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Wednesday, 16 November 2005
I love out-of-town guest DJs!
It was a busy week leading up to Bootie this month. We had five, count 'em, FIVE guest DJs coming into town to spin – four from the U.K. (Phil n' Dog, Lumpy, Supercollider) along with Strangely Familiar (Quita) from Nashville. Plus, I'd had my brand-new shiny silver PowerBook for almost a week, and I still hadn't really played with it, or set up the wireless network in my apartment. I want to check email from bed, damn it!
Anyway, on Wednesday, we took Quita and his boyfriend Doug out to dinner at the Supperclub. The last time we DJed there, during opening week, we didn't get paid with money, but with meal vouchers. So it gave us an opportunity to take some out-of-town guests out to dinner (and to scope out the venue a bit more in anticipation for this Friday's gig there with DJ Keoki.)
On Thursday, D and I frantically cleaned our house, in anticipation of Dog crashing on our sofa. We didn't mind though ... we needed an excuse to finally clean our apartment! Dog and Lumpy got in late, and we hung out and drank beers and ate pizza. Charming chaps, both of them.
We must say, Dog was the easiest house guest we've ever had! We'd wake up in the morning, and he'd already be off, exploring the city on his own, or meeting up with the other U.K. bootleggers. We caught up with most of them on Friday afternoon, meeting up at an Irish pub for beers, before heading to Quita and Doug's hotel room to listen to Party Ben's Sixx Mixx, which featured a pair of Phil n' Dog tracks! That night, our friend Halcyon was visiting from New York City, and he was having his homecoming party at The Cinch. So we met a bunch of people there, got schnockered on cheap drinks, and I nervously drank lots of water before going to bed, hoping to stave off a hangover.
Fortunately, there was no hangover on Saturday, which was good ... Bootie day! I spent most of it attempting to slam together a mash-up of the new Madonna song, "Hung Up," over Blondie's "Call Me," a drunken idea I had the previous night. It was my experiment to see if I could throw something together real fast, and then play it that night at Bootie. And I did! (Not the greatest mashup in the world, but good enough for a drunken dance floor)
It was a bit of a slow start, but Dada and Supercollider got the night rolling with a nice hour of rock boots, while everyone started to get their drink on. Lumpy held it down in the back room, looking like he was having a ball.
Around 10 PM, things started to pick up, and Strangely Familiar started to kick it into gear, spinning Totom's "Madonna & the News." (The previous night, we all had talked about WHICH new Madonna bootleg we were all going to spin ... I think some variation of "Hung Up" got played three or four times at Bootie!)
Party Ben spun a short set at 10:30, and then at 11 PM, it was Act of Dog in the main room ... which was going GREAT until the laptop started doing weird things. Apparently, Supercollider came up to the booth, and then the whole thing went out. DOH! There's nothing a packed dance floor loves more than dead silence as a track is building up to its big peak (I'm being snarky of course ... but it was right after TBC's new "Radio Ga-Ga" boot, which I must say is awesome).
Anyway, I bolted up to the DJ booth. "Don't you have an "Oh Shit" CD?" I asked. Nooooo! I quickly grab Phil n' Dog's "Comfortable Tiger" and slam it into the CD player. Things eased back in, but then, a few songs later, the laptop crapped out again. I was in the back room at the time, helping Steven Satyricon prepare for his midnight mash-up show, when I heard a Party Ben track. And then an A plus D track. "That's odd," I thought. "Dog is playing our boots." Then I realized that something BAD must have happened, because all of this was after the second uncomfortable silence. Mysterious D had come to the rescue.
I feel bad for Dog, who wasn't able to play his complete set due to his laptop going all wonky. But this has now prompted a new club Bootie rule. No laptop DJing unless you have the "Oh Shit" CD!
But Dog was planning on dropping "Doctor Pressure" as the last song of his set, so D spun that right before midnight. Afterwards, I MCed the midnight mash-up show, and was able to tell people that if they wanted the 12-inch vinyl of Mylo vs. Miami Sound Machine, that they had to go back to the DJ booth and bug Phil n' Dog for it, which they apparently did.
The crowd was RAVENOUS for all the giveaways we had. Thanks to Supercollider for bringing some much sought-after mash-up video DVDs, and to Phil n' Dog for offering up some vinyl. There were quite a few Morcheeba fans in the house, as many specifically asked for their exclusive mash-up CD. And of course, there were all the Bootie compilation CDs we burn every month too.
We announced a bunch of birthdays (Ginny had hers in the back room, John's girl Libby was having hers, and was quite helpful in tossing CDs out to the crowd.) Then we brought Steven Satyricon out for his performance. Gayest Midnight Mash-up Show ... Ever. He performed to DJ Tripp's "Maniacs Emerge," and came out dressed as Casey Spooner from the Fischerspooner "Emerge" video. Then, halfway through, all his clothes got torn off, and he did the entire Flashdance dance number to "Maniac." SUPER GAY! But the crowd was into it, and Tripp finally got to see his mash-up come to life on the Bootie stage.
Party Ben closed out the night, ending with his Coldplay vs. Kraftwerk "Computer Talk," and then the lights came up at 2. Most of us went to Ben's for a lovely little after-party (after Frienemy drove us to our house to drop off our gear and grab some much-needed vodka and mixer ... thanks Donald!)
We missed Steve Supercollider and Jeff Quita at the after-party. But the rest of us had a lovely time chilling after a crazy night. Even Jordan Earworm showed up! (He couldn't make it to Bootie, as he had another gig that night). As I've mentioned before, I really look forward to the Bootie after-parties, because it's the only time I actually get to REALLY hang out and talk with people. I'm always running around doing club stuff, and I need to stay sober enough to count money at the end of the night! But once I've got everyone paid, I can then kick back and have a few cocktails like rest of them!
Most of the U.K. DJs made it to Marcy's party late, missing all the spray cheese and whipped cream fun, licking various foodstuffs off of Marcy's nipples, etc. – but oh well. Ted somehow convinced us all to go to the Mint for karaoke, and I had big plans of wowing everyone with my live mash-up karaoke rendition of "Billie Jean" over "Smells Like Teen Spirit." But alas, there were 19 songs ahead of me (many performed by the same singers, again and again, hogging the stage ... that's why I HATE karaoke at The Mint ... if you show up late, you can pretty much forget about ever getting a chance to sing, at least not without a 2-hour wait). So we said our goodbyes out on the sidewalk and all went home.
Anyway, it was a fantastic time – thanks to Dog, Phil, Jeff Quita, Lumpy, Steve Supercollider, Jof, Ben, Dada, Mysterious D, Jay-R, DJ John, Tripp, Matt Hite, Steven Satyricon, Frienemy, Tristan, Patty O, Earworm – for making it a weekend to remember!
I can't believe we're going to be in Paris in less than a week! DJ gigs in Paris and Amsterdam! Aaaaiiigh!
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