Short stint as DJ on a weird Friday

April 7, 2006

The idea was Enrique would do a set first and then I would follow. I was expecting to start around or after midnight, but the actual start time was around 11:20 PM. By this point, Enrique had gone through a set of Salsa, couple of Bachata, another set of Salsa, a trio of Merengue, and at least one more Salsa (ending with a 7 min long Gran Combo song). I thought I had about 2 hours to play with. Originally, I was thinking of starting with a long set of Tito Puente (or as long as possible) after a Merengue set, but I decided against this when Enrique decided upon a Gran Combo selection as his swan song.

Playlist

Eddie Palmieri – Nunca Contigo (1)
Eddie Palmieri – Puerto Rico (2)
Ray Barretto – El Hijo De Obtala (3)
Ray Barretto – Soy Dichoso
Orchestra Harlow – Abran Paso (4)
Orchestra Harlow – El Jardinero Del Amor (5)
Markolino Dimond & Frankie Dante – Los Rumberos
Markolino Dimond & Frankie Dante – Porque Adore (6)
Domenic Marte – La Quiero
Toque D’ Keda – Quiero Hacerte El Amor (7)
Tito Puente – Hong Kong Mambo
Tito Puente – Picadillo A Lo Puente
Tito Puente – Fiesta A La King (8)
Tommy Olivencia – No Tires La Primera Piedra (9)

(1) Switching from Enrique’s laptop-based DJ software/hardware system to CD based system was new to me and gave me an extra thing to worry about. I made a little goofy mistake while Gran Combo was on and lost the sound for a split second before I corrected the problem. Sally seemed mildly amused to see me looking tense as I was getting ready to start, and she tried to be reassuring and supportive.
(2) More accidents happen. I notice that the second CD player was not set the way I wanted it to be (set so that songs are cued automatically rather than starts immediately). I asked Cristian for help, and he showed me how to toggle between two settings (actually I’m not quite sure how it worked even though I have shown this twice now). Cristian accidentally moved a lever and caused loss of sound once again for a split second before I recovered.
(3) This was probably my least favorite selection. It’s popular with some people on the forum. I thought I would see how it would be received. It was okay.
(4) This was a recommendation I got from the previous night. Du-dum.
(5) I had wanted to play this for a few weeks now. It worked very well.
(6) “That’s a lot of Markolino. Pretty ballsy.”
(7) It was supposed to be Lamento Boliviano. I had the wrong track on. No big deal.
(8) This was another experimental track chosen deliberately to get people used to this type of sound. Then again, none of the songs I played thus far except for Hong Kong Mambo is a regular part of Club Salsa playlist. Okay. It’s more experimental than others. I thought I might as well go out swinging. Still, the number of people dancing to this song was about the same as the number of people dancing to the third Merengue song earlier in the evening.
(9) The last song and the first compromise. On second thought, I might have been better off ending with a Tito Puente live version of Ran Kan Kan. I guess it’s not exactly a big part of the regular rotation though.

Again, I couldn’t get more than three Tito Puente songs in a row; I was aiming for as many as six or seven in a row. By the time I had Abran Paso on, some people were clamoring for more Merengue (after getting just 6 Salsa in a row after 3 Merengue! Is this the norm?). I of course have not a single Merengue song in my collection. I would have been okay with playing some Merengue, but Vishal happened to be nearby at this time and he told me with confidence that I don’t have to play any Merengue. By the time I had Hong Kong Mambo on, Vishal seemed more worried and was ready to take over. By the time I had Picadillo A Lo Puente on, I heard a complaint that I was playing too much Mambo. Hmm. What is Mambo and what is Salsa? Tito Puente referred to his music as Cuban music not Salsa, but I thought pretty much everything else I played was/is marketed as Salsa or maybe Latin Jazz. Whatever – for some more than one Mambo or Tito Puente is one too many. Most of my Salsa selections were from the 70’s by the way.

The dance floor was filled most of the times but didn’t seem overcrowded while I was in charge of the DJ booth. An interesting thing that happened was that many of the more experienced dancers took over the main floor rather than dancing in the fringes to escape the overcrowded main floor. However, the main dance floor certainly was not limited to the best dancers or one style of Salsa dancers (i.e. both Cuban and CBL were present). Hmm. I wonder if that is considered a bad sign – as opposed to seeing drunkards on the main floor holding and spilling their drinks as they try to dance (and do not come back after being told to keep drinks off the dance floor)? Oh well. I probably cost Vishal a bit of money because people who buy alcohol and want to dance Merengue left early. Combining this with surprising number of experienced dancers staying late made this Friday a very unusual one.

By the time Vishal took over, damage seemed to have been done. Many people who would have stayed late for Merengue were gone while hard core Salsa crowd stayed behind. Aside from a few Reggaeton, Bachata and Merengue, Vishal ended up playing a lot more Salsa than it has been customary after 1 AM.

After my DJ duties, I got around to dancing a little (as I did before I moved into the DJ booth). Right now, I’m a little frustrated with my dancing because I feel like I’m stuck doing same old easy things but not necessarily doing it well all the time. I have no problem trying to help people get better, but getting an opportunity where I can try more complicated moves is becoming scarce. I might get one or two opportunities at a time with someone fairly competent without overwhelming my partner or making the dance feel like an exercise. These opportunities occur maybe 3-4 times at most on a given night. The days when practically every dance was an opportunity work on trying every new move feels like ancient history. Now it’s more about picking appropriate times to try to refine technique while hoping that my partner will react appropriately if I lead something properly. This has feel of one of those transitional phases.

I often find myself dancing with people who find things I consider very easy to be very difficult. These things include not only turns and basic footwork but also timing (many of the beginners and improvers seem to be executing moves learned in class with almost complete disregard for speed of the music – music is simply a background noise). Because large number of hurdles needs to be cleared for someone to become a proficient social dancer (not the least of which is quantity and quality of practice one gets), it’s no surprise that very few people get past beginner/improver state.

Rest of the time was spent on working on things like Sergio’s broken left turn – this is becoming a much bigger challenge than I expected. I tried breaking it down to many small parts as well as trying it whole. Either way, I’m off balance at least half the time – assuming I executed the turn more or less approximately as described and shown by Sergio (and I know I don’t always get that far!). By Sergio’s definition, I’m guessing that I’m off balance as often as I’m well balanced on my feet at all times and usually off balance whenever I’m spinning. Ouch. I think I just found another reason not to enter dance competitions.

Club Salsa was open til 2:30 AM. I ended up staying up until much later talking about music, etc. I would not be too surprised if it will be a while before I get asked to DJ on Friday again but who knows for sure? I thought tonight’s selections were received about as well as I expected; I was fully prepared for chilly reception from many people. I guess it helps that I don’t have a great financial stake on the matter but rather consider this an opportunity to try to move the scene and treating it as fun and play. I probably would have played more songs by newer generation of musicians if I had more time – somewhat similar to last time I worked the DJ booth on a Friday but in a less haphazard fashion.