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.

Not personal

s

Edinburgh

This blog has existed for many years.  After a while, one becomes aware of which posts are going to be more popular.  For many years 'Tango, trouble and disrespect' has been the most popular post here.  The most popular entries are often the controversial ones, that point to a disagreement between people in a community.  Not always, there are other kinds too.   If I wrote for popularity I would splurge my posts across my social media, or even, with elbow-jabbing pushiness, in social media groups. I always feel sorry for writers whose social media has become relentless self promotion and wonder if they choose to do it or are made to.

Salacious curiosity underpins the entire media industry. I don't write for people trying to figure out "Whom does she mean?" .

I used to think it was useful to name some of the tracks that I heard specific DJs play, for those visiting or wanting to learn more about music. Certainly, it would be immensely useful to see a setlist or even example tracks of DJs I don't know. It would save so much travel and disappointment.

Even highlighting some of the tracks DJs play while pointedly not saying "And what a wonderful selection it was!" makes a point. It can causes aggro: not to my face and I only once, years ago, became aware if it through whispers passed around by someone, who, to general relief, is long gone. If anyone is interested enough in local music, I guess they'll ask. But the truth almost no-one travels internationally to Edinburgh to dance although some come to dance while they are here for something else. Although it's a capital, it's a small city and there aren't enough milongas.

From Being or Becoming? : The real point though is not about DJing or salsa or tango. These are just context, examples. There, although the discussion was about DJing, the point was something else. Sometimes, the point is about the DJing, but not about the person.

I don't name guys who criticise women, although they deserve it and I don't make ad hominem arguments against DJs or teachers because it's neither my place nor my point. Some entries may be stories of things that happened and therefore appear to point to real individuals, but trying to figure out who they are is irrelevant. They represent types, examples of certain behaviours or practice and that is the point.

Some people get antsy when they are referenced, even anonymously, even on a blog. Others are entirely relaxed and these I trust more. Chatting to the author of Autobiophilosophy years ago I remember he said one autobiography was enough for one lifetime, for the legal issues if nothing else.

I often think of Joseph Mitchell's classic, Up in the Old Hotel, which are pen portraits, often of named people. I think I once read that he wrote about people compassionately but upon reading it thought, Really? But the portraits are compelling.

It takes a certain sort of person to be able to detach themselves from the effect they may have on the subject of the writing. I don't know if it's courage or something else.

Repeating orchestras (II) & Guardia Vieja

Album-Sudamericano Claudio-Rebagliati-1870, Wikimedia commons

 You couldn't make it up. 

I was chatting to a DJ about the orchestras I'd heard recently repeated in a short set only for him to announce this was his second Pugliese tanda within two hours.  He said it was OK because the tandas were only three tracks, not four... 

Then Troilo with singer Marino came on, for the second time.  

Didn't you play Troilo with Marino just before?

I had that familiar feeling of walking on dangerous ground which happens whenever one starts pushing a point. 

Probably, he said, unconcerned. 

The rest of the tangos were e.g. Los Provincianos, Mil Novecientos, Niño Bien, Orquesta Tipica Victor, and the dregs of Canaro: Sangre Azul, Nobleza de Arrabal.  Niño Bien is not the worst OTV, by any stretch but I suspect that was the best of that tanda.  Sangre Azul isn't even on the internet but here's the Lomuto version which is probably pretty close. Nobleza de Arrabal wasn't the good 1940 version, but the unbearable one from 1927.   It isn't heard in the traditional milongas of Buenos Aires because almost no-one would dance it. This Guardia Vieja style is all so similar it's like hearing one orchestra, not three.  That is not to say there is not good OTV; there is -  some tangos and especially the vals.  

It was like the recurring nightmare when Guardia Vieja was the norm in Edinburgh. It was around the time of publishing that piece that I was (unsurprisingly) suddenly dropped from DJing there. It was fine.  I had been shocked by the organiser at the time saying people had to "prove themselves" before they could dance with so-called good dancers of the organisers' so-called calibre.  It was an arrogance and unkindness so breathtaking that I departed that scene for years until they left. 

