Boulder Gig Report #1

My new friend DJ Senile , a nice guy and talented DJ, invited me to join him and play some records at his Saturday night weekly at Tusk Lounge.

The bar was in a condo community in Longmont, Colorado, otherwise known as the middle of fucking nowhere. The idea of the community is to be self-sustaining, in that no one ever has to leave and interact with people that are not of their exact demographic. There are restaurants and stores enclosed by about 100 modern looking townhouses. At 10:00 P.M when I drove in circles throughout the community, along streets named Tenacity Road, Neon Forest Drive, and my personal favorite 100 Year Party Court, I didn't see a single car on the roads. As a side note I was listening to Music for Airports by Brian Eno, making the whole scene incredibly erie.

After driving around for about 10 minutes through this maze-like yuppie village, I stumbled upon the only place that had lights on, Tusk Lounge. After looking at their website, I expected a rustic or jungle sort of theme. Instead I found orange and green lighting, white Clockwork Orange-esque furniture, and a few nice pieces of Safari kitch (alligator mouth, whip of some sort of "tribal" hair) and placards advertising $3,500 South African safaris. Oh yeah, and a lot of bros.

There were maybe 25 people hanging out drinking, mainly staring at one of three flat-screen TV's playing Ultimate Fighting Championships. Senile told me that tonight was a "fight night" so there were more people than usual. The clientele were mostly people who lived in the condo village. They were all bizarrely tan for living in the fucking mountains and built like they could kick my ass on accident. Late twenties mostly, a few early thirties. Lots of crisp baseball caps, without the stickers, and ironed T-shirts by a company whose name rhymes with Dicksilver.

I tried sparking up a few conversations, and for the most part everyone was really nice to me. One bro wearing a tribal T-shirt and sea-shell necklack knew a thing or two about Austin.

"Austin? I love Austin! You know Sixth Street? Yeah! Bone Daddy's? I love Bone Daddy's! Bikini Bar and Grill?? Oh Yeah!!!"

He patted me on the shoulder and nearly knocked me to the ground, he could have been on American Gladiators or some shit.

Senile and I take turns doing 30 or 45 minute sets. He was incredibly technically competent, it was clear that he was a hip-hop DJ. He could scratch well and his mixes were quick and concise, with a little Kaoss Pad to add some flair. He played mostly hip-hop sure shots, a little bit of house stuff, a Bob Marley song, and that Sublime song about the L.A. riots. 

I played disco edits, some funk tracks, a few accessible hip-hop cuts I thought people might recognize, and some loungey house tracks. People seemed to be enjoying it. DJ Senile made a somewhat nervous comment about me stealing his job. Somebody went on a McDonald's run and offered me a cheeseburger, which I declined. The bar staff were being generous, I had some absinthe, a few pints of Newcastle, and a shot of something called Blueberry Kamikaze. 

At one point while Senile was playing, two of the bro-dudes started pushing each other and the bartender had to kind of break it up. It was sweet. A really attractive woman asked me to play some techno shit that I had no idea about. Another woman in her mid-twenties, who I later found out has a 7 year old child, asked for a Francois K edit, which I would have obliged (probably his version of Arthur Russell's Go Bang!), except my time to play was up. 

By this point in the evening DJ Senile was getting kind of belligerently drunk, and by that I mean totally shit-faced, and talking trash to the bartenders. One of them started calling him DJ Penile, which I thought was hilarious. There was a light fixture which apparently costs $800 hanging over the DJ booth area and he knocked it loose from the ceiling, luckily catching it before it hit the ground. He also propositioned the female bartender to come spend the night at his pad. As a new friend I tried to help convince her, even though I haven't been to his house I told her he has a sweet pad. She wasn't too into the idea and went home.

As Senile was packing up his things the bartenders and I tried for about 20 minutes to convince him to get a cab or let me drive him home. He wouldn't have it. As we're walking out he explains that next week he will be out of town for his grandfather's wake, he is in charge of the eulogy, and offers to let me to hold down the Tusk Lounge for him while he's gone. I agree. He tells me how much they pay, it sounds good, and I follow him out of the village.

At a stop light where the yuppie zoo meets the highway he motions for me to pull up next to him. He explains that he usually runs this light but he doesn't want to risk it. He then explains to me that he wasn't "completely straight-forward" with me about how much I would be getting paid next week, and tells me a figure that is 50 percent more than the original number. This thoroughly confused me. He went on to talk about some networking he was doing in the area, how he wanted to set up some shows. I swear to God we were sitting at this traffic light for 5 whole minutes. I told him we should just run the light. I followed his lead. At this point I noticed he had a sticker on the back of his car that said "www.myspace.com/djsenile." 

A few minutes after I got home I missed a call from him, getting a message making sure I got home safe. It was nice of him.