Every job has its pitfalls—even being a DJ sucks sometimes. Sure, there are great parties, but there are also gigs that make you want to retire early. The worst ones are always the private shows thrown by corporate event planners who want to add an element of "cool" to their charity ball or investors' dinner. Maybe it's a benefit "for the arts," with Wall Street's worst pining at each other about their Upper East Side apartments, or perhaps one of LA's top real estate twats wants to throw his wife a birthday bash, and commissioned you to set the trendy vibes."I've had a few shows that weren't great, but a specific one comes to mind that I had a few years ago," said Plastic Plates, a touring musician and DJ. "It was like, a privately funded X-Factor show in a hockey stadium in St. Petersburg, thrown by one of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's mates." It was, no doubt, an awkward booking; Plastic Plates was scheduled to play alongside Paula Abdul and David Hasselhoff. "People were watching the show and sitting at tables with white tablecloths, wedding-style. It was weird," he told THUMP.Of course, there are incentives to suffer through stuffy private events. "We do lots of those lame corporate gigs because they pay more," explained J Patt, one-half of the New York City duo the Knocks. "One time, we did this gig on a rooftop, which seemed like it should be dope—but there were all these sound restrictions, so we weren't allowed to sound check. When it came time to play, we could literally hear people small-talking from the stage."It's pretty hard to build up energy in a room when the sound system is turned so low that if you listen hard enough, you can hear the bank accounts of corporate America fill with cash. "Needless to say, it was a nightmare, and I ended up drinking eleven Jameson and Gingers on stage, which was the only redeeming factor of the entire experience," said Patt of his disastrous rooftop performance. "Business people just don't understand proper setting for certain styles of music, but they love to think they do or force it, and then they wonder why it didn't work out as well as when they saw that same band at an actual venue. It's like, 'Sorry this house music isn't going off so well in your completely sober office setting, bro.'"There's nothing like playing a killer party, but there's also nothing like coming to the realization that nobody gives a shit what you do or don't play. There's a natural disconnect between the music and audience when an artist gets booked by a corporate event planner, because all creative context is compromised. In these cases, a DJ is used as a pawn to produce a specific company image. Shoehorning a DJ into a professional setting without considering the artist or music is like booking a motivational speaker for a warehouse party. It's all wrong.As dance music of all stripes infiltrates the mainstream, these attempts to sever its commercial potential from its radical, counter-cultural roots will keep coming. Artists—musicians or otherwise—aren't puppets to show off for a vapid company benefit. DJs belong in clubs and parties full of people who enjoy the music, not cast to side somewhere playing mood music. And while hiring a DJ just for corporate cool points might be missing the mark, it's also a great way for selectors to make fast cash in a career where gigs can rain from the sky or dry up from one week to the next.So to all you broke-ass DJs out there: sometimes it's better to think of the glass being half-full, even when guzzling whiskey out of it. Thank god for open bars and drink tabs.
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