So there were at least three tandas (in threes) of that dirge-like music, two Pugliese, two Troilo with Marino one decent tango tanda and two good vals tandas, within two hours.  I stayed an hour and a half, mostly chatting.

And people wonder why the dancing is so poor in that city (it isn't Edinburgh).

DJ chat: playing classics

At the salsa club, the DJ plays salsa and bachata and everybody dances, all the time.  Of course people sit out sometimes, rest, chat, but there is always a vibe.  The DJ is known for his good music.  Latinos who have danced salsa all their lives leave distant cities and travel a long way for his club nights because of the music. 

I was puzzled though.  The salsa felt danceable to me and yet it was never the classics I knew and loved. He DJd then, the opposite way of those who DJ well in the milongas: around the well-known classics. I asked him about that.

- There are people who come and try and steal my music, he said, unexpectedly.  But they can't.  Because I never play the same track twice.

- Never? Not even on another evening?

- Never. 

And yet sometimes I heard the people start whooping at the start of tracks they appreciated, and clearly knew.  

He said he didn't want to sound arrogant but he had been doing this for twenty five years and DJing for six and that I couldn't learn in a lifetime what he knew about salsa.  

Okay. 

He went on to say there was so much salsa that you could play it and play and never repeat a song.

I asked him why he doesn't play the classic salsa numbers I know by e.g. Willie Colón , Ismael Rivera, Celia Cruz.

- I don't play commercial music.

- Commercial music?  The classics of the seventies and eighties are commercial music?

- Yes.

- What, nothing?  Never? Nothing by La Fania, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico...?

- No.

- Why not?

- They're boring, he said.  People who want commercial music can f*** off.

Wow. I had complimented him on the music more than once, but I felt warned. And I was too surprised to ask if people were not getting paid from the  music he did play. Wasn't all recorded music 'commercial'?

His line sounded familiar: DJs who avoid the classics to play hidden gems.  And yet the people were dancing.

- I could play classics, for Latinos, he said, who know the lyrics, the culture, and they could dance it, but I know they'd just sing along.

He does play other versions of classic numbers but people make covers of classics because they are really good, meaning the likelihood of the cover being as good or better, is slim.  That night I heard Lluvia con Nieve and Detalles in cover versions but it's like hearing the promise, the memory, the ache of something really good that isn't there. It's like a carrot being dangled in front of you but each time you get closer, being moved away. The music is still good but that sense of never hearing the original is frustrating.  It feels like a fire deliberately being dampened down.  

When I play the music, he said, the whole room dances.  

This was true.

- They don't know what they're doing, that they're dancing but they do it anyway.   I can bring them up or bring them down.

- So it's about power? Playing God?

- It's not about power, it's about flow.  

This sounded a bit like the DJ arc.  But despite this the guy made sensible points, about playing variety, about varying tempo so as not to exhaust the dancers.  I wanted to say what really brought about flow on the floor was the live percussion we sometimes had, but never got round to to it.

Neither of us like bachata but he plays a mix of salsa and bachata. 

- Why not just play salsa?

- Because if I did that I'd only have ten people here.

- Doesn't bachata break up the flow you mentioned?

- Yes, but they adapt. They trust me.  It's an education.  

- You are educating the dancers?

- Of course. 

- But if they are dancing unconsciously, how can you be educating them? Isn't education a conscious thing.?

- When you ride a bike, are you conscious of how you do it? 

- Well, no.

- But if I stopped you and said 'What are you doing?' You'd say you are riding your bike.

- Yes.

- So you can be conscious of something and unconscious at the same time.

This I conceded, but it felt a bit like sophistry and unsurprisingly, I couldn't put my finger on the problem.

I sidestepped the issue of whether a DJ should be "educating" dancers, or playing for them.  Instead, I said, 

But what is the point of educating them if they don't really know, or care, what is happening? 

