If there’s one thing that most DJs really don’t like, it’s song request. Of course, there are do’s and don’ts when it comes to getting your favorite song played. If you haven’t read DJ Bobby West’s guide to requesting songs, you should definitely check it out. It’s one thing if the request makes sense and goes along with the current vibe of the place but asking for “Call Me Maybe” in the middle of a low tempo Hip Hop set is really out of place.

This story took place at Malverde on 2nd and Guadeloupe. If you’ve never been there, it is a really nice place by the way. Bar staff is cool, atmosphere is chill but most of all the music is always on point. It is the home of DJ Mel (and sometimes DJ HoneyComb) on Fridays and DJ Chicken George on Saturdays. I think they are some of the best and I’ll always recommend them if you’re looking for good vibes outside of the usual Top 40 stuff you hear all over town. Well, here’s a story about a song request that went wrong.

As I walked up the stairs, I could hear that the place was quite busy. As I worked my way to the bar, I noticed a group of 10 girls or so dancing with each other. I figured it was someone’s birthday party because they all spoke woohoo and kept one of them jamming at the center of the circle, a Girls Night Out. I didn’t pay much attention to them because I see groups like that all the time (and so do you). After getting my drink, we walked over behind the DJ booth to greet my friend DJ Mel. The man has won many awards, opened and played for countless artists, has held down the longest running party in Austin (Monday Night at Nasty’s). All that to say that the man knows what he’s doing.

We started talking about random stuff while he was playing some rather hardcore Hip Hop like Move Bitch by Ludacris. Then I asked him whether he was going to switch up the music in a bit since I had noticed the crowd had thinned a little bit. He agreed. And right when he touched his laptop, one of the girls from the birthday party stood right behind the other side of the DJ booth and shouted: “YOU SUCK! NOBODY IS DANCING!” You’ve seen that moment in TV shows and movies when the needle just scratches across the record? Well, it was one of those moments. In all my years of going out, I’ve never heard anybody be that disrespectful towards a DJ. The funny part is that it’s never the birthday girl that comes to bitch at the DJ. It’s always the friend. In this case, it was the fat ugly girl with a bad attitude. And she really looked like she meant it because she stood there and stared at him right in the eye when she uttered those words.

But it gets better (or worse). Mel’s response was definitely one of the best moments in DJ history. He didn’t even look at the bitch (because let’s call her what she was, a bitch). He calmly walked over to his laptop, started typing in the search box and next thing you know the opening riff of Metallica’s Master of Puppets blasted through the speakers! Yes, you read correctly and I couldn’t believe it. He played Metallica’s Master of Puppets in the middle of a Friday night set. Everybody in the bar stopped, stunned. Still without pay attention to the bitch, he walked over to the bar manager and asked him to kick that entire group of girls out of the bar. And yes, the song was still playing. The girls were shocked too. A lot of “oh my god” were going around. Here’s a taste of the song… Enjoy.

Then I walked over to the birthday girl to talk some sense into her. But guess who stepped in front of me? Yep. The bitch. Blocking the way with her arms out like a defense lineman yelling at me: “MOVE OUT OF THE WAY! MOVE OUT OF THE WAY” So I told her straight up that it was her fault if Mel snapped and that everybody had to hear Metallica even though Mel was about to switch to 80’s music right before she dissed him. I don’t know if she was too drunk or too stupid to understand but she basically told me to leave her and her friends alone and that they were about to leave anyway. Mel eventually calmed down after playing the entire Metallica song and went back to doing what he does best. And those girls ended up staying and jammed their asses off until the end of the night.

The moral of the story is that I don’t care who you are, you should never diss a DJ. I know a lot of DJs in Austin. Many have played at our FeedBak parties. I am a strong believer that the DJ makes the party, not the drinks, not the number of people, not how fancy the place is. DJs get paid (often too little) to build a certain atmosphere. When was the last time you went out and partied to a jukebox, someone’s scratched CD, or an iTunes playlist? And if you did, did you have the time of your life? If you did, good for you. If not, you know how big of a difference a human being behind turntables makes in terms of the vibe. Think of the DJ as the party’s conductor: he has to work hard to make sure that this party does not turn into a wreck. The operable word there is work. He/she is actually working, while you’re out there having a great time. And if there’s something nobody wants to hear, it’s someone else telling him/her how to do their job. Again, if you have a request, there are ways to ask. Read Bobby West’s post.

If you are a DJ or if you were a DJ, how would you have handled the situation?[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]