This is the third book in succession Iāve read about the phenomenon we love and know as Electronic Music. I think thatās what to call it anyway. As time goes on I like using that term less and less as āEDMā becomes more and more infused into our everyday lives. Either way, whatever you want to call it each book has been significantly different in its approach to this intoxicating lifestyle but equally enjoyable. āNinetyā by Johnny Proctor was a foray into fiction and Acid House, āSonic Youth Slept On My Floorā by Dave Haslam was a memoir that heavily focused on his DJing and now we have āThe Secret DJā, a memoir of sorts but it reads like fiction with its larger than life escapades! I loved it and would highly recommend reading this to anyone. Iām not sure this is particularly a ābook reviewā per se but I talk about it and what parts of it mean to me.
The Secret DJ is a series of tales from a now fifty something DJ who was one of the original āSuperstar DJsā. He takes us on a non-chronological journey of debauchery, realism, philosophy, narcotics, comedy and education. Several characters play a supporting role, none more so than Tour Manager his, well tour manager obviously. Except he sounds like the most useless tour manager ever and is saved by the fact he sounds like the most hilarious wingman you can imagine. Possibly not for The Secret DJ but certainly for the reader.
The book is written obviously from an anonymous source and focuses purely on life on the road as a working DJ, apart from a couple of life-changing events. Thereās no childhood stories that give you hints of the life to come, thereās no background as to how he became a DJ, itās just straight in with the mostly comical japery and what itās like to endure/enjoy that lifestyle that is so revered by many, but so few could ever withstand.
As someone who started DJing back when few people did I can empathise with so much of the book. Iām around 10 years younger so although I was part of the first army of ābedroom DJsā, there were far fewer of us than there are nowadays and there was no sync button. Much of his outlook is āIām an old bastard and it was much better in my dayā, and as much as I try not to be, my outlook is not too dissimilar. Of course itās wrong, there are undoubtedly things that were much better āback in the dayā but there are also better things nowadays. Sometimes the same thing is why it was better then/now. We had no camera phones so everyone just got on enjoying themselves, but few of us have much of a record of the great times we had bar what we can remember, which letās face it isnāt a lot. Clubbers nowadays can keep physical memories of these great times. Iād prefer to just enjoy myself and not worry or cringe about what people Iāve been out with might slap on social media but there are certainly pros and cons to both sides of that argument. Likewise how organised things are these days. There was so much adventure 20/30 years ago, you didnāt quite know if things would happen or not, there wasnāt always security, chill out zones etc. so thereās better safety nowadays. Whatever way you look at it there were good things and bad things about the different eras.
Anyway I digress. There were many passages Iād like to highlight but I donāt want to give too much away. Nothing more annoying than reviews or previews that give away all the ābest bitsā. Instead Iāll tell you the ones that resonated with me the most. You can read it yourself for the funny parts, of which there are many.
His description of how the art comes more naturally the less you try for instance - āHave you ever tried too hard at something physical, a sport or a game? Have you noticed how you are never better at it when youāre not trying at all? Itās that.ā Bang on. Once you can do something on autopilot then youāre sorted. Most of us probably drive a car without thinking about what weāre doing most of the time, itās like that. Once you start thinking whether your clutch/accelerator co-ordination is correct then you suddenly start changing gear poorly.
Likewise, mistakes. Weāre human. Be immediately suspicious of anyone who appears to be mixing āperfectlyā. Little mistakes show up reality. Technology is doing most, or all, of the work if absolutely nothing is going wrong. I almost always used the crossfader to mix, and once I got so deep into a mix where I was using the channel slider I forgot the crossfader was still stuck in the middle. The record eventually ran out when Iād faded it out almost perfectly, I slammed the channel slider back up triumphantly thinking the crossfader was right over and had a great surge of adrenaline. Then the next song started, not only were there huge brass stabs at full volume but obviously completely out of time with the record that was playing. Took me around 5 seconds to work out what the hell was going on before I stopped the record. The following month I turned up to play again at the same club to discover they were selling the set Iād done that night on CD. The first half the monitors barely worked so there were trainwrecks and then there was that big mistake. I was mortified. Everybody who I spoke to over the next few months loved it and didnāt care so I stopped caring. Ride your mistakes out, realise everyone makes them and eventually youāll lose the fear. Unless you are playing in front of 5000 people obviouslyā¦.
