Last Night a DJ Almost Took His Life

By Dan Cunneen

The first time I spun records in public was at an “open table” night in Seattle at Linda’s Tavern in 1995. I was so clueless that I didn’t even know how to cue a record properly. But with the help of some friends milling about, I got a quick lesson. That night, I played a mix of vocal jazz, 1960s soul, instrumental exotica, and spy soundtrack material. After I had been spinning for about an hour, Linda came over to the tables and told me she had been looking for a DJ like me and asked if I wanted to take a regular weekly slot there. The pay was $20 and all the beer you could drink. Hell yes, I did! Within a few months, I bought turntables and a mixer for myself and was spinning at other clubs around Seattle using the moniker DJ Diamondan. Eventually, I graduated to play corporate parties and weddings.

I was a cocktail DJ, so my strong suit was playing for an audience that was usually sitting and hopefully listening to the music I played. Sometimes it was hard to tell if the crowd at a place like Linda’s was paying attention, but then I would play something like the twangy instrumental version of John Barry’s Goldfinger, and a cool kid would come running up to the tables and ask what it was. “It’s from the Goldfinger soundtrack. But they didn’t use it in the movie.” I always loved turning someone on to a great track and laying down an obscure tidbit of information about it.

Since there was no dancing at my early gigs, I didn’t need to learn how to match beats per minute. I just followed my gut and played whatever I wanted. When I started playing parties and weddings, I had to learn the higher art of the dance DJ and the BPM. DJing a dance party is a skill that I still haven’t mastered, and weddings can be especially difficult.

As you may have noticed, the crowd at a wedding is usually a fairly broad mix. Parents, grandparents, nieces, nephews, the bride’s hip friends, the groom’s dorky friends, tea-partiers, Al Qaeda—you name it. The wide spectrum of people at a wedding makes it extraordinarily hard to please everybody. One minute, Grandma will come up and ask for Bobby Vinton, and the next thing you know, a young dude will come up to the tables and request Notorious B.I.G. Early on, I would have politely played “Blue Velvet” and “Mo Money Mo Problems,” but over time I became less agreeable to requests.

Another important point to make about weddings is the Master of Ceremonies factor. Once, I had drunkenly crashed a wedding where the DJ was in complete control of the crowd. Telling cornball jokes and interacting with the guests, the guy had his routine down pat. (For instance, while the groom was removing the garter from his bride’s leg, the DJ played the Mission: Impossible theme.) Alas, that kind of stuff was not going to happen with me. Announcing that the buffet table was open was as close to an MC as I would get. The couple that hired me for one early wedding gig actually expected me to lead the guests in the Chicken Dance. When that night was through, the father of the groom told me he was disappointed with my performance. Too bad, but he still had to pay me.

Early on, I got most of my gigs through word of mouth. The late 1990s dot-com bubble was an especially fruitful period. One long-gone start-up gave me obscene cash to spin for four hours at their launch party. A few years back, I created an animated Craigslist ad that was good for several gigs a year. I worded the ad so it would weed out customers that wanted a funny-man or a Top-40 DJ, and it usually worked—until last weekend.

I got an email through Craigslist from a woman named Krystal inquiring about my availability for a wedding party. We made the deal, and a few weeks before the gig, I went to her house to pick up some music that she wanted. I was pretty sure I had underbid the job when she gave me her address in Medina—a very posh suburb of Seattle that sits on Lake Washington. Medina’s best-known residents are Bill Gates and his family. While Krystal and her husband Kenneth didn’t live in digs remotely approaching that of the Gates clan, their house was plenty nice.

I knocked on the door, and Krystal appeared. She was a very attractive blonde in her late twenties, about 5’5”, wearing a tight light-colored casual shirt and designer jeans. I followed her up the stairway and into the well-appointed living room, where she handed me a stack of CDs along with several sheets of paper with specific instructions spelling out what part of the evening the songs should be played.

I have long since stopped spinning vinyl records, so when I got home to load Krystal’s music into my laptop, I was appalled by her musical choices: Jason Mraz, Dave Matthews Band, 3 Doors Down, Nickelback, Colbie Caillat, Jack Johnson. The pathetic catalog of middle-of-the-road white-bread shit-pop went on and on. Having done this for a lot of years, I was accustomed to working for people with bad taste, but this list sunk to a new and darker level of musical horror.

The wedding was at a resort winery east of North Bend, Washington, called Quickriver. Krystal and Kenneth’s house had hinted that I had underbid for the job, and now the Quickriver Winery confirmed it. I pulled up and found a fairly new building set on a top-notch golf course. There were all sorts of late-model Mercedes-Benzes, Lexuses, and BMWs parked in the lot. The place was dripping with money.