One or two may go away with a tune, look into the music...

I wanted to say, But if you never play the same track twice, what good is that? but it escaped me.

I was still struggling to understand why he played unknown music over classics, or at least a mix. 

He must have been thinking 'These questioning, nordic women are pesante. Why can't they just be, relax, dance?' 

- If you played the classics do you think people would dance?

- People here, yes. 

- If you played  bad music, would they dance?

- Yes.

And yet I felt I still didn't really understand what motivated him to play cover tracks, music that wasn't well known.  All in all, I went away more confused than when I started the conversation.

Later I heard a great track I knew, a classic number. I forget the name but he told me when I asked. 

- It was really close to the original, I said, remembering he never played commercial music.

- It was the original, he said, mystifyingly.

Repeating orchestras

Brett Jordan

In the local city milonga there has been a DJ for some years now who can play classic tracks, quite often three or four in a row with the same feel. The problem was it was erratic but more particularly it was deafeningly loud. So it was with trepidation I returned after a long absence. Delightfully, it was not too loud.  It was even too quiet sometimes, or variable, but it was a vast improvement. I remember a Rodriguez tanda with two good tracks plus Horas, which I used to think was lugubrious but tolerate better now. The last track was Marinero where those triples from the start are annoying. Neither are top flight Rodriguez tracks. 

Then there was a tanda with Tigre Viejo, something from OTV and Malerba’s Sollozos.  I seem to remember all the tracks were good and that’s what I most care about, as long as we don't veer wildly between the eras of an orchestra or flail between the mood of a track by one orchestra and a different mood by another orchestra in the same tanda. That join should be more or less invisible to the dancers.   But I blinked in disbelief. There is so much good Fresedo to make a tanda with Tigre Viejo.

Chris's Setblog

Still, I went back when there was some live music and the same DJ playing either side. There was an OTV tanda before the live music.  OTV is fine, a creditable orchestra, some nice tangos, some lovely vals. I went to see what the DJ was planning after the live music.  OTV, he said.  Again?!, I said, the surprise doing a number on my manners.

He looked characteristically put out. Why not? It’s like saying "Don’t play Di Sarli twice in an evening".

I said nothing.

But the point is this: Pet favourites of the DJ’s apart (which should not count), In a short set of two or three hours.  D’Arienzo is the only orchestra that really bears repeating.  Why repeat an orchestra at the expense of one we haven’t heard from yet? If I was feeling generous I might say Di Sarli is another possible exception. Di Sarli is not my own favourite but that orchestra does have three completely different styles - the four good tracks from the sextet, the rhythmic tracks e.g. Catamarca and the more romantic tracks, often with the singers Podestà or Durán, numbers heavy on the violins like Vamos .  

So did I mention, Why repeat an orchestra at the expense....?

Old music vs traditional music

Biagi,  Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires

I would have a string of hot dinners if they could be exchanged for the number of times I have had this conversation:

Are you coming to the milonga?

No, I don't fancy it.

How come?

I just don't like the music that DJ plays.

Oh, but it'll be traditional, they say, knowing that's what I like.

But it isn't. I know, from experience, they mean the music will be from somewhere between 1920 and 1970 and that by no means will it be the great classics, because that "gets boring" apparently.  Amazing that dance numbers can be well-loved for nearly a hundred years and yet some people find them boring.  Would that those people would take themselves off to, or open, a "neolonga".    

'Old' music does not mean 'good' music or even 'traditional' music. 'Traditional' means  the music has been loved and danced for decades, mostly in Buenos Aires.  The classics we hear, that are danced in cities all over the world are loved because they are good for dancing! They have not become classics randomly and there was no committee that sat to decide the 100 best tandas.    

