Bash Compactor: You Spin Me Round

If you like DJ Hero (or are too ashamed to try it) you’ll love Spun at The Foundation on the Lower East Side. Spun is a new Tuesday night party that invites patrons into the DJ booth to learn the 1s and 2s and spin hits of their choice for about 15 minutes. Since today’s DJs are using computers and fancy software like Serato, you might think if you know how to use an iPod and move a mouse, you know how to DJ. But no.

Full disclosure: I’m the last person on the planet that doesn’t have an iPod, and if I did, it’d be filled with the Best of Weird Al Yankovich, so I definitely have no business in anybody’s DJ booth. But Foundation owners Ronnie Kaplan (he owned Suede and Cherry Lounge), Joe Torres and Jay DeLalla don’t judge.

Newbies get the ropes from professional DJs Captain Geech and The Shrimp Shack Shooters and Claudine DeSola. And if you go into the booth don’t expect to become the next DJ Cassidy after 15 minutes. It’s not a classroom; it’s a loud-ass club DJ booth. You can barely hear the instructions and you can’t remember the name of any song you ever heard and folks are on the dance floor waiting to throw a bottle at you if you play something stupid.

The screen was intimidating. Things were spinning; digital clocks were counting up in one column, down in another. On the board, there were about 50 zillion buttons and switches hooked up to two vinyl turntables for scratching and other DJ stuff.

Once in the booth, Geech, gave me a short intro to the console, then instructed me to listen in the headphones to the song I wanted to play next, so I could time my mouse click to mix it with one hand, while bringing up one cue and lowering another to fade out the current song and into the new one with the other.

Real DJs need to worry about song selection, like how you shouldn’t play Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” until 3:45 a.m. (It was 9:45 when I suggested it) but Spun DJs can do what they want. West Villager Lauren Reeves popped her DJ cherry, opening with Led Zeppelin’s “Rambo On” then several rock-country songs.

Taking a cue from DeSola, I asked a couple guys for a request and ended up playing Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence.” Then I was inspired to play “The Sign” by Ace of Base and “C’mon N Ride It (The Train)” by Quad City DJs. And here’s where you get a taste of what gets DJs off: seeing the crowd move. I mean, no one got trampled on their way to the dance floor during my set but a few people did jump up to Ace and Quad. The guy I played Depeche Mode for even gave me a thumbs-up.