Back to the whole DJ thing – will I ever learn?

traktordjstudio3

Ah the mix-tape.  Am I still in high school?  College?  Trying desperately to get the attention of a lovely young lady who barely knows I exist?  I know!  A mixtape!  My unaprralleled knowledge of music will instantly win her over and we’ll live happily ever after.  All my fears of rejection will be extinguished even before the auto-reverse mechanism clicks over to the second 45 minutes of aural bliss.

Actually, my ‘mixtape’ fantasy worked once.  A tape I made caused two people to fall madly in love and get married.  The only problem was that I was not one of them.  That’s a story for another time.  But a recent release of crazy cool Brazilian music made me rethink the whole DJ thing, but this time in a slightly different light.  The record is Gilles Peterson – Brazilika, and I guess if I had grown up in the UK, I might have a better of who Gilles Peterson is and why i should care about his music.  It’s amazing to me that there’s a DJ in the UK, over 40 years old, who can release a relevant compilation of music.  Would that happen in this country?  Anyway, the record is great, introduced me to Azymuth, whose early stuff seems vey much ‘up my alley’, and is a nice listen straight through.

But, of course, I got to thinking – ‘I could do that.  Better.’  Of course.  So, the thinkg before was starting with an abstract idea of making everything happen all at once – past-present-future all mixed on to one glorious track.  Looking back on that post from the past, it’s little wonder I didn’t follow-through on the project.  So now, after delighting to the treasures in Mr. Peterson’s vault, I’m thinking of going back to my virtual decks, looking into some of the more obscure corners of my record collection and – mixtape.  Something of a glossy sampler to be released through Blogerantz.  Maybe some post-production and a fancy bit of art, but still really just a mixtape.