What can I say about great djs. There’s no greater feeling than listening to one great song after another. You know the kind of music which makes you turn around and say, “Who’s the dj?”
I don’t say it often but when I do, you got my attention. I’ m the kind of guy who can appreciate good music of all types. Salsa is just one of my many flavors and I do love a good salsa dj. I’ve also heard my share of crappy deejays.
There’s a place I go to because my friends usually meet up there after work. My goodness, this dj sucks. At first I really wasn’t paying attention. I was just enjoying my time dancing with friends and of course my new lady friends.
While dancing a great salsa song would start and we would get excited as it played. About 30 seconds into the song it would suddenly change. Okay, the first couple of times it didn’t matter, we just kept moving. Maybe it was nothing, it was just me.
Than a revolt started at my table a few months later, we totally hated this dj and couldn’t stand him anymore. He never played anything new, it seems he just plugs on his computer and play the same jive. We finally spoke to the owner of the place and he gave us the answer we expected. He’s cheap.
Later, I asked a friend, was it me or did the dj keep changing the songs to abruptly and quickly. I’m right in the middle of singing the best part of the song and it’s changed. I was trying to impress some girl with my voice and how much I know music and bam. A different song is played.
Growing up, I would hear the salsa music on the radio, although, I loved listening to the music I never really knew who the singers were or the name of the song. As I started to learn salsa dancing, I took much more of an interest and paid more attention to the music.
I paid attention if the songs playing went together in harmony and made a smooth transition to another song. It was important to me because if you’re dancing with someone and the mood is right, a hardcore merengue right in the middle can kill the mood.
There are great djs but this is not the subject right now.
Perhaps, some are dellsional. They believe their own greatness. Yeah that may be it. A friend of mine invited me to a family wedding; I call him the pretty boy salsero. Well, he was the dj that night and I thought, this was a cool surprise.
I danced a couple of songs throughout the night, the music was ok, I mean, it wasn’t horrible; actually I didn’t pay much attention to it. However, at the end of the night about the last 45 minutes, he started to go off on the turntables. He was in his own world.
This wasn’t music; this wasn’t reggeton, rap or merengue. Till this day I don’t know what the heck it was. Right away I knew it was some horrible noise. Several other invited salseros on our table were also shocked. Some people spoke to him; even his girlfriend politely asked if he could change the music.
He just stayed in his zone and kept putting out this annoying noise for almost an hour. This was a Peruvian wedding, filled with family, friends and mature adults.
I looked at him and he had this wide grin on his face. He was so happy and he had this look about him. It was like, check me out everyone, I’m the man. He wouldn’t listen to anyone. Nobody was dancing, we were all just annoyed.
I looked at him with amazement; he actually thought he was good. I can’t believe how off someone can be. After that night, I looked at him with different eyes. I didn’t think he was just a bad dj.
I thought, this guy is crazy.