Edinburgh DJs

The local milonga scene has just lost a fairly young, new DJ Ivan, to London.  Ivan was playing some of the best music in Edinburgh recently and I was disappointed to miss his last two or three sets due to illness. The other good DJ is Tareq who arrived last year in Dundee for a year's course of study. He occasionally DJs in Edinburgh.

He has changed his style since he arrived.  He initially played a lot of cover bands and more dramatic music when he arrived because that is popular in the milongas in his country.  He was delighted to make use of these setlists for ideas, restoring my faith in human intelligence and spreading better classic music locally.  So often you lead the horse to clean water it still, inexplicably, insists on drinking the brackish stuff, although actually that’s an insult to horses they don’t deserve.

The other good Edinburgh based DJ was Richard but I never hear or see him probably because I haven’t been going out much to the city and I don’t think he does either. It’s a similar story with DJ Spyros also based in Dundee/ St Andrews.

It does raise the question why some of the best DJs (and good dancers) rarely go out to dance or DJ locally.

85 decibels

85 decibels - did you know that is the point at which your ears can get damaged?  I saw an audiologist last week and she told me.   Apparently, the eardrum is just 3 thin layers of skin. Was I was sensitive to noise?  asked the audiologist?  I assumed she meant in comparison to other people. Probably, I said. I seek out cafes without music, traffic noise seems to disturbs me more than most and in the milonga I wince at certain volumes or certain frequencies (for want of knowing a better term). I see that others don't although when I ask people if they find the music particularly loud, they often agree.

How loud is 85 decibels?  Not as loud as you might think.  85 to 89db is the sound of heavy traffic, a noisy restaurant, or a power lawn mower

The same site gives some warning signs:

A sound may be harmful if:

- You have difficulty talking or hearing others talk over the sound.
- The sound makes your ears hurt.
- Your ears are ringing after hearing the sound.
- Other sounds seem muffled after you leave an area where there is loud sound.

When does hearing get damaged through noise?
Most cases of noise-induced hearing loss are caused by repeated exposure to moderate levels of noise over many years, not by a few cases of very loud noise.

So, hanging out for hours in milongas where DJs are playing too loudly?  I should think so!

If the music is too loud for you, the obvious course of action is to tell the host you (and others, if you know it) find the music too loud. If there is no obvious host and the DJ seems to be in charge, you can try asking the DJ. Or, you can leave which is frustrating, especially if you have travelled a long way. DJs who play loud often play dramatic music with a singer who enters earlier than usual, or where the track gives obvious emphasis to the singer. Or, a DJ who plays loudly might tend to play an imbalanced set favouring rhythmic tracks; so if you stay you could end up feeling harassed and disturbed as well as deafened. Clearly, in these circumstances dancing for you is perhaps no longer the priority it might have been when you entered.

My own experience is that if I ask a DJ (or even if I or a friend asks the host to ask a DJ) to turn the music down it makes practically no difference. This was the case again only recently. Although the previous week the music had been practically all classics hardly anyone had been there. But the following week, on Easter Sunday the volume was overloud, the music overdramatic and the place was packed as I haven’t seen it in years. 

You might think DJs would be grateful for the free feedback but so convinced are most that they are right and the dancers wrong, that they only pretend to fiddle with the volume control or adjust it so fractionally that you can't hear the difference. And yet I have seen countless DJs sitting behind the speakers, where the sound is nothing like as strong as it is in front of the speakers; or they are not on the dance floor where the sound is played to, or they only cursorily visit the dance floor (perhaps to be seen to be taking their job seriously). Or they are going deaf.  So not only are they making a token gesture to adjust the volume, they are not even in the right place to hear what the volume is like for dancers helpfully telling them what is wrong. This is a DJ who thinks of themselves as superior to the dancers, probably an educator, and definitely not at their service, whatever they might say in their marketing blurb. A DJ genuinely at the service of dancers will take feedback seriously and gratefully.

