That Time I Tried To Open For Myself

I’m not sure I’m even remotely qualified to talk about how things are today, but back when I started DJing things were very different. Before I ever got known, I was attending Durham College as some kid who’d just turned 19 years old, meaning I could drink. This would have been in the year 2000, just a hair after 9/11. I remember watching the second plane crash into the tower from this TV everyone was huddled around in the student centre.

I was in my first class around 9am when someone said “a plane crashed into the World Trade Center” and I didn’t really care. Then, we learned one hit the Pentagon, and I thought this was complete bullshit because there’s no fucking way this is happening. Yet, it did.

But this isn’t a story of 9/11, it’s something else.

Winning A DJ Competition, When I Sucked

So, sometime in the winter this college held a DJ competition. I entered as I knew how to beat match, which was apparently something that not many people knew how to do at the time. It was one of the first times I’d been on a stage in front of 100+ people and my knees were shaking. I think I had about 15 minutes, and I played a bunch of UK Hard House (which, was what I was playing at the time). When rave music wasn’t exactly well known. The point is that I won. How, I still don’t know. There was some guy who was scratching (something I’m horrible at), and a bunch of punters. The scratch guy should have mopped the floor with me, but for whatever reason they gave it to me. To be fair, I did have the crowd dancing and a lot of people going nuts, but the other guy was way better, the crowd just didn’t understand how good he was.

Then, It Happened Again, But I Didn’t Suck.

Fast forward some 10 years. I’d been headlining shows and had a following. I was playing this show in Detroit as the headliner. But, they had this “up and coming DJ” competition where anyone could submit a mix and if they won a popularity contest, they’d get to “open” for me.

I decided to submit a mix, under some bullshit name that nobody knew. I did the mix in one take, and it was all the tunes I was going to play for the set I was going to headline a few weeks later. There was tunes in there that nobody had, exclusive stuff, it was incredibly mixed, and super clean. That mix was so damn good. I blew the doors off everyone else who submitted mixes, technically, mixing wise, track selection, and most certainly with exclusives. I tied for second last out of like 20 people.

The hilarious part of it all was that I was the guy all these DJs wanted to be, only I was actually that guy. The thing was I submitted under some stupid name. I didn’t promote it, I didn’t do anything besides send it to their social media group.

It Just Goes To Show….

Most of popularity is just who’s hot and who’s not. It’s rarely based on merit or worth. It’s just who can strike a chord or who’s sucking who’s dick, or who’s friends with who. If you’re out there trying your best, and you get shunned, just say the hell with it and keep doing what you’re doing. Rarely are things based on merit and worth, but it’s just a popularity contest.

I got paid $750 USD for that gig to headline. The person who beat me in the DJ competition got paid absolutely nothing. In fact, they “got to meet me”, the guy they beat, only they didn’t know it. As far as they were concerned, they were meeting the headlining DJ that night.

And, that was some 15 years ago now. I think back about that story and just laugh these days.