sorry irene - kelley - i find myself up in the middle of the night &
have to reply with two stories of musical racism & prejudice.
sadly sadly yes, i've endured this kind of scenario in clubs in both
san francisco and england.
2 small stories -- somehow i ended up playing commercial music in a
couple of big venues in san fran on friday and saturday night circa
85/86 - mainly cuz i had a radio show on kpoo and called myself
dangergirl & was willing to dress like madonna or some similar
bimboette in the mid-80's. (i also helped run a pretty cool art club
called club nine on thursday nights booking performance artists and
groups like the beat nigs and karen finley- but thats another story)
Story No. 1
One night as 2000 people are going nuts to grandmaster flashs' white
lines, the coke snorting white owner of the club (the crowd for san
fran that i attracted was always the best mix of asian, black,
chicanos/hispanics and white, because i played a mix to appeal to
everyone) comes into the dj booth & says, 'please dont play that
music, we dont want THOSE people in here' (meaning brothers of
course), and then in the same breathe asked if i could play some 'big
chill' music. Now 15 years later, big chill means something
completely different - ie ambient music - but I had to call up my dj
pool director the next day and say, what the hell is big chill music?
Pool director said, go out and buy the soundtrack to the movie and
mix in a few old Motown records!!! Now to me, this was fucking
absurd - don't play rap music, play some other black music, cause it
was in a film popular with white folks. Go figure!! (My day job was
a civil rights investigator and I was furious) I then had an
argument with the owner, because he'd hired an Asian DJ For Sat nite
who was only playing hi - energy-Euro disco screaming pap & pitching
Madonna up to plus 8. I asked him why he didnt hassle the other dj
about THAT because surely the crowd would then become Asian and
hispanic - people who they really didnt want coming in. In the end
Saturday night crowd turned as I predicted and there were all kinds
of gang related shooting incidents at the venue (City Lights, then
renamed City Nights) - it was the 80's version of West Side Story
with Hispanic/Chinese gang wars!!! I was trying to get a progressive
rock dj friend of mine a gig there (someone who played kraftwerk,
depeche mode, killing joke, new order, that sorta stuff)..
Ps - six months later, I was outta there; coke heads running straight
clubs in San Francisco in the mid-late 80's was a nightmare....
Story No. 2
I've now moved to England with my 15,000 records and with great
reluctance, my partner (now ex) and I are djing for a friend of his
in an out of the way seaside place called Skegness. I am now playing
only what I want how I want it in a small side bar room I called the
ambient love lounge - while big name house dj's of the time
(farley/heller, oakenfold, etc) are in the other room. I am playing
a space time continuum record at the wrong speed and "our friend" the
club runner comes in saying - i;ve got that record - you cant play it
at that speed - that's wrong.....and why dont you put on something
with a bit of vocal, you know,,,bit of massive attack or
something..." HUH? What? Some wank box whose paying me £100 a
night to play for 6 hours is telling me what and how to play, and at
what speed while he's paying big names £500 an hour? Excuse ME..Life
IS too short (and I dont mean the rapper, either!)
Moral - where do i play records now? In my lounge to an audience of
one! my records only sing to me now the way I want them to....
however, I'm still available for weddings, barmitzvahs, and the odd
social exchange.
w^:^) Ah, I see the suns coming up, time for a wee nap....
http://www.ninjatune.net
coldcut on da radio mon nite 12am-2am gmt
http://www.bbc.co.uk/londonlive
http://www.worldtimezone.com
zentertainment: wed nite 9pm - 1am gmt
http://www.piratetv.net