the pic of the cool subway cat, there’s a coffee shop I’ve been to a couple
times. It’s a decent meeting place as it’s right outside the station, and on a
corner where it’s pretty much impossible to
miss.
A while back I went to meet a
friend who was running late, so she suggested I stop in there for a coffee and
wait for her to show up. I did, and was greeted with a sight I found pretty
amusing.
Well, a sight and
some accompanying
sounds.
(Forgive
the photo, please. I took it using my
phone.)
PowerBooks are not an uncommon
sight in Tokyo, so that’s not what got my attention. The coffee shop had some
techno music playing, and since there was a DJ, I assumed he was spinning the
tunes.
Wrong.
I
noticed that he was putting records down on both turntables and picking them up,
completely out of sync with what was coming out of the sound system. So where
were the tunes coming from?
The
real
DJ – his PowerBook. Funky Fresh over there was
just playing at being a DJ.
Now, I’ll
admit, there is some skill involved in getting tracks to sync up using
turnables. And I’ll freely admit I can’t do it. But here’s the thing – if you
can make a mix that good at home and load it up into iTunes, why the hell does a
club or coffee shop need to pay you come in and play records? You’re not a
musician and a turntable is not an instrument.
Is it really worth their money to pay
you to come in, play records and bop your head to the music? As small as the
tables in this place are, they could easily fit a couple more in the space that
DJ gear is taking up. More tables = more money, right? If your skill at playing
records is really all that then I guess they can pay you for your playlists and
load them up in their own copy of iTunes. And money they don’t have to pay you
for physically coming into the shop can go towards other stuff they might
actually need.
Like a PowerBook
of their own. ^.^