What to hippies dance to?
Gnat
1,183 Posts
Got roped into DJing for this hippy CO-OP fundraiser thing...looking forward to doing another house party but at the same time, what do ueber-earth-conscious-vegans in Oakland dance to? I played this place before and just couldn't hit the vibe. They didn't even know bay shit, even mellow stuff like conscious daughters didn't sit well...I'm thinking like reggae and politically conscious hip hop and afrosound system, but would appreciate suggestions. Thoughts? (that don't involve cancelling or derisive remarks about hippies)?~gNat
Comments
Digable Planets?
Brazilian jams?
Latin?
Earth Wind and Fire?
THAT SAID...I DJ'ed a benefit for a bunch of hippie dancers once; and once only. Let's just say I
We went with funk a la JB, Curtis, etc, and they were doing hippie noodle dancing, stroking the poles, doing mirroring exercises while dancing. Terrible. I turned to my buddy, and just said, "Just shake your hips. Its funk. That's all you've got to do." Instead, we got interpretive dance to The Meters.
The Brazillian/Afrobeat/Reggae angle sounds best. Foreign languages will make them feel more 'aware'.
Dry & Heavy
Hey, who you calling a hippie?
Marley
Talking heads
Curtis Mayfield
Herbie Hancock
Jimi Hendrix
Antibalas all night
and The Meters.
Fela?
Antibalas?
Rusted Root?
Poi Dog Pondering?
Phish?
Cat Stevens?
a stack of dancehall 45s?
the Coup?
but cmon, man, hippies or not it's Oakland!:
When did you DJ there? 1994?
Oh wait forgot you're in the bay area, home of the funky expedition
Sometimes you can sneak in some dead prez
Also all kinds of old school mainstream hip hip, like Biz Mark and Wu Tang #1...
But seriously, get a good vibe going and then you can play almost anything. The Hippie
crowd is usually "once you got em', you can get em' to dance to anything" kinda crowd.
and end with some Bob Marley. You'll have em weaping in their micro brews...
I always want to kill hippies anyway, but what you just wrote makes me really want to kill hippies.
Prince
Outkast
Michael Jackson
Missy Elliott
"Bust A Move"
"More Bounce to the Ounce"
etc.
They might be more receptive to the whole Common/Mos Def/J5 end of things then other folks who don't listen to KMEL, but I wouldn't try to deviate too far from regular dance music. If there's girls there and people want to dance I can pretty much guarantee shit like Soundtribe and Disco Buiscuts or whatever won't go over well.
Those gigs suck... even if they go well they leave you feeling all hollow inside.
Try to avoid if at all possible...
- spidey
True. Although despite outward appearances all hippies have a secret weakness for trance and gabba. Especially gabba. Trust me.
Then you can see them do their finger-wagging dance.
Project Blowed/Jurassic Five
A: put it under the soap!
really though, Phish et. al. is good, what bout Soup Dragons, Jesus Jones, Spin Doctors and all of that stuff. Also this one may not be too obvious, but Medeski Martin and Wood might be good. I knew a lot of frat boy deadheads that were into these guys.
Good advice on the Fela/Antibalas/Spearhead stuff - maybe Hugh Masekela and Manu Dibango would work too. Anything remotely 'tribal'
I dare you to start a new Project Blowed thread.
hatt on hatter