First "Gig"

Playing in a club for the first time, thinking about Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels (2000)

Me playing at Andthenyou, Dec 15 2022

Hi friends, it is me again.

I am still coming off from yesterday’s evening high by checking off one of my new year's resolutions early — playing in a club for the first time! My friend Johan invited me to open for the night with some soulful, classic, and deep house from 10 to 11:30. It was tremendous fun — learning about the venue, setting up the sound, meeting new people, and coming to some clarity (and also raising some new questions) about what “being” a “DJ” means.

It is so easy to dwell in the existential mode and to break apart what deejaying is point by point. But I think I did so briefly last week but this is also in the continuation of the thought of situating your artistic expression in a social setting — and that sometimes means forgoing your "ego” and the label that comes with the expectation of being an “artist”.

I think part of the vulnerability of house and electronic music is that it is just so present and right there. There is a certain bluntness that comes with electronic music that leaves no room for interpretation. The bass drum will kick whether you choose to dance or not.

Opening a night for a friend is also such an interesting practice about the careful selection and curatorial. You do not want to play the heavy-hitting stuff; you do not want to play the next deejay’s track (the ones they produce because they will most likely play them during their set); you do not want to push the envelop too far but sprinkle a few fun ones so people will perk their ears and, get your style, so to speak.

Deejaying as curation — the success (or as Paula Abdul would say, vibeology) of your set greatly depends on your selection of songs and the thought process that spines through the set. What is that one central idea about the set? Even in so-called “free play”, how do you present a body of work within one to one and a half hour that is intentional, well-informed, convincing, confident, and collective? Those are the bigger overarching “existential” questions but then when the set is happening in real life — you make the micro-technical decisions that will help with that presentation. Mixing, pressing the right buttons, checking constantly about the levels, reading people’s reactions (people squinting because of it’s too loud or is it a stank face?) Does that make sense?

The question of the genre has been lingering over the last week. I was just so desperately seeking deep house tracks on Spotify — clicking “go to song radio” hoping to find related tracks to add into the repertoire. To a point that everything started to sound the same and I bored myself into just “drop-needling” the tracks. Skip, skip, save, skip. For example, I finished watching Charlie’s Angel (can we collectively agree Lucy Liu has changed the history of modern cinema because of her role) and caught this theme song:

There are so many nuggets in this song! Hard rock, techno elements, groovy guitar licks and still keeping that legibility of the Charlie’s Angel theme. It’s sexy, fierce, and metallic. I think apart from the grammar of it, being a DJ also means listening widely and all the stuff you can and making those connections in your head. That can later be transferred into the curation process that I just spoke of earlier. Starting deejaying has allowed me to listen to old and new music with a new pair of ears, and appreciate music relationally — how do seemingly different genres like funk crossover to house and vice versa? How can we reimagine what house music sound looks like with a rock influence?

Who I think I look like

Excuse the Lucy Liu tangent but the gig was successful! I made new connections with the club owner (a pair of really young musician brothers in their mid-twenties?) and new people who approached and complimented on the selection. Some friends came and supported me. A friend of mine encouraged me to keep doing it and said “consistency over intensity” and I have been thinking about that ever since. I want to celebrate the “beginner’s luck” (friends coming to support) but then I am sticking around for the long run! There is so much to listen to and know and I am only just on the very surface still.

I guess I do relate to Lucy Liu a bit about being the only (and maybe first) Asian representation in a setting. As much as the artistic expression is a reflection of the artist, the artist is also a conduit of that said expression.

Cheers to knowledge, fierceness, integrity, and finding my own Charlie’s Angels and less Bill Murrays in my life.

See you next week?

BWPE