The Secret DJ: "Sabotaging the next DJ is never OK"

Is it ever OK to sabotage the next DJ’s set if they are a bell-end? Any good stories about cut-throat DJ sabotage? Michael, Aberdeen

Clearly it is never OK to sabotage. The whole thing is not about you. Or about them. It is about the dancefloor. And no-one should want to do anything but the very best for the dancefloor. If you mess with the night you mess with everyone’s night. Unless every single person in there has submitted a written statement that the DJ is a terrible bell-end and it’s been presented to you in a large pile it’s obviously a very large no.

This doesn’t stop DJs doing it, however. Because of course the number one problem with all DJs, everywhere, is ego. Some DJs genuinely are deluded enough to think the whole night is entirely about them, and taking their umbrage out on every single person in the disco is nothing to these giant, staggering ego-beasts.

The saddest form of sabotage is the big name contractually insisting all the other DJs are turned down until they play. We’ve all seen it. It’s utterly pathetic. Or there’s Johnny Laptops insisting the whole thing stop while they install their bobbins, buttons and bells when they should have done it before the doors opened is the other things we see a lot. And if you don’t think that climbing all over the DJ currently trying to work and unplugging the track that’s playing isn’t sabotage then you clearly haven’t had it happen to you often enough.

Then there are more esoteric examples. Like the Space resident who used to delight in running to the club manager whenever any DJ played music he disapproved of. Or the very same rotter standing next to a guest DJ very early in the morning, yawning dramatically while reading a freshly imported copy of The Sun and eating a fried egg sandwich like some sort of buzzkill driving instructor.

A lot of sabotage is down to ignorance, inexperience or stupidity. Like promoters rushing to get you off the decks for playing an a capella that used to be considered a moment of great beauty during the acid house years, but which they simply think is a house remix of the vocalist in question. Yeah, fired for playing an a capella over a beat, otherwise known as ‘DJing’.

These days tech is a big part of ego and sabotage. I’ve experienced DJs who slyly hand over their laptop and sync setup knowing full well that the next DJ’s about to play a different format, but leaving all the cables and settings for them to fathom and change. With less than a minute to go. Then leading the booing when the inevitable silence falls.

I’ve seen a very famous female DJ play an excellent set during which a shambling rave zombie, in front of my very eyes, staggered over the main power cable and cut the electricity of the entire event. Later in those hideous, toxic zones where the ‘comments’ are, dozens of frothing, bitter wannabes screamed that women shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the sets they would secretly love to play, lest their vaginas break everything. Explaining what really happened had no impact whatsoever on their tiny, hateful envy-zone.

But you must learn to tell the difference between deliberate acts of evil and A Bad Gig. Some bad gigs look like sabotage if you’re paranoid. I recently had a whole night of nonsense at a Balearic venue that was so awful it felt like there was a sinister hand behind it. I played the truly disastrous second UK Love Parade in Newcastle many years ago, travelling over 1,000 miles to play to an empty arena. In the last hour of my set the place slowly filled and in the last 20 mins I got the place jumping. Then they switched on the broadcast while my last record was on and grandly announced the next DJ to millions of listeners over the whoops of the crowd I had whipped up, over my record and vibe. Yet that wasn’t sabotage. That was just a gig gone bad.

Like the party in a South American enormodrome, sponsored by Durex, where the 20,000-capacity arena had about 400 people in it, who were basically local rival gang members. I looked up to see a row of them had formed to make pointy-point gestures at their ears regarding the music, then slashy-slash gestures at their throats: universal sign language for “this music means we have to kill you”. Meanwhile, dancers boinged around dressed as man-
sized sponsored spunk. Again, a bad gig.

Practical sabotage and character assassination are two sides of the same coin. While real-life acts of evil are fairly rare, spending every waking hour online and on the phone and even in print attacking, lying and smearing are so commonplace now it may as well be budgeted for when working in the biz. I’ve heard everything, been called everything and accused of things that have actually made me wonder how someone even came up with it. This is the real issue we have to face in the Post-Truth Era. I find that until you see for yourself with your own eyes, it’s best to cultivate a healthy scepticism about anything anyone says in this industry. But do not despair: if you don’t have enemies and haters at the door it means you’ve probably not been doing it right, anyway.

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