Treating people in the service industry not only with respect (as any even remotely respectable human being should) but to turn it round and be the subservient one. In turn you will be treated much better and for longer. I donāt work in the service industry but in a role that has similarities, trust me when I say the better you treat me the further I will go to give you a great service. In The Secret DJās case he also treated them well so that when things inevitably got fucked up later on he was also in credit. Plan ahead in other words.
Talking about Tour Manager he fondly describes how he is the only person made a better person by cocaine, āSome people genuinely have great trouble coming forth from their shell, and sometimes the mollusc within is very specialā. Great words and instantly endears you to TM. Their relationship is clearly very special. Well I guess it has to be when heās useless at being a tour manager!
Talking about the āShazam generationā and how the research has been taken out of record finding, he says āBeing a DJ is about being an authority, which comes through contact and immersion, not mental tourism. In this Information Age, the true hazard is that information gets confused with knowledge. Just cos you have something doesnāt mean you own itā. Incredibly sage words.
Twice I actually cried with laughter. I find laughter to be incredibly infectious and rarely laugh hard on my own even when watching something funny. To laugh at a book so hard that my daughter thought there was something wrong with me takes some doing. Without particularly giving anything away, one downer-addled adventure ends with him saying āIf this was a film, there would now be a montage of stills of ascending idiocyā. My head was already doing this, seeing it written out in words tipped me over the edge. Secondly, āMOORSEBERRY SHREWSCAKEā. I couldnāt breathe by the end of this story. Seriously, I couldnāt.
On fame - āOne day people loved what I did, then they didnāt. But the things I made were the same. Oddā. We can see it as punters when someoneās musical output doesnāt really change in terms of quality but suddenly a newer, younger kid is on the block and theyāre forgotten about. A fickle mistress indeed.
As the book edges closer to the end a very sobering event happens to The Secret DJ. I must say it did knock me sideways a bit, I wasnāt expecting it to hit me so hard. He hinted early in the book that he ālost itā in some way and went off the radar but it was shocking. He writes it in a very blasĆ© way too, I think perhaps as a defence mechanism - making light of what is a very serious situation. How he even managed to survive is a miracle, far less write the book.
Lastly, an extremely poignant quote. āTo this day I have no idea how you can spend so much joyful time with another human and end up not seeing them ever againā. Iām sure most of us who spent many years clubbing can fully understand this. Outside of family I had the most amazing time of my life with a few people you can easily count on your fingers. With the exception of one Iāll probably never see them again for various reasons. It still fucks with my head a bit, even years later. How did we go from saving the world, looking out for each other no matter what the situation was, feeling like there was no-one else in the world either understood us or even existed, having the maddest adventures that bound us together for ever more, to never seeing each other again? Growing up I guess. Drifting apart. Shit going down.
Think Iāve hit several tangents there and I was meant to be telling you how great a book it is. Itās a great book for two reasons, the storytelling is first class and will take you through a range of emotions, which lets face it is what you generally look for in a book isnāt it? But also I can connect with so much of it. Like Dave Haslamās book I mentioned at the start there is so much of the book I get on a personal level. Some of its music-related and some of itās personality and some of it is both. I guess those of us who obsess enough about music to go down the DJing route are probably similarly built.
One last thing, and I suppose itās the elephant in the room. Who is he? There are a vast array of clues, although he says something near the end that means you canāt read too far into a lot of them. After all, why write a book anonymously if itās easy for people to guess? There arenāt too many people he can be and I have a good idea but I like the myth. Thereās not really any sniping or secret-telling about other DJs apart from the odd short anecdote and none (apart from the famous Steve Angello incident) are ever named. It just feels like a guy wanted to write a book about his adventures but didnāt want people to know it was him. I know how he feels.
Order it here: The Secret DJ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571334482/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i4yxBb5729B54
If you fancy the other books I mentioned you can order Dave Haslamās here:
Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor: Music, Manchester, and More: A Memoir https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472127528/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_D5yxBb66E5E24
and Ninety by Johnny Proctor here:
Ninety https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1979953414/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_f7yxBb8C98A14
Review: http://acidflash.tumblr.com/post/174467922138/ninety-by-johnny-proctor-a-review-zico-is-a
