> Good to hear from you, I always wonder what is happening there.
> By "flying myself" - are you also the pilot?
> Go where ever your heART takes you.
Nope. Alaska Airlines if it's a primary "hub" location (don't laugh).
Charter flights otherwise. I'm doing one "music festival" in a
location where quite literally all the bands, me, and our equipment
are flying in on a single Beechcraft 1900. Nope, I'm not too excited
about that either. Sounds like an unfortunate CNN headline in the
making.
My heART is taking me in some all-new directions. It's a bit strange
in that while I've been involved in various forms of the music
industry for ages and ages, I've not performed on stage since 1985 and
that was under great protest. For my entire marriage, our agreement
was that I would not do so as my professional musician wife was very
insecure about having to compete with me, so that's one reason why I
was so intense with photography.
The DJing was a very weird experiment. I saw something that clicked
with me and I decided to dive in head first from the tallest
springboard. Obviously, I hurt my brain or something. But keep in mind
that the concept you may have of a DJ (wedding, corporate party, party
in the park, etc.) is not the direction I've been going. My style is
very much intense nightclub and performative DJ. Unlike Steve Aoki,
I'm not throwing cakes into the audience or taking off my shirt, but
that style of active, in-your-face stage-performance is what I'm
trying to develop. Yet, my mentor has been making sure that I master
Hip-Hop turntablist DJing. (scratching, etc). That stuff is hard. I'd
rather jump and dance, but he is keeping me grounded with quick-mixes,
word-play, and effectively doing a constant unending song mashup.
Industry-standard song interval for DJing is 2 minute average. 30
songs per hour. When going at my own maximum speed, I'm down to around
35 seconds per song. My typical is 60 songs per hour, but that's
because I run one full-length anthem-style song (Lady Gaga's "Born
This Way") every 15 minutes to anchor the set and give people a chance
to own it. But my practice sessions usually are 90-120 songs per hour.
As with photography, I've gone at this with the same intensity and
engineering thought process. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
Unlike photography, I'm making a bunch of money at this too. So that's
good.
But the intensity of what I'm doing is pretty rough. Ever since I
almost croaked from Covid (before it officially came to the USA), my
ADHD has been severe and I hardly sleep. Between the day job and the
music, I'm averaging 70-80 hours a week. I know that's not healthy,
but it is what it is right now and I'm enjoying it too much to slow
down.
AK Schnozz
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