DJ "authenticity"

Leo Reynolds

For the record, I completely disagree with you, but I don't play or dance to the music you like. But if I did, I would still go about the same way as I went, which is to say, I had the offer of music, I had Chris's set blog to go by, and I reacted very much the same way as you at the time. And I remember saying something like, 'Yeah, but if I just play your tandas, it's not authentic. And: Who says you get to decide what's good music?' And he said, something like, he didn't, it wasn't him, it was music he heard in Buenos Aires and in traditional milongas that has been played for a long time, and stood the test of time since it was first played. And I struggled with that answer for a long time. 

Eventually I came to a gradual peace with it because they are among the best sets I have heard in terms of: a lot of tandas I and others like to dance.  Not totally.  There are some tracks I think are missing.  I'm not so keen on some of the milonga choices. There are a few tracks I personally dislike but accept as part of the standard. On the whole I think to have those top tandas and and setblogs public, and free is invaluable for new DJs and both interesting and useful for others. 

He also said that he knew of people who did play his music, whole setlists and he didn't mind, probably on the contrary and I don't think it's to do with ego.  When I had the 'Larga las penas' practica here, years ago, the kids were young, I was relatively new to DJing and didn't have much time, I sometimes played them.  I think he just wanted there to be more traditional music out there. And whether that was by people finding their own way or people using his tandas.  He knew it was easier if people could copy his tandas or use his tandas as a starting base for their own. 

When [redacted] started DJing, he thought that setblog was an absolute goldmine and said it saved him so much time. But I didn't do that when I played in the city. I did refer to C's tandas, but I made my own because I felt it wasn't honest otherwise or I wasn't learning properly.  All that was wrong.  I think once he said something about making life hard for myself.  It was true. And he said something along the lines of what would I be doing next time,  playing the instruments? 

That's when I realized a lot of that stuff, about, "Oh, it has to be authentic, it has to be mine, it has to be creative", that is the ego speaking, even while I resisted the label "DJ" with my name as having too much ego . And, you know, the DJ is this tiny element. The DJ is nothing, really. The DJ is just there to put the music on the speaker. There are a few skills involved in that to do with the volume and the gaps between tracks and yes, not fucking up your tandas and playing a balanced set that suits the people in the room, but really, playing tango music, and this is how it's put to me, is the simplest kind of DJing there is. The way DJs at events are billed you'd think there was some mystic art when it's really not rocket science. 

There are famous tangos that are regularly put together. So, you know, if you try and mess around with all that, you're just messing up, you're just fucking up things that already work.

If you play for people who can really dance well, you're playing for people who are more likely to know and care about the music.  So that's your yardstick. Unless it's not, I suppose. Most DJs I see don't play like that.

A lot of milongas don't have people who can dance well, but most have some.  If you play for everyone else, they don't typically care that much. You can see it in the dancing. So you play traditional music by listening to the tandas you've heard that work and, if you are smart, learning from published setlists.  It could not be easier. 

The thing I find confounding is how often this simple process is fucked up.  So it's not that it's not that it's a mystic it's just that it's just that it's a pretty easy skill that is bizarrely beyond the reach of most people. I suspect it's usually. on the part of the DJ, overthinking, ego, boredom or an overly pedagogic instinct.  The number of supremely arrogant DJs who want to educate dancers rather than play for them to dance, is depressingly high. 

And then there's people who play the music they themselves like.  What about the frigging dancers?! It's like saying "I love American food" so I don't care what you like, you're all going to eat American.  I suppose that's OK if you know for sure they like American or if you're a closed shop, the kind of place where teachers have "milongas" only for their own students.  That isn't a milonga, that's brainwashing.

That was blog #500.