FYI: The Freaks (also) Come Out Mid-Afternoon

Spoonie Gee says “All Aboard!” (with his eyes)

Although she played no Journey, DJ Lalee took us on one. We started off on a raucous rock and rollercoaster and paused at the Cornershop for a smoke break. We then boarded the soul train - taking us up and over the mountains, through funk country and delivered us into a the mystical monastery of nun other than the women we worship - MIA, Bjork and Lil Mama (who let’s face it - delivered some big ol beats - 10 pounders!). After getting down to the three wise wonder women, we got deaky - freaky deaky. Although it was in the 60s and sunny out, it was night time in our cozy confines. And you betcha - the freaks in all of us came out for a hiyahello. But all the freakin makes a lady hungry - so we spread the monster jam on our toasty buns and called it a night. After all - good is good, no? Yes. Yes indeed. Thanks Lalee for this masterful earful!

Beautiful day; 13 beautiful ladies. Who says the #13 is bad luck? DJ Tanner was the luckiest lady in the house tonight.

Ladies, ladies, ladies. Jenn Martin, aka DJ Tanner was getting a little nervous when the clock struck 6:25 and not a lady was to be found on the dance floor. What’s a girl to do with her pink dancing shoes on, in a room of flashing lights, but no dancing partners? Don’t even think of the answer because you don’t have to. The ladies know that DDPP loves them and they all whipped through the door at 6:30. Thirteen beautiful and talented ladies..and they all had their dancin’ shoes on too. Woo hooo! DJ Tanner had the full house she knows and loves…only her house is not in San Francisco. She rocks Chicago, and she rocks it hard. Really hard (GUNTHER AND HIS TRA LA LA KNOW WHAT DJ TANNER IS TALKING ABOUT). She showed her ladies that she loved them (not to mention that she had to dance even harder because her number one lady was missing JB). We started the night out with Hey Baby. It was a way to say, “hey, I”m here, and I’m ready to dance my heart out”. We ended the night with Bitter Sweet Symphony because it was bitter when the dancing was over.

Are you kidding, THE DANCING IS NEVER OVER. We’ll see you in a couple of days or next week! Thanks ladies!!

Tasty Apple Pietunes

Oh dark under lord of the ipod universe? Why doth thou curse dear Lauri with your glitches and ticks and song skips and overall brutality? Why doth thou take our emotions and heart rates on a roller coaster without seat belts? Dark under lord - why do your armpits smell of turpentine? BE GONE UNDER LORD! STAND DOWN! WE ARE TOO STRONG! WE WILL NOT LET YOU WIN!

So…DJ Lauri Apple Pietunes served up her second piping hot sweet mix… and for the second time, the evil dark lord of technology tried getting it’s long grody fingers on a slice. But no no no! We wouldn’t have it! Our enthusiasm, chanting and sage burning rituals drove these spirits of the dark side out of the studio. One woman even broke out her leather and whip to chase these demon spirits from 4057 N Damen forevermore! (thank you for that extra protection!) So below, please find the playlist DJ Apple Pietunes wanted us to hear in its entirety. And much, much, much further below, please find that techno under lord of the dark universe and give him a kick in the shins for us. We thank you.

It’s Not Unusual To Have Fun With Everyone…

Do do do do, do do do do, do do do do do do do do … you wanna dance? Yes my friend, you certainly do. And so did everyone at the packed house of DDPP last night! DJ Jilly Bean brought us a magic bag of goodies with the perfect flavor for everyone! Soul, funk, rock, pop - she blended old classics, B-sides and crowd favorites. The Jenns were quite lucky Serge Gainsbourg wasn’t in attendance - they certainly would have been under arrest for their lava projector antics. Woah - and here’s a picture of Serge Gainsbourg after he tried their shenanigans in front of a lava projector! Ok - it was in front of a nice old lady. But still!?! We gotta be more careful!

So yes! Onto Jilly Bean’s fantastic play list! Check it out!

And FYI - Were DJ Jilly Bean to be a Jelly Bean, she would be a black one.

Introducing…THE CHICAGO DDPP SONG DATABASE (!!!)

Are you the type who wants to make sure NONE of your songs have ever been heard at Chicago DDPP before? Or are you the type looking for inspiration for your upcoming setlist? Or or or - are you just curious to see how many *$#!*& songs have been rocked in Chicago? Any way you cut it - we’ve got just the thing for you… ENTER THE DDPP SONG DATABASE

You can view it just like an excel file! Search alphabetically! By song title! Check out your favorite DJ!

Infinite love and gratitude to Karen Kane and Megan Krejny for coming up with the idea, typing in EVERY SINGLE SONG and TITLE and DJ and DATE and designing and upkeeping an online database for everyone to enjoy! BIG UPS. Thank you ladies!

FOR DJ’s: WANT TO ENTER IN YOUR SONGS? YES YOU DO!