I checked the price of a decibel measurer. Affordable! Well under £20. Next time I hear an overloud DJ play, should I measure the volume and show them or the host how close it is to 85? Would it make a difference? Then I remembered that such DJs do not tend to be worth hearing anyway.  Besides, I would only be branded (more of a) troublemaker, someone who just won't toe the line of the people in charge.

That is one of the reasons why I travel to dance - for more variety of DJs and for anonymity. You won't be there next week so no need to 'make a suggestion'. You tell yourself the pleasure of the novelty balances out the disadvantages although I find the real pleasure now tends to be in the daytime tourism or catching up with friends.

The funny thing is, in a sea-change from only twenty years ago, most businesses these days beg you, almost pay you for your feedback. Why is it that many milonga hosts and DJs, don't feel that way? Is it something to do with the particular themes associated with tango music and the milonga?

"If you feel the music"

A: I'm probably going to start djing in the next few months...for my local group.  But I will start by playing music I know and love so it will be well known tracks. Also the dancers here are mostly new, so I want to play things they may have heard to get them up. 

But even just getting a tanda with a similar sound and mood from about the same era, which is danceable is no mean feat.  I haven't tried blending tandas yet. And I haven't checked the dates on my tandas!

B: If you feel the music, dates are of no value. Most of what is said about matching dates is for DJs that do not feel the music.

A: I am so relieved by what you said about the dates, because I had in a way thought that but until then I would not have been brave enough to go with my instinct. 

B: :) 

A: I can't imagine how or why anybody could or would want to dj if they didn't have a feeling about the music.

B: Many people have no idea what it is to feel the music hence don't know they are lacking

Setlists: "Mine, mine, mine"

Linnaea Mallette

A: Hi XXX, I have just seen you are DJing at XXX. I am thinking of coming to the milonga but it would be a significant detour from my route home. Would you be willing to share a recent set list for travel purposes? 

B: Hi! I am not sure I understand what you are asking for. If you are wondering about what kind of music I play, I will happily tell you. But I do not share set lists.

A:  So what kind of music do you play?

B sends standard DJ blurb for a marathon and tries to palm me off saying they play danceable music (does anyone claim the opposite?) and covers everything from drama to Guardia Vieja none of which tells me anything useful. 

A: If you don't mind my asking what is your reason for not sharing set lists for travel purposes?

B: My set lists are my work. I spend time and effort on them. I see no need to give them out to a complete stranger. As I say, I happily discuss music and musical taste, but will not give away my work.

I ask DJs if they will share set lists quite often. 

Sometimes I ask them to share privately because I want to know whether travel to hear them may be worthwhile though I know from experience that even a good sample set is no guarantor because poor soundcraft can - and often does - ruin a good or good enough set.  Most of the time I get a positive response - but then I don't ask everybody. That tells me a lot: that most DJs I ask are probably relatively nice, trusting, relaxed, open, good-natured and secure people.  

Sometimes I ask people I know if they will let me share a set publicly (I think always one I have heard) on The Outpost or on Milonga Review for all the many reasons that sharing sets is useful. I can't remember anyone I've asked who has said no.  I found that slightly surprising and very heartening. I've had - still have - one waverer but that's all. 

Although these are genuine reasons for asking people to share probably the most interesting thing for me is to see what kind of person shares sets versus what kind of person will not. And - the reasons they give when they don't (if any).

I understand people may not want to share setlists but I rarely buy the "can't" argument.  It is so unpersuasive I don't hear it often.  Sometimes I have written sets out by hand, photographed and posted them.  Once I wrote down a set on paper from an agreeable DJ's computer at the end of the night and  - short of spare time - typed it out on the train on the way home and posted it from my phone.  It didn't have the dates so it wasn't ideal but even with just orchestra name and track names an experienced DJ can tell at a glance what the set was like, it gives even a new DJ some idea, it tells dancers who want a reminder about a track they loved what it was, it tells a potentially travelling dancer what this DJ played and it tells everyone that this person shares.

