I miss playing music for other people. Sure, my love of listening to music was a major driving force in seeking a career in the music industry, but for me, music is not only to be received, but also to be shared.
And since I have no great musical talents of my own - despite a year of French horn, the praise of my grandmother during piano lessons, and chorus roles in several high school and college musical theater productions - I can only share other people's music.
I guess my role as DJ - or, in the art world, "curator" - started when I was old enough to point at one of my father's 45 RPM singles that had a funny title and ask him to play it for me and my sister. We programmed Friday evenings full of songs like "Babysittin' Boogie" and "Popsicle" and "Black Slacks" and "Pimples and Braces" and other bubblegum hits of the 60s. Soon enough we were old enough to twirl the 45s on our own index fingers, spin them around their spindle (their paper sleeves long discarded) and place them on the turntable ourselves, curating psychedelic rock (though surely pop enough, "96 Tears" and the like) alongside hard rock ("Mississippi Queen," "Rock and Roll") and sweeping early rock and roll era love ballads and steel guitar instrumentals ("In the Still of the Night," "Sleepwalk").
We started working in our own records - Huey Lewis, Michael Jackson, Bonnie Tyler - but eventually we switched from our father's den to our own bedroom, where my sister and I sat wearing down the carpet in front of our stereo rack system playing each other songs, 45s with color sleeves that we pored over for the names of band members, songwriters, and record labels we could address fan letters to.
Once my sister went away to college, and I finally had our room all to myself, we started making each other mixtapes - my sister's replete with exotic new "college" music (Concrete Blonde and the like) and mine peppered with skits voiced by my stuffed animals, recorded on our portable tape recorder. When I joined my sister in college (to her dismay, attending the same one as she did), it took me a couple of years but I finally became a real DJ on WRCU, our campus radio station.
Never mind that the show was early Saturday morning, only garnering about a half dozen listeners weekly. I loved the idea that someone, anyone, would be introduced to new songs, new remixes, and old classics that I had picked, even if the only person affected was my co-host Michelle. We loved music together. We ran screaming from some of each other's choices. But we shared in all the good and the bad.
I continued making mixtapes and, eventually, mix CDs for friends even after I graduated college and moved to NYC. When I was laid off from Atlantic Records, I got a freelance job programming the music played in the overhead at Crunch fitness clubs across the country, making my DJ dreams come true again and making a lot of struggling electronic artists extremely happy to hear their songs somewhere.
In 2002, I realized one of my biggest music industry dreams when renowned As Seen on TV music compilation company Razor & Tie hired me as a product manager, and upon noting my game show win on my resume, allowed me to help produce the compilations that they would sell on TV. I had a couple hits, a couple misses, and a lot of long debates as to the merits of certain 80s tracks that were not big hits but have stood the test of time. It was a dream come true, my favorite part of a job that lasted over six years (yet was never officially part of my job description), and the one reason I might have considered staying had I not ultimately resigned.
Now, what am I left with? No father to blow the dust off his old records. No sister to share a room with (instead, a roommate who could care less). No radio show, no gyms, no stores, no late night cable TV campaigns.
So I will take my forum where I can get it. I will program music even if there is no one to listen to it. For whomever is reading, here is my gift to you: a Halloween playlist.
If you can't see the player embedded above, click here.
These aren't the novelty songs found in my father's record collection (like the "Transylvania Twist"), nor the 60s pop gems whose titles and themes loosely fit the theme of All Hallow's Eve ("Spooky," etc.), but a good collection of relatively modern and current party songs that celebrate creepin', freakin', and a whole lotta sweet treats.
Enjoy.
Tracklisting:
- TLC - "Creep"
- Missy Elliot - "Get UR Freak On"
- 69 Boyz - "Tootsee Roll"
- Cameo - "Candy"
- Cameo - "She's Strange"
- Lady Gaga - "Monster"
- Ne-Yo - "Beautiful Monster"
- Rihanna - "Disturbia"
- Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"
- Sea Wolf - "Wicked Blood" (quite a good Halloween video!)
- My Chemical Romance - "Helena"
- deadmau5 ft. Rob Swire - "Ghosts N Stuff"