In the first of an occasional new series, we pit two of
those perennial show offs, or Disc
Jockeys as they are more commonly known, against each other in a DJ shoot out
of global proportions. Hopefully we can discover who is actually worth
listening to in the world of turntablism, mixing and dropping huge tunes. Here we
present you with the first match up of round 1; Diggers versus Tenaglia…
DJ Shoot Out Round 1
There was a time when I wanted to collect all the Global
Underground compilations. That was before I'd heard a few of them. But I couldn’t
resist Digweed's Los Angeles and Tengalia's Athens disks when I saw them in a
three for a fiver promotion. So in the first of this new series, we ask the
question; which of these superstar international DJ types produced the best
selection of tunes?
Being a DJ is the most over-rated occupation in the whole
world. Essentially their task is to pick out records for us to listen to, but
invariably they pick sixteen duffers and perhaps one better than average track.
To make matters worse they 'mix' them all together into one gigantic abysmal
continuous mess that engulfs the odd entertaining song which is now almost impossible
to find. These guys take a real pride in their ability to seamlessly mix two
songs together to the point of absolute smugness. I've got news for you boys;
no-one cares!
With this in mind, I didn't have high hopes for our
protagonists. Diggers once picked a couple of good songs for a Northern
Exposure Compilation years ago, but on this showing he manages to pick just one
decent song out of the twenty two (Kelli Ali-Love in Traffic). For a man whose
job it is to pick good songs, that's a pitiful return at just over 4%.
The problem is DJ's will do
anything to avoid being referred to as 'cheesy'. To your average DJ, 'cheesy'
is not the Vengaboys, but anything even slightly entertaining or interesting.
Diggers packs his two CD set with the most dirgy soulless and vocal-less
repetitive beats, that could only be out-dirged if PJ Harvey took up human
beat-boxing and blasted out repetitive bleepy dirge at the same time as her indie rock
dirge. To summarise: it's boring.
On the other hand, Tenaglia manages to pick no good songs and
his set is equally boring but with a dirty, scuzzy New York kind of vibe.
Basically, it's his job to pick good songs, but he can't find any. That's like
a miner who can't find coal, a dentist who can't find your teeth or a dinner
lady who can't lay her hands on some flapjack!
At the end of the day it's a hollow victory for Diggers and you can save yourself a lot of time and pain by Youtubing the Keli Ali track instead (or just click on it below). But he’s through to the next round, where who knows which international superstar show off he will meet?
Result: Digweed 1-0 Tengalia
