First DJing gig completed

Last night was fun! The place was pretty full of people which, is a new thing for JRock. Many of my friends came, which made me very happy, and Tonya showed up, which made me very happy. I am not surprised that they showed up for me - I was surprised because JRock is quite far away from Dunsansong, where we normally spend our Friday and Saturday nights. But many people came, some people danced, and I got a few free beers. Woohoo!

There was a real downside, though: I had not taken into account my lack of musical eclecticism. I as playing songs that I thought were the bees knees, but most people did not seem to agree. My main dancers were four middle-aged Russian ladies, two of whom were apparently on television for having married Korean men (yes, I am aware how strange this sounds). Two looked Korean, but I suppose were some pseudo-RussoMongolian blend? Eh. Anyway, this one short blond Russky asked me twice for some Lady Gaga song, which I did not have, mostly because I don't fucking like Lady Gaga. I DID, however, have FOUR rather excellent remixes of Bad Romance, two of which I played, one by Chew Fu and one by Skrillex. This did not satisfy her. She asked me three times for some other song that I can't remember, and once she even asked me for a Limp Biskit song. I was so surprised I made her repeat it three times just to be sure she was saying "Limp Biskit." I also took a small and twisted pleasure in forcing this Russian lady to spit out "Limp Biskit," three times. Ask a Russian friend to say it some time, it sounds pretty funny.

Besides her, this Japanese-Hawaiian man asked for a Hawaiian song. I said I didn't have it. He was literally taken aback. Let me clarify: he looked VERY SURPRISED and STEPPED BACKWARDS ONCE. I almost laughed. In his face. Because I did not that people actually did that. And he left about 30 seconds after I said that I couldn't play his song. Toughest fucking crowd member ever.

Overall I think the night was a success. I made one MASSIVE mistake, which was letting silence fall upon the dance floor. I had the next song ready to mix, but then a friend came to chat about the songs and I became distracted. In the span of FIVE SECONDS, two people shouted "DJ!" and I was very red in the face. Good thing it was dark and smoky in there.

I don't think people liked my music :-( At least not the JRock crowd. I need to go to clubs that habitually play electronic. I also need to be able to monitor tracks before I play them. Yes, if you are reading this, and if you saw me last night, the headphones I was wearing were entirely for show. Everything you could hear, I could hear louder and closer, but at the same time. Those few weird tweaks? That was me not being sure when to fade. Although I didn't get any weird looks, and apparently people were complacent enough to stay and buy drinks, so I suppose it worked out. I guess they liked my music, just not enough to dance to it. Also, I guess they weren't drunk enough. I stopped playing at 2:15 when Jack, the co-owner, went on to play the normal hip-hop stuff. But when people were drunk and dancing, he put on some housey-tunes, and people were getting down. IF ONLY MY CUSTOMERS HAD BEEN DRUNKER, SOONER.

That's it for me. On my way to Seoul tonight to belatedly celebrate a friends Bday. It should be fun.

It's 2 am and I should go to bed

I apologize for ending that last post so abruptly - I forgot that we had workshop on Thursdays. They always cut it so close to class time.

I just sound-tested my laptop at JRock with Traktor Scratch Pro, and the fucking thing crashed twice. I've been trolling the forums for a while now, searching for answers, but all that comes up is conspiracy-theory jargon about plots to make it crash so people keep getting upgrades. That, and people just saying how inexperienced others are. GET OFF YOUR IVORY TOWER, GUY. I'm a noob. Not-so-coincidentally, Noob is a pretty decent DJ from somewhere, but his sound is too hard and minimal for me.

I immediately acquired Virtual DJ, and am mixing with it now. While my skills are still so limited, this set tomorrow will be my foot in the door. I just hope people show up.

Wish me luck.

I am trying hard to do something I care about for the first time in a long time. Well, being true to my emotions about Tonya was pretty hard too, but that's pretty damn awesome right now. I hope DJing turns out to be just as rewarding. PLEASE DON'T LET ME JINX MYSELF WITH THIS POST.

It's been another month or two, and I am still not interested in blogging all that much. I just can't be bothered. But I feel bad about keeping people in the dark, so if you want to learn about what I've been doing, then here you are:

The weather in Daejeon is confusing. It's like Spring now, which I'm told is both usual and unusual...hence the confusion. I've been riding my motorcycle around quite a bit even though I still don't have my license, which is very illegal and could get me deported. But the police don't seem to bother anyone for anything other than sobriety checks, so I'm not too concerned. Before anyone goes apeshit, I am planning on getting my license this weekend or next, and until then, I just ride it to and from school (a very short drive).