The art of car DJing

I used to take taxis all the time. I also used to hate taxi music. (You know what I’m talking about: unbearably sappy ballads, or relentlessly pounding dance trash, stuff like that.) I’m still not crazy about taxi music, but in the days when every cab had a cassette deck, my solution was simple: make mixes to take with me, to create my own soundtrack for each trip.

This worked out well for a few years; traffic and paying per patak were a bit more bearable thanks to Blur, the Smoking Popes, and selections from the Splendor soundtrack. My second fondest memory related to these mixtapes involved a cab full of my college friends who suddenly started singing along to the Popes’ version of Pure Imagination. My fondest memory is of this grizzled old taxi driver who really got into the Blue Nile and Nick Cave tunes I was playing. (I gave him the cassette after he had taken me to where I wanted to go.)

A friend of mine who used to do the same thing was not always so fortunate. On a long, long cab ride, he played Mazzy Star and the Cowboy Junkies nonstop — unbelievably sad, slow, sleepy music — until the driven-to-depression driver asked, as politely as possible, if he would please stop it.

The point is, listening to music in a car is a different experience — heightened, in some ways, especially if you’re with friends. Even Limp Bizkit sounds good when the whole car is idiotically shouting along, with the windows rolled down (as my barkada and I shamelessly experienced, one inexcusable night in the late ‘90s). And who can forget that scene in the film 24-Hour Party People, where Joy Division test-drives their newly recorded songs? (If you haven’t seen 24-Hour Party People, you must. Go. Get. Now. Preferably a subtitled version, because the English accents are a little thick.)

If you can’t get tickets to Morrissey in May, console yourself by listening to him in your car.

A good car DJ doesn’t just play familiar favorites (though those have their place); a good car DJ plays unfamiliar songs that become your new favorites.

It is my honor and pleasure to know — and often hitch rides with — two of the best car DJs ever: my friends Margie G. and Erwin R. (who also happens to be a STAR columnist). There was one night when, after riding in Margie’s car, I proceeded to download absolutely everything I had heard her play in it. She was the one who introduced me, years ago, to the music of The Postal Service (and let me tell you, The Postal Service sounds great in a vehicle, moving or otherwise). Her impromptu playlists tend towards tuneful rock with a little bit of a dark side: Interpol, Pixies, Manic Street Preachers, DCFC, even Nada Surf (who, it turns out, are much more than a one-hit wonder). Which is not to say that her “sets” don’t occasionally feature something like, say, a fun Phoenix remix.

Being in a car with Erwin as the DJ is like getting a free education in the best music of the 20th and 21st centuries. From long-lost Pinoy punk gems from the ‘80s to never-released mixes by local electronic and indie-rock acts, to gritty classics by Lou Reed and Iggy Pop — you know that his knowledge is encyclopedic and his appreciation is deep. Like any good DJ, he also knows how to “read the room” — he’s not going to throw Throbbing Gristle at you unless he knows you can handle it (although actually, once in a while, he might, just to mess with you). On the occasions where our tastes overlap, he invariably chooses the best there is of whatever act we both admire (the Pet Shop Boys circa “Behaviour,” or XTC’s Wrapped in Grey, for example). And, of course, his love of Morrissey’s music knows no equal.

Some rules, then, for car DJing: 1) Stay true to the music you really love; 2) At the same time, if you’re not alone, try to play the best/most accessible tracks by the acts you love, in order to make fellow fans of your “audience”; and 3) Do not play Mazzy Star and/or the Cowboy Junkies nonstop unless you want accidents or suicides to ensue.