DIRECTIONS:

To enter in songs, click the link on the left that reads, “DDPP_Chicago_Database Form”. You can enter the Playlist Date (a handy calendar will come up, just click the date), track number, song title, etc. Unless there’s something special you should add, leave notes field blank.

A word to ladies only submitting their screenshots: make sure that ALL of the song title and artist are showing! Some of my entries have … in them because iTunes cut them off.

For those just browsing, you can sort by Playlist date, Song Title, Artist, and/or DJ simply by clicking at the top of the appropriate column. There are also some filters that allow you to look at all of the playlists for a particular month.

Finally, you can export the data to a pdf, Excel spreadsheet, etc, just by clicking the ‘Export Data’ button. Have fun and THANK YOU!

Chromeo, Chromeo Wherefore Art Thou Chromeo?

Chromeo is right where he oughtta be - at DDPP…thanks to DJ Dinosaur. She ripped our sweat glands out of their sockets tonight and shook them till they bubbled over. If that sounds gross or painful, I assure you it was quite the opposite. Her mix was electro-hip-hop-ageous and we two-stepped our buns into the full afternoon sunlight with smiles all around. We took joy in the weekend, we found fun in the moves, but most of all - we celebrated the first proper Spring Sunday like it was the last we’ll ever see again. Tricky Chicago - we never feel safe now, do we?

So yes - you can blame it on the sunshine for my delirium/mania of the moment. Sunshine or exhaustion? Whatever the case - please forgive me. Music and sunshine are my anti-drugs, and I nearly overdosed today.

Thanks DJ Dinosaur - for rocking us out of the Stone Age and into the Spring of Our Big Content. Much love ladies - nice moves out there today.

She Wears Short Shorts

And her DJ name does, too! Caitlin - DJ Shorty Shorts - might have been at a loss for fabric, but she was long on hits. We had a great crowd last night despite the weather being closer to bearable than it’s been in oh…7 months or something. So thanks for not going out to find that one place with the outdoor patio bar open and instead getting your dance on. I’m sure your body was thanking you for it this morning.

Here’s the mix that made it 100 degrees in the studio…and made us all wish we had on short shorts, too.

All For Swinging You Around

Theoretically, I should have been sitting in the corner in child’s pose for most of today’s DDPP or weeping exhaustedly in my car. I came to it straight from a 2 day, all day, full body stretch-an-strengthen-a-thon and every fiber in my being was screamin for a break. I was doubtful that there was an ounce of energy left to wring out of my sapped, sorry ass. But DJ Ann Atomic’s tapped into some hidden cache of energy I had no idea even existed and proceeded to yank, pull, cajole, and ssssuck every last iota of movement out of me. Yup. There was nothing left for me to do but DANCE! I got canned heat in my heels tonight (babaaay).

And so did a dozen other Sunday shakers this afternoon! There was some serious dancemanship on Belle Plaine avenue folks. Spontaneous clapping broke out on multiple occasions, pained/writhing air guitar solos ensued on the floor, shadow puppets bopped in the light of the lava projector, tour-jetes and other french-sounding ballet moves were performed with grace and funk and yes - there even was hold-on-for-your-life, full-on spinning, too! (Sorry about my sweaty paws - they’re not great for that particular move). But yes! That was a cooker! Nice work wife of Detholz (aka Ann Atomic aka Jenn Schwarz!) on this mix of mixes that’s left me breathless and now speechless.

In the immortal words of Mel Brooks…May the Schwarz be with you.

Mamma Said TKO

DJ Michelle Leslie Brown threw down hard last night with a mix that left us all better people. It was eclectic, it spanned decades and even continents! And man oh man - do I LOVE that Liz Mason’s lava projector! It provided shadow boxing ring and aggression release chamber for Mamma Said Knock You Out. Although Jenn Martin apparently didn’t get enough aggression out during class - so she decided to smash a potted plant on the ground at the end - just for kicks. Ha! Butreallyfolks - it was an accident. But maybe we can all bring a plant some class and smash them outside sometime? Ok - maybe fake plants. I don’t want to commit herbicide.

And lest I forget to mention - ANY mix that includes any tracks off of Daft Punk’s live in Chicago music is after my heart. Great work Leslie Brown! Your college self would be proud!

It’s the end of the world as we know it: and I feel sweaty

DJ Ruthliss lived up to her moniker tonight. She assembled a hard-hitting mix that left little time for water breaks and catching the breath. In short: that’s just how we like it. An hour and a half later and BAM! We accidentally got an amazing workout without even realizing it.

The classics kept up our energy up so we could sing and clap along and RuthLiss threw out some new zingers to check out. After tonight’s session - I’m feeling that special kind of wiped out where I could fall asleep standing up and still manage beautiful dreams. Nighty night you lovelies - nice work tonight.