Notes on being a Heavy Metal DJ

I know I wasn't the first Heavy Metal DJ to raid some club and play loud and obnoxious music. There's no way. There had to have been some before me that played the likes of Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and so on and so forth. Wait, no, now that I think about it, I spent my 30th birthday in New York City in some race car themed bar somewhere in the Avenues with members of Fireball Ministry as a DJ spun vintage Metal on 45s. Was that guy the catalyst? It was for me anyway.

Back in San Francisco, a place where I lived for over a decade, there weren't any “Metal” nights in bars or clubs that didn't involve a band. Not that I knew of anyway. If I picked up the local free rags, checked the calendar of events and saw that some dive bar had a Heavy Metal DJ night, I would have been there. If anyone reading this that lived in San Francisco in the late 90s and early 2000s, please prove to me that I am wrong. If I skipped out on the Crowbar's monthly Metal event called like 'Painslave' or something, get back to me. Because, and I'm pretty sure I've done my research here, I've checked and nothing ever came up.

Not that we really needed any bar or club playing hard rock or metal. There were enough live venues offering up real bands each night. Heck, down at the Maritime Hall or Warfield, you could most likely catch a big time Metal outfit plying almost nightly. So why would a bar or club drive customers away while some dork DJ spun Slayer and Carcass as you tried to sip your beer and hit on that attractive person with the neck tattoo over by the neon Hamms Beer light up sign? It doesn't make sense right?

But, seriously, outside of radio play, I really hadn't seen or heard about an actual Heavy Metal DJ taking residence in a bar or club. So when I proposed the idea to the owner and managers of a great watering hole on Clement Street, the 540 Club, they agreed that it could be fun. My first night as Metal Mark was a rousing success. So much in fact that the fire department had to stop by due to over crowding. Amazing.

Now I just didn't show up, play a few tunes and leave. Oh no. If I was going to be the one and only Metal DJ in the Bay Area, I was going to do it big. I bought a big fog machine, some black candles, a fake gravestone with my name written in blood red neon paint, so I bought a blacklight as well, skulls and the whole bit. It looked really amazing. After the success of that first Metal night, the owner insured me that I would have a regular spot at their club. So cool.

This lead to being part of an all night extreme music radio show, Rampage Radio, on KUSF when some of the DJs for the show showed up to one of my nights. Then I got occasional gigs at other venues like the Arrow bar where I spun Metal and hard rock only when the Warfield, which was a block away, hosted a big Metal act. You know, to draw a crowd before and after the show.

This was all fine and dandy, but when I moved to Tucson I didn't have much luck as a Metal DJ. In fact, desperate for work, I actually took a job at a local “gentleman's club”, but didn't hold out because that scene just isn't me. Well, it is just...not as a job. So I ended up with a professional “entertainment company” doing weddings, proms and events and such. There I met a like minded guy by the name of Eric who, as it turned out, had his own DJ equipment. This gave me an idea...

We hatched a plan to be “Tucson's best and ONLY Hard Rock and Heavy Metal DJs!” and we actually landed a few gigs. This also came at the time when I had a regular Metal night at a now defunct club called Vaudeville. Things seemed to be looking up for me as a Metal DJ once again.

Yeah. Not so much.

When we started up the rooms would literally clear out. My nights at Vaudeville were notoriously dead. People just didn't seem to get it or care that there were Metal nights now in Tucson. And this is kind of a Metal town. Even through all the promotions, flyers, websites and such, no one seemed to care and they definitely didn't come out to see me, or us.

I knew my nights at Vaudeville were doomed when there were only two customers, both playing pool, and one of them came over and said “Hey man, we're feeling mellow tonight. Maybe just play some Sublime or something.” Ugh.

Here's another thing: I just didn't spin hard rock and Metal tunes and I just didn't put on a show. Dude, I got sponsorship. Back in San Francisco I was on the street team for an amazing Metal label, Relapse Records, and when I told them I had a Metal night at a popular club and was on the radio, they started sending me all sorts of giveaways, like stickers, sample CDs and even t-shirts. Then I got one of the magazines I used to write for, Metal Maniacs, to do the same. They sent over a huge banner that I always displayed behind me and sent out a bunch of merch to give away. How cool was that?

But when I moved to Tucson all of that stopped. Even when I contacted them about my spots in vaudeville and the Metal DJ company Eric and I started, which was called Valhalla Entertainment. Nothing. It all just stopped. So I focused on other things and moved on...

About a week ago, Eric hipped me to this Metal DJ show at a biker bar called the Bashful Bandit. Great. I'll be there.

So She-Ra and I show up about a half hour before the show begins. There's a screen off to the side of the “stage”, which is really a small raised platform, with the DJ crews name, Blackout, written kinda metal-ish. Over the speakers, the house jukebox ones, some kind of lame techno music was playing. Which then segued into (blorp) Nickleback and some other douche rock tunes.

When Eric finally arrived I had to ask his what this was all about, this Metal DJ show because, so far, it wasn't very Metal. He said he knew the guys that put it on and that I should come and see if it gets the Metal Mark seal of approval.

Well, one thing it did do was make me miss those nights at the 540 Club and even Rampage Radio. I mean, it's fun, or...it was. I put on a show, I banged my head and jumped around, I played classic hits alongside new and very underground songs – it was a blast! Thing is, the guys of Blackout didn't seem to be having any fun.

They were just kind of moping around, dressed in black (of course) and there wasn't any lights (I forgot to mention I had a big strobe light too...and a Castle Grayskull) or fog machine or anything. I don't know. So far I wasn't that into it.

Plus they started late. When the DJ finally got behind his laptop and hit “Play” what he produced was your standard “Metal” fare but nothing revolutionary. Half of the trip of being a DJ is introducing people to new sounds. We had already heard System of a Down, Tool, Disturbed, etc etc way too many times. Heck, play an AC/DC b-side. “Inject the Venom” is a really great song.

Now, I'm not trying to come across as some bitter, old, washed up former Heavy Metal DJ, it's just that as a guy that kind of started the whole thing (in my tiny universe that is) the only way to get gigs and to keep folks coming back is to not only give them something to listen to but to look at as well. All we had were bored dudes and dudettes and some guy in a blue Tropicana shirt that started boogieing to the noise of Machinehead with another chick that was far drunker than he was.

And it's not that I didn't have a good time, I did, but only because I was with friends and we made it fun. Let's face it, if you're going to pull something off like a hard rock or Heavy Metal night at some bar, run by DJs none the less, you're going to have to do something special. It's like the guys that do air guitar competitions; half of them aren't even keeping up with the shredding, they're just dressed over the top and jamming around the stage like a cracked out jackrabbit. You just can't mix Iron Maiden into Slayer (I always liked “Children of the Damned” into “Reborn” myself) and yawn at the same time. It's just not happening.

Plus they weren't even mixing it all together. Songs actually faded out before they got to cue up a new one. That's a big DJ no-no.

Still, I was pleased, and a bit jealous as well, that Tucson has embraced something along the lines of what I used to do. I gave it the ol' team try and through the years, the gimmick faded and now it's up to the next batch of Metalheads to take it to the next level.

But you're gonna have to get yourself a fog machine kids. Because that's where the real fun begins.

Good luck!