Last night I had the extreme pleasure of guest DJing at a little bar in Eagle Rock that was playing host to a quasi-celebration for Ty Segall’s appearance on Conan O’Brien. I guess every Wednesday they do a no rules punk-psych-hard rock night and have guest DJs, but before the music started last night there was a viewing of Ty’s performance for he and his friends and bandmates and whoever else happened to be in the bar at the time. The funny thing is, I’ve never DJed before in my life. I wasn’t even sure why I was asked, but I agreed because…you know…it doesn’t hurt to expand one’s horizons. Of course, once I realized what I’d committed to I became intensely nervous. I spent way more than the necessary amount of time constructing and reconstructing playlists for my two hour-long sets. I vacillated on whether it was best to play weird obscure records or artists the bar’s patrons would recognize. Would they appreciate Moebius & Plank’s Rastakrautpasta? What about Oneida’s “Sheets Of Easter“? And — oh yeah — how the fuck do you work those turntables and mixers and shit anyway?
Turns out it didn’t go all that bad! There was a problem with one of the turntables’ anti-skating function that caused two records to skip very briefly, but after applying a bunch more force it seemed to fix the problem. In the end it meant I only missed playing one record I’d intended to play. Also, I had a Manfred Mann record pulled out to play “Travelling Lady” but I grabbed the wrong record off my shelf so…oops! Had to ditch that part of the set also. Oh, and weirdly the other DJ and I both brought copies of Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine” to play, so he played both simultaneously during his set slightly overlapping for a weird delay effect. Other than that it was smooth sailing. I had a lot of fun, I caught some people dancing to “Mystic Syster”, someone asked which Cure song was playing during “The Hanging Gardens”, and people complimented the Mekons, Grandaddy and Curtis Mayfield among others. At the end of the night, as the final strains of Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks” (played at half-speed for optimal effect) there were hugs and shots of whiskey and talk of future gigs. We’ll see. Many a hug and many a “let’s do this again!” have been shared following shots of whiskey.
Anyway, like 4 people showed up to support me. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here are my two sets for your listening pleasure:
Set 1: Punk / Post-Punk / Indie & Funk (~51:15)
01. The Girls – Jeffrey I Hear You
02. Mclusky – Without MSG I Am Nothing
03. The Cure – The Hanging Gardens
04. Brian Eno – Seven Deadly Finns
05. The Mekons – Where Were You?
06. Six Finger Satellite – 30 Lashes
07. Andy Arthurs – I Can Detect You (For 100,000 Miles)
08. Cabaret Voltaire – Seconds Too Late
09. Future Pigeon – The Mummy
10. The Equals – Mystic Syster
11. Edwyn Collins – A Girl Like You
12. Grandaddy – The Crystal Lake
13. Kate Bush – Leave It Open
Set 2: Psych / Space / Prog & Reggae (~56:51)
01. Colonel Bagshot – Six Day War
02. Jade Warrior – Telephone Girl
03. Ken Boothe – Artibella
04. Nektar – Show Me The Way
05. Kamuran Akkor – Dilo Dilo Yaylalar
06. Curtis Mayfield – Back To The World
07. 101 Strings – Flameout
08. Spiritualized – Smile (edit) (From the “Smile” / “Sway” 7-inch, which I don’t have digitized sorry!)
09. Le Orme – Figure Di Cartone
10. F/i – Poppy
11. Can – Paperhouse
12. Hors D’Oeuvres – I’m Turning Into A Fly
13. Burl Ives – A Little Bitty Tear
