Clearing the room

If Adam Sandler was the Wedding Singer, then I’m his DJ equivalent.

Destined never to hit the big time, but happy to dust off my 12 inches every once in a while (ooh matron) I get to DJ every once in a while; usually at friends weddings or the odd birthday party or two.

I’m not especially professional – no beat matching for me – just lots of good tunes and very little pretension. Unlike most party DJ’s I don’t talk over the music (I love the sound of my own voice, but not in this instance,) nor do I fade down the music during the chorus of songs like YMCA so that the punters can shout it out.

I’m cheesy. But I’m not that cheesy.

One of the things I like most about these occasional forays is playing songs that people have forgotten about, or which are a little unexpected – I can’t abide lazy DJ’s who play the same thing everytime, it’s good to keep people on your toes, and there’s so much great music, there’s simply no excuse to hear the same thing time and time again.

It’s very very very rare (I think it’s only happened twice) that I play a song which clears the dancefloor, although on one occasion I did think this is exactly what the diminutive Miss Minogue and I done with her 80s cover of the Little Eva classic.

Headphones on and with my head down pouring over a bag of CDs to work out what I was going to play next, (I make it up as I go along,) I could have only been gone for no more than 30 seconds. But, by the time I looked up with the prized next CD in my greasy hands the dancefloor was empty. Deserted. Totally bereft of anyone or anything.

In the distance I could make out the normally busy bar. But instead of people clamoring for drinks, it resembled the galley on the Mary Celeste.

At any moment I half expected to see tumbleweed roll past the glitter ball when - before you knew it - a massive conga line emerged from behind a pillar, revealing that far from everyone running out of the club in horror at my musical taste, every single person in the bar was ‘doing the locomotion’ and had formed a giant train which circled the bar several times before the song ended.

Phew!