 |
| DJ John-Henry Dale |
a DJ, I have a very diverse taste in music, ranging anywhere from archival
field recordings of Cuban Santeria songs, to African Highlife music, to 1970’s
synthesizer pioneers, to Nueva Canción, Tropicalia, and Samba, to Disco, Jazz, Hip Hop, Funk and modern Top
40, as well as avant garde / contemporary classical and bleeding edge experimental
electronic music. At a certain point, I think had listened to so much music
from all eras and genres that I started to realize I would never be happy being
a one or two-genre DJ, i.e. “Hip Hop DJ” or what have you. That said, I have great
respect the folks that do dive deep into a few specific genres to find the
musical gems that most people won’t typically hear.
According to your DJ style what can we wait at Gala Milagro: íCelebrando Argentina!?
probably what would now be called an “Open Format” DJ, which is, in
my opinion, a long overdue method for categorizing DJs who play many different
genres of music. That doesn’t mean that every gig I play will go all over the
musical map. For example, for the upcoming Gala Milagro íCelebrando Argentina! I will, not surprisingly, only be playing
music from Argentina. The next day however, I will be DJing a street-painting
block party in my neighborhood where I’ll play pretty much whatever I want, as
long as it’s family-friendly (i.e. no curse words) and not too dark and
serious.
a former professional wedding DJ, what I’ve realized is that if you really want
to make people happy with your work, you need to be able to adapt and play what
your audience wants. This doesn’t mean you can’t drop in some obscure white
label electro-house jams at a really bouncy wedding, but, you know, make sure
you do that at like 1 am when the dance floor is packed with sufficiently
inebriated party-people, not right after the father-daughter dance.
I’m really looking forward to this Gala Milagro gig
though, because it’s giving me a chance to really re-discover my love of
Argentine music and culture. My first girlfriend in high-school was
Argentine-American and that relationship was really what sparked my first
interest in all things Latin American, including the great music of Argentina 1930’s Tango
through all the great artists on ZZK records in 2013. Probably one of the
greatest, if not THE greatest, concert-going experiences I’ve ever had was
seeing Soda Stereo play their “Ultimo Concierto” tour in 1997 at the
Estadio Nacional in Santiago Chile: 80,000 thousand screaming fans, seemingly
half of whom had lighters, and ALL of whom knew all the lyrics to EVERY SONG
they played, all singing in unison, under a starry sky with the Andean
Cordillera in the horizon. Fue una noche mágica, gracias a la música de Argentina 🙂
***
Don’t miss John-Henry DJ performance at Gala Milagro: íCelebrando Argentina! buy your tickets NOW
For more information about John-Henry Dale’s music and his next performances visit his website: http://johnhenrydale.com/