Ok, so with my head full of Cure and severely lacking H2O I arrive in....
MILAN: where I am greeted by Mauro the promoter of Billy (the club night I am playing at) who's a dead ringer for Bobby Miller I kid you not, and my new agent (backstory: my previous agent got knocked up by her husband and had the baby after which she decided to say screw being an agent I wanna be a mom only, hey why not), Riccardo who lives in London but is from Milan so he came for the weekend. Both are lovely and instantly I begin to have jitters about the upcoming night. My daysheet, or itinerary, has a small disclaimer at the bottom saying the music direction of the club- house with some vocals, nothing too hard or deep. FUCK! The word electro does not even appear and if ever anyone asks me what I play I usually respond electro or electro-house. Riccardo assures me that I should do what I do and to ignore the sheet, that it's bullshit. A quick laydown at the hotel and then it's dinner with 2 of the other dj's (Kareem from Paris and Paul Heron from London- whom I recognize from a club called Orange which is a fierce den of iniquity, like always 8 boys per bathroom stall) and the guest performer Barbara Tucker. Rumours of Barbara's diva-like behaviour circle the table before she arrives. When she does she's absolutely pleasant. Even after Kareem squirts lemon juice in her eye. Oops, sorry. Paul Riccardo and I get on like Jacko's hair on fire and spend the dinner pretty much ignoring everyone else. Not intentionally of course, we just happen to form a sewing circle at the end of the table, "...and THEN what did she say Marjorie?" Paul's quite a cutie, but he has a boyfriend so it's just hopeless flirting on my part. Still, he vollies well. Later on we arrive at the club during Kareem's set which is pretty tribal-y/housey. In my head I'm going "Oh god oh god oh god!" Now maybe you are thinking, "What the fuck? Just play your gdmf-ing set. This aint your first time in a dj booth!" But for me I feel like this is the first gig with my new agent, my first gig in Milan at a club (THE gay club in Italy supposedly), I've got to nail it. Here goes...
My set is to happen at 2:30am after Barbara does 3 songs (she is bookending my set, playing before and after). Mild disaster strikes when Barabra's 3rd song is skipping (luckily the dj had listened to it in his headphones before playing it to discover this fact). Barbara, obviously getting frustrated with stalling the crowd just turns to me and says on the mic "Play something with no vocal, let's freeform a bit". I hit play on my first track which is a hot song called "Here We Go", and those are the only words in the song. Before she even hears them she is singing "Gaaalaaaaxyyyy! Let's go to the gaaalaaxyyyyy!" When the beat drops in after a minute intro, the whole floor (and Barbara) drop 2 feet and it is ON! Synchronicity, she is a kind mistress sometimes. Towards the end of the song Miss Tucker has abandoned talk of galaxies and is now just singing "Pride (A Deeper Love)" over the track. I'm gagging. She finishes and I just launch into my set which goes great. Riccardo was right. I go hard electro and they eat it up. The rest of the night is a blur of vodka, curled bills, and steroid gogo boys as I witness something that feels like a new chapter in my life. The Italian Job.