DJ Michael K. Rocks the House at, um, Nordstrom's??!

Yeah.

Saturday afternoon I DJ'd at Nordstrom's... the high-end department store at Westfield Annapolis. Yup. Set up right in the center of the store, first floor, by the escalators. I had a clear view of the folks entering from the mall entrance and the front entrance. Font-left of me was the cosmetics department; front-right, women's shoes. Behind me- the escalators. And to my immediate right there was a red chair with a sign: "This Seat Reserved for Mrs. Claus".

You may be asking yourself "Why in the world would Nordstrom's hire a DJ to spin music for four hours?" Join the club. Apparently, the thought was it would add a dash of festivity to the holiday season. And, if you ask me, I'd say that I succeeded and EXCEEDED all expectations. So much so that they asked me back next Saturday. Too bad I'll be in Delaware.

So let me set the scene. First off, I had very little details about the gig. The store admin was new on the job and we were playing phone and email tag the whole week preceding the gig. A few days before, I gleaned that they wanted a mix of holiday and top-40 music. That was it as far as details.

When I arrived, I met up with Alex, the maintenance guy from Russia (or some kin Slavic nation). Alex tried to be very helpful and would have had more success in the endeavour had he actually understood English.

"You need table?" he asked.

"No." I replied.

Two minutes later Alex shows up with a collapsable table. "This good size?" he asked proudly.

"No, I don't need a table, thank you."

"Where should I set up table?" Alex continued.

"Alex, I don't need a table... no table... no need table.... no."

Alex looked confused for a second. "You don't want table?"

"No, Alex, thank you though."

So then I find out that the management at Nordstrom's had planned on the music covering the second floor. Since I only had two speakers and no extra cables, this was a problem. Nordstrom's had speakers, but they were all self-powered and there was just no easy way to chain them to my sound system and I didn't have the right connectors to make it work. This, of course, was hard for Alex to understand as he kept on showing up with different speakers and wires hoping he had found the right ones to hook up with my system. Finally, he gave up and left. That's the last time I saw Alex that afternoon.

So I proceeded to play music. I played modern-day remakes of all the Christmas standards as well as some new Christmas songs (including my own!). In between these, I smattered some ear-friendly top-40, some lounge/jazz-type selections, and some classic pop and soul. Basically, whatever I felt like playing. The mix went over very well and I had a LOT of compliments from shoppers and Nordstrom's staffers alike. Of course, it wouldn't be a successful DJ gig if I didn't have at least one person come up and complain that the music was too loud (it was at "3" on my mixer). Apparently, to one haughty shopper "The music is SO loud, I can't even carry on a conversation with the sales associate!!"

"Huh?" I replied.

No, not really, but in hindsight that would've been HILARIOUS!

I consider the afternoon a raving success, but it was still one of the weirdest DJ gigs I've done in all the 15 years I've been doing this. I mean, I'm standing in the middle of a store at the intersection of two entrances watching people come in (some bee-bopping to the music) and looking at me and thinking "What's HE doing?"

And there I am standing there trying to strike some sort of a pose to portray a sense of "oh yeah, I belong here... just another DJ doing another job." I felt awkward. But I got a lot of compliments on the mix of music -which surprised me. And I had three of four shoppers come up and ask about a song... "Who sings this?" or "What's this song called?" That just supported my belief that I am a master music mixologist. And it gives me proof that music really moves people. And that give me hope that MY music will someday move the masses.