Wilde Katz

I have to keep this simple. Though not a replacement for the Botley parties of the past 3 years, my new year DJing in Saarbrücken managed to get 2012 off to a fabulous start. I could never have predicted that I would be spending this time being cared for by friendly people who wanted me to play records for them, let alone were receptive to me playing a huge range of my favourite things – from Avondale Music Society to The Martian, from Paris Grey to Steve O’Sullivan.

In fact, being a believer in cheesy track title choices, I intentionally started my set with Steve’s ‘Composure‘, though I had already been suitably relaxed by the disarmingly warm reception from my host, Roger 23 (it’s amazing how a couple of minutes of easy conversation will make up for 24 hours of quietly shitting yourself). Sadly I rather undid the good message of ‘Composure’ by then playing ‘Hardly Breathe‘ by Andrew Weatherall. So much for planning. I got lots of classics in – Cobblestone Jazz’s ‘W‘ and ‘Sean‘ from Klockworks 02 – plus a few personal favourite oddities like Luke Slater’s ‘Are You There?‘ and one particularly harsh track by Cari Lekebusch. Such was the demand from the crowd for banging techno (if not drum n bass) that even during Model 500′s unparalleled ‘Interference Mix 2‘ they were demanding more, faster, harder.

I finished my own set with the Fuse mix of ‘Loop‘, a piece of self-indulgence I do not regret in the slightest. Later, from 6am, I got to play a 2-hour back-to-back set with Roger, which afforded me the opportunity of playing harder than I think I ever have in company before (Zodiac Trax, Spacetime Continuum’s ‘Drug #6‘, Mesak’s ‘Stitch Seq‘ and so on). The icing on the cake was finishing with Kraftwerk’s ‘The Telephone Call‘, in honour of just such a call I’d received from G earlier in the evening, ‘you’re so close yet far away’ the most incontrovertibly happy-sad line of the night.

Hugs all round at 9am, then, and a long and winding return to London, which was sunk under a dirt-brown cloud and seemingly drowning in its own damp emissions. But just as last year my dazed return to London (to stare vacantly at my sitting room all afternoon) couldn’t dissipate the contented memory I had of dancing around at 8am to brilliant music in the company of best friends, so my return in 2012 couldn’t obscure the feeling that I have already achieved to excess in just a few short hours what I have fantasised about doing for a long time: playing records I like for people who like them the same – and getting paid for it.

Who knows if I’ll get to do it more often, but to be able to do it even once is something to remember with great fondness.

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