DJ Arcane
Frequently Asked Questions
Oh, ok, so no one's actually bothered to ask many questions. Definitely not enough to be called "frequent". These are just a few things I've been asked once or twice, along with some I might anticipate as possibilities. Obviously, if you want to know something that's not covered here, the best thing to do is email me.
When did you start DJing?
I started doing radio DJing in 1992 at WTJU, the University of Virginia's student radio station. I had the 3am to 6am shift on Thursday nights, which gave me plenty of opportunities to go wild (and I mean wild - WTJU's policy at the time was that after midnight, FCC rules essentially went out the window - not sure how legal that was or not). A transfer the following year to Penn State University led me to WPSU, where I was on the "alternative rock" staff (pretty much the blanket category that covered anything rock-based) and the avant-garde staff. A little later the powers-that-be decided that WPSU needed to be more NPR and less student programming, and split off the students to a new (considerably lower power) station, WKPS. At WKPS, I was program director for the gothic/industrial and avant-garde shows until I left the station in the summer of 1996. I also worked in commercial radio at WRSC in State College for a while, though that involved more playing commercials during breaks in sports and news programming than actual DJing.
After that, I didn't spin for a while, until the spring of 2001, when I did my first club gig. Various factors (living in State College where there were no real club nights for several years, working on my masters degree when I first moved to Pittsburgh) kept me from doing anything in the intervening time. And the rest can be found elsewhere on this site.
Where have you DJed?
I am currently the co-promoter of MetaPop at the Black Cat in Washington DC, along with DJ Swank. I was a resident DJ at chiarOscuro, also in Washington, DC, from May 2005 until its end in December 2005. I began DJing in clubs in Pittsburgh in 2001, and continued after moving to the DC area in 2002. I've spun at seventeen different nights in four different states (well, ok, three states and a district), including some of the largest indie rock and goth/industrial clubs in these cities. Some of my more regular haunts for guest appearances have included Schadenfreude and Monday Midnight Madness, both of which took place at Chief Ike's in Washington, DC.
I'm a promoter and I run a night. Would you be interested in guest DJing for me?
Assuming that you're looking for the type of music that I spin (please make sure that you look at my setlists first before contacting me), and you run an interesting and reputable night, I'd love to! Please get in touch with me. But (there's always a but) if you're not local (DC or Baltimore), or at least within reasonable driving distance in a city where I have friends that I can crash with (Pittsburgh or Philly), it probably won't work -- I'm a full-time grad student on a limited budget, so I can't afford a lot of travel (unless you're willing to fund me). Also, please be aware that between school and my own teaching (I also teach college-level English courses), I'm very busy, so it might be tough for me to fit it into my schedule at certain times of the year.Why don't you spin X club hit? All the other DJs at this night do!
At most nights, I've got my own defined range of music that I cover, mostly in the areas of postpunk, new wave, indie pop, and britpop. Other DJs have different specialties. I can stretch outside of my area a bit (if I have it), but if you want to hear something that's more in another DJ's range, you would do better to talk to them. I'd be happy to direct you to the right people to talk to for your request if you ask nicely.
My philosophy of guest DJing is that a guest DJ needs to offer something to the night that the regular DJs don't already have. If you're going to just be a clone of the staff DJs, why should they even bother to schedule you? Obviously I try (sometimes not as successfully as some might like - see below) to stay in the bounds of what's acceptable for any given night. But if I can't offer something different, why am I there?
Will you play Funker Vogt!?!?!?
No. The only good EBM musicians are EBM musicians who've been poked with sharp sticks repeatedly until they've stopped moving.
What the hell is this? This is a goth and industrial night! And we're getting pissed off!
Yup, that one's an actual quote said to me (well, the first part was actually handed to me, written on a napkin) by some fifteen year old girl during one set while I was playing Foetus. Learn your fucking history. If you don't know the pioneers of your own genre, that's not my problem. There's more to life than Marilyn Manson, kids!
Can you play my request?
If I have it with me, I haven't already played that band (I hate repeating bands in a night, so I'll only do that for bands that I really like), and it will fit in with the set, then probably, yeah. However, be aware that my specialties are within a certain range, and if you're asking for something outside of that, there's a good chance I won't have it (or at least won't have it with me). If I don't have it, I'll try to pass the request on to one of the other DJs who might be more likely to have it.
I should note, though, that if I don't like it, I probably don't have it. Which means that EBM and futurepop are more than likely right out. I'm sure the other DJs will have plenty, though. And no, just because you brought it with you doesn't mean that I'll play it, either.
Will you play my band? We're really good!
If you're handing it to me in the middle of my set, no. I'm not going to play something that I've never heard before, I need the chance to preview it first -- and there's not enough time to do that while spinning. For that matter, don't hand it to me at the club at all, it's not like I have a chance to check it out at the bar between sets either. And no, getting your cute girlfriend to ask me won't help, it'll just make me that much more pissed off at you because you have a cute girlfriend and I don't. If you really want me to play something, give it to me in advance and I'll consider it (no guarantees, though -- I'm only going to play it if I like it and it actually fits the night!).