My Latest Record Attempt

In the days when I was young and fancy-free, I used to go to the occasional night club or disco. Obviously, most of the time, I used to stay in and practice my cross-stitch but, just now and again, I would be dragged kicking and screaming into these dens of iniquity, full of lithe young females, alcoholic beverages and loud music. I never really thought of the DJs and what was entailed but that's all changed now.

At my local hostelry, young Katie, the Bar Supervisor, is leaving due to her being with child (how nicely put) and therefore a small soiree (OK, a grand piss up) has been arranged. For reasons best known to the organisers (probably lack of funds) I've been asked to DJ and be Master of Ceremonies and me, being the shy, retiring type, agreed with alacrity.. Piece of wee really: take a few CDs,select a few lucky recipients of my acerbic wit and Hey Presto!, Stringfellows eat your heart out.

As usual, the famous Bertie optimism was sadly off radar. First of all, the songs; what do I play? I'd be happy playing "my" music but Mrs B pointed out that I was responsible for entertaining people (she can be a bit cutting at times, not to mention musically retarded). I had a choice: did I go for all terribly cheesey party songs or did I try and inject some sophisticated musical choices covering the 50 year age range of the customers and guests? I figured if I was going to be a party DJ then I'd go the whole hog and assembled about 70 songs which tend to be sold in the cheap CD section of Tesco. Trouble was, I needed to listen to them all to ensure that they were all playing properly.

My sniggers at inflicting the likes of Whigfield, Wham and the Macarena on the assembled throng quickly turned to silent screams as I sat here, crouched in a quivering heap, listening to a total pile of crap coming through my heaphones. Once I have played the Fast Food song Friday night, I will take great delight in Frisbeeing the CD into the river which runs alongside the pub. Of course, it didn't help that Mrs B was entering into the spirit of the occasion and belting out I Will Survive at 10,000 decibels whilst I certainly had doubts about whether I would. I did survive however and my thoughts then turned to my equipment, so to speak.

The sound system at the pub is a CD player made by the "On It's Last Legs Co" of Taiwan and totally unsuitable for the role I had assumed. Of course, by now, I was getting delusions of grandeur and imagining myself joining the exalted ranks of Fatboy Slim, Tony Blackburn and my daughter's latest favourite, DJ Binky RapSmeg or some such name. I needed to be slick and therefore I needed two CD players at the very least.

Katie's brother, who is organising it all, helpfully buggered off on holiday and won't be returning until the day before the gig so, after muttering something about seeing if he could hire something, I was left high and dry. I've got hold of some speakers about 4' tall and 20 tons each and an amplifier thingy with lots of inputs, outputs, sliders and stuff but still nothing to actually play the music, so I had the brainwave of doing it all from my laptop using DJ software. Mentally patting myself on the back, I got hold of some software and figured my troubles were over. Silly me! The screen was filled with a mass of controls which made about as much sense as a space shuttle cockpit does to a retarded gibbon and the PDF Manual (of 171 pages) didn't really help either. I spent a happy time delving into the world of looped cues, BPMs and Vu Hold Delay and a mark of my lack of progress was the wild excitement of being able to play YMCA 11 times without pause (OK, it's a fair cop, I hadn't worked out how to stop it!).

After a fraught day of experimentation, educated guesses and prayers to St. Jude (the Patron Saint of Lost Causes) I have managed to get sound and actually fade one track into another, which is about as far as I intend to push my luck. Of course, it's meant I've had to listen to the damn music all day again and that made me panic that I would be publicly lynched if it didn't go down well so I've therefore put a further 300 songs on the laptop. These are Rolling Stone magazine's Top 300 Songs Ever and far more to my taste (4 Neil Young amongst them - woohoo!!).

I was starting to relax about it all and then.........the laptop crashed! What if this happens on the night? OK, belt and braces job called for. This evening I have compiled 16 CDs full of back-up material so that, if the promised hire equipment turns up, I am covered as well.

The logical part of me says that the punters won't really care what happens as long as the beer pumps work. The perfectionist part of me wants to be able to finish the evening knowing that I've done my best. The realistic part of me knows that I wont really care as there is no way I intend to do this sober. The honest part of me admits that I am absolutely scared silly of making a total prat of myself.

Why, oh why, do I always get myself involved? Surely one day, I'll learn to say "No"? Until then, I shall remember those immortal words from Bananarama (CD1, track 14), now engraved forever on my brain: "It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it. That's what gets results."!