I have heard many reasons people give for not sharing playlists - not always from people I have asked. One tends to get a vibe from that sort before asking.  They are nearly always to do with my work, my effort, mine, mine, mine and - always unsaid - my fear.

Still, I love to see the ones who say "No" publicly. It's so revealing.

The first one I saw was Charles Long's (of Eton) and can still remember the surprising sense of being pushed away since I'd recently seen someone taking a completely opposite approach.

Of course, if you are going to share a set it is better to do it well.  I saw some questions here about how to share setlists but have yet to see them well answered. 

Setblogs: "Art meant to be shared"

The title quote is Cliff Coulter's which I love because it resets the idea of sharing the list of music that is played in a milonga away from the negative reasons people give for not doing so. From here (Archived).

I also like the simplicity of Jerry Allen's view "You can share any playlist, it is just a list of songs". When I think of the "Mine, all mine!" DJs who won’t share, I do love the contrast with statements like this.

So, a term as rare as it is useful: “the setblog”. This is a regularly updated list of sets (i.e. the music, the tandas and tracks) played by a particular DJ at real milongas and made available on the web. It is like a public diary of the music that a particular DJ played and where it was played and when.

To my mind the best of these setblogs because of the quality of the music for dancing, the presentation and the fact that musical clips are often provided, is Chris Jordan’s here.  You can also see how a particular track has been used in combination with other tracks through his "uses" feature giving results such as this.

Don’t miss also his Top Tandas - usefully grouped by date.  There are many reliably good ideas here for DJs, especially new DJs. I don't think there should be any guilt or reservations about using these as whole tandas because I believe they are probably offered there to be used however any DJ wants to use them. I doubt Chris thinks anyone "owns" the ideas about playing music that has been played in so many combinations (many of them now famous, classic tandas) for decades. If a new DJ was to string say four or five hours of these tandas together in a set and they lived within a couple of hours of me, I would be there! It could be so easy. Why do people want to make it hard?

Other sites with setlists (information, not endorsement). If you know of any more, please do say.

Current:

By Dmitry

Latest sets from Port Townsend (under More>Last Milonga Music)

By Clive in UK

Jessica Schilling's public playlists on Spotify  

"With that in mind, it doesn’t seem like giving away any great trade secret to let people know what you played. Everyone, including the DJ, learns as a result!" From here.

Archive resources:

Homer's sample sets.  Various music.

A few mixed music setlists from C-U tango, Illinois from 2011  

David and Ann’s  practica playlists (mixed alternative/trad from 2012 and earlier).

 

Others

There are also some here and by other DJs scattered through this blog you are reading, e.g. here and on the Milonga Review website e.g. here.  I might get around to putting them all in one place one day.  

Sample tandas  

Derrick Del Pilar's Favourite Tandas

Tanda of the week: Variable tanda contributions by the site host and various DJs.

Clint's tanda collections  

Tango Route's tandas on Youtube

Track groupings by Anton.

Starting to DJ: Technology

A: Start your DJing right, please. This will massively empower you to empower others.

B: How do you mean, "right"?

A: Mainly without distraction/diversion/obstruction from technology, and from experts distracted/diverted/obstructed by technology.

Note: in this case, "A" is a technology expert.

Starting to DJ: Me-jaying

Kianti Azizah, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A: Please don't let your "It's not me" discourage you from using others' tandas. You should not expect to make good tandas on day #1.

B: I think we misunderstand each other. I'm not. But I have to make the tandas partly myself. I simply won't learn if I just copy tandas or even sets from someone else.

A: You won't learn the composition side, but you will learn the performance side. And the performance side needs learning first, I think, esp. if you have no experience with PA.

B: There is a difference between studying someone else’s tandas and setlists and making choices and judgements of your own based on that (which may result in playing the same tanda), and just playing someone else's precomposed setlist. Use of someone else’s sets or tandas has to be the former, active use.

A: Can't see why. Next you'll be wanting to play the notes! :)

B:  It isn’t active. Like dancing. It isn't "just" following, is it? 

