Does Anybody Need an Artisanal Wedding DJ?
“Listen, man, you know what would get this party REALLY started right? Some BRUNO MARS. You know Bruno Mars?”
I make a face which suggests that I’m only vaguely aware of who that might be, then pretend to check through my 45s: “Sorry, I don’t think so”. The drunk uncle (there’s at least one at every wedding) gives me a dejected puppy dog face and slinks off, but I can rest assured he’ll be back within 10 minutes.
It’s funny. The aunts love it when I show up and play old 45s at their niece or nephew’s wedding reception — I’ve gotten so many kisses on the cheek by now, you’d think my face was the blarney stone — but it’s always the drunk uncle who thinks I need to “modernize” a bit, and he’s rarely afraid to tell me so. Before I started DJing weddings, I had assumed that only 12-year-old girls would deign to listen to Bruno Mars and his bargain-basement Sting impersonation. As it turns out, though, his target demographic also encompasses creepy old guys who want all the “young ladies” to dance.
It’s too bad for that uncle, then, that I live by a strict code as a DJ: 45s ONLY, FOREVER. Vinyl is the only real way to DJ. Those doughy guys in bad suits and goatees, their Sun-In hair matted down with a healthy dollop of store-brand gel, laptop loaded with current Top 40 twaddle, all the shiny “modern” gear and those awful laptop stands… charlatans!
Me? I will come to your wedding with a hand-built amplifier spraypainted green, red, and gold (in tribute to the golden age of roots reggae, though I don’t identify as Rasta myself), two vintage DJ turntables, a microphone, an old mixer I nabbed on Craigslist (a couple of the pots and faders are pretty dirty inside, but the crowds at Satisfaction Bar on Tuesdays don’t seem to notice much), and all of the best 45s. This is all you need, and this is all you SHOULD have. ANALOG FOREVER.
The only downside is that some people want the aforementioned charlatans and their hit singles, a fact that comes into stark relief as I watch bid after bid go unheeded on Thumbtack. There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose. I’m not a snob about the music, mind you, but I am a man committed to his code. Unfortunately, while vinyl may be “all the rage”, few hit singles get pressed onto my beloved 45s these days.
Luckily, I have a plan. I found a record-cutting lathe from the 1950s at an estate sale a couple months ago. It’s a fixer-upper, but it cuts… so far, I’ve made lathe-cut 7”s of “All About That Bass”, “Shake It Off”, and a couple of Bruno Mars songs that, sadly, didn’t turn out that great. There is admittedly something lost in the translation — there’s not much bass left on this version of “All About That Bass”, and “Shake It Off” turned out a little slow (which made Taylor sound more like Robin Thicke) — but at least I can stay true to my principles.
The Hit Parade, however, races by ever faster. I’m quickly running out of the blank discs that came with the lathe, and the ones I’ve found on eBay are pretty expensive. From what I understand, though, you can cut into pretty much anything with this thing… my neighbor usually has a lot of those big ice cream buckets in his recycling, so I’m hoping the lids are “close enough for jazz”. I’m lactose intolerant, though, so I couldn’t possibly eat enough ice cream to generate a supply of said lids myself… maybe I could just start buying my neighbor ice cream. Is that weird?
Anyway, I’m excited about this plan. It’s guaranteed to draw more clients! I’m not just a DJ now, I’m an artisan… from now on, my work as a DJ will be beautiful and simple, yet painstakingly handcrafted.
To compliment my new aesthetic, I’ve also purchased a wood lathe. After a few aborted attempts, I managed to cut two 45 adapters, which work reasonably well with most 45s. I tried to make wooden platters for my turntables, too, but apparently they were too heavy… it’s just as well, that motor was probably due for a replacement. You couldn’t see the platters under the slipmats, anyway. A learning experience!
Since I had the wood lathe out, I decided to also build a nice wooden DJ table. Seriously: how can you show up with all of this beautiful, painstakingly handcrafted stuff and put it on a plastic folding table from Target? You can’t. That said, I’ve found it rather hard as a beginner to build a folding wood table, so I had to purchase a pickup truck for future DJ gigs to compensate for the size of the table.
The pieces are in place. Now, all I have to do is wait for the clients to roll in. If I get at least one high-paying DJ gig (average: $250/hr.) a week through into March 2034, I should be able to pay off my investment, easy as pie.
The essay was written in January 2015 during a particularly gray Portland winter. If you are organizing an artisanal wedding in the Pacific Northwest and in particular need for an artisanal 45s DJ please contact Dustin directly and mention you saw our advertorial. Further, we assume no liability for the RIAA pirated lathes mentioned above.
Absurdist features profound & pointless writings on culture, music & art by new & odd luminaries.
