For Better Or For Worse, Techno-Folk Night Is Now A Thing Of The Past

First off, on Tuesday I wrote a guest post of sorts for my friend Allison. She's in England right now and asked me to cover her weekly playlist for her. You can check it out here. You should check out the rest of Allison's blog while you are over there too.

Now that we've got the shameless plugs out of the way, I can tell you that I got through techno-folk night and lived to tell about it. It wasn't necessarily a raging success, but it didn't bomb completely. On a 1-10 scale, my stress level was probably at about 11 the entire night, but that's fairly normal. I think I did an alright job at playing it cool. Though the conversations I kept having with my boss didn't always help:

Boss: So, it's your first time coordinating an event...are you nervous?
Me: (lying through my teeth) Nah, I've totally got this under control.
Boss: You're not nervous at all?
Me: No.
Boss: Well you should be! This is all depending on you!

I have never smoked in my life (and don't plan on starting), but at that moment, I really could have used a cigarette or something.

I did more last night than most people realize. I took care of the musicians when they arrived. I ran all of the sound-checks and got everything sorted out on the technical side of things. I played the role of The Bouncer during the show (though there wasn't a huge crowd or much alcohol to monitor). I bussed the occasional table at the order of my boss.

I was also the liaison to the surprise belly dancing act that somebody booked without telling me. I'm still confused about that part of the evening. One minute I'm jamming out to a strange techno remix of a Beatles song with The Poet and the next minute my boss is introducing me to some chick in a belly dancing costume.

Because a line-up involving the world's most enthusiastic banjo player and a techno guy that comes equipped with trippy movies on a projector is really not complete without belly dancing. Gah.

Tonight will be better.

Which reminds me, I need to get my final playlist together. I've never really DJ-ed anything that wasn't a private party or a college-related event, so I'm slightly overwhelmed. Especially since I had a humbling conversation about software and equipment with the techno guy last night and realized that I really have no idea what I'm doing.

But life is a learning curve, right?

I plan to spend most of the day in my sweatpants and transform into my ultra-hip DJ persona just in time for the event. This week's model of my DJ persona will be wearing a dress that belonged to my mother in 1980something. To your left is a picture of the last time I wore that dress (which, by the way, was a million years ago).

Not quite as good as the leather pants that The Chef had on last night, but it's difficult to compete with that man's fashion taste.

Anyway, there are currently twelve hours between me and 80's night and I've got a lot to do. The first thing on the list involves going back to bed. So I'm gonna sign off for now. Hope everyone is having an absolutely groovy Saturday and hopefully next time I pop up on your blog roll I will have some good DJ stories to tell.