The Morning After

I’ll need to add DJ Longshanks blog to the old roll on the side.  The man posted a fun 30 minute mix today with some musings about the year as a DJ.

Aside from the man far more plugged into something called uhhh, “wonky” and “glitch-hop” he had some thoughts on the trials and tribulations of being a professional DJ.  Someone who makes their living counting the receipts at the end of the night from people who paid cash/money to hear your selection for the music.

“Like anyone who does it for a living, DJing in 2009 made me ask myself some serious questions about what the fuck I am doing up there. Balancing the oft-primitive ideals of a club crowd with my inclination toward musical progression proves frustrating sometimes. Like “do people still really wanna dance to “Day & Night”? Well… of course they fucking do!” I’ve moaned enough about the electro-hangover affecting Victoria (and most other cities I assume) so I’ll spare you the whine.”

When I first read it, my reaction was, “I hear ya man.”  Then I read an interesting article about the new ratings measurement system for radio.  Something called the Personal People Meter (we don’t use this in Victoria yet, but radio stations in Vancouver are rated this way).

Never listen to Celine Dion? Radio Begs to Differ.

In the old system of ratings measurement for radio or the “diary” system.  A company would survey a random selection of all the fine folks that call Victoria home and ask them to write down one weeks of radio listening.  This is fine, but we as people would tend to use the diary as a way to project who we want to be, not who we are.  So we might write that we listen to to smart radio stations or even no radio stations… when the fact is… you have a soft spot for Nickelback and whenever you’re in the car with your girl, the radio is locked on the Beat (no shame, that is how it is in my world).

PPM (Personal People Meters) are an electronic device you clip to your belt and it automatically records what you are exposed to from the radio.

I think its great (Modern Rock stations tend to do better in the PPM world).  It shows what people are actually listening too.  They don’t like commercials or radio DJ banter, they love Top 40 and familiar music (hits).  OK… maybe I don’t love everything about PPM.

then I read this and wanted to reach through the internet and slap the man.

“There’s no good radio,” said Jason Pontius, 39, a technology executive in Oakland, Calif. “Soft rock radio is like, ‘Am I really listening to this?’ But it’s the best thing that’s on.”

JASON!  There is no good radio on because you listen to soft rock you r-tard!  I guess it becomes a chicken or egg thing… which came first.  But the reality is this, if you like something, or think you do, or want to… you have to support it because the great big companies roaming this planet looking to mouth rape (oh Jon Lajoie, you iz funny man) some profits will flip a station yesterday to Top 40.

It reminds me of a story from my time DJing out in Langford at the Station House.  One night I was DJing… pretty slow night.  Playing lots of modern rock, popular top 40 and some groovy stuff.  A group of guys was sitting around the DJ area making requests and just generally talking music.  The guys were saying how great it was to finally be in a bar and hearing the music they like.  Then they turned to each other… and just like that, began collecting their things to leave.  I said, “oi! guys where are you going?”

They told me they were off to another bar because the other bar had a house cover band badly hacking their way through classic hits of the 70s.

SWA?  Why would you do that?  The boys said sorry, but that is where the party was.  I begged them, if they wanted to hear something different at the bar, songs that reflected their taste, they needed to bring their friends over to the bar I was DJing at or I’d be replaced by a 70s cover band.  They did not return… and I have been replaced by a 70s cover band.

Now you have two bars on the same street with the same music on the same night.  Logically, it doesn’t make sense, but that is what the people want on a Friday night.  I knew I should have played “Brown Eyed Girl,” I knew it!