a cold, hard truth

[adelaidesean]

I am not a DJ.

This is what I learned at the WORD festival last week.

Specifically, I learned it from Andrew McClelland, he of the Somewhat Accurate History of Pirates fame, who performed a deliciously salty reading at the beginning of my Meet The Author session last Wednesday.

While chatting in the green room, he observed that both of us claim to be DJs when in fact we are selectors. That is, we pick songs and play them in order. No beat-matching, sampling, juggling vinyl, or anything fancy like that. It's still pretty neat, but I feel guilty now that I've misrepresented myself to the public by boasting of skills I don't actually possess.

There's a k in selector, apparently, but as I can't remember where it's supposed to go, I can only claim partial illumination on the subject.

Comments

[frogworth.livejournal.com]

Haha! Well I think that's a matter of opinion. Dub DJs are often called selectors, and often they do beat-match. A hip-hop DJ is expected to probably do some clever stuff, but I guess in general a DJ might be thought to be able to keep the beat going across a few songs, in some way or other ;)
Still, I think you can claim to be a DJ of sorts!

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

I read your last line as "DJ all-sorts", which conjured up an unusual image. :-)

Maybe we need a new category of DJ/selector: one who appears only at SF conventions. Apart from the odd Xmas/NYE show, that's about all I'm playing at, these days. (Although I could be tempted back into the booth for the upcoming nuptials. We'll see. )