I parked my car near the entrance, grabbed a handful of gear, and went looking for the event space. I found it right away and also found the event manager, Angela, a short, curvaceous woman in her early thirties with a take-charge attitude. As I was loading in the rest of my gear, Angela was overseeing the setup process with an eagle eye, tersely correcting one of her staff’s table settings as I walked by.

Artificially distressed furniture, a stained concrete floor, and bad department store art gave the space a schizophrenic “Italian villa meets Macy’s” feel. It was a small wedding and, despite the cheesy décor, it was a deluxe setup with linen, fine china, real silverware, and crystal stemware.

I set up my sound system, and then Angela informed me that the ceremony had been moved outside to the new amphitheater. (Later, one of the staff told me excitedly that Three Dog Night were playing there next week.) Luckily, they had a small auxiliary sound system onsite for me to use. There were about 40 chairs set up in front of an arbor festooned with real flowers. The stage overlooked the 18th green, with the lush fairway behind it spreading out toward a soaring evergreen forest and, beyond that, the Cascade Mountains. It looked like a screenshot from a Tiger Woods PGA TOUR video game.

Krystal had asked for some vocal acoustic guitar drivel for the processional music and a Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen song called Love Walks In for their post-ceremony exit. I have nothing against Sammy Hagar personally—in fact, I’ve even read his book, Red. While Sammy is technically the better singer, I’m still a David Lee Roth guy. Regardless, the fact that they chose a Van Halen song for their wedding fanfare from any era was most troubling. The ceremony went off without a hitch until they waited for me to start the music and I waited for them to start walking off the stage. There were several infinite seconds of awkward silence until I finally pressed “play” and Sammy’s romantic crooning began.

The people-watching at these events is one of the highlights for me, so when the guests sat down to eat, it was my opportunity to fill in the blanks on the Krystal and Kenneth backstory. Most of the professional crowd looked predictably well-heeled (I’m guessing Kenneth was in software). I always see at least one hipster couple at any given wedding, and this one was no exception. These specimens went with the decade-blending vintage look: 1950s pork pie hat, 80s suit, huge 70s aviator sunglasses, and Chuck Taylors for the bearded dude, and a psychedelic 60s dress and clunky Famolare “Get There” shoes for his lady. These fashion anomalies were in the minority, however, because most of the lily-white crowd dressed “business casual.”

During dinner, I played the mix of crap that Krystal wanted along with some of my own selections like Brubeck’s Take Five, Close Your Eyes by Doris Day and Andre Previn, Wave by Jobim, Cherry Blossom Girl by Air—a cool mix of the old and new, the familiar and obscure, that has done me right for 15 years. As I was playing I Only Have Eyes For You by The Flamingos, I saw the mother of the bride mouth, “Oh, I love this song,” to her daughter and then look at me with a big smile. I witnessed one positive response, which meant there would probably be more. These kinds of moments are huge for a DJ because it means you made a connection. Also, it might erase any negative feelings from my slight musical miscues earlier. However, Krystal did not crack a smile, so I assumed things might not be going so well. Was it the music, my errors, or her mom?

As I was spinning, Angela came over to chat. Since it was getting late and the group was so small, we both thought that there probably wouldn’t be much dancing—which was just fine with me. Angela then told me that they wanted me to MC the toast and cake-cutting. Didn’t Krystal read my ad? Diamondan don’t play that game. I was on the spot, though, so after I got a quick rundown from Angela on who was going to speak, I grabbed the microphone and tried to get the attention of the seated guests.

I’ve spent a lot of time onstage as a musician over the years, and while I get excited to perform, I rarely get nervous. This scene was entirely different. I scanned the crowd and became completely aware that I lacked the oblivious overconfidence that the successful wedding DJ or used car salesman possesses. What’s more, I think I stood out in this crowd. I’m currently 49 years old, with messy longish graying hair and a semi-ironic mustache. I was wearing a modish Ben Sherman suit with a lavender dress shirt, Beatle-style ankle boots (with a Cuban heel), and a badass purple 1970s Ferrell Reed tie. I think I looked sharp, but I’m pretty sure this group thought I was an old guy with bad hair in a funny-looking suit. “Ladies and gentlemen, Marty would like to say a few words. Marty?” I stammered, feeling like a stinky bike messenger in an elevator full of executives.

Marty grabbed the mic from me and said, “Hi everyone, I’m Marty Simmons and Ken—uh, sorry, I mean ‘Kenneth’”—Marty made quotation marks with his fingers when he said “Kenneth,” indicating a late-in-life name change—“has been my best friend for over 20 years.” Marty paced around in circles and told some suitably risqué college stories. One after another, a parade of friends and family toasted Kenneth. Curiously, not a lot was said about Krystal.

