Just wandered over here from the DJ History forum. I do like a good forum! This looks very fine after only a quick look around.
Over on DJ History I use my actual old DJ name from the early ‘80s, JonathanE. Here, I’m switched up to JackdawVersion, a name that developed in the late ‘00s on the fabulous and sadly defunct Sound of the World forum hosted by Charlie Gillett, old-time writer, DJ and musical explorer. He sometimes would call himself Jackdaw, as coincidentally did I, and so not to tread on his toes, I became JackdawVersion. I have a thing about birds especially Corvidae. It’s an unfortunate sign of the times that I first spelt that as “covids”!
Anyway, I am immensely lazy so please forgive me for just pasting in most of my introductory explanation of my weirdness from DJ History.
It’s a first time “hello” from me here. I should probably change my name to DJ Emeritus it’s so long since I spun out. Like decades! But I have a respectable home rig and a load of vinyl from back in the day, not to mention too many of those little shiny things. Wait! ERROR, there is no such thing as too many little shiny things whatever the shelving system may think.
Once upon a time, the 1980s, I was a peripatetic club DJ in San Francisco. I started off with punk in a little club called Le Disque on Haight Street between the bands, which I suppose you’d have to call “new wave” for the most part. Well, you know deejaying punk singles is hard work - they’re damn short! Plus the nihilistic tendencies of so many of them did not suit my basically hippy mood. I really was a bit old to be a punk by UK standards, but we weren’t so strict in San Francisco. So, I moved on into more of a reggae/funk groove. But still mixed it up a bit. I don’t think many tapes survive, which is probably a good thing.
Then, it must have been 1982, I heard King Sunny Ade and my life went down the African rabbit hole. There really wasn’t much to find at that time, but I dug away at it and by 1984 could do four-hour sets of all “world beat,” which included soca and reggae and some of that odd mixed-up stuff coming from the UK. A little salsa. And I’d add some hip-hop and go-go. I was kind of the “go-to white guy” for an evening of tropical music and did special nights at many of SF’s clubs. Things were pretty good and eventually I had my own regular night at a place then called The 16th Note on the edge of the Mission. Success! Well, for awhile. The decent owner of the club got shoved out by his crackhead partners and eventually so did I. They had some crazy idea about putting on live bands instead of the best DJ in town!
I did a few more years of wandering, some all-nighters - for real, I’d spin from midnight to 8 am at illegal after-hours drinking joints, some cushy opening spots for touring bands at respectable venues, a few weddings - but at that time $100 for a set was about normal, so eventually some sense of reality sunk in and I took a day job. Which was not so bad ‘cos it at least started with digital presentation of music on CD-ROMs, pre-internet or at least browsers, and lead to some interesting places, although I have to admit that I did not quite grok all the future implications of digiwhatnot at the time.
Anyway, I now entertain myself by staying up late, messing around with tunes, making the very occasional mix tape for my truck on a cassette ‘cos there ain’t any other kind, and dancing away, hopefully imaginatively and with style - the only form of exercise I believe in.
PS My profile photo is from even before I was a DJ.
