Sometimes destiny spins you a job that starts as a laugh and turns into a living. Being a part-time DJ may look like an easy gig, but when the tables are turned, it can be Murder on the Dancefloor.
I’ve done quite a few things in life for money, some of which are not fit to be printed. Most were appropriate at the time, and I passed through them in a linear sort of fashion. Waitering as a student, working in bookshops, that kind of thing. I didn’t know what to do with my life. Because I had a bursary, I studied education, even though I had no intention of being a teacher.
But to my surprise, I was a teacher for a while. First, in high schools in the grubbier parts of London, provided with reference letters forged by my mother back home (Ellen Khuzwayo High School in Ginginhlovu, KZN, yeah right!) and then on returning to South Africa on a farm school, and finally in a suburban primary school. It was then I realised I’d had enough of school. What next?
I home-tutored some kids with learning difficulties and taught factory workers how to write poetry. I have been a gardener and a freelance writer. There has been a slow accretion of knowledge and skill, I think, or hope. One of the things I once did for fun was DJ at parties. And now it’s looped back on me – for cash.
DJing is hard work. For a longer set, the focus required is immense, while people are pestering you to play Abba or Busta Rhymes. Expectations are high. People wanna party. You’ve got to line up your tracks and make them work, for hours on end, and you can’t really leave the booth, unless you play Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Heard it through the Grapevine’, at around 10 minutes. How did this happen?
As a wedding present for a friend, I volunteered the music. I did one wedding and then another for a friend whose wedding photographer recommended me to someone else: the best wedding DJ ever! The next gig was a friend’s brother’s 50th. And then the 50th for his friend, where women were gaily flashing breasts at me from the dancefloor. (And you thought it was all glamour!?) Then there was the after party of a fashion show for a friend of theirs…the pressure, I tell you.
The thing is, what I know about beat-matching is about as much as my two-year-old knows about index tracker funds. Or I do, for that matter. Sure, I can use the cross fader and hope for the best – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I learnt that if I cleared the dancefloor with an ill-chosen track, so what? People need to replenish their drinks anyway, and they’ll come back. It gives you a chance to slow things down and build them back up again.
I play old records, some of which belonged to my parents, and burnt CDs. I don’t use Ableton Live like my mates with iPads. Maybe that’s part of the appeal. At a party not that long ago some teenagers stared in bewilderment at the old vinyl turning around, unable to believe that the sound they heard emanated from this black shining disc that was being stroked by a needle. With a diamond in it!
My last paying gig was some years ago at a wedding, while I was still married, but in the last days, and unhappily so. While the father of the bride thanked me and said I’d done a really great job, I knew I’d had failed to get one of the bride’s songs, a track called Baby Chocolates, probably because I was so distracted by my own marital woes. (I was burning discs on my laptop while I drove down the N1, for heaven’s sake.)
Maybe I just didn’t care, and played what I wanted to play. I went on a solo bender in Franschhoek that night and heard another DJ in some flowsy tavern play Baby Chocolates. I decided to give it a break.
When you’re ‘the DJ’ there will always people that come up to you and hover: “Have you got Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, the dub version?” I’ve learnt to ignore requests, unless I feel the person wanting a particular track is right on the money, and I have the song, which would be a miracle.
Most of the time, I just nod my head and wait for them to go away, or please fetch me a drink. It’s an excellent approach to some other things in life too. Sometimes, things do just go away. I once stopped the music and demanded a cigarette before another beat fell. You can do that kind of thing when there’s no fee involved.
Recently, a friend asked me to DJ her party, because in the days before we knew each other, at the party of a friend of hers, surprise surprise, I had been the DJ. This one I decided to do as a birthday gift. I schlepped out my dodgy old gear and set it up, and it sounded remarkably good. So good that one eager fella, hopping like a loony, slipped and whacked his head so badly he was stretchered off the dancefloor by a clutch of paramedics.
While he lay there in the brace I played, with the gentlest touch, Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s “I’ll take you there,” dedicated to the ambulance staff, and then, very softly, “Murder on the Dancefloor”, by I forget who. The show must go on.
Subsequently, a guest at the party contacted me to DJ her 40th. For a fee, which I’ve had to decide on. I had to contact my ex to swop my weekend night with the kids because I can’t bear to miss them. At first I said no, then I thought, hey…I’m gonna rock that place. And keep on rocking. And one day, I’ll be playing funerals. In the meantime, I’m working on the playlist for my own. Which will be EPIC!
* Check out our Iris Session about more ways to bring in extra cash here.
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