A Certain Elevation in Egos

It's an unsettling feeling sometimes when you realize the most obvious thing about yourself at the most unexpected time. I went out to dinner a few weeks ago with a dear friend who I also happen to work with. Being a straight-laced, non-dance music fan, he found my blathering on about the nuances of dance music quite refreshing and ridiculously funny. So much so that later in the evening his partner made the observation that I was quite obsessed with music as a whole.

What struck me as odd at the time is that we weren't listening to dance music. I had only a week earlier come across a release by my favourite female vocalist of all time, Martha Davies, who used to be the lead singer and guitarist for seminal 80's band called The Motels. They, much like The Pretenders and Blondie, had a profound influence on me as a teenage girl growing up in a blue-collar industrial city by the seaside. There was something about Ms Davis' soul filled vocals that struck me as being utterly gut wrenching but in the best possible way. You just had to hear her vocals on tracks like “Only the Lonely” or “Total Control” to understand that every emotion she felt was clearly emulated in her vocals. Just thinking about this makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

So there I am, playing a track from a recently released album of hers where she's re-recorded tracks she had done with her band nearly thirty years ago but reinvented them in a very smoky and acoustic manner. I basically commandeered my friend's sound system and plugged my ipod into the speakers so they too could listen to what has been an integral influence in my so-called musical life.

And then it hit me. Why in the hell wasn't I introducing my friends to the underground sounds of electronic dance music especially since they knew my primary role on Progressive-Sounds was that of a reviewer. Was I getting sick of the music? Had I become that jaded that dance music really no longer appealed to me? Had it finally come to this after all these years of being completely immersed in dance music in one form or another?

Well, no, not at all seeing as I had only the other day gotten excited when I heard the original mix of “Dependency” by Luke Porter. Not really seeing as whenever I listen to Steve Bug’s latest Fabric, I get a cheesy grin on my face. Definitely not seeing as I can’t stop hammering Leigh Morgan’s Urbantorque Transmissions mixes or I start foaming at the mouth at the thought of a new Rekids release. So what was going on with me then? Well, let me tell you a thing or three that's been getting on my nerves of late.

I think back to a time when my favourite DJs ranged in the dozens and covered various genres and then I think to now when my favourite DJs can be counted on one hand. Between then and now, I’ve noticed a certain elevation in egos in that particular side of the industry that has, from my perspective, gotten completely out of hand. While I realize there’s always been certain DJs who think they’re the shit, nowadays there’s just far too many DJs out there who think they’re well and truly the next Sasha, Digweed, Pappa or Masiello…. and after only one or two years on the 1200s.

Seriously, just because you buy vinyl and/or mp3s doesn’t make you a bloody DJ! Just because you played a couple of gigs at a mate’s house party (and by house, I mean a place of residence, not the genre) doesn’t make you a superstar! And if your bedroom looks like something out of The Matrix but with a lot of dust on the equipment, well, you’ve just spent a small fortune for absolutely no good reason.

There’s far too many sucker DJs out there who believe in their own so-called hype, which funnily enough has been created by themselves. And to make matters worse, they get their shower of friends to flog their name from message board to message board with outlandish comments and even more ridiculous suggestions. Guess what? Reality check: you’re average at best and a message board ‘hero’ is all you’ll ever be.

I miss the days when there was a sense of humility displayed by a DJ, that he or she were humbled by a crowd’s reaction and their surroundings or were able to take on board feedback from the responses they received in regards to a promo mix whether that be positive or negative. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a few of these types of DJs around (Neil Quigley, Luke Fair, Justin Steel and Matt Rowan are amongst a few that instantly come to mind) but these kinds of DJs, in my opinion, are becoming fewer and fewer as the years go on. What would eventually scare me is that in some unbalanced flip in the universe there ends up being more people calling themselves a DJ then an actual punter. I can’t begin to tell you the number of times individuals have introduced themselves as a ‘DJ’. So when I ask, “where have you played?”, the response is generally “Not in an actual club or anything”. Please, please give me a bloody break! And don’t get me started on producers who actually get booked as DJs when they can’t string a set together to save their lives or a compilation for that matter.

There’s one particular producer whose work I have previously admired greatly and he gets it right almost every time. Most DJs who are on the cusp of stardom would kill to be given the opportunity to mix a compilation for a label. This particular producer has been given a few opportunities and each has been a resounding mess from start to finish (much like his live sets unfortunately). I don’t blame him though. I blame the A&R guys for each label because I truly question their judgment if they thought his end product was worthy of a release. In fact, I daresay they’re a little deaf and quite possibly verging on clueless.

To me, it’s just a way for these sorts of labels to cash in on a person’s name while they’re ‘hot’. That’s fine, but for the love of God, and so that my ears don’t bleed, start paying attention to the output because you’d be surprised how bad it really is. At the end of the day, it can get terribly frustrating from a listener’s perspective when all you want to listen to is a well conceived mix and all you get is something that sucks the vitality out of something that shouldn’t be all that hard. Especially with Ableton being a tool more and more DJs are using to put together such mixes.

Walking home from my friend’s house that night, with The Motels’ music still playing in my head, I came to the realization that as I get older, my patience for over hyped and under talented egos is getting less and less tolerable. While this may be a sweeping generalization of sorts, of late, a lot of things have begun to sound quite the same whether it’s singles or compilations. Obviously not everything fits into this mold but primarily there seems to be a lack of creative individuality in people’s approach in creating a piece of music or putting together a mix.

While I love the evolving nature of technology, the digital age and the internet have a lot to answer for as it has made people ridiculously lazy. It’s easier just to buy the top ten tunes off of Beatport and use them in a mix rather than spend the time to hunt down a quality track that no one has discovered but still has a profound impact. I know people who do the latter but they’re very few in numbers these days. As drastic as it sounds, I think someone needs to pull the plug on the internet so that it kick starts people who really want a career as a DJ or as a producer or both into properly looking for music again. Maybe...or maybe some people need to face the cold hard facts that this isn't an industry that's suited for those that a overly deluded.

So what's the answer to my frustrations? Well, at this point in time, I don't really have one. What was once something really exciting to me has turned into a love/hate relationship. More obviously, music is one drug that I will never be able to live without whatever shape or form it takes and that may not necessarily be electronic dance music all the time. It might just be other things outside that particular box which ultimately might help me appreciate certain things once again. Let's hope so....

Oh and by the way, nearly thirty years on, the voice of Martha Davies is still an aural spectacle to discover and experience.