What’s up readers? First of all I would like to thank you for taking the time to probe through what I’ve written. I promise I’ll do my best to keep you interested. If you’re an avid reader, internet goer, or simply one who keeps up with the constant news stream available to us, then you’ve probably been bombarded with stories of Pokemon Go, the upcoming presidential election, the Black Lives Matter movement, or whatever else the country seems to find relevant as of late. I’m not saying that any of these topics aren’t relevant, in fact I’ve even spoken about all three of them today, but because of that I don’t want to give you a topic you’ve probably already read about within this past hour. I want to give you something else to read. Something different. So, naturally my music obsessed self thought it would be interesting and worthwhile to tell everyone what it’s like to DJ a party, specifically one while you’re in college.

I may go to a small liberal arts school on top of a mountain in Tennesssee, but believe it or not we still party and have fun like most college students. Obviously you won’t come upon an absolute banger of a party with two thousand students (I mean for crying out loud we only had sixteen hundred or something like that the last time I checked), but Sewanee can still throw down. Don’t get it twisted. Now, I’m not in the biggest fraternity by any means, but there will still be a fairly large number of people that will venture in and out of DKE on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night. Because of this, whoever is DJing on any given night needs to stay on his or her game at all times.

I was lucky enough to get to DJ quite a bit last year. I loved it. You control the entire vibe of the party when you control the music. Each song has a specific build up (or lack thereof), intensity level, catchiness, familiarity to the crowd, etc, and as DJ it’s your job to make the people happy and play the appropriate song for the current situation. At a moment’s notice you may need to make the party more lively and play a song with a higher BPM or more intense bass line to hype everyone up. You may even need to play a stereotypical but classical throwback to get everyone singing along and engaged with the music. A good choice for this is always “Wagon Wheel.” It has to be the Old Crow Medicine Show version though. No disrespect is meant to be thrown in the way of Darius Rucker, I just think the older version does the song justice the way it should. Anyway, he or she who controls the music quite literally controls the life of a party. With the right music on in the right situation, a party is a living and breathing animal with a personality of its own. In my opinion, a DJ’s main job should be to observe the crowd and choose songs based upon the previous responses you’ve gotten from said crowd. You have to feel it out. A good DJ isn’t selfish. A good DJ does it for the people.

That’s exactly the problem though; you have to deal with people. You have to think about the crowd you’re playing for. Throughout the year we will have mixers and parties with other sororities and fraternities on campus. However, during the legendary time period of bonding we call Pledgeship, most of our mixers and parties are done with one sorority at a time. There are exceptions, but this is the main occurrence. Obviously there are some songs like R. Kelly’s “Ignition” (Remix) and Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” that will, most of the time, be universally accepted by every one at the party, but sometimes the music selection really depends on the crowd of people there.

There’s practically nothing worse than the highly intoxicated and entitled sorority girl that feels the need to suggest songs every five minutes and complain to the entire room when she doesn’t know a song. The only thing worse may be that even more intoxicated frat guy who “only wants to play one song, bro” but ends up attempting to keep his phone plugged in for the remainder of his duration in your fine establishment. Ohhhhhh and so help me, God if you pull the aux cord out of my phone without at least saying something to me first. I promise you will feel the wrath of Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades all at once if you ever do that to me. I can imagine other DJs would concur with me on this one. If you want to hear a song, politely request that song. If you feel the DJ is doing a crappy job keeping the crowd happy, find a creative and nice way to tell him or her that they are not quite getting the job done, unless the DJ is your homie. In that case tough love is necessary and he or she needs to be immediately told to step their game up. No excuses. Regardless though, a DJ’s music selection should all come down to the audience the DJ is playing the music for.

If you’re playing for a bunch of southern conservative white girls, repeatedly playing songs you would hear in Gucci Mane’s trap house may not be the best idea. Of course it may be on certain occasions, for I definitely know my fair share of southern conservative white girls that know all of the words to the chorus of Kevin Gates’ “2 Phones,” but in most situations like the WASP invasion I just referenced it’s best to play to the audience. If you ever find yourself in a pickle and don’t know what song to play for the sorority with the multitude of self-proclaimed amateur music critics, the back up plan should always be the playlist on Spotify entitled “Songs that Get Drunk White Girls Excited.” No derogatory reference was meant by that; I simply want to make sure that everyone knows precisely where to go in case of emergency, because I don’t think that playlist has ever let me down.

The last thing I want to talk about in regards to DJing is the absolute necessity of the trifecta: Spotify, Soundcloud, and Pandora. A good DJ is always on the prowl for more jams to play at the next party. Finding songs that no one has heard yet but that everyone will love, is an art form. Pandora and Soundcloud are great avenues for finding these songs. Hopefully everyone reading this article is familiar with Pandora, but for those of you that aren’t let me me tell you the quick synopsis. Pandora does all the work for you. You pick a song, an artist, or you even pick a theme like “Rap BBQ” (not lying that’s a thing) and Pandora will shuffle endless songs straight to your phone. The only say you have in the music is when you up vote or down vote songs, something pretty important to creating your perfect Pandora station. That alters the future songs Pandora will play on that station. You don’t get to pick each individual song when you listen to Pandora, but listening to a Pandora station is a great way to expand your musical knowledge. Soundcloud is specifically where I find all of my lesser known electronic music. I’m probably going to write an article on electronic music at some point, because I currently think it’s one of the under-appreciated genres and doesn’t get nearly enough respect, but that’s for another time. Soundcloud is awesome. There is no better way to find the perfect songs for that paint rave you’re throwing next Thursday than to look on Soundcloud. If you don’t know where to start I’ll gladly show you the ropes. My username is almock16 for those of you that might be interested. I have a lot of varied playlists, and even some of my own music so going through my profile would be a good introduction to the endless possibilities of Soundcloud. However awesome Pandora and Soundcloud are though, Spotify Premium is the king. Being able to pick whatever song you want and queue up an endless amount of songs means you don’t have to stand by the DJ table at all times. Don’t get me wrong, actively DJing is incredible, but being able to put your phone down and go play a couple games of pong without worrying that the wrong song will come on is priceless. Being able to actually party while still controlling and maintaing the vibe of the party is the goal for any DJ, and Spotify makes this a real possibility.

I hope this article was mildly humorous and kept you interested. If you made it the whole way through I thank you. I’m going to keep writing these things so prepare yourselves for more bad puns and potentially a rage filled rant on drivers who drive too slow and can’t park in the lines. I mean, come on. Is it really that hard to park in between the lines? That’s why they’re there. It’s not for show. It’s not to make the road look pretty. It’s so you know what lines you need to park your frickin’ car in between. Once again, that’s a story for a different time. It will come though. Anywho, I hope you enjoyed my shared experiences as a college DJ and I hope you take away at least one thing that will make you a better DJ in the future, should you choose to embark on the quest.

Peace, love, and happiness to all.