Battle of the DJs

April 28, 2006

The regular mixer at the DJ booth was not reinstalled by the time I got there, and the first two CDs I put on did not work properly with the replacement mixer. Combined with lack of time to get acquainted with the replacement mixer, I was feeling tense, nervous and annoyed. I was not exactly pleased about Vishal’s suggestion that two of us take turns alternating as DJs several times over the evening. I guess the idea of alternating was fine in itself, but the last minute change of arrangements rattled me. For a moment or two, I even considered telling Vishal to take over for the whole night because my nerves were frayed. I think it took me over an hour to start relaxing and begin to enjoy things a little.

Playlist Part 1

Soledad – La 33 (1)
Esa Muneca – Willie Rosario
Porque Adore – Markolino Dimond (+5%) (2)
Mama Guela – Poncho Sanchez (3)
Mi Mujer Es Una Bomba – Oscar D’Leon (4)
El Pito – Isidro Infante (5)
Estoy Caliente – Tabaco Y Ron
Rumba Del Barrio – Luisito Rosario
Cielo De Tambores – Grupo Niche (6)
Quinto Sabroso – Joe Cuba Sextet (-5%) (7)
Acabo De Llegar – Tabaco Y Ron (8)
Puerto Rico – Eddie Palmieri
Descarga La Moderna – Ray Barretto (-5%) (9)
Mentiras – Oscar D’Leon (10)

(1) First two tracks used were practice tracks while Vishal and I tried to see two of my CDs to work with the replacement mixer. Thinking about these CDs more without a time pressure, I now have fairly good idea why these two CDs were acting difficult (it has to do with the CD burner I used – pretty esoteric stuff, really).
(2) Too downbeat for most people? It hasn't started well and it's not picking up steam.
(3) Conga solo seemed to throw some people off.
(4) No skipping with new copy of the CD. I guess that's one of silver linings.
(5) My feeling on this track is somewhat mixed. It seemed popular enough with tonight’s crowd though. Maybe that was the trouble.
(6) I’m getting a feeling that many of tonight’s crowd is looking for something along the line of Mexican party music. I’m guessing anything that sounds serious may not get a good reaction.
(7) I think it was about this point where I began to relax a little – still annoyed but no longer feeling fiery or icy.
(8) I had been relying on a prepared list of songs up to now although the order of the songs had been completely scrambled. This was the second song not on my list that I ended up playing tonight.
(9) This song received much better reaction than I expected.
(10) Vishal took over after this song for about 20 minutes.

I guess Vishal’s idea was that I take a break and dance a little. I think I ended up just having one dance during this break. I was not mentally prepared for dance and I was still not in a great mood. I took time to simply walk around and cool off. Chatting helped too.

Playlist Part 2

Pecado – Toque D’ Keda (11)
Es La Musica – Massimo Scalici (12)
Vivo Por Ella – El Rubio Loco
Thinking Of You – Lenny Kravitz (13)
Celia Y Tito – Isidro Infante (14)
Salsa Y Control – Lebron Brothers
Mambo Diablo – Tito Puente (15)

(11) Another unplanned song following a Merengue track by Vishal. Someone who bought the CD recently requested it during my break. It’s a good track, which I had not gotten around to playing until now.
(12) This one packed the floor. I guess people had a really favorable memory of it from last week. This felt good - until later in the evening (see (18) below).
(13) I knew that this was a mistake. I thought about playing something else with about 2 minutes left on the previous song. In the end, I decided to play it anyway and see if it really was a mistake. I don’t think it worked in this context. It was too early, and a change of pace song was not needed here. Now I know for sure.
(14) Back to party music.
(15) At least I had the opportunity to dance to this song for myself. Another Vishal break.

I’m not sure what to think of this alternating DJ idea. It really doesn’t do very much for my dancing. It's neither here nor there. It’s also something of a popularity competition, which I didn't enjoy - at least not wholeheartedly.

Playlist Part 3

Lamento Boliviano – Toque D’ Keda (16)
Baila Andres – Mezcla Latina (Rojos remix) (17)
Todo De Corazon - Alma Latina
Te Quiero – Oliver (18)
#100 – Tito Puente (19)
El Hijo De Obtala – Ray Barretto (-4%) (20)
Tumbando Cabeza – Tabaco Y Ron (21)

(16) Preceding song was a Merengue (same relay format as before).
(17) Another party song, which was followed by another. It might be useful for me know opinion of these songs from more people.
(18) I was getting somewhat annoyed by the fact that the last two songs were so popular even though I was playing both for the very first time on Friday nights. I thought a lot of people were treating this as if it were disco or such. I was thinking that there wasn’t any good follow-up either. Instead of playing another Salsa, I took advantage of Serap’s request for another Bachata before she went home. [note: Serap ended up staying quite a bit longer after saying goodbye after this song.]
(19) This song seem popular later in the evening too.
(20) This song was not as popular, at least not with the crowd that was left over. I’m not quite sure why this is considered a popular song by many people. However, I don't know if a more solid old-school Salsa would have done well, and I'm not sure if I want to go deeply into pandering mode. I guess I need to experiment more.
(21) Last song. I had gone from alarmed, annoyed, frustrated, relaxed, pleased, content, concerned and ended feeling perhaps disinterested or detached.

Other songs I considered but ended up not playing include:
Puerto Rico - Frankie Ruiz
Summertime - Ray Barretto
La Cacharra - Jimmy Bosch
Nada De Ti - Eddie Palmieri
La Quiero - Dominic Marte
Pa Que Afinquen - Cheo Feliciano
Philadelphia Mambo - Cal Tjader
La Vie En Rose - Africando
Bailadores - Joe Cuba Sextet

Once again, there seemed to be fair bit of complaints about lack of Merengue. Vishal was doing his best to promote Saturdays for these people once again. If anything, alternating between Vishal and me resulted in Salsa taking up higher percentage of overall musical selection - I guess that is a good thing. My recollection is that Vishal played maybe 4 Merengue for the night, 1 Bachata and maybe 1 Reggaeton plus whole lot of Salsa from his standard collection (nothing adventurous tonight). There are so many conflicting preferences about music in general as well as type of Salsa music being played. Perhaps it's not a surprise that song selections had become bland and limited. It's like McDonald's - you know that it will not great but you know what you are getting and that it will be reliable (thus keeping complaints minimal or at least predictable).

Thinking about last minute changes more, I guess I only confirmed with Vishal that I would DJ last night (and I probably didn’t sound very enthusiastic) thus I should not complain too much. I was surprised and pleased with Descarga La Moderna getting a nice reception, but I was pleased neither with my performance as a DJ nor with the outcome in general. I suppose it’s a little silly or weird to be displeased with some songs I played being too popular. Kitsch is okay as a change of pace, but for people who are dancing to songs after songs, dancing to same type of song all the time would get dull pretty quickly.

Rest of the evening had fair number of Salsa as well as some Bachata. That much was nice. Also nice was having what might be a budding core group to hang out, chat, dance and practice with until the closing time. Going over some Bachata moves as well as material from this Monday’s class with Rajiv and others was nice (even if the way Rajiv leading the moves I was showing him via Monday class was better received than the way I was leading it). I ended up staying til closing time (with Salsa still dominating the play selection with Vishal at helm) and staying up until much later (or should I say earlier?) - despite looking at possibility of some tutoring with Sergio tomorrow.