I love music. I have always loved music, which was greatly influenced by my musical family. As a child, I played trumpet and piano, and danced ballet. I've since lost those skills, but learned a lot about music in the process. I joined the cultural crave in the 90's when Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was hot, and got excited about swing dancing. I did theater in high school because that's what my brothers did, and I adore my brothers. Theater is a part of what shaped me. So when I could combine all of those things and perform in my school musical in a swing number, I was thrilled! And hooked. Post-high school, I looked up the swing dance club in college. Utah State swing dance club introduced me to the right connections. This is where the addiction begins.
One thing led to another, and now I'm a DJ! The end.
Just kidding.
With the right connections, I was soon invited to my first event. Phoenix Lindy exchange 2004 was my first experience traveling to dance and I LOVED every second. I am a person who loves close connection, and in those days, blues was not as open-dance style as it is now. The connection I felt with my first blues lesson was much different than the connection I felt when I Lindy'd. The addiction grows.
I'm a very affectionate person. In my youth, I was taught that was an unfortunate personality flaw. But on the blues floor, *some* of those affectionate behavior qualities were appreciated (consider I was 19, and hadn't yet learned what appropriate affectionate behavior was, as I'm positive many of you have experienced for yourself when dancing with someone in that same stage of life).
So I meet this guy during our spring break dance trip to Sacramento and San Fransisco. We happen to have the most amazing connection I've ever felt. We later learned that we connected on many many levels, off the dance floor too. So I fell in love with him. 5 months later, when he graduated from college, he wanted to move. I wanted to move. So we chose a city we liked, took a leap of faith, and moved our lives to Seattle, together, where the dance scene is so developed that we have our pick on almost any night of the week.
What did we pick? House parties. Oh ya. They're awesome. I couldn't get enough of them. The problem was, I didn't always like the music. I'd come home and play with my music, and my boyfriend and I would dance in the kitchen to the songs I liked the most. The DJ side of me begins.
This is when I start volunteering to DJ at house parties to ensure the music would be good. I start throwing house parties of my own. My favorite house party was our engagement party. If you haven't figured it out yet, the spring break fling was Michael. And I married him.
Volunteering for parties as a DJ got me heard by local organizers. The timing was perfect. 2 people were working on starting this new weekly blues venue since the once-a-month Blues Underground just wasn't satisfying Seattle's need for blues. I got invited to the first "Burn Blue" meeting.
The first few months of Burn Blue were rocky for me, as a DJ. There was a requirement for 75% real blues music, and 25% whatever you want to blues dance to. Since most house parties are more like 75% not blues, but danceable music. I felt that if I was going to be a DJ, I'd better know at least a little about what I was doing. The research begins.
I'd collected a lot of music that I knew little about. Of course, music organization and studying never really stops, but this story is about when it started. Having the opportunity to be one of Burn Blue's first DJs sent me on a spiral of new adventures. I spent hours doing online research on websites like http://www.history-of-rock.com/blues.htm and the like. I got books from the library and spent hours just listening to music. I took a DJ workshop from Steven Watkins, and spent hours with other blues dancers talking music. "That song is jazz." "That song is classic rock that you can dance to, but it's still not blues." "Nope still not blues, that's jazz again." until I finally understand what they meant. They wanted music that wouldn't make people want to Lindy while they worked on teaching open-position blues. Many many blues dancers had started as Lindy-hoppers first, and didn't quite know hot to dance to up-beat blues.
That said, I started learning about the music I'd acquired, and realized I had all the wrong music. And so the research on blues dives even deeper. If I'm going to get new music, I'm going to make sure it's the right music. And without that research, I would never had gotten any Mahalia Jackson. I love her.
After years of being able to DJ, and volunteering to DJ at events, I finally feel confident enough to write this blog. This is my passion, this is my community, this is my life. And I love it.
