Saturday 26 October 2013

Dressing Down

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago. We had a Dead Celebrity Party.

It’s always kind of stressful labelling anything a party. It’s not like parties you see on television, with hundreds of people, disco lighting, red plastic cups everywhere and beautiful people dancing crazy all night.

That’s just not how it works in real life. Though it did end up a little like that, by the end...

But we had about 16 or so due, so with a couple of no-shows, we had a nice little crowd. Certainly enough to fill up the space, and you know what?  We had a FUCKING GOOD TIME.

And, as ever, Fancy Dress is a total win, and people made some amazing effort.

As is traditional now, my fancy dress involved wearing as little as possible, whilst simultaneously selecting an obscure but amusing celebrity who died in an undignified and amusing way.  That was sort of the point really. Anyone can dress as a dead guy- but finding someone whose death was particularly significant, unusual or untimely is the real skill.

I was Lolo Ferrari, of porn, modelling and Eurotrash fame- she died of a mix of drugs, suspected murder (for a time) and spinal collapse on account of her enormous rack.

There really is no better option for a Dead Celebrity for someone who enjoys getting it all out.

So that's what I did.

Gentlemen prefer slutty blondes...

 Our only miscalculation was that once dressed like that, we weren’t going out anywhere...





Wednesday 2 October 2013

“I need to play some bad songs first...”

Er... no you don’t.”

So we went out dancing the other day. We go fairly often. We’ve been a couple of times since. But this was different because we went a little off piste, away from the gays, out with some friends to a local 80s night.

Our guests were adamant they wanted 80s. It’s their thing. They like 80s when they go out, which isn’t as often as us, so we like to oblige.

We foolishly tried somewhere oh so Brighton-esque and a bit trendy and alternative.  And it was awful. They did that thing where, rather than just playing some nice songs that everyone will enjoy, they set out to educate you.

‘You may not know this. You may not like this, but THIS is what you should be listening to...’

That sort of thing.

And there may well be a time and a place for this, but this was an 80s night. It was advertised as amazing 80s, back to the future, dance your tits off, delicious, mozerellicious cheese.

And they were playing such weird stuff. Loosely 80s, granted, but not a song ANYONE there knew.

“Why?” I wondered to myself. There is no-one dancing. Everyone is doing that shuffling thing where they WANT to dance, but it’s just not good enough. And I felt a bit embarrassed. Our friends had travelled some distance to see us, and specifically asked for certain music when we went out, and we’d tried to oblige.

In the end, one of them went up to the DJ and said “Can you play something everyone’s heard of?”

And you know what he said?  He said he had to warm up the crowd and play some bad music first.

Why?  Why?  Why would anybody do this?  There is not a shortage of good music. You won’t run out at 11.30. You don’t need to save all the good music for the end.  You could just play it now and continue to play it all night, and everyone would dance all night and enjoy it.

Why do you need to deny everyone?  It’s not like people REALLY appreciate the good music, and feel saved from the early bad bit, and therefore enjoy it more because of this build up; this warm up. They just say things like – ‘the music was bad early on, but got much better.’

People would be happier if they just liked all of it.

Which is where it’s gone wrong in so many places.  People don’t want to be educated by their DJ. That’s not why they go out.  They want to hear some songs they know, some songs they like, with the odd predictable old favourite that you always hear, and the odd surprise where you say ‘Awesome – I’ve not heard this in AGES!’ and get all excited.

But they don’t want to be educated. They’ve paid to have a nice time and really, Mr DJ, you’re paid to entertain them, not tell them they’re wrong, or uncool, or that they require re-education according to your stringent and restricted definition.

So entertain them.

Give the people what they want, not what they need.

Be the sort of DJ about whom people say: “He played amazing music ALL night!”


Let them have the good music.

Thank you for the music...