Finally, a gorgeous brunette wearing a black dress with a wide scarlet belt around her waist rose to make a toast. It was Belinda, Krystal’s best friend. Belinda’s chaste yet sexy dress hung right at her knees, showcasing toned calves that had a slight sheen. Her legs did not look greasy, but they had a soft shine that was most likely the result of some pricey and fragrant lotion. They must have been friends a long time because Belinda went way back to the vault for her tales about the two young friends fighting over Bratz dolls and the time Belinda and Krystal convinced another friend of theirs to change her name to “Tubalard.” Nice girls.

The toasts were toasted, the cake was cut, and the wait staff began to clear away the dishes. When the party-goers began to migrate to the patio that would serve as the dance floor just outside the dining room, I started to play more dance material. I was set up in such a way that I couldn’t see most of the people dancing outside, so I had to crane my neck around the huge doorway to see what was going on.

By now, it was about 10:30 PM, and most of the guests had left, leaving the younger and increasingly inebriated crowd behind. I was playing the usual dance party staples like Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Filthy/Gorgeous by Scissor Sisters, Chic’s Good Times, and SexyBack by JT, but it wasn’t good enough for Belinda. She tipsily sauntered over to me and asked, “Do you have any Pitbull?” I had never heard of Pitbull before, but a quick search on my laptop revealed that I had three of his tracks. (I’d recently gone nuts and checked out about ten Now That’s What I Call Music CDs from the library so I’d have some newer material for situations like this.) I cued up a Pitbull tune and continued spinning. Within 10 minutes, Belinda was back—this time with her boyfriend, Ryan.

“Do you have any Rihanna or Chris Brown?” Ryan said. Interesting pairing, I thought. Even I, not exactly current on the latest hits, knew about Chris Brown beating up Rihanna.

“Uh, I can check,” I replied. I pulled up a track by Chris Brown called Turn Up the Music. A minute later, a middle-aged woman came storming up to me and asked incredulously, “Are you playing Chris Brown? You know he abuses women, right?” I nodded sympathetically in the affirmative and jerked my head toward Belinda, who was drunkenly swaying on the dance floor. The woman huffed and walked away.

When the distinctive bassline of Groove Is in the Heart by Deee-Lite started thumping, I heard a howl of joyful recognition from the leftover crowd, and the dance floor filled. Within seconds, Belinda and Ryan stumbled over. From the foul look on their faces, you’d think I’d just set fire to the wedding cake.

“Do you have anything newer?” Belinda slurred.

“Yeah, you got any Pitbull?” Ryan added helpfully.

“He already played Pitbull, babe,” Belinda said, rolling her eyes.

When I heard her call him “babe,” something clicked. I knew where I’d seen this couple before. They were The Two A-Holes from the Saturday Night Live sketch about a self-absorbed yuppie couple. Dead ringers. The only difference was that Ryan and Belinda weren’t chewing gum—they were guzzling overpriced wine.

“Well, you got any Jay-Z or 50 Cent?” Ryan asked.

“Uh, sure,” I replied. I had already played In Da Club, so I quickly pulled up another 50 Cent song I didn’t recognize called Say What You Want. Here’s the first verse:

Yo, niggas be askin’ me, “Yo 50, who you got beef wit?
I’m a tell y’all niggas who I got beef wit
I got beef wit any nigga I can’t make no money wit…

Within moments, Belinda was back. She swayed dangerously in her high heels and slurred, “We’re okay with Black, but not that Black.”

I stared at her, momentarily stunned by the casual racism. She leaned in closer, and I caught a whiff of her wine-soaked breath. “How about some 80s dance stuff? That might be good.”

“Oh, I have tons of that,” I said with relief.

“Yeah, I bet you do,” she muttered disdainfully.

Belinda was rude, but she had a valid point: I was not up on the latest hits this crowd clearly wanted. I’d think a song like Pink’s Get the Party Started was still current, only to remember it came out in 2001—when Belinda was probably in middle school. It doesn’t help to have a library of Top 40 hits if you don’t listen and get to know the songs. Not all modern pop is junk, of course, but it takes work to separate the wheat from the crap. This was something I hadn’t done in years, and tonight it was painfully obvious.

Given the 80s green light, I put on I Can’t Wait by Nu Shooz, and that seemed to hold the Two A-Holes off for a while. Then I took a chance and played Friday Night by Lily Allen. While I knew it wouldn’t be familiar to this crowd, I figured its ska-influenced, hook-laden vibe might keep them happy. No such luck