December 1995. My 16th birthday. I lived with my father at the time who had a work hard and party even harder philosophy of life. This was an ideal living situation for my teenage years. I had recently purchased my first DJ mixer (a Gemini "ScratchMaster" for all you DJ nerds reading this - the ORIGINAL version, with the orange graffiti logo of course), and my first pair of Technic 1200 turntables. All my spare time was spent in my bedroom trying to figure out how to get two records to sound good together. My father had informed me that he was going to be out of town the week of my birthday, and so I decided this was the perfect opportunity to have a "little" party to show off my newly acquired DJ skills to my friends. The problem was that I only had like 4 friends. There was lots of kids that said hi to me in school, but I couldn't count on them to come to my birthday party and I was TERRIFIED that only my 4 actual friends would show up. Thus began my party promotion career.
Every day at school for the two weeks-ish I was planning this little gathering, I scribbled my home address down on notebook paper for all those random kids that said hi to me in the hallways, and invited them to my party. In addition, I recruited the help of my 4 friends, who invited all of their friends (early lessons in the power of social networking). Me, being my paranoid self, I decided that just to be safe, I would also invite people that came into my work. I was a waitress at Big Boy and our customer base included plenty of kids from the neighboring high schools. My friend Candice worked there with me. She was the hostess. She would seat tables of cute boys in my section and then I would work up the nerve to invite them to my party.
It didn't take long before my pager (ha! remember pagers?!), started blowing up with people beeping about when to show up for the party and "is the party still going on?". When I found out the entire football team was coming, I decided that maybe it was a good idea to bring in a more experienced DJ with a better sound system. DJ Eternal, DJ Tech-Nine, and DJ X-Factor volunteered. To this day, I am still grateful to those 3 guys for helping to get me on the right (or wrong?...lol) track...but thats another story.
Anyway, so my birthday arrives, and Eternal, Tech-Nine and X-Factor show up with a booming sound system and plenty of vinyl. I am now getting incredibly nervous as we all work on setting up my house for the party. Setting up consisted of hiding all the valuables, blocking off areas of the house by piling furniture up, and of course hooking up the DJ gear. Guests started to arrive. There's about 20 people hanging out and I decide its time for my very first public DJ set. I put on the headphones, put the needle down on the record, and mixed my first song in. I think I was pretty off-beat. In fact, I'm sure it sounded like a train-wreck. But it didn't matter to me - I was hooked. I don't remember how long that first set lasted, all I know was there was nothing going on when I started mixing, and when I passed the headphones on to the next DJ, my living room was packed full of gyrating, sweaty teenagers dancing and partying. I got completely lost in the music and I loved every minute of it.
So actually, I didn't voluntarily hand over the headphones. My sister interrupted me because apparently my guests had climbed over the furniture roadblocks and had taken over my dads house. I have no idea how many people showed up, but it was alot. Packed house - basement, ground floor and upstairs. There was so much smoke in the living room from people smoking cigarettes it was hard to breathe, and cars were actually parked on my dads front lawn and the lawn of the senior citizen building across the street. Chaos. This led to an infamous Sara G. temper-tantrum. First thing I did was call the police on my own party. 2nd thing I did was decide not to wait for the police, and just toss people out myself. After everyone had left, I walked around and surveyed the damage. Furniture - broken. Carpet - ruined. Silverware - missing? And then the phone rang....uh oh, it was Dad. "How's the party kid? Having a good time?" I think the neighbors called him. Either them or the police. I just braced myself for the old school ass-whooping I knew I was going to get as soon as he got home......
Ahhhh.....feeling so nostalgic tonight as I think about those early days. :)
P.S. I miss vinyl.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
Wow, great story! And you don't write... why? My first mixing story was much more mundane. My GF back in the '70s had a console stereo -- one of those rigs with an FM tuner, turntable and 8-Track. I'd also plugged-in an external cassette deck into the AUX input. So one day I decide to be a goofball and put something on all the sources. I was listening to the radio and flipped to the turntable. By total luck, the song came in on beat! Then I flipped to the 8-Track -- and it was also on beat! Then the cassette -- SAME THING!!! I began to think, "What if I could do that on purpose?" Thus began my illustrious career -- LOL!
Hey, at least it was easier on the carpet. :)
Ha Stu! Great story too :)
I miss vinyl too,,,,,,I remember your first mix tape.....Mixing in my bedroom,it's been a while.
Post a Comment