Hey, Mr. DJ, put a record on...

That's me: DJ Not-If-I-Can-Help-It!

I want to talk about one of the hardest jobs in the party planning business. No, it’s not mine -- it’s the DJ’s!

Even after sixteen years of throwing parties, the job that terrifies me most is that of playing DJ. It’s an impossibly demanding job, as the tone and energy of the party is dictated by the person spinning the records (or in today’s case, digitally mastering the tunes). Now, I’ve done a lot of parties, and been through a lot of DJs, and I’ve got quite a few stories to share, but at the moment, I want to sing the praises of whom I consider to be the best DJ in the Bay Area. His name is Miguel Fonseca, a.k.a. DJ Hightop. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him for about seven years now, and he is without a doubt the best “kids” (meaning under-21) DJ in town. Don’t get me wrong, he’s great with the over-21 crowd too, but that’s not really his thing. He, like me, loves the energy and drive of kids. His specialty is high school age and younger, and man, he knows how to tap into these kids like nobody else. From the shy late bloomers to the players in the crowd, he gets them all. I have done numerous events with him, from a tiny party of 40 in a garage to a group of 5,000 at Pac Bell Park, and he has always rocked the house. Even with the flu and a fever of 102º, he rocked it. The guy just knows how to make it happen.



Miguel in action

I think what makes him so good is that he takes his lead from the kids. He reads their energy. He knows how to bring them up, sustain them at that level, bring them back down for a breather, and then bring them right back up again. He’s got a gift. And it’s a given that by the end of the evening, he’ll have everyone, including the adults (and my staff, hidden in the wings) dancing, hooting, and hollering. He also has an amazing posse of guys who we in the business call “motivators.” Miguel’s guys are above and beyond motivators; they are magnets that draw the kids into a whirlwind of movement. Sequence, Bobby the Butcher, and Cameron make up the team, and each of them is spectacular in their own way. So if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and you want a DJ for your teens -- DJ Hightop is the man to call. I will warn you though: he’s hard to get. He books years in advance, and he’ll tell you honestly that his heart is really in the teen dances: junior high and high school proms, homecomings, etc... And he may not tell you this, but he’ll tell me: he always gets nervous before he performs. It’s part of what makes him so good, I think. He isn’t complacent or doing some rote routine, he’s reinventing each party as it happens.

But this brings us to some of the other DJs I’ve worked with... (Sigh.)

Now remember, I consider this to be one of the hardest jobs there is, especially for teenagers, and I appreciate every DJ I’ve ever worked with. On very rare occasion I have been forced to play that role myself, and it is possibly the only role that made me consider leaving the business. But still, I have to mention some of the crazy DJs I’ve had...

There was The Talker. Ugh! This is one of those DJs who loves to hear the sound of his own voice. He thinks he’s brilliant and funny, and has to find a way to comment on everything happening in the room: the dancing, the activities, the food, the lighting... I mean, it was like having one of those cable car guided tours at your dance party! I had to threaten him with unplugging his microphone to make him stop. And even then, he kept chattering in between songs! I wanted to strangle him. Nothing kills a party more than a babbling baboon on a microphone, except...

The Crooner: This guy had it all: the toys, the prizes, the games, the music, and... the voice. He was a big guy, and he squished his way into the middle of a packed dance floor to sing along with Katy Perry. Faster than you could say “evacuate the dance floor” the dude was singing and dancing alone. Not a pretty picture. Eventually he sequestered himself in his DJ “cave” and the kids returned. To his credit the kids did dance the night away after that. Not the case with...

The Game Player: This guy kept trying to gather the kids to play games, but the kids weren’t having any of it. It really didn’t help that his “motivators” were young girls in silly short skirts who were more pushy and embarrassing than motivating. My crew and I spent the entire evening trying to track down escaping kids. The party was in a tent at the client’s home, and the kids kept slipping out and into the garden to wreak havoc on the azaleas. It was a nightmare for us; I don’t think anyone danced that night. I can honestly say, it was one of the hardest Bar Mitzvahs I’ve ever done, and a testimony to how the wrong DJ can ruin your party. Which leads me to...

The Show Stoppers: These are the over-priced, over-produced guys who come up from Los Angeles. They’ve got their way of doing things, and to them, they are the show. They couldn’t care less who the hosts are, the only thing that matters is them. Ask them to turn down the music a bit because grandma’s ears are bleeding, and they feign attentiveness and then turn it up another notch instead. Ask them to tone down the gyrating motivators, and they add in a costume change into something even more provocative! Ask them to respect the poor bar mitzvah kid who has asked that the parents leave the dance floor to go to their dessert buffet, and they dedicate the song “Bossy” dedicated to you at the next break. Gotta love those guys. Don’t get me wrong, these big shots are perfect for some people. And then there’s...

The Big Games in Town: Now, to their credit, these guys try really hard, and it’s not their fault that they are at so many events that the kids, especially those that go to schools like Brandeis, where kids spend their 7th grade year attending a Bar or Bat Mitzvah every single weekend, are over them. The problem is that they’ve got a routine, and when the kids see you week after week, they get bored. They don’t want to play “Coke and 7-Up” again. It was fun the first time they had to find a $100 bill from an audience member, but it’s a little dull when people start bringing $100 bills because they know the scavenger hunt is coming up. Unfortunately, since they’re so dependable and respectable, they get overused. We had one poor guy in the lobby meeting and greeting the kids as they arrived, only to be met with, “Oh, no. Not you again.” How debilitating is that? To his credit, he pulled out all the stops and did a great job, but how hard must that have been? That brings me to...

The Shy Guy: He’s an awesome club DJ -- he spins and mixes like nobody’s business. But he doesn’t talk... Not a word! He doesn’t even bring a microphone because he has a phobia about them. The issue is, however grown-up kids want to feel they are, they still need a bit of encouragement when it comes to getting on the dance floor. It’s a hard mix to find: the right amount of talk with the right songs. It’s tricky -- which is why this kind of DJ mystifies me...

The Cheeseball: He has an act that hasn’t changed in years, and that year is 1970! I’ve seen him perform for over a decade, and it’s always the same: a little karaoke, a little limbo, a little dancing. Every time the food comes out, he plays “Eat It” by Weird Al Yankovic. He is as tried and true as a Timex watch. The funny thing is, he just does his shtick, the same thing over and over... and over... and over... whether anyone pays attention or not. The interesting thing is that he usually ends up with a crowd of kids around him (granted, mostly younger kids). I’ve witnessed him in action over a dozen times, but mostly at events like company picnics -- never at a Bar Mitzvah. I suppose it’s the cheese factor that eventually draws folks to him. There’s also his “devil may care” attitude: he’s just doing his thing, man, and it’s up to you if you want to join him. He’s still non-threatening, not grabby or irritating, and so he just sort of sucks people in. It’s much better than...

The Irritated DJ: This is the guy that gets frustrated and annoyed when the kids don’t respond. Instead of just working with them, and letting the flow of the music entice them, he starts badgering and taunting the kids. I’ve only witnessed this once, and I hope to never see it again. It made for such an uncomfortable feeling in the room that I was thankful we had a separate game room for the kids -- which is where they ended up spending the night, huddling for safety from “the mean man.”

Overall, it’s a far cry from when I was a kid! All I remember is boys on one side, girls on the other. But then, we never had parties like these. Kids today are so much more sophisticated than we were. Thinking back, I don’t even think we had a DJ. I think we had our music teacher, a record player, and two speakers. Born to be mild, baby... Born to be mild.