very often born.
There we go. How evocative is this of a vital musical meeting point, outside of what is commodified?
The @feelmybicep boys described a very similar scenario, where they'd all gather in a mate's parents' garage pre-rave and play mixtapes etc.
The @feelmybicep boys described a very similar scenario, where they'd all gather in a mate's parents' garage pre-rave and play mixtapes etc.
Anyway back to DJing. I stand by this. Back when I was getting into everything - end of 80s, start of 90s - DJ culture really was super new, and it collided with comics, sci fi, critical theory, to create some v v giddy ideas
Ideas about the potency of juxtaposition, bricolage, intertextuality, an artwork without frame etc etc. Maybe am missing something but there seems to be less of that now: theoretical focus is more either on tracks themselves or on broader social context, less on the act of DJing.
Been thinking about it a bit in the context of the recent explosion of London soul/jazz influenced music. Wonder how much of it was forged in the crucible of eclectic DJ sets at Plastic People, recontextualising jazz etc in new ways.
I'm being quite vague, I know, just trying to jot down something that's been nagging at the back of my head. But I meant Big T Theory here - academic discourse - rather than general clubland chat.
Yeah it wasn't a short thread in the end 😬
Yes totally! That's what I meant about "artwork without frame". When club culture functions properly it's not an "artist"-"audience" relationship: more like a continuous act of collaborative creation.
Oh definitely. But the best DJs know they're part of something bigger. Likewise the best promoters (hello @ndyblake), festival organisers, lighting techs, photographers etc etc. I've been talking to @BogomirDoringer a lot about this (link follows)
Interview with @BogomirDoringer on observing the collective artwork of the club: joemuggs.tumblr.com/post/169226441… - we've just done another, longer one, that goes a lot further into the topic: coming to a shiny mag near you soon.
On this topic - the artwork without frame - if you can handle my awkward gesticulations & bad hair, I did a little video "provocation" for online conference @dubber did a few yrs back. vimeo.com/25259882 Starts with lengthy quotes: you can skip to 4m15s to cut to the chase.
The last element that is worth talking about is that a good DJ (and a good club night) plays with ideas: the narratives that run through the set/night, the (sub)cultures that are juxtaposed in the mix and how the clash or flow spark off ideas in the people experiencing them.
I once (after being given ten pints then put on stage) came up with the extreme example of how inescapably political a DJ blending Sylvester and Buju Banton would be. But in the main, it's not that crass, and the "mash up" isn't the exemplar of what a DJ does.
Rather, a great DJ, and I'm thinking Theo Parrish again, or in more modernist styles someone like @RabitMusic or the @NONWORLDWIDE lot, weaves complex, sometimes disquieting ideas in and out of each other, tests them against each other, but keeps the pleasure principle paramount.
And because you (ideally), having left some of your baggage at the door and become part of the larger project of the night, are absorbing it direct to your unconscious mind, those complex ideas are transmitted without the over-determined "wait but what" of daytime discourse.
It's not either/or. Or it shouldn't be. A straightforward party DJ with zero pretensons's set can be a profound experience. Ultra intellectual DJs can be dry as dust or (hello @kodenine) cold rock a party.
Just rounding all this DJ stuff up. It's understandable that there isn't the analytical excitement about What It Means To DJ like there was in e.g. 1992: familiarity (with 150,000,000,000 Soundcloud sets) breeds contempt, maybe? But maybe there should be a little more.
I hope I don't have to sell you on the actual pleasure of experiencing a great DJ, whether it's your mate making you a good playlist or the archetypal club experience that @BogomirDoringer talks about finding in 90s Belgrade in our upcoming interview... 
But this rambling thread is really getting at: there's much more to say about what DJing actually is. Especially given how much technology has changed. And that postmodernist excitement about bricolage still has value: perhaps more than ever as positions get ever more ossfied.
And that's where it starts getting into DJing as analogy for other kinds of communication which is a whole other story.
Anyway, all this started as hype for my gig on the 11th. I can't promise profundity but there will be good tunes.
Anyway, all this started as hype for my gig on the 11th. I can't promise profundity but there will be good tunes.
And that's it about DJing for today. Except to remind you that it's just as likely to be a load of old bollocks as anything else.
TL;DR I think DJing is interesting - YMMV
