Monday August 16, 2004

DJs of the future

On Saturday I attended a neighbor's wedding. An interesting combination of good people, open bar, and finger food all in the outdoors in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

First off, let me warn you that the "open bar" and "finger food" combination is almost never a good idea. A recipe for interesting times, but perhaps not times you want to remember on your wedding day. "Don't worry, before the 6 beers and wine, he ate a cheese cube" is even less comforting in person that it probably sounds here.

When people started dancing, I went up to the DJ and requested a song. Ok, so maybe not the best song for a wedding. "Pinch Me" by the Barenaked Ladies. It could have been worse. Really, I wasn't trying to be inappropriate.

I honestly don't know if the DJ forgot my request, was blocking it out as an inappropriate request for the occasion, or simply couldn't find it. He was thumbing through a huge book of CDs when I talked to him. All of the CDs looked exactly the same: home burned CDs with hand written labels.

As a software engineer and a decent human being that values the contributions of others, I am against copying intellectual property without permission. Honestly I don't know if he had the CDs at home and these were his backup copies. I mean, you never know when atmospheric conditions will be such that our Cell phone transponders behave in a way that turns our entire city into the likes of the inside of a microwave oven. Imagine all of those legal CDs sitting there sparking like flat little lightening storms as the lyrics are burned off, emitting the smell of an old hair dryer in the process. What a tragedy!

I was thinking at the time that CDs are the wrong tool for the job. You actually have to touch them! That is so primitive. You have to physically put them into a device that has to manipulate them to read the audio. That is so invasive. You have to find the song you want on the CD that it's on amid thousands of other songs, many of which are named the same thing.

If only there were a scheme, a device, some form of contraption that was really good at keeping things organized. Maybe something that was able to play music to entertain you as it organizes your stuff. Maybe something similar in concept to ... I don't know ... this will sound crazy ... like an iPod.

DJs should be using iPods. There. I said it. It is so obvious, but it still had to be said.

I know there will be tons of pushback on this idea. "But if I don't have to drag tons of stuff around with me to my gigs, anyone will be able to play music for themselves", DJs might say.

Ding! Ding! Exactly. But understand that a DJ's value add is two fold:

1. DJs own a ton of songs. Either that or they represent access to tons of songs without the legal liability of their clients having to personally steal them. If this is the case, try to think of a DJ as legal insulation for the people that actually know better.
2. Who else could possibly supply the witty banter and background radiation conversation and segues that keep a party moving if not the DJ?

Of course, I realize that the entire DJ industry may have already made this change. Maybe I interacted with the only DJ in my area who hasn't seen the light of his iPod illuminating a completely organized set of songs that is easy to navigate and starts playing instantaneously.

Maybe he is also holding out on other things. Like obtaining an ATM card. He could be the guy that always seems to be in the grocery store line just before me, writing out a check with his hands as I wait there pondering perhaps the purchase of a news rag that has completely nonsensical headlines. Apparently he marvels at this wonderous piece of paper that could be worth any amount by simply writing the desired value on the dried wood paste that is the product of our thinning forests. Or worth completely nothing. Of course he would be impressed by a thin disk smaller than his own head that can remember upwards of 70 minutes of audio flawlessly.