ADVENTURES ON THE WHEELS OF STEEL

Well the inaugural and possibly final No One Cares About Your DJ Night went off last night in an explosion of John Peel-esque amateur charm and attracted a grand crowd of about 20 people, including ourselves.

Before we properly started, a played a little set for the teenage punk kids who were waiting to go to the gig upstairs, including the Sonics, the Ramones, the Donnas, the Groovie Ghoulies, the Modern Lovers and Vyvyan doing ‘Hey Mickey’.. dunno if they appreciated my efforts, but it sure beats Oasis on the PA.

Then Steve and Angela both played storming sets of fuzzy, bouncy indie and Pete wussed out, leaving me at the controls.. I’d actually gone as far as writing a set-list the week before but, er, sadly forgot it, so I was left to do the bits and pieces I remembered from it and otherwise play it by ear. And it went a little something like this;

The Jesus & Mary Chain – my little underground

((this was a REQUEST believe it or not – probably the first time in my life anyone’s actually ASKED me to play the Jesus & Mary Chain really loudly, so I’d be a fool not to oblige!))

Jonathan Richman – action packed
Bikini Kill – carnival
Dweeb – scooby-doo
The Vaselines – you think you’re a man
The Bush Tetras – can’t be funky
Gramme – like you

((can you believe this awesome girly post-punk combo completely cleared the dance floor? What are people like!))

The Saints – know your product
Riff Randells – lethal lipgloss
Cheap Trick – surrender

((still no dancefloor action, and no recognition of Cheap Trick – shameful!))

Help She Can’t Swim – fermez le bouche

((well we are named after it...))

Thee Headcoatees – have love will travel

((fuck yes! People are dancing!))

Milky Wimpshake – lemonade

((still dancing – let’s try and keep it up))

The Human Beins – nobody but me
Chocolate Watch Band – sweet young thing
The Kinks – I need you
The Swingin’ Medallions – double-shot of my baby’s love
The Detroit Cobras – shout bamalama

((here things go a bit hazy as my memory of what I’d intended to play vanished, and so did my dancefloor, but I think it went something like..))

The Buff Medways – troubled mind
The Slits – I heard in on the grapevine
LCD Soundsystem – beat connection
Sam Cooke – everybody loves to cha cha cha
The Magnetic Fields – fido your leash is too long
Helen Love – MC5

((I don’t remember what happened next, but I have a feeling that in the absence of anyone sober / available enough to relieve me of my duties I played a bunch more records with no logic whatsoever – I tried to finish with Joey Ramone doing “What a Wonderful World”, but the CD player fucked up… it also fucked up later when I tried to do a big exit on Shonen Knife’s version of ‘Daydream Believer’… oh well))

So a pretty crazed and ramshackle performance all round. I enjoyed it though, and some of the lucky few people present said they enjoyed it too and sounded genuine, which was nice. I think I like this DJing lark – making people dance is cool, even if it’s not very many people. And I even forgot to play most of my favourites one way or another.

It would be fun to do it again if the venue owner ever lets us to darken his door again (and frankly there’s no reason why he should given our shambolic and under-attended performance).