Music As An Entity

As a DJ, the biggest misconception is that it’s some kind of cocaine-fueled, sex orgy with some type of polyester/polyamorous shirt material that Billy Idol would’ve been wearing while his hair dresser Kelly accidentally spilled peroxide (on / in) circa ‘85, and he would’ve just been like “‘s’rite babe, don’t even fret” and whipped out a new one. But it’s not. For the most part, it’s actually a lot of dads with beards who are sober, annoying dudes who take themselves too seriously, and girls who get grouped into “is she gay, is she on drugs, does she live in Maine/CT, who is she sleeping with?” (their words, not mine, I’m not very chatty). All jokes aside, I had a really nice time DJing this past weekend and it made me think a lot about music as an entity. Which I hate admitting because it screams that Tumblr picture thing like the black and white one with the girl dancing and her hair all Garnier Frutis and it’s that cursivey-ass, hookah lounge font that reads “MUSIC IS MY DRUG”. OK calm down because in a few years, it’ll either be just drugs or a baby and you judging everyone. Shit. This wasn’t even supposed to be mouthy. I really want to say some nice things. My bad.

I had a really nice time playing music for people this weekend and I thought of all the elements that make up me as a DJ, which is what I mean as “music as an entity”. There’s A LOT. And I remembered a paper I wrote in 8th grade when I had a terrible English teacher who didn’t like me, for whatever reason I’ll never know because I loved writing papers and didn’t bitch when I got called on to read, but I guess she didn’t like that I wrote about music and experiences most kids in my class didn’t have. I just loved “being” in the writing. I was struck at home a lot and really looked forward to writing. It came so easily. You know that’s a shit teacher when a kid shows enthusiasm and you constantly give them B’s and C’s and critique them in front of a class with a smirk (NOT a Quirk Smirk TM) on your face. I can still picture her slurping her stuipd water and calling on kids who’s parents she was friends with as if we care what you guys saw as the movie theater this past weekend. OH OH, AND HER FAVORITE BAND. Take a guess. Anyway, I don’t remember the assignment, probably because it was horrid and I took that assignment and made it my own, but I do recall writing about my mom and I driving to school as a kid and we’d switch back and forth on who got to be lead vocals, who had to be back up. I was generally fair. But this past weekend, I played “Conga” by THE Gloria Estefan and The Miami Sound Machine. And that was one of our favorites; we loved them. And I had this kind of beautiful wave of depth of a single mom and her daughter driving to nursery school and how that could somehow possibly express itself some 30 years later, getting people out of their shitty lives for a weekend and dancing in front of me to such a simple song that has always been on my playlist. And I mean, I’m not making money doing this, I’m sleeping on a fucking couch right now waiting for an apartment that feels like it will never be ready for me, getting handed my ass by every person, or direction who could hand it to me, but for a small second of my very insignificant time in the grand scheme of existing, something just reminded me that our experiences do in fact have significance in how we help shape people’s direction, even if it is just a blip that they will never remember. But it happened, and it existed, and you are powerful in that way.

I read something a few years ago that mentioned that the music you consume in middle school shapes way more of your adult personality than you realize. And me, being such a happy-go-lucky, positive individual, decided to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City again for a small crumble of serotonin recently, and realizing that “wow, if it wasn’t for this game, I probably would not be DJing the way I do”. Every song for the most part has made up my entire DJ personality. Some people really do it very Mr. Cheesil-y (“Hey we get it from you Mr. Cheesil, Grandma’s Boy? No?) OK, but I do it pretty damn good. And I don’t know, maybe some folks don’t really understand that when I say “music as an entity”, it’s not attending… I don’t know, I don’t want to say E Forest, but it is E Forest. I’m sorry but I just find something distasteful in people pretending that music began in 2019 when this new personality of took over. That to me isn’t music appreciation; that’s music commodification. You’re two steps shy of being the tanned white lady in the middle of the mall, running a store called “Amethyst & Aphrodite” with the wolf t-shirts and one dread lock.

I hate having to perform a lot of the time, but I’ve never, not once, cancelled a gig unless I accidentally double booked myself. The people paying $5-20 and taking time off from work and coming up to me and being kind, they’ll never know what I’m going through. Why? Music is an entity.. I want to make sure they’re having the greatest time. Life is too short and shitty to be selfish. That person might be driving from an hour away dealing with their significant other playing something awful in the car, so I’m going to make sure music becomes something tangible, something obtainable. Something belonging to them. I never want an event I’ve played related to something like dentist office music aka adult contemporary. I want you to have a good time. Even if he wear khakis and talks about crypto. And you don’t want to be gay at all but he’s not helping.

In this blog post, I am supporting The Dolphin Project, which supports the end of dolphin captivity and tries to rehabilitate them into the wild, which is incredibly rare, though possible. I encourage you to read about the project and it’s founder, Ric O’Barry.