Why do they do it?

[Young Col]

Was at a friend's 60th bash last night in the village of Ugely (no idea if it really is so, as I've only seen it at night), Herts, nr Stansted. SLoB country and a long way from the usual Surrey haunts. An already over loud disco (for the size of hall) had us bopping to Tina Turner's Simply the Best, when just as the sax solo comes in the DJ segues into something else in totally different time (didn't even use headphones to try to cue it up). Then there's a step change in volume and the already hard pressed speakers start to distort and the top end is positively painful (triggered my tinnitus and it still hasn't subsided).

Mrs YC and I left the dance floor along with others and I tried to track down old friend Eddie, a class rock/pop semi-pro electric bass player from Newmarket, only to find he too has taken refuge in a back room where he can talk reasonably - and that from a bass player who is used to gigging in pubs four nights a week!

Why do DJs have to run things with so little regard for their audience or their surroundings? Do they just have too huge egos? And it wasn't just us oldies who were finding the assault on our ears too much!

Anyway, said friend Eddie had been gigging with a good American country rockish singer called Phil Crawford, around Newmarket, Cambridge way. There's a list of pub gigs on his Myspace site. There's also a video of him, overdubbed with one of his own ballads, living an apparently iddylic life on an old barge on the fens, feeding sheep and gigging in pubs (with my mate Eddie on bass). If anyone's short of a bass player up that way let me know by PM and I can put you in touch (he didn't ask me to say that but he just loves playing).

Yours with hurting ears and consequently no sax practice today!
Colin

 

[mark fox]

well i think his timing was spot on just to fade out before the sax solo hehe.
but seriously what about this for a DJ story, a few years ago i used to play in a big band. we turned up at a hotel we were playing at, dumped some stuff on the stage and went for a bite to eat. when we got back we could hear "one, two, one two" aah the dj has arrived we though. but when we went into the room he had moved all the bands gear of the stage, most of the bands chairs, he set up right in the middle of the stage, he had his speakers sat on top of the piano which he had pushed to the front. But the gear and chairs hadn't been neatly put aside, no they were down in the dining area amongst all the nicely laid out tables for the evening function..needless to say it didn't take long for 20+ blokes to sort out a snotty nosed DH and his blond oppo

 

[Djangette]

Accept it - DJs are the instruments of the

Those that 'can' do, those that 'can't' spin discs at ear-breaking volume with too much bass and distortion and sprinkle the torture with lashings of smarmy sycophantic verbal garbage ... if you ever wondered what Hell would be like just imagine every family do you've ever been to with a DJ and multiply it by 100 - this includes the family fight and the teary women, but most of all the thud, thud, thud, playing records over each other and the piping yucky voice (well he's panicking ... the kids are rolling round on the dance floor and the grannies might not make it to the loo on time and he's trying to be a rock god all on his own with just his recordings to keep him company - he sold his soul to the for all this and the didn't get a bargain!).

As a veteran of these sort of dos I would recommend: 1) earplugs - it doesn't matter you can't have a conversation anyway; 2) retire to the kitchen - somewhat quieter and more entertaining; 3) the car park or garden so long as it isn't snowing or raining you will be so much happier; 4) hit the DJ over the head and shove him in a wheelie bin and let great uncle George put the records on.

Actually Ugley is a nice place - anywhere that has an Ugley Women's Institute can't be all bad ... just you wait till you have to go to Wicken ....

 

[Young Col]

Thanks Djangette, a good summary! I recognise many of those elements, but taken together they do indeed present a vision of hell!

As it happened, during the evening Mrs YC did manage to indicate that I should have brought earplugs, and the back room, kitchen, or outside are the only refuges! It's a pity that the band that was going to play broke up a few months ago, otherwise live music would have been much more acceptable - and the fill in DJ would have taken second place like Mark suggests!

Ugley may indeed be nice, but I've only ever been there for night time parties! I know some of the villages round there (but not Wicken - the Bohunt one?) as I used to travel to Baldock way quite often and cross country was a more relaxed run back than the quicker (but longer and more stressful) route round Royston, up to the M11 at Duxford and down the two lane motorway.

Colin

 

[Rogerb]

The DJ at my daughter's wedding was advised on arrival what sort of music we'd prefer...his response was that we'd get HIS choice!

I told him, in no uncertain terms, that if he wished to survive the evening and get paid, he'd better do as he'd been politely asked.

To a very large extent he complied....a result

 

[mallyjames]

dj,s have no musical talent so flaunt their inflated ego,s in order to impress any dj groupies. mally

 

[Djangette]

Wicken is in Cambridgeshire Fell country ... fairly close to Soham.

East Anglia borders are fairly smudgey - I recommend it to any Goths on Halloween, personally I'd go clutching garlic!