Abbie Hoffman, in the ultimate youth-worshipping statement, once warned that you can't trust anyone over 30, and I am almost a decade past that age. And I don't even pretend to have been a club person when I was young.
Still, not wanting to look totally ridiculous, I sit trying to decide if I am supposed to say "mix," "spin" or "mash" as the right slang for what it is that is going on in front of me on a recent Thursday night in the DJ booth at Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce. At first, I barely noticed the music, then I was a bit startled, sitting with Graham Funke and DJ Five—two of the six members of newly formed, scenester DJ collective The Abe Froman Showmen—that playing on the turntables is not electronica or any sort of trance or hard-core, or even house. Rather, it is Aerosmith and Pink Floyd. In fact, even when the new 50 Cent single is played by DJ Five, it is done so grudgingly.
"We play those records to get the girls dancing," DJ Five agrees. "Men like to see that. It makes them spend money. It makes the owners happy, and that justifies our paycheck."
According to Funke: "I love early-'90s East Coast rap music but I grew up on rock. Last night I did early-'80s soul, then I got into the rock set, and I played Journey mixed with Outkast. I am not super happy with hip-hop now. But it gets the 21-year-old girls dancing. So I don't really have a choice."
Of course, that changes when a dude—not bearing a tip—comes along with a request. "When a guy comes up and starts asking, say, that I play the new Usher, I pretend I don't know the song and I make him sing it. It is kind of funny. And, then maybe in an hour I'll play it," DJ Five says. Then DJ Five goes right back to tricks like mixing '80s hair-rocker Billy Squire and trumpet player Herb Alpert into his set at Forty Deuce.
"Hip-hop nowadays is not that great. I only play it because I have to," echoes DJ OB-One, another member of the Abe Froman Showmen (the name derives from the teen classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off) who is a regular at Rain. "I'd much rather bang out a set of old-school, '80s and a lot of rock. And personally, I'd like to play some reggae." He has fond memories of his over-three-year stint at Baby's at the Hard Rock, and the other early clubs he worked at, especially the non-casino Strip club, Utopia.
DJ Five, too, started at Utopia. Though still only 26, DJ Five has been a regular in Vegas clubs for years, too many years. "My first gig was at Utopia when I was like 18. And then they found out I was underage and then I couldn't do it anymore."
But according to DJ OB-One things have changed with the success and expansion of the Vegas club scene, though not always for the better: "You could get away with so much more back then. Nowadays in Vegas everything is so mainstream. That in some ways is why we have all come together. We are all so fed up with it."
DJ OB-One's first taste of fame was under his real name, Ben Garcia, on the MTV special, True Life: I'm a Muay Thai Fighter. But in Las Vegas, DJ OB-One turned into a central member of the Vegas wing of The Abe Froman Showmen, working at places like RA, Foundation Room, and Mist, but hooking up his fellow DJs with gigs as well.
DJ Vice, another member of The Abe Froman Showmen, based in LA, was originally brought to Vegas by DJ OB-One for a guest stint at Baby's and is now the regular Friday night DJ for successor Body English. But that means a late night followed by an early flight every week back to LA where he still holds his day job of commercial radio DJ. "I go back to LA on Saturday morning to DJ on the radio, Power 106," he says. "It's cool because it is only a 45-minute flight, so it is perfect for me."
DJ Vice also works in some of the hot LA clubs. But commuting to Vegas and working the Hard Rock every week is worth it, because it gives him a special opportunity (even compared to some of his comrades) for the sort of approach The Abe Froman Showmen take: "For Body English on a Friday night, it's straight tourists so, of course, you got to drive them the (hip-hop) hits. But it being the Hard Rock Hotel you can get away with Bon Jovi to Madonna to Human League. That's cool, because in some of the clubs in LA you couldn't play, like, Beck's 'Loser.' But if you don't like that at the Hard Rock, get the f--k out, you're in the wrong hotel. You walk in and you see that name, you can't expect to hear just hip-hop all night."
Not, mind you, that The Abe Froman Showmen are on a crusade against contemporary hip-hop. "I started out as a hip-hop DJ," says DJ Five. They object only to the ease with which it can take over a set. According to DJ Vice, "You go to so many clubs and hear 30 hip-hop records in a row and the DJ is done. With us you are going to hear Jay-Z into Joan Jett into, like, a Journey record. We are not generic DJs at all."
This isn't as easy as it looks, and most of The Abe Froman Showmen have been honing skills for years. At Forty Deuce, Funke narrates to me as DJ Five creates a seamless joining of the seemingly unlikely mix of Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown" into Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You."
Funke explains: "He is matching the bpm, that is the beats per minute, and that is pretty impressive between the Boz Scaggs and the Justin Timberlake because Scaggs recorded with a live drummer who is not perfect. So in order for him to doctor it correctly, he matched the beats and he's dropped in the instrumental of the Justin Timberlake and matched it perfectly and then he brings in the album version of the Timberlake. He did it fluidly and put it together so well that nobody even stopped dancing and before they knew it the new song was on." According to Funke, "That sort of mixing that he was doing, that's just one of the components that so many DJs these days don't have a grasp on. A lot of guys train-wreck the beats all over each other and it sounds bad. Most patrons won't notice. But those that do will be sickened by it. Then there is the scratching and programming that for so many DJs have fallen by the wayside."
Another favored mix uses wordplay that Funke describes this way: "When I play the Timberlake, because he says drum, I like to drop in a song by Poison with a drum intro." In this case though, DJ Five goes with the Burundi drums from Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy." Stone Rokk and DJ Cobra are the Abe Froman Showmen best known for these sorts of mixes.
"They do mixes that people who read the New York Times catch the references in," says Funke, who describes the group of DJs as united over their frustration at the current nightclub scene: "First and foremost, we're friends. And at the lowest common denominator, we all enjoy the same things: chicks, booze, money and records. But more importantly we involve ourselves in a profession that we've become disillusioned with, because what's passing for a DJ right now is atrocious. It has become the cool thing to do and the tools have become very accessible, but no one is putting in the time to learn the skills. So I feel like the term DJ has lost all its luster."
Oh no, I think, worried that yet another slang word for a person spinning a disc is about to require space in my aging memory. But Funke only wants to reiterate that it's the skills that matter to them. "A good DJ is good at programming, and they can scratch and they can mix. "
Funke is quick to point out that the Showmen are not showboaters—like certain DJs he won't name—putting on wild antics for the crowd. Rather, as the rock crowd used to say, it's all about the music. "People will think that the party was that much better but they won't know why."
Funke also still lives in LA, though he has gotten used to spending some of each week at the Luxor, where he has been a regular for months. "It's alright. I can read hieroglyphics after six months. They fly me out every Thursday. Then they fly me out of here every Sunday morning or Tuesday morning depending if I'm working Monday. I've grown accustomed to hotel living."
He's also been getting a bit of attention, too, thanks to a Thursday night reality series on cable's Bravo, documenting the opening of Forty Deuce. Funke hasn't actually seen the show. "It is running through April. But I am working when it's on TV, but I got a lot of e-mails and phone calls when the premiere aired." Has the feedback been positive? "People, say, 'You're crazy.' So, yeah!"
Being a rising DJ can pull in between $400-$600 on a typical shift, and The Abe Froman Showmen are getting more buzz and playing some of the hottest venues in one very hot town. Still, they're all aware that they're just getting started. "We're putting out mix CDs. We're putting out an album. We are going to go worldwide," DJ Five says, offering a Christmas list of the plans. Of course, he admits that none of these projects has a specific date yet. Asked when the album is coming out, DJ Five laughs, and offers: "I don't know. Probably 2010."