Wellesley College CSA Hosts Worst Party Ever
Behind-the-scenes coverage by Mouser Williams
So Heemin asked me if I'd help him with a DJ gig he got down at Wellesley for their Chinese Student Association. Figuring that this meant helping him carry his turntables, mixer, and records to and from the car and helping keep annoying frat types from making requests, I agreed.
As it turns out, the CSA can't get their own PA or even borrow one from anybody at Wellesley, so Heemin needs to bring his own. This involves so much gear that we have to get Jamie's van just to hold it all. And of course we have to move it all ourselves. And of course it's all stored in Heemin's third-floor apartment. A 12-cubic foot subwoofer, as it turns out, is really really heavy. As are the assorted amps, speakers, mixing consoles, and of course, the expected turntables and records.
But whatever, I've gotten stuck moving PA shit around for gigs before and I know how much it means to have someone helping with the manual labor. So that's fine. But of course to get both vehicles down to Wellesley means I have to drive Jamie's minivan, a.k.a. the world's biggest piece of crap on wheels.
The cheetah-print steering wheel cover was mildly amusing, until I realized that it was making my hands smell like cheetah ass or something. The cloth that veils the hard metal roof of the van, in a shoddy attempt to create the illusion of comfort, was torn in numerous places and was hanging down right in front of my face, both tickling my nose and preventing me from seeing anything.
Strange noises would frequently eminate from the van for unknown reasons. The key doesn't open the driver side door. The windows don't roll down, which made paying the Masspike tolls a challange. And to top it off, I had no idea where I was going, not ever having been to Wellesley before. I had to tail Heemin the whole way there. At least Jamie left a great mixtape in the deck.
Wellesley is out in the middle of nowhere, as far as I can tell. Going there from Boston you never really leave town per se, but you enter a sort of endless suburban nightmare and the towns sort of all run together. The campus is nice, though. It's much more of a non-city campus than MIT or even Coe. The roads are thin and windy, there's lots of green and hills and a stream of some sort. Beyond that I couldn't tell much because it was dark.
The space for the party was acoustically horrible, but otherwise a reasonable venue. The organizers consisted of an army of very short chinese girls who seemed very stressed out. Heemin's prediction that I would be the tallest person there by a good foot was confirmed.
After unloading the metric assload of audio gear, Heemin springs the best part of the evening on me. The other DJ, who was supposed to meet us there, is still in Boston and his ride has bailed on him. So I have to drive back and get him. Bear in mind that I really have no idea where I am or how to get back to Boston. Not to fear, Heemin will draw me a map, he says. Unfortuantely, he doesn't know the names of any of the streets. After constructing something that looks like a carribean treasure map and lending me his car for this trip and his cell phone for when I get lost, I'm off.
Heemin's jeep is much more comfortable than Jamie's POS van. His also comes with good music, but also has luxuries like working windshield wipers, working power windows, and brakes. I make it back to Boston without difficulty, and no thanks to Heemin's map, but it turns out that the address he's written down where I am to find "Lars" does not exist. I call Lars on the phone and ask him where the hell he lives and he sets things straight.
Lars, who is British but pronounces his name the Norweigian way, "Larsh," throws his records into the back of the jeep and his girlfriend into the front seat and off we go. They have a good laugh at the treasure map and turn out to be very pleasant. Larsh is an exchange student in course 6 from Cambridge. His girlfriend is finishing up economics at Cambridge.
Anyway, so we get back without a hitch and the tiny Chinese girls are very relieved, as it seems that they are much more interested in hearing Larsh's hiphop than Heemin's trance. We made it back with about 10 minutes to spare before the party began. Which is to say about 45 minutes before anyone ventured onto the dance floor.
Heemin had indicated in the aformentioned "deal" that there would be dinner provided inbetween when we set up and when we started, but due to the Larsh complication, I got to miss that part. So my diet for the evening was potato chips and water from the bathroom sink. Yum.
Throughout the four hour party, Heemin and Larsh swapped back and forth on the turntables. Heemin was back to his traditional progressive trance records, and Larsh it turns out is a really good hiphop DJ. He scratches really well and made some really compex transitions that blew me away. During their sets, I tried to play crowd control and keep people from making assinine comments to them. Some of my favorites of the evening were:
"Is this Chinese hip-hop?"
Multiple occurances of "Are you guys ever going to play any trance music?" during Larsh's set.
Multiple occurances of "When are you going to play hip hop?" during Heemin's set.
No, seriously! It was like clockwork. Not five minutes after a transistion from one to the other, some jackass would come up asking if we were ever going to play [insert genre that was just played for 30 minutes here]. I think these questions came up at least 15 times over the course of the evening.
Towards the end of the party, the CSA had produced some guy who wanted to do some freestyle. I'm all for live acts and hip hop, but this guy was just whiter than white and so so so bad. When he came on, basically the party stopped and waited for him to be done. His dozen or so homeboy posers that came with him seemed to be the only people that enjoyed the performance, and after they were done they left again and the party resumed. He left his extra-wack background music CD with us which he had apparently produced himself. Title track: Elementalism. Ugh.
When the party ended, it was raining which made moving the gear out a pain. And the non-working defrost and wipers in Jamie's van made the drive home a bit more dangerous than I was comfortable. But we made it. Heemin was livid and declared it the last gig he would ever do. I remember that moment for myself, after a particularly lame sigma-nu party at Coe. People who want to hear J-Lo and "It's Raining Men" on repeat should just turn on the freakin radio and save their money.
After hauling all that stuff back up the stairs to his apartment, Heemin apologized profuseley for the lameness of the party and promised me free brunch on Sunday.
I've done lame parties before, but this one really took the cake. Wow. OK I'm done venting now, sorry for subjecting you to it.
