If you play a song and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

May 26, 2006

Playlist

Segment 1

Mambo Cambio de Swing - Cachao (+5%) (1)*
Ave Maria Lola - Sonora Carruseles
Suelta el Bongo - La 33
Etnia - Grupo Niche
Mirandote - Frankie Ruiz*
Ven Morena - Oscar D'Leon*
La Cartera - Orchestra Harlow
Quitate la Mascara - Ray Barretto
Sigo Cambiando - Jimmy Bosch (2)*
La Isla California - Tabaco Y Ron
Nada de Ti - Eddie Palmieri (3)
Mala Mujer - Luisito Rosario (4)

Serap took over and played 10-12 songs, including one Bachata. She seems to prefer soft songs with gentle percussion section. A few gaffes, including a sudden loss of sound less than 10 seconds after she took over, prompted her to ask me to stick around for half dozen songs as a helping hand, so this was not much of a break for me. Serap seemed most disappointed about a second gaffe where she started a song, stopped it by mistake and then skip to another track, which she didn't want. Unfortunately, the next track wasn't particularly good. For the first 3-4 songs, she tried to get me to have an opinion on her choices. Whenever I said something that might have been construed as being negative (e.g. it's not very fast - which I did not mean as a negative comment), she chose something different. After a little while, I simply declined to make an opinion because I generally did not have enough information to make an informed judgement. When I play a song, I would have listened to the song at least 3 or 4 times and usually would have made sure that the song is fairly easy to dance to without too many transitions, etc. Even then I am not completely certain about how well a song would be received the first time - the first song I played tonight being a good example.

Different DJs have different styles in choosing songs. I usually try to think of songs to play in my head one song in advance. In other words, song #1 would be being played, song #2 is already cued, and I would try to think of song #3 to play while song #1 is still being played. Sometimes I would be pretty sure about the song #3 while sometimes I would have two or more options for #3, and I would make a final decision if I have time to see how song #2 is being received. I have not found it useful to try to think beyond it; I have tried it before and the result was not very good probably because I was being too inflexible. Vishal probably thinks of next song to play with anywhere from 30 second to 1.5 min before the end of current song - this could explain why he has so limited repertoire. Serap's style was to put a song on, then sample through a large number of songs (generally listening to the beginning of the song only) before choosing. At one point, she went through so many songs in two different CDs before deciding that she almost did not have a song ready - it would have been amusing (albeit cruel) to see what would have happened if I did not tell her that she had very little time (~30 seconds) to decide at one point tonight.

After Serap had about six songs under her belt, I decided to leave her alone (shortly after Sergio arrived). Johnny seemed to take over my position soon afterwards (I'm not sure though). Her earlier selections were fairly adventurous (i.e. I did not recognize the songs), and I would have preferred to dance to those because her later selections were straight out of Vishal's closet. In fact, one of her songs (La Brujeria by Gran Combo) was played again later by Vishal about 1 1/2 hours later. A similar thing happened last week where Vishal played Mandali by Africando about 3 hours after I played it as my second song. Serap told me that she was avoiding playing songs I like to play. I would have preferred if she played those so I could dance to them!!!

Segment 2

1-800-Quiereme - Luisito Rosario
Me Prendiste Velas - Oscar D'Leon (5)
Nina Y Senora - Tito Puente (6)*
Picadillo - Tito Puente
El #100 - Tito Puente (7)

Vishal took over and played 4 songs. The first song was J. Lo (third Friday in row where this was his opening track!!!). Next two were Merengue. Fourth was Salsa. Sergio tells me to go back to the DJ booth. Of course, it's not like he's going to dance a lot tonight…

Segment 3

El Todoporedoso - Hector Lavoe*
Anacaona - Cheo Feliciano
Salsa Y Control - Lebron Brothers
La Familia - Ray Barretto
Abran Paso - Orchestra Harlow (8)
La Pantera Mambo - La 33
Vibe Mambo - Tito Puente (9)*
Hacha Y Machete - Hector Lavoe (10)

Vishal took over again. He played couple of Bachata including Lamento Boliviano, which was requested by Euvian earlier but I couldn't find the time to play it. I only played 25 songs tonight - all Salsa. Of 25 songs, 7 (marked with *) were played for the first time by me; Of 7, up to 6 may be new for Club Salsa on Fridays (I am pretty sure someone played Mirandote. I know Ivan has played Nina Y Senora on a Thursday in April and he probably played Sigo Cambiando at some point). Many of these "new" songs were recognized by some people (ones I don't recall seeing before - then again, they seemed to recognize a lot of songs including ones Serap played and I did not recognize).

(1) Wow. Practically no one was willing to dance to this. That was uncomfortable. The three or four couples I saw dancing were on-5, on-6, etc. I would have thought that this would have been an easy one. This changes my plan dramatically for next several songs. I also would judge that no one leftover needs slow songs.
(2) Somewhere around this time, some random woman came by and said I had good taste in music. I'm not doing anything special - no pandering and no boundary pushing.
(3) This is not a strong night. Exams seem to be keeping a lot of people away directly and indirectly.
(4) Serap comes to the DJ booth. She apparently talked to Vishal about DJing last week. This is a surprise. She wants to take over right away. Okay. Whatever! I'm beyond disliking surprises at this point.
(5) A string of 6-8 people came by in rapid succession to request a Merengue or two during next couple of songs. Bloody hell! I said I'd oblige but also mention that Saturday is much better Merengue night. Of course, there are not very many Salsa dancers tonight (again presumably because of the exams).
(6) Sergio liked this one. I think Ivan likes it too. People at Club Salsa tonight in general were lukewarm about it. Oh well. That was about what I expected.
(7) I was going to play something else, but not many people were dancing. If you play a song and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound? I looked for Vishal in the previous song to ask for a Merengue CD. Instead of simply lending me a CD, Vishal took over.
(8) Dance floor was okay for a while but is beginning to lose steam.
(9) I had something else (more modern) on, but Vishal told me to play just two more songs while saying that there were practically no Salsa dancers left. No disagreement here. There were not many to begin with, and the cavalry never arrived.
(10) I might as well put on a song I would like to dance to as the last song, right? Danie was available for a request in advance.

Like a typical Friday these days, dancing was sporadic. I think I might have danced with 6 people. Most of the rest of the evening was spent hanging out with a small group consisting of Sergio, Cyrille and Euvian with Sergio making more efforts to coach people on basics and body movement. I still have yet to get that mirror. At one point, Cyrille exclaimed, "After 3 years, I'm relearning basic!" It made me do a quick count of how long I have been doing this - 1 year and 8 months. It seems like awfully long time. Tonight it was Cyrille who was the big pusher for going to Scala. We'll see. I would prefer to concentrate on work, but work is so dysfunctional right now.