Can you be too old for music?

[john eden]

There is a blanding out that happens which is market led I think which is related. I'm certain that the move to monotonous drum and bass from jungle happened when DJs started to get bookings outside of London and then around Europe and the world.

You also see this with punk bands who slowly become heavy metal bands - it's what the stadium kids in Brazil and Germany and everywhere understand.

 

[john eden]

I don't blame musicians for doing that, though, a lot of them aren't really qualified to do anything else are they?

Being a (successful) DJ seems like a dream job when you're in your 20s but I've always wondered what happens when you hit that age where you're either not really into it anymore and you haven't got any work experience whatsoever.

OTOH, let's face it, having an "actual" job is fucking boring and stressful and shit too.

I think broadly I'm glad I stuck to being a charity bureaucrat over the years because there has been some career progression and I work with some great people. Plus there is little illusion that it's an amazing calling - most people don;t undertstand what I do so there isn't exactly a lot of competition.

I think with DJs and people in bands there is a trap really. A lot of them DO have transferable skills whether that is business or performance or production. But that does seem like a step down after being in a room every night with sexy beautiful young people going mad for what you are doing. I think there is a certain amount of chasing that high that happens.

 

[john eden]

I know a few people who were in pretty successful indie bands and that success does still haunt them in middle age. Sometimes in good ways and sometimes in bad.

 

[Corpsey]

Oh yeah for sure.

FTR I think there are a lot of older DJs who are still having fun and playing what they want to play. I still think it would be a great job, actually. I mean I'm only 35 but I'd still love to have a roomful of people dancing to the beat of my drumnbass.

 

[Corpsey]

I know a few people who were in pretty successful indie bands and that success does still haunt them in middle age. Sometimes in good ways and sometimes in bad.

As in they're now just Joe bloggs and life is an anticlimax?

 

[Corpsey]

My one experience of DJing was at a friend's house party in Brighton, must have been 2008 or something. The room had maybe 15 people in it max and they were almost all my mates. So it was a fraudulent experience in that sense. But even so I got such a massive buzz off it.

 

[john eden]

As in they're now just Joe bloggs and life is an anticlimax?

It's partly that but also partly that some of them do get recognised which is both brilliant and bit crap I think. Some of them are also in tiny bands now that will go nowhere and they both love and hate people knowing that they were once in a very successful band too.

 

[Corpsey]

Yeah must be a headfuck however it goes, really.

To quote a universally beloved figure (+ probable exemplar of his own observation) "Fame, fame, fatal fame, it can play hideous tricks on the brain"

 

[john eden]

My one experience of DJing was at a friend's house party in Brighton, must have been 2008 or something. The room had maybe 15 people in it max and they were almost all my mates. So it was a fraudulent experience in that sense. But even so I got such a massive buzz off it.

Yeah I've only done relatively low key DJ sets but some were pretty decent - a few hundred people. I found it stressful and a buzz in equal measure but you can absolutely see why people love it.

 

[Corpsey]

It's the buzz you get when you've got the AUX cable at an afterparty but times by a thousand.

 

[Corpsey]

Have you guys ever either DJ'd to an empty room or gone along to watch a mate DJ to an empty room?

I've only experienced the latter and it's excruciating.

 

[luka]

the latter. I really enjoyed it. Drank twenty thousand rum and Cokes and had a dance.

 

[Corpsey]

I think it's worse when you go along to see your mate DJ, the room is literally empty and you have to stand there as a show of solidarity.

Cos it's humiliating for them, isn't it, to have been booked to DJ and no cunt cares.

 

[Corpsey]

What's even worse, actually, is watching them clear the room.

The room was filling up nicely, the vibe was simmering, then your mate got on the decks and within five minutes it's just you and them, commiserating.

 

[Corpsey]

And, naturally, achieving the opposite, filling the room, is the greatest triumph imaginable and has brought me to the verge of tears.

 

[Corpsey]

I suppose every DJ who has stuck at it has experienced plenty of empty rooms, cleared rooms, filled rooms and packed rooms – and hopefully reaches a point where every room is packed and sycophantically primed to worship your every move.

 

[Corpsey]

I feel like Luka is the type who wouldn't even be bothered if he put on a song on the aux at an afterparty that everyone else hated.

Whereas i'm the type to start sweating and mumbling apologies, looking for another song (an obvious bait banger, a shameful playing to the gallery) to skip to.

 

[luka]

I wouldn't do that though I'd play a great song. Everyone would love it. Except catalog and suspended reason. They don't like rap and R&B

 

[yyaldrin]

It's the buzz you get when you've got the AUX cable at an afterparty but times by a thousand.

with the lads in cyprus

 

[Corpsey]

A few years ago I triumphed by putting this on at the afterparty to general acclaim


Probably on Dissensus it'll go down like a search warrant at Jeff Epstein's residence