DJing and the Mammalian Undertow
In my younger days, when I just had one sister, who was three and a half years older than me, she did all the talking.
And when I say all the talking, I mean all of it.
My mom sometimes jokes that she never heard a peep out of me until I was eight years old.
This, combined with a huge inclination toward music, made me a very internal person.
Still, to this day, I can--at times-- be so quiet and so in my own head that I think it really unnerves people.
Somebody told me that everyone in my Grateful Dead band is scared of me. They said it just this weekend. This is a person who's known me forever.
Scared is the wrong word, but I get it.
I'm just not telling everybody everything I think all the time.
And I'd say this quality of mine is just as bad as somebody who talks incessantly. It causes me problems all over the place, but it's part of the character of who I am.
But musically, you can't stay in your head forever.
Which is why, as a 55-year-old person, I'm busier musically than I've ever been in my whole life. It just took that long to draw it all out.
I finally got motivated. I finally honed in on the skills that worked for me.
And then I let loose.
The cool thing now is you can really get the word out there. And people will know.
One thing I've found social media-wise is that it doesn't necessarily show up in clicks and likes and stuff like that, but everyone sees it.
This also turns into bookings, so I reap the benefits of being out there, doing stuff all the time.
The behind the scenes is a lot-a lot.
Today: I got up at 5, walked the dog, and then I worked on my DJ set list for the party tonight, as well as listening through music all throughout the day while I work the day job, making sure the playlist is right.
The set's only two hours, so the final-final list is four hours of music. But I'm trying to condense about 10 hours down to the perfect four. And then only two hours gets played.
I'm not saying this as a flex or to scare anyone off. I'm just saying it takes a lot, and you've got to sacrifice a bunch of other stuff.
And you do have to be in your head a lot.
But you also have to figure out a way to jump out of it.
Because all this music and all these memories and everything are buried in there.
For instance, because of the documentary, high school kids are really into Michael Jackson right now.
And I would say there is some benefit to having a DJ at a party who, back in the '80s, once danced on top of a brick wall singing Michael Jackson to girls in elementary school.
While I say I'm super inward and internal, sometimes these things just busted out. Very little rhyme and reason for how and when. Purely mammalian.
You've got to be ready to capitalize on a situation, I guess. And I, for sure, did here.
I drove by not too long ago to see if that elementary school and brick wall were still there.
They weren't.
But the memory and the experience remain.
And 45-some-odd years later, I'm drawing on it tonight.
How crazy is that?