A Toke D Keda Friday

November 24, 2006

Playlist

La Llave – Grupo Latin Vibe (1)
Brujeria – El Gran Combo (-1%)
Que Bueno Baila Usted – Oscar D’Leon (-1%)
Idilio – Willie Colon (-1%)
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (-1%) (Mamborama version) (2)
Prestame Tu Mujer – Ray Barretto*
Bailando – Frankie Ruiz
Vitamina – Sonora Carruseles (3)*
El Swing De Fruko – Fruko Y Sus Tesos (-3%)
Babarabatiri – Tito Puente
Abran Paso – Orchestra Harlow (Ismael Miranda)
Playa No More – Crystal Sierra (4)
Experto En Ti – Cheo Feliciano*
My Favorite Things – New Swing Sextet
Debo Pensar – Toke D Keda (or Toque De Keda) (5)
Apretoncito – Toke D Keda*
Mambo – Cachao
Descarga La Moderna – Ray Barretto (-4%)
Avisale A Mi Contrario – Roberto Roena*
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (Mambo Birdland version)
Hacha Y Machete – Hector Lavoe (6)
Ven Morena – Oscar D’Leon (-3%)
Negro Esta Cocinando – Los Van Van*
Te Extrano – Toke D Keda*
Musica Ligera – Toke D Keda (7)*

break

La Murga Panamena – Willie Colon (8)**
Salsa Y Control – Isidro Infante (9)
La Fiesta De Pilito – El Gran Combo
Aguadilla – Ray Barretto*
Felices Horas – Hector Lavoe*
Un Verano En Nueva York – El Gran Combo (10)
Fuiste Tu – Toke D Keda* (11)
Lamento Boliviano – Toke D Keda (12) [click link at the bottom of the post]
Tocate – Toke D Keda* (13)

(1) I know I played this as the first song last week too. I might do it again next week.
(2) This one was for the new elderly couple.
(3) Emmnuel seems to like the songs, including and especially this one.
(4) There was a request to play some songs for beginners who were having difficulty. I played this despite the trepidation that Vishal will play it again when he comes in. [note: He did – right away.]
(5) I had Aguadilla by Ray Barretto on before changing my mind.
(6) I had Alejate by Hector Lavoe on before switching to this song instead.
(7) Vishal arrived while Los Van Van was playing. He took over to play a Merengue song followed by… you guessed it! Playa No More!
(8) Vishal had played maybe 4 songs during which I had one dance with Louise (her first dance of the evening too). I was in the middle of a dance with Serap (whom I had not danced with in about a month) when Vishal motioned me over to take over as DJ again. Urgh. I had less than 1 1/2 minute to get a new song ready. I loaded one of my CD to the left CD player on the Numark mixer (the more reliable black CD players not being present). Predictably this CD player had difficulty reading my CD. I eventually ran out of time and simply played next song on Vishal’s CD. It turned out to be this song – not too bad all things considered.
(9) Original choice was El Pito, but I had a second thought after remembering what happened last week. The song skipped a few times near the beginning.
(10) Cyrille liked this song and asked for the song name and the artist. When he realized that it was El Gran Combo, he slapped his head in disbelief. I might also mention that it was the last song I danced to on Wednesday night when Cristian played it – I wasn’t going to miss such an opportunity on a Wednesday, but Cyrille obviously wasn’t paying attention that night.
(11) This might be the weakest playable song by Toke D Keda. I wasn’t going to play it, but…
(12) Then again, I wasn’t going to play this song either. A number of people were singing loudly along as they were dancing! One would have difficult believing that this is for all intents and purpose a very obscure song by an obscure group of musicians.
(13) Well… I suppose there is no need for me to ask me not to write about this on my blog. This song by the way is Reggaeton. I think I greatly amused a couple of people by playing Reggaeton.

Total 34 songs. 27 Salsa (7 new* from my collection and 1 “new”** from Vishal’s CD). 6 Bachata (4 new*). 1 Reggaeton (1 new*). 7 songs by Toke D Keda.

Tonight’s crowd was very nice – very into dancing. There was a very little lull on the dance floor tonight – they seemed to like everything. Probably the biggest misses were Negra Esta Cocinando (despite Johnny’s enthusiastic dance to this song), La Murga Panamena and Salsa Y Control (I think I will blame these on having been caught off guard about coming back to DJ when I did… although I tend to lose the crowd at the start of my second stint pretty much every week). Vishal generally does not have difficulty following my first round of DJing (I like to think that this is because I have the crowd primed well), but I find it difficult to “right the ship” and get the crowd back to where I like them after Vishal has a go at the DJ booth.

I had a great time DJing tonight – no complaints at all. One person came to ask for an easy song for beginners (check). Another asked about Merengue (but just once and Vishal played one soon enough). Luis commented that aside from some weird songs, it was great (I say that people will have to take “weird” or even “bad” with me if they want the “good” stuff too).

Still, having only 1 1/2 dance for the entire evening seemed a bit too extreme. An attempt to dance was aborted because the song turned out to be Merengue – no wait, the worst Merengue song ever! I had a more fun watching other people struggling with this nightmare of Merengue (not to say that I like ANY Merengue, but this one was particularly odious). After skipping another Cuban song (Ping Pong), I finally had another dance – thus bringing the total to 2 2/3.

Quote of the day – “It’s just another Friday. I just come here for the music.”

Thanks. It’s such a nice thing to hear. By the way, while there may not have been many good people to dance with, it really was a nice crowd – many of them seemed happy and very enthusiastic about dancing.

Some new guy asked me when is best Salsa night in Cambridge either near the end of my first DJ session or the beginning of the second session. He also asked whether they have dance competitions, etc. I answered him as best I could. Perhaps we have another good new Salsa dancer in the scene. I didn’t see him dance at all so there is little else to tell (and perhaps I am generating false hype). While there’s no guarantee that he will show up again, I thought he sounded pretty keen about finding a good Salsa night.

Unspoken thought of the day – Just because you can count 1,2,3,5,6,7 to a song does not mean you should or would want to dance Salsa to that song.

Now, back to Toke D Keda - Lamento Boliviano (hopefully this is legal)

Click the play button above to start the song. Make use of the volume control. Enjoy.