Derek

My full name is Derek John Neuland.  Growing up, some of my family members decided to call me ‘DJ’ due to the first 2 initials of my name.  Sometimes even calling me “Deej” for some reason, as if ‘DJ’ wasn’t short enough.

Despite already having DJ in my name, up until last night I had never been a DJ (unless you count hosting 11 episodes of the Art of the Underground podcast or the ill-fated attempt at DJing I did with Pat Kerr on December 31st, 1999 that I don’t like to think about).  I had heard this guy in Buffalo Malik had started a semi-regular punk vinyl night at DBGB’s (formally Staples) on Allen st. in Buffalo called Shaken Stylus.  A few of my friends had DJ’d it in the past but I was always unable to go unfortunately.  I was already friends with Malik’s housemate Joe Lipa so I mentioned to him that if Malik ever needed a DJ, I would love to give it a try.

Cut to a show last week at the Funeral Home where Malik introduces himself to me and asks if I want to DJ on August 10th (a couple weeks away).  I of course accept but then a realization pops in my head: I don’t own any punk records right now.  I used to have a really good collection of records, something I worked up to for over 10 years.  That all changed when I decided to move to Portland a couple years ago and decided I wanted to get rid of most of my possessions, including my records.  I sold some of the more important records to friends, but most went to Spiral Scratch.

Luckily, my good friend Biff has a very good record collection and offered to let me borrow some of his. So after my shift at Spiral Scratch last night, I went to his house and scoured his vinyl for an hour and picked out a good selection of stuff.  There were a few things I was hoping he would have but didn’t (X-Ray Spex, The Avengers, and Village People-”Renaissance”).  I ended up only playing 2 songs off of records I brought of my own (Crisis of Conformity and Fucked Up), so I’m not exaggerating when I say that I couldn’t have done it without Biff.

Here is the playlist from my DJ set.  It’s every song but I don’t remember the exact order near the middle:
Cheap Trick- “Surrender”
Crisis of Conformity- “Fist Fight”
Fucked Up- “Queen of Hearts”
Bad Brains- “Attitude”
Millions of Dead Cops- “Nazi’s Shouldn’t Drive”
Minor Threat- “Salad Days”
The Stooges- “Search and Destroy”
Bikini Kill- “Rebel Girl” (Huggy Bear split version)
Husker Du- “New Day Rising”
The Ramones- “Pet Sematary”
Wipers- “Is This Real?”

Malik was surprised to hear afterwards that it was the first time I had ever DJ’d.  I had a lot of fun and he already said he wants me to do another one down the road so i’m super excited about that.