DJ’ing But Make It Comedy
A bit of a delay in the newsletter this week. My apologies! Last Thursday we ended up throwing a pop up in Montreal. A last minute thing. Was all a bit hectic but ultimately came out extremely positive. That’s been consistent with all of the pop ups. The stress organizing these pop-ups is often through the roof, but the payoff really feels worth it. It’s moving the pulse in a way that feels more organic, authentic. I feel more connected with the people attending, I love that.
Lately, I’ve also been thinking more about life and a career as a DJ. I’ve been searching for an appropriate metaphor to make sense of it all. I think comedians are close. Now these are all assumptions that I make merely as a fan of comedy, never having actually done stand up myself, but there’s a few similarities that come to mind.
First, developing material seems really similar. I take some music to a smaller club and see how the crowd reacts. A smaller room I’ll often load up a USB with a bunch of music I love, and just sort of improvise my way through it. If there’s a transition that works really well I’ll make a mental note to try that again next time, and hopefully dial it in before a bigger show so it’s a bit more refined. Get it right for a festival play, I know comedians do a similar thing moving from a small place like the Comedy Store to a bigger ticketed event. You don’t want to over refine it though, it still needs to feel natural when you perform it. It can be planned but it needs to have the potential to not be perfect so that people can feel that it’s live. It’s a delicate balance. Don’t fuck it up but make it feel like you could.
Touring feels really similar to comedy. A slew of dates thrown together is often just packaged as a tour. “Here’s a bunch of dates, guess what… I’m on tour now!” Aren’t we always on tour? I’ve been on tour since 2007. Hey guys, It’s a really long tour.
And the life of waiting on the road has similarities too. Wait for the uber, get to the airport, wait for the plane, land in the city, wait for the uber, get to soundcheck, check-in at the hotel, wait for dinner, wait for the ride, get to the show, wait to go on, head back to the airport, wake up and repeat. It’s an unpredictable lifestyle with a predictable pattern of waiting. Sometimes an airport freakout from a random passenger is a nice way to break up the travel. Free entertainment! Fantastic!
Lastly, I think you have to be a bit crazy and self-deprecating. Sometimes I think with making a song, or DJ’ing music, and I assume crafting a joke… it really comes down to, “I just think this is cool, hope you do too!” And often it isn’t. Sometimes there’s a shit ton of work for a thing that ends up being nothing and it all feels like a waste and you have to go… I guess I start again? No one is paying you for that work. You gotta believe it’s all gonna work out somehow. You have to simultaneously be your own biggest fan while hopefully disparagingly oneself enough to laugh when something fails (which it does more often than not). So maybe in the end, even if comedy isn’t the perfect metaphor for DJ’ing, it’s ultimately a tool. A tool that can help me survive this self-imposed minefield of creativity, travel, and performance.
See you on the road. Las Vegas tonight with my other project Glass Petals, and we also hit San Diego Saturday. Discopussy & Bloom.
-felix