Mohawk 03.13.2020 – Right On happy hour

one week ago tonight, without knowing it, i was playing one of my last public sets for the forseeable future. the term “social distancing” hadn’t become a part of everyone’s vocabulary yet. and while the city streets were subdued, they weren’t empty like they are now. the extent and severity of the Coronavirus pandemic weren’t quite clear at the time (not that it’s entirely clear even now).

i had played the day before at the Ablibi for an event, which was supposed to kick off sxsw music week, attended by almost as many dj’s as there were people. i bounced over to Mohawk afterward to catch the end of friday Right On happy hour, and the place was completely empty minus the staff. spooky. so walking into my saturday night residency at RedHeaded Stepchild, i didn’t know what to expect.

immediately before i play any set, if possible i try to walk the floor and get a sense of the crowd. there was a bachelorette party dressed to impress, four pairs of people who may have been on dates, and two small groups of friends lounging by the front of the bar. there was laughter and conversation, and people seemed in good spirits. but it certainly wasn’t as energetic or rowdy as an average saturday, so i made a mental note to ease into things and try to keep things fun considering all the uncertainty and fear that had been simmering on the backburner of public knowledge.

i keep thinking about that starting crowd at RedHead, because they may be the last crowd that i’m likely to see for a little while made up mostly of strangers. and there are few things more fun for me than settling into a crowd of strangers and trying to weave them into an audience.

it is Day 5 after the official order to close restaurants and bars in Austin. and i don’t quite know what to do with this craving to play music for strangers. a bunch of dj’s i know, and many more that i don’t know, are doing live streaming sets. but i honestly don’t know how entertaining i am to watch, so i… i don’t know, that just doesn’t seem like a good fit for me personally. but tonight i busted out some equipment i had in a box buried in a record crate and hooked it up to my mixer. so stay tuned for the quarantine sessions.