A: Beware of me-jaying. The good DJ is not a leader. He is simply a provider. If what he provides is good, no-one cares how active he is. Unless (if he's a me-jay) him/herself.

B: Me-jaying? I've never heard of that!

A:  Extreme example (aided by technology) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8_PjawCcy8

B:  I dunno, maybe he just likes vinyl. People do, I believe. 

A: Sure he does. All the better for Show DJing :)

B: Plenty of people there don't seem to mind.

A: Plenty of people aren't there. :)

I haven't heard tango on vinyl, but should you want to, besides Jens-Ingo, I know this DJ specialises it, (advert) and this one (advert).  I'd be interested to hear of any other vinyl-playing DJs you might know of.

Not about the DJ

Yesterday, at the end of the milonga the host had immediately invited thanks from the dancers for the music.  Of course it is lovely to be appreciated, but from my small corner table I squirmed in the public spotlight.  I was more delighted when someone came up later to thank me privately and to say they had not realised I had played the music. I had been able to chat and dance because the gaps between tracks and sound of my tracks had been normalised for me meaning I did not have to be constantly at the controls managing gaps and volume (or pretending to). I was DJing from a very small device not a laptop so who the DJ was was not at all obvious.  Doing so also avoided the many problems of laptop DJing.

I don't remember DJs in Buenos Aires being applauded.  I feel it is more seen as just a job over there requiring competence, not special treatment.  When Solveig DJd in Cambridge - everyone wanted to applaud, me included.  It depends on the atmosphere.  But the feeling from the music at the end of the night, even after good music is often not the social duty of applause, but sometimes more naturally to chat with your last partner as you leave the floor.  Sometimes I feel guilty if I forget to applaud - but it has become a convention here in Europe, I do not think it is always something wholly natural.

Head-banging to Pugliese

opethpainter

“I saw an American DJ Beth-Anne Osborn (Marine Hall, Fleetwood, Blackpool Tower tango weekend) doing the same once [pumping the air]. Someone told me she organises an alternative scene in the US. She played good tracks when I heard her 18mo ago at Fleetwood near Blackpool but the headbanging to Pugliese, the focus of the DJ spot on the stage, the arm punching the air...  I didn't dance a single tanda there - the conditions, the gloomy room and the deafening volume made for one of the most unpleasant atmospheres I can remember at a milonga. But I see last year they brought her back again. Friendly lady though.”

I don't want to be mean. Beth Anne was interesting and accommodating to talk to a stranger mid-tanda.  Maybe the head-banging is just the American way and the track, which was near the end I think, was amazing. It felt like slow-motion or the notes at that point drawn out. If memory distorted into feeling, the scene would be slightly surreal, like a neon light on the blink in some strange bar, or like a strobe light flickering above Beth-Anne. That's what it felt like, observing:  that piece of the track in slow-motion and Beth Ann on stage, her torso and head moving up and down to the music, completely absorbed by it.  

But she was having fun and shouldn't the DJ have a good time too?  Why should anyone care what she does on stage - the dancers were dancing, the sitters were watching (and we weren't many) and Beth Anne was enjoying herself.  I think we are just used to our DJs being more reserved here. It was fun, it was entertaining for me, watching. It was a cultural thing.  It was only unusual. 

Let's say it was just that I didn't have a good time there.  I'd been deafened, frozen, not danced and eventually abandoned ship.  There was a bit too much "whipping up".

Sometimes though things do go too far.  I'm thinking of DJ Goran Nikšić at the December Etonathon 2015 which I don't think I ever did get round to reviewing.  It was partly I suppose because I didn't see how I could pull off being honest, polite and still hope to get back in.  You can get a flavour of the guy and his music here.  I couldn't quite believe it when I saw the DJ line up for this year.  The new version (phew!). But it was what he actually did at  the Etonathon that I'm thinking of.    Another time maybe. 

