Last Night God Damn, That DJ Made My Minute
posted by on February 15 at 7:33 AM
“Keep on Truckin’”: Cruelly cut down in its prime.
Attention spans have been diminishing for decades, right? Newspapers, magazines, blogs, TV news reports, MTV editing protocol, etc. all reflect this phenomenon by offering content in ever-smaller bites and bytes. Same principle applies to certain club DJs. It’s not a new trend by any means, but it seems to be gaining popularity among a stratum of jocks, most of whom wear designer ballcaps. (Coincidence? Hmmm…).
My main beef with this style of spinning is that it’s a tease. If a track is worth playing in the first place, it’s worth more than 45-60 seconds of ear time. Unless you’re a turntablist going through a routine, you have no good reason to repeatedly taunt clubbers with maddeningly brief snatches of great tracks. (Or, if you do have good reason for doing so, let me know in the comments.)
This point was driven home last night at Havana. DV One is unquestionably an excellent DJ with deep crates. But what he did to Eddie Kendricks’ “Keep on Truckin’” (one of my “egregious mistakes” from this list) was criminal; it was a jump-cutting sacrilege of one of the greatest funk-soul jams ever, although I suspect whatever program (Serato?) DV One was using was partially to blame for the song’s rough-housing. This minute-long abortion led into a cruelly truncated snippet of George McRae’s “I Get Lifted,” another all-time fave of mine. After that, I had to exit Havana. I couldn’t take any more cut-us interruptus.
So, is it just me who finds this sort of short-attention-span DJing overly frustrating? Should I just do a key bump and STFU? (Wait, that sounds like an impossibility. Plus, I hate coke. Never mind…) Would it kill you DJs to let a track play more than a minute? However, I won’t bitch when you crossfade out of “What a Fool Believes” after 51 seconds…
See: Girl Talk.
Cocaine. It's a magical drug that turns people into assholes with the attention span of 15 seconds.
I find this annoying as well, when I come across it (which isn't often, as I'm not really one for the clubs). Perhaps more annoying was paying to see Busta Rhymes several years ago and having him do that with his own songs; just doing a medley, blasting through hook after hook. It's bad enough if it's background dance music, but to actually pay to see a specific performer and not get to hear a whole song? Aggravating, to say the least.
And yeah, I don't really get all the Girl Talk fawning, either. It seems anyone with a decent itunes collection and beat-matching software could do the same thing pretty easily.
I guess it's an aquired taste like any other style. I picked up an appreciation for shorts from The Residents, Minute Men, Satie, and of course Booty and Dancehall mixes.
Nice review of Various.
i'm not a fan of the snippet, either, but i think it's a generational and context thing. it works really well at club nights like yo, son! (younger crowd, heavy dancefloor action) and not so well at something like bananas (older crowd, more hanging out than dancing).
DV made up for it later, though, by playing i choose you by willie hutch in its entirety. i could listen to that cut over and over and over again.
DV is, without question, one of my favorite djs. he is the only guest we will ever have at bananas that uses serato. our policy is all vinyl, all the time and we're pretty serious about it.
having spent many a night back getting my mind blown in the early days of yo, son!, i know DV has the crates and the skill. dude can use a goddamn i-pod and i will still love him.
thanks for coming through last night, segal. that bt express i played was for you.
There are definitely times and places for the quick-cut DJ style. But at a vintage funk/soul/reggae night? I'm not feeling that.
I remember seeing sets by the Sharpshooters guys a few years ago in which they were laying down killer funk 7"s, allowing each track about 30-45 seconds of glory before slamming into the next one. Makes it really hard to trainspot, gosh darn it...
The reason for all the short attentioness is that most DJs are specifically playing to a dancefloor. On "dance" nights the music isn't meant to be coldly disected while someone lurks in the the corner sipping on a soda. Rather the meaning lies in the reaction of the crowd who is making a visceral connection on the dancefloor. I think we all forget that almost all music we listen to is meant for dancing not analyzing to pieces.
For a night like Bananas this might be different; but do remember that if the people of color that the night is supposed to pay tribute to were actually there, they'd be dancing and probably wondering "Why does it sound like such shit in here?" Give the vinyl purism a rest and get a soundsystem that's worth a goddamn.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).