Entry Two Hundred Twenty-Nine.
Wednesday, 2020.06.17, 3:55 PM CST.
badgerspins.com - Mixcloud Live - online live sets!
Current Mood:  Loving technology.  As grateful for technology as I am for chemicals.
Current Scent:  To Sur with Love by Phoebe Peacock.

So, this is a really big, cool deal.

I'm doing live DJ sessions again.  But not at any venue.

As much as I would love to DJ again at some place like Lot No. 6, I just can't yet.  For multiple reasons, not the least of which is that we're at the beginning of a global pandemic.  I have a feeling I won't be able to set up and DJ anywhere for at least the remainder of the year.

So... a little over a month ago, Mixcloud (the site where I currently have over fifty prerecorded sets uploaded for your listening pleasure - click here for those) launched a LIVE platform for DJs called Mixcloud Live.  It's still in its beta phase, but I'm thrilled to be performing on it.

PLEASE NOTE:  The following does not apply to my appearances on Radio SRO/"The Groovy Train."  For information about those performances, please CLICK HERE.

My Live channel is located at https://www.mixcloud.com/live/djbadger, but it's easier to remember with this simple alias:

badgerspins.com

My experience thus far has been, overall, very positive.  I threw together a few practice sessions, and for a couple of Wednesdays I performed what will hopefully be brought back soon as a weekly event called "The Great Wednesday Chillout," featuring lots of great downtempo/chill/ambient tracks with the occasional ballad thrown in.

THEN, I got to use Mixcloud Live for a party celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the opening of Club SRO here in Tulsa.  That went so well that I was picked up for weekly sets for Radio SRO.

Despite a few technical snags thus far, I believe that online, I may be able to gather more of a following than I did at my in-person performances.  This is incredibly exciting.

There are SO many advantages to doing it this way.

1.  If you're drunk, you're still a safe distance from me.

I don't have to worry about some Lushy McDrunkTank screaming at me, spilling booze on my music or gear, and/or repeatedly throwing his date onto the stage like a total horse's ass and making the records skip.

2.  I can play what I want, when I want.

*** This section does not apply to my Radio SRO performances ***

Nobody is paying me, so I am not beholden unto anyone to do their bidding.  If I'm playing tracks and nobody's dancing, I don't have to give two shits about it.  I won't get faced with a situation in which a groom tells me to play a certain type of music and then his new wife decides to stroll over and tell me "We ToLd YoU nOt To PlAy ThAt."  (That happened at one of my last wedding reception performances...)  I don't have to worry about playing "dirty" songs (oh noooooo!) because someone decided to bring their creampie trophies to an event.  It is AWESOME.

If I want to play three 90s house songs followed by Night Ranger followed by Portishead followed by the Teletubbies' theme song, I can do it.  If I have some dead air between tracks, I don't panic.  I lose NO revenue.  And as I've said countless times before, to me, it's not about the money.  Money is important.  But having fun is more important.  And one of the main reasons I pretty much gave up live DJing indefinitely, as of last year, was that it just wasn't as much fun anymore.

3.  I don't have to take the time to set up gear... or packing up gear.

Remember the time that I set up all the gear for Pop in a Blender #16 last year and not a single person showed up for it?  I remember it pretty well.  I was there.

And the worst part was... I had taken severla hours of time to set up, and I took hours of time packing up gear and getting it home.  I think the total amount of time wasted, including the performance time, was about twelve hours or so.

All so that nobody could show up.  (Yes, a handful of people showed for the bar, but not for the event.)

That's time that I could have spent with my family, with friends (pre-pandemic), working on music production, writing a novel, or just chilling.  And yes, I got paid for the performance... but see my notes above in regard to money.

With Mixcloud Live, I can go to Fascination Street (the club that doesn't exist), start playing, and then at the end, I can shut down the gear and literally walk to my bed at my home without having to tear a single thing down.  Fascination Street even has a couch that I can crash on if I want after I'm done.  The lights stay up.  The turntables stay in the DJ area.  And when I'm ready to do it again, I just head back over to Fascination Street and start back up.

4.  If people don't show up, I don't have to care about it one damned bit.

*** This section does not apply to my Radio SRO performances ***

If nobody shows up... I haven't wasted a bunch of time, gas, or effort.  I can shut my Mixcloud stream off at any time I feel like.

Sure, I don't get paid for the performance.  But, once again, it's not about the money.  The money was never the primary focus of why I DJed.  And by providing performances for free online, knowing that there is no monetary incentive... I'm (ironically) "putting my money where my mouth is."  I don't have to DJ if I don't want to, but I do want to.  And I'm offering it for no charge.  And most of you won't tune in, but that's fine - others around the world are doing so.  I'm able to reach a much larger audience than just little ol' Tulsa.  And we're interacting in the chat.  And it is BEAUTIFUL.

So, feel free to tune in.  Or don't.  I'd love to have you, but if you don't, I'm not worried about it and you're not going to hurt my feelings.

5.  Mixcloud Live offers me a new beginning of sorts.

I have now been involved in the industry for over thirty-two years.  I've been DJing for over thirty of those years.  I have no misconceptions about it:  I'm not as popular as I used to be, and I was never extremely popular to begin with.  I was a school dance DJ who became a wedding DJ who became a college radio DJ who became a nationally-published music journalist who became a BDSM/fetish club DJ who became a more mainstream club DJ/event organizer.

I've always been considered a bit of an outsider and a weirdo.  I don't see that ever changing, and <sarcasm>you can imagine how much that troubles my fragile little soul</sarcasm>.

With Mixcloud Live, thanks to not having to do some of the more tiresome parts of DJing (like setting up all of the gear every time), I feel a bit refreshed about DJing and I can actually concentrate on the music.

And for the first time in an extremely long time, I feel like I am building a genuine following.  I'm not just background noise; people are intentionally tuning in, enjoying, and appreciating and respecting what I do.

This is exciting; it's almost like a resurrection of my career (ESPECIALLY now that I'm working with Radio SRO).

This is awesome.

6.  The main thing that I am going to miss about the old DJ gigs.

The main thing I'm going to miss:  Making runs to Whataburger after an event, as I'm dead tired, to get potato, egg, and cheese taquitos.  But, you know... I can still do that after my Mixcloud Live gigs if I really, really want to.  And... I probably will.

I'm going to post this blog entry at the same time as my Radio SRO entry, since the two are so intertwined.

Thank you as usual to everyone who has chosen to listen to me... especially online during these very weird times.

Thanks as always,

Badger

The views/thoughts expressed above, just like every other view expressed on my site, are mine as an individual.  They do not necessarily reflect or agree with the views of any company for which I work, nor any company for which I've ever worked, nor any company that I own.