DJs like spoons

Generally, I don’t like to see attention drawn to the DJ spot. In nearly every milonga I visit the DJ is given some kind of prominence. Often they are up on a stage and not always I feel just to be out of the way of dancers. Or they are in the centre of the short side of the room, as here, the table surrounded by fairy lights as if to emphasise how special the DJ is. I love fairy lights and would not want to deny them to any DJ why do tango DJ's seek prominence and why are they accorded such adulation, like an array of minor tango gods?

Who is the star, really?  The music, or the person choosing it & sticking it on the sound system? I remember a sound engineer saying that DJing for tango, is one the easiest types of DJing, which may be why it attracts so many rank amateurs.

I recall someone saying they would like to borrow a set from a well known DJ, one of the names that commonly draws a crowd and play it under their own, less well known, name, just to see how it was received.  The idea was an experiment regarding to what extent dancers are influenced by name over content.   Someone else mentioned a DJ  - not a 'big' name  but one I have heard reliably mentioned as probably worth hearing - referred to by someone else, to my surprise as not being a name that attracted good dancers, probably because my guess is they are low-key and unflashy rather than that they do not play well.

My ideal host would run a milonga with such reliably good music that the DJ name would not matter.  I imagine that such a place would be so reliable it would be bound to attract good dancers. Other things in life - school, work, family - being equal, and they never are, for that musical peace of mind and the prospect of the good dancers I might reasonably expect to find there,  I can imagine moving to such a place were such a host healthily robust and heartily committed.

A few examples of less prominent DJing or DJ organisation stand out for me. The Edinburgh festivalito had the DJ table in the corner and when I heard DJ Solveig in Cambridge in January in I think her UK DJ debut she not only occupied a quiet spot off the busy floor but was a very quiet DJ, watching and listening, although it proved later in the year not listening enough. Now she teaches, so not that quiet I guess.

The DJ was never the focus I noticed in Buenos Aires. There, DJ's tend to be paid professionals.  Many do not dance or do not dance much.  In Lo de Celia, Dany Borelli, a non-dancer and the best DJ I heard, shared his space with the barman. Wholly unpretentious in t-shirt, sneakers and specs you could have mistaken him for the barman. He was up on the stage in Centro Región La Leonesa but set back, behind you as you come in and so unobtrusive that for a long time I didn't twig to where the DJ was. In Gricel the DJ used to be above the dancers, seeing but unseen though Janis says that's changed now. In El Beso, it's the same thing - the DJ is quietly above the dancers. Even in Obelisco, the DJ is down the far end in a little room on their own near the loos. In Buenos Aires the DJs seemed to be, yes important, but tools, facilitators not the god-like creatures many seem to want to be or are made into. 

Everyone who cared, which is to say, the traditional dancers, who cared about the music, the conventions, the embrace, which is to say mostly people over fifty, knew who the good DJs were.  They followed them round the different clubs on different nights of the week - and that meant they largely followed Dany.  

The ego that attends nearly all DJs at European tango events is absent in the best traditional clubs of Buenos Aires. It's obvious that in Europe ego is the problem because the quality of the music you hear - be that in sound quality, set balance, or tanda construction - is plain to anyone who listens.  Because the DJ is now the main event, rather than the music, they are forced to try to distinguish themselves in what they play, which screws everything up for dancers, rather than just playing good music for dancing where really the DJ doesn't actually matter; after all it's hardly as if they wrote the music or played the instruments.

A bike, to the Dutch is like a piece of cutlery, functional, reliable. Its purpose is to get you from A to B. Here in the UK, bikes are often recreational objects of desire and status. Here in Europe, DJs seem to think they have to differentiate themselves and play special surprises.  I was defending a DJ against scepticism today:  "But did he play any treasure tracks?" came the biting question, meaning any of the hidden gems I've mentioned before that are obscure and unknown for good reason.   I too don't like treasure track DJs.  I prefer to think of tango DJs rather like Dutch bikes and spoons.