My Life´s Wishlist - Drugs, Books, and Rock&Roll - Chapter Four

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I am just telling the story about a little noob exploring the Big Bad Crypto-verse and mak... [more]

2 years ago

Topics: Opinion, Fear, Memory, Trip, Tips, ...

This whole story started with me looking back at my young adult life. I noticed that the three wishes I had back then have had a lot of influence on the path my life would take.

If your short-term memory is still intact you probably remember that my first wish was to work in a Coffeeshop, the Dutch kind. Now my wish was granted, but it pushed me into a lifestyle that did not leave a lot of room for studying. At the end that lifestyle caused me to not complete my study, hence I would I never become a Journalist.

If You don't remember click Here to start from Chapter One

Neither did I keep working in that Coffeeshop. I had dated the wide-hipped lovely Latina, well more than dated but that is for another story. I had definitely increased my circle of friends and embezzled enough marijuana over time to allow an elephant to smoke blunts all day for a year. And I never got caught, they were actually sad to see me go, but life had offered me new opportunities.

Remember that little fourteen-year-old me, hanging around in Coffeeshops idolizing the cool guys and girls behind the counter? One of those cool guys was Hans. And not only because on Friday night he would allow a group of teens, the HoutStreet Irregulars, to stay after hours. One of the Irregulars would be sent to get some beer at cafeteria The Moustache. Once the beer was there we would sit, smoke, and talk for hours....while, and this is what made Hans special, while Hans would play the latest and greatest alternative releases.

We did not have youtube or the internet. We got our songs from late-night radio shows, going to festivals, and we had Hans.

One night I was sitting there. It must have been in the same period I watched Pump up The Volume with Christian Slater for the first time. I was thinking how cool it would be to make my own radio show, To get my hands on the latest & coolest songs. How I would love to play music for a crowd, not that typical crowd-pleasing dance music, but the stuff I liked....and I had a very broad taste in music even back then.

There is still this memory that I looked at Hans, who just put in the trainspotting soundtrack and skipped right to Underworld. I was dreaming away at the intro and at 1 minute 16 secs I wished that one day I would play that song for thousands of people, guess I wished to become a DJ.

Underworld - Born Slippy [Trainspotting]

That wish must have been hiding there for a long time, because I remember parties my parents went to. Parties with their friends often organized at Carels´s place. Now this Carel guy was the dad of someone we already know. He was Lotte´s father, the 10-year-old girl that seduced me to light up my first cigarette.

This guy probably never knew how much he had impacted my life, because not only did his blood get me to smoke, which led to my marijuana addiction. He also would allow me from the age of twelve and onwards to play the music at his parties. The guy had an impressive CD collection, not really my taste although it contained enough classics to fill an evening.

What I used to do is feel the song, intensity, style and then watch how the people reacted, that would give me a pretty good idea what the next song ought to be. Can you believe that is exactly the same thing I would do years later in a Sold out 013 where I was playing for thousands of people.

Franka Potente - Believe (with lyrics)

Now how the holy mother of whoever I ended up there, all by myself on that huge stage?

There was this guy, Paul who used to visit the Coffeeshop I worked at. He knew my musical preferences and well as it happened he was probably one of the bigger Gothic DJ´s at that time. Now Goth was never really big in The Netherlands but this guy organized monthly parties with at least a hundred paying customers, and he played some bigger events throughout the year.

That guy needed a backup for his Parties in the Willemeen in Arnhem and for some reason, he asked me???
Again I got asked to do something I wished for???

I had some minimal DJ experience in the past, but not at all with this genre. So I thought he must be joking. He wasn´t.

A week later he handed me his CD case (we did not have MP3 and computers) and told me I got two weeks to get to know the music and come up with 2 sets of an hour using at least 30 minutes of hit songs (at least considered hits by the crowd) each.

Damn those nerves during that first gig. I got up there in the DJ booth high above the floor, a two-minute explanation and....take over the set from DJ Paul. Once I made the first song flow into the next one nicely, everything distilled perfectly.

Das Ich - Destillat ( VNV Nation Remix)

This was my church. This was where I could heal my hurts and watch young life shape. It seems that this boy that has no rhythm, and that couldn´t dance to any tune was able to move a crowd.

Now, this was of course a small step, but it led to much bigger things. I had been boasting for a while that I would be a better DJ for the Eighties parties they were having in my favorite club. The manager Mary-Ann must have heard that from someone because one night she offered me a shot. Yes a real shot first and then a shot on trying out as an Eighties DJ.

Guess what?

I got the Job and I still have the money I made that night in a frame on my Desk, as I actually made money doing something I absolutely loved.

Now just like being seduced to smoke by a very young lady, this also sounds really romantic at first. But you know a bit about me now and how easy I am tempted, how much temptation can a DJ like me resist?