For the love of music

I mentioned it in a previous post, but I'm a dj. And right now one hell of an angry one. I mean, how is it possible? How is it possible that for the previous one not even a second one could be found untill I joined, and now there's already too many of them? Or should I say, so-called them?

Hm, I feel that most of you cannot follow my thoughts, so let me explain in full. I'm member of Kazou, which most of you probably don't know. It means that every summer for the last 6 year I've been going on holidays with children mostly aged around 15, as one of their leaders. During the year, when there are no holidays, once in a while there's an activity for leaders only (and mind you, there's a lot of them). Naturally, there's a party sometimes as well, roughly 2 times a year.

This year is different however. This year they decided there would be a 'coming back party' for the children as well, on the first of December. And this is where things went wrong. They went wrong in ways you cannot imagine (or maybe you already can, after the intro).

I've been dj-ing their last 3 or 4 parties, during which I noticed the interest of other people to dj was diminishing. Really. None of them did it for the right reason, but me. I did it for the love of music, and to give the people a good time. Obviously, I also was the only one who succeeded in doing this, but that's a different story. The last party really was the big eye-opener for me. One week before the party there was only 1 dj (which shouldn't be that much of a problem if it were a decent one, which, unfortunately, it wasn't), so I volunteered as well. Turns out the guy had made like 12 premade mixes of about 15 to 20 minutes, which he was mixing together. No need to tell it didn't work. It got worse when he didn't want to stop until he played all of his mixes, after about 3.5 hour or so. It's pretty obvious I didn't have to do much anymore, most people had already left by the time I took place behind the decks. I prepared 1.5 to 2h, played 20min. So right now I know that if I ever volunteer again (which is not likely), I have to ask for decent gear and who's dj-ing as well. That's not worth it in my humble opinion, especially since I won't be a member of Kazou for much longer anymore.

Back to Kazouday, as they called the 'coming-back party'. About 10 days ago I sent an email to volunteer to dj. It's stronger than myself, I just have to get out there behind the decks and play music and give people a good time. You can imagine how I felt when I received this email back.

Hi Koen,

Thanks for the enthusiasm, but I've got to let you down, we already have enough dj volunteers.

For those of you that can't imagine how I reacted, it was something like this.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!?!

How can it be that for a party 6 weeks ago nobody wanted to dj, and now everybody wants to? I can see only 1 reasonable explanation. Kazouday is for a lot of people, over 1000 at least, regular parties are for 50 to 100 people. So my best guess is they all do it for the fame, for being recognized, for being able to say "I'm a dj on Kazouday, have you seen me?". I doubt even one of them does it for the love of music, I doubt even one of them can beatmatch, I doubt even one of them won't use a laptop. Sure, it won't be that bad, how hard is picking a song, lining it up in Traktor or VirtualDJ and pressing play? Even my 10 year old niece could do that, but it doesn't make you a dj, it only makes you a wannabe, someone who can play songs.

I could go on and on and on about this, but I guess you're already pretty bored with my ranting. It's just not fair, but then again, life's not fair either. Before you go, I've got 2 more things to say. One, I'm done with dj-ing for Kazou, if they can find enough volunteers now they can find them again for the next party without me. Two, for those who live in Belgium, I want to come out a little more now that my mixing is getting decent, so if you're looking for a dj, contact me and we'll see if it works out. I've been trying to get a mix online, but my laptop freezes everytime I want to record one, so perhaps in the near future. Now go in peace.