Madman running the asylum

April 21, 2006

Enrique is away on a vacation, so I took the opportunity to run the DJ booth once again.

Playlist
Bailando – Frankie Ruiz
El Pito – Joe Cuba Sextet (+7%) (1)
Miye Na We – Africando
Micaela – Sonora Carruseles
Acabo De Llegar – Tabaco Y Ron
Amor De Una Noche – N’Klabe (2)
Anacaona – Cheo Feliciano
Mi Gente – Oscar D’Leon
El # 100 – Tito Puente (3)
1-800-Quiereme – Luisito Rosario
La 33 – La 33
Etnia – Grupo Niche
Indestructible – Ray Barretto (-7%) (4)
I Love Salsa – N’Klabe (-2%) (5)
Ven Tu – Dominic Marte
Merengue Track #1 borrowed from Vishal
Es La Musica – Massimo Scalici (6)
Fragile – Massimo Scalici (7)
Babarabatiri – Tito Puente (8)
Celia Y Tito – Tito Puente with Celia Cruz
Salsa Y Control – Lebron Brothers
Abran Paso – Orchestra Harlow
Vamonos Pa’l Monte – Eddie Palmieri (9)
Te Quiero – Oliver
Merengue Track #3 borrowed from Vishal
Get It Up – Eurocuban Project (10)
Esto Es El Guaguanco – Cheo Feliciano
Otra Oportunidad – Jimmy Bosch
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (11)
Picadillo – Cal Tjader & Eddie Palmieri
Bongo Loco – Lebron Brothers
Tumbando Cabeza – Tabaco Y Ron (-10%?) (12)
Duele Mas – Grupo Niche (13)
Pantera Mambo – La 33 (14)
Paris Mambo – Tito Puente & Eddie Palmieri (-7%)
Lamento Boliviano – Toque D’ Keda (15)
You Will Remember Me – Dominic Marte (16)

(1) This is the second time I played this song. I think it works better speeded up.
(2) This is the second time I played this song as well. A song can be played for the first time only once. It was played at Scala last Sunday as well.
(3) Another second time song. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record. Three other songs up to this point (not counting the two mentioned above) were also played for the second time. In any case, this song seems like a popular choice.
(4) I always thought this song was too fast for dancing. Now that I know how to slow down the song without making it sound very different, I feel safer playing it. This opens up quite a bit of options for playing other fast songs.
(5) I would have considered slowing this song even more, but I knew that I was going to play a non-Salsa song next so I decided to keep it fairly fast paced.
(6) Many people must have thought, “What the heck?” when this track came on. It took about 30-40 seconds for the dance floor to fill up. Thanks to iDJ Tony Lara.
(7) Mellow. They like it. Up to this point, I had been counting the number of people dancing on the main floor. The numbers ranged from 6 couples to 12 couples on the main floor plus two to four couples on side floors. I stopped counting after this because the dance floor was pretty much full rest of the evening despite there being relatively small number of people in the venue.
(8) By the way, yesterday was Tito Puente’s birthday. Someone asked for another Merengue during this song or maybe the next song. I told him that I’ll try in another 20 minutes or so.
(9) This song seemed to speed up towards the end. It’s a long song too. I was going to put another Salsa song but I decided that a break would be a very good idea.
(10) Another big surprise except to those who were at my private party on Tuesday. Shortly before I put on this song, a request for Salsa Romantica or a slower song was made. There was another more specific request which would take couple of weeks to fulfill.
(11) Older version with vibraphone.
(12) I was considering playing Eddie Palmieri’s “Adoracion” a couple of times during the evening. This is a very fast song so I was playing with slowing the song a great deal. I ended up deciding not to play the song, but I accidentally left the slow setting on for this song.
(13) I’m not quite sure what happened. Maybe some people decided to skip this song in part because it was too familiar. Everyone decided to watch the new kid with super energy dance instead.
(14) This choice was in response to no one else dancing during the last song.
(15) I thought this was going to be my last song.
(16) But I played one more Bachata. I had Ray Barretto’s “Cocinando” loaded in case Vishal did not show up. “Cocinando” by the way is a 10+ minute Cha Cha Cha tune.

Total of 37 songs were played – 31 Salsa, 4 Bachata, 2 Merengue. Six Salsa songs probably qualify as typical Club Salsa Friday staple (Bailando, Miye Na We, Micaela, Otra Oportunidad, Duele Mas and maybe Etnia) from the past. A few other songs played were different versions of the usual diet of songs. La 33 is quite popular on Thursday evenings.

I was exhausted by the end; it took me about 10-15 minutes to get enough energy for a dance. It didn’t take me very long to warm up, but over half of good dancers were gone before I had chance to ask them for a dance. Oh well. It’s a penalty for DJing. I don’t think we had a night like this at Club Salsa on Fridays since … ever? I hazard to guess that unique would be a good description for tonight. Most people heard some of the songs I played tonight for the very first time in their life – this is going to happen only once. The impact will not be as great because the surprise factor will be gone next time I play these new songs.

Very large number of excellent CBL dancers was present tonight, and they were enjoying fairly good amount of space on the main floor. I bet I would have had a great time dancing tonight if someone else played the music I played – better than Scala last weekend and better than many SOS nights. As it was, dancing for me was quite good – considerably better than a typical evening at Club Salsa.

I received several compliments for a good job done as a DJ. Same or some other people made the same comment to Vishal. Of course, I know that it would not have been as good if there weren’t all those good dancers out there tonight to take advantage of whatever I played. In fact, I think it’s quite possible that any half decent DJ would have had a similar successful evening given the conditions (large number of good dancers and reasonable amount of space) tonight. If people think tonight’s set was good, they should have been here to listen to Tony Lara’s set on Tuesday.

An interesting, nice yet somewhat funny/strange/awkward comment I received tonight was from a person who told me that she always thought of me as a swan. Whoa! The first thing that came to my mind was the Ugly Duckling story. I’m not sure if this was the story in her mind, but the explanation was that I am like a swan because I’m graceful. Oh my. Oh no. This is too embarrassing – I can imagine getting jeered or made fun of by some of my blog readers. I guess it’s a nice compliment, but I was and am quite flabbergasted and more or less wished that I hadn’t heard it. I guess being graceful is good but … err … it’s not exactly manly unless Mikhail Baryshnikov were to be considered a sex symbol, is it? By the way, this person has known me for more than a year in the Salsa scene or back when I was feeling barely confident enough to start dancing Salsa after classes. I guess I must hide my stumbles fairly well from uncritical eyes.