THE EVOLUTION OF A DJ

The result of the growing digital age; stores that sold vinyl become obsolete, technics announces they will cease production of the 1200's, you can scratch digital records on an ipad, we text more than talk... People have gotten so sttached to their technology that some will not even allow themselves an hour of time free of their phones while they get a massage!  What's going on???

Let me say I LOVE a lot of the conveniences the technological age has allowed - carrying record crates was heavy lifting - but I can't help but feel nostalgic about what we are loosing in order to gain.  There was such a beauty to the artwork on record sleeves and a thrill in the hunt for them, especially when you found that rare 12" single, and I loved the popping sound a needle made on a record. Part of the art of being a DJ was finding the music... When I became a DJ in 2000 the digital age of spinners had already been ushed in.  I was a bartender at the time and there were female DJ's that would come to spin at the club I worked in carrying only a few cases of CD's under their arm.  Seeing this CD-DJ revolution happening and hearing these ladies not really representing the females well made me decide that I needed to get on and do it right.  It was about respect for me - respecting the art form as it was meant to be and gaining respect from my colleages for holding it down right.  Being able to do a little bit of beat juggling, match a beat and mix well, understand the music and rock the party right while still looking hot and feminine.  There was no greater compliment than when a patron realized that the person on the tables all night was a hot chick spinning vinyl!  It was, and still is, awesome.  But, lifting crates became old and serato became "it."  Serato enabled vinyl DJ's the ability to functionally spin as they always had - with a needle on a record - except you no longer needed to change the record.  Welcome the new way a DJ travels to the club:  with a small bag containing a couple master records, needles, headphones and their laptop.  It's genius really - we were able to carry infinite abouts of records without the weight and we did however, the cost is the death of record stores.  That's the evolution....

I expected, though it made me sad, that records would become obsolete but technics ceasing production of their 1200 turntables!  That surprized me.  No other company had made a better turntable for a DJ than technics and we still need turntables even with serato so why??  I am still searching for that answer.

My belif is that change is the only constant in this life and we should go with the flow... but as the winds blow us into our future I can't help but reminisce about the touch, feel and sound of a record.  I am proud to have had a chance to have been a DJ the original way and, though the death records makes me sad, I embrace our evolution.