1/2/06
Today is the first day of 2007 in which I feel awake (despite being desperately tired). The actual first day of 2007 was a groggy fog of eating with friends and family. Thank you to Alex for the lucky lentils, and the folks for another proud installment of Asian New Year’s Day Feast.
Anjali absolutely rocked New Year’s Eve. I witness just about every one of her sets, and when she is ON, she is ON. And New Year’s Eve she was ON FIRE! The crowd was eating out of her hands. She was leading them in the dance from the stage and many of them ended up joining her on stage for riotous dancing during her set. Knowing that if I were to go on I could do little except rudely break the bond between DJ and dancers and clear the floor, I encouraged her to keep playing as long as she wanted.
However, as happy as I would have been to let her play all night, a friend in need necesitated Anjali leaving the venue, while I took her place behind the tables. I figured the only thing I could do, that needed to be done, was a tribute to James Brown. At the Threshold New Year’s Eve event we were DJing there were two floors of music. Downstairs the soundtrack was seemingly electro breakbeats from what little I heard. Such a sound wouldn’t even exist without James Brown. I didn’t know what sort of James Brown tracks or samples or remixes were being played downstairs, but I wasn’t going to let the night pass without my own tribute to James Brown.
I started out with “Try Me.” It was an abrubt change from the absolutely brutal desi Drum’n’Bass that Anjali had been playing right before. The energy level was so intense of course I questioned dropping a ballad immediately following, but that wasn’t going to stop me from honoring the man. Such was my condition that night that it was my primary wish for my set that I could remain standing upright, and not leave vast passages of dead air during the half hour I had before the next performers were due to hit the stage. I got in my James Brown songs. I remained upright. There was no dead air. At no point did everyone leave the dance floor. Mission accomplished. Happy New Year!
IK
PS Thanks to DJ Globalruckus for dropping the Manak-E “Boliyan” track. I stopped playing that so much recently and was reminded of how much I love it.