This is somewhat of a double-edged sword I think. In one respect, people go
to see a DJ like Mills so they can dance. In the other respect, they go to
watch his craft, which then takes the DJ out of his normal context and into
that of an artist, because you are viewing him/her rather than interacting.
(another argument which I'm not going to pontificate on here) So you get
one half of the audience dancing and the other just watching. This has been,
IMHO, the downfall of techno turntablism and the like in recent years. Too
much watching, not enough dancing.
I went to see Mills in Zurich a year ago and there was far too much of the
latter going on. You could see him actually looking rather annoyed as one
absolute classic after another (Final Frontier, Magnese) was being dropped
only to see a leaden-footed and mute reaction from the crowd. How must a DJ
feel when they are faced by banks of motionless people looking at them spin
some records?
----- Original Message -----
From: Cyclone Wehner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 313 Detroit <313@hyperreal.org>
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 1:46 PM
Subject: RE: (313) 100 BEST DJ IN THE WORLD (Mills)
> Actually, Jeff doesn't claim to be a perfectionist, he believes in taking
a
> risk, his belief being: sometimes a move will come off, sometimes it
won't,
> but it's about the excitement level. He has elaborated on this in
> interviews.
> Me, I prefer that style to the seamless mixing of progressive house
> stalwarts, a philosophy that is increasingly now paramount in deep house
> circles (UK especially), where DJs are obsessed with mixing according to
> keys and beats and the mix supersedes the records .... sure it's seamless
> and perfect but it's very mono. It's not so much deep house as sleep
house.
>
> All this reminds me of a recent interview Chuck D gave here when he
lamented
> that today's pop producers and recording artists leave out the mistakes in
a
> record when mistakes make a record real and give it soul..... He leaves
them
> in. So does Mills.
>
>
>
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: RE: (313) 100 BEST DJ IN THE WORLD (Mills)
> > Date: 02/11/2002 21:44:50
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > CC: 313@hyperreal.org, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ("Pryor, Ryan N")
> >
> >
> > live at the liquid room is laden with errors. it is a classic set. but
it
> > has at least 5 big mistakes. for a recorded mix that is a lot. mills is
a
> > sloppy dj. but he can get away with it because of his record selection.
> >
> > He can get away with it because he's so damn quick. When a DJ works the
> > decks & mixer as much and as quickly as Mills does then there's bound to
be
> > some mistakes.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
