Dennis Parrott

Sambhav – you sound like you are quoting me!

I have not been shy about saying (usually in the comments of an article) that the dancers simply DO NOT CARE about most of what we consider “good DJing”. We can beatmatch ourselves silly and unless we are playing music that the crowd wants to hear and dance to, it means NOTHING.

It is a rare crowd that has “refined” enough musical tastes to be able to lock in on a DJ that provides a fine musical journey through music you have not heard, that gets you dancing and that is DJ’ed to perfection. Most crowds only know what they hear on the radio and most “serious” DJs will consider that to be total garbage.

I understand Elliot’s concern though. Cribbing mixes off of YouTube or some other streaming site is cheating, pure and simple. Such behavior should be politely but firmly discouraged. We should challenge the offender to “up their game”.

However, I am also a fan of hockey and hockey has taught me that things will even out over the long term. Hockey refs in North America tend to want to “even out” the penalties. In the short run it means that a team that doesn’t deserve to benefit from the penalty will get undeserved opportunities. Over the long haul, things do even out.

The same rule holds for DJing. He might be getting that one gig but sooner or later his lack of commitment to the art will betray him and he won’t be getting gigs. Somewhere recently I saw an article (damn, I can’t remember where!) about a DJ getting a serious interrogation from a potential client because the last guy he hired did nothing more than play a Spotify list! …and this was a backyard barbeque kind of gig!!! There is hope that the light at the end of this tunnel is not an oncoming train…

I think we as a community need to help everyone who is not a DJ understand what a DJ does, how they do it and so on. If people who come to clubs and parties understood better what we do they might appreciate the art form more and trust us to play “better music”. If the people who hire us understood better what we do they might be influenced to hire “real DJs” (note: “real” implies that you are actually mixing music — not playing Spotify lists or cribbing mixes off of the Internet) instead of guys like Elliot’s cheater.

Here’s the thing though. It is one thing to carp about this bad behavior. In one sense it is okay to discuss it. But I have come to see that, right here, right now it is up to us to be the ones that lead the change. We carp about this to each other and the Internet as if we were asking some elite being to lead us to DJing nerdvana. The truth is we are that elite being, all of us together who feel like this need to come together and lead the change.

There is NO DOUBT in my mind that if we came together and said as one to the world “we hold these truths about DJing and so should you” that we could begin moving hearts and minds in what we think is the right direction. Perhaps the musical journey is only half the battle — maybe we need to lead our community on an educational journey as well?