Last night I DJ'ed for Club Fidelity at Bonden, where I had a lot more fun than I imagined. The venue itself is quite small. Bonden is divided into a restaurant and a bar/dance-floor which really are two separate identities; the restaurant is at ground-level while the bar is reached by going down a concrete stair to a cellar, basically, where the bartender pours drinks using his fallable eye-measure and a gas-chamber (i.e. a "smoking room", as smoking in places where alcohol and food is served is recently prohibited in Stockholm) has been installed.

I met Ivan (a.k.a. DJ Patrà³n) who invited me to play last time I was at the club. He studies molecular biology and so did most of his friends at the place - at least the ones I met - and he's on to getting his doctor's degree. However, this didn't stop him from playing good tracks. His intro was Divinyl's "I Touch Myself", such a great track. It inspired me, in turn, to play The Primitives' "Crash". I opted for it instead of "Stop Killing Me" as they went hand in hand. Later, I did The B52's "Love Shack" also...aw, you can't knock it. It's a killer.

Another DJ popped up as I was trying out the equipment. Oh, speaking of the equipment, there was a decibel-meter above the DJ booth. It's set up so that the DJ can't see it, but the bar-person can. The only time I was alerted that the box was in the red, was when I played the last song; a couple of people commented that that was strange, as I had lowered the volume dramatically before playing it. Weird.

Ivan showed me the CD-decks, nothing strange there, so I started playing to Ivan and the bartender when the place opened, at 20:00. After three songs, an Irish person turned up and said "Hi, I'm [unhearable], I'll be going soon, so I'm on now." Well, right, do it!

She played high-speed indie tracks for about 45 minutes, the kind that churn-churn-churn and leave little space for thought. I have nothing against that type of song, but playing a whack-load of them in a long row tires me. After her set, she said good-bye and left for the evening. Almost no people had showed up at the time. In fact, the only ones at the place were a couple of Ivan's friends: a guy who also studies and teaches molecular biology plus a girl who used to be an artist and now studies. Molecular biology? Damn right.

When Ivan was playing U2, suddenly Arvid turned up. I hadn't seen him in ages! He's a friend of Frederic's, and I like him a lot. We spoke for a bit when Mikaela and Frederic turned up. Hoo-ray! We chatted away and ordered stuff at the bar. The guys were a little distressed at how few people were at the club, and so was I, prepared for a quite empty evening. Little did I know.

After I while I started playing. I think I started with a mix of Blur's "Parklife" and The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows", which was not my mix, but a good bootleg I picked up on the net. Daft Punk's remix of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" turned a few heads, which was really nothing against what Skatter's bootleg mix of Madonna's "Music" did; it's a glitchy track with a lot of turns and twists. I like it, but when her voice went berzerk people on the dance-floor started wondering what was going on.

I played on for a while when suddenly a whole bunch of people came in at once. Great! They were ordering at the bar and then - another bunch, namely my work-mates! They were in high spirits and I was very happy that they showed up. Speaking of which, Anka and Muma, two guys from an electronic community that Mikaela and I were once a part of, turned up. Very nice indeed. I like the fact that Club Fidelity doesn't require an entrance fee and that you don't have to check your jacket/bag in at the wardrobe if you don't want to.

When I started playing a mix of Visage's "Fade To Gray" and Kent's "Kärleken Väntar", a girl came up to me and wondered when I was going to play any ragga. I almost laughed, but instead told her that I only played indie, rock and house, but that I was planning on doing at least one M.I.A. track, so that's it. She cunningly retorted with "But why don't you play ragga?" to which I said "Because I don't; this club is an indie, rock and house club!". She then searched the landscape of her mind for answers and came up with "But nobody's dancing! Nobody's on the dance-floor!" I then asked her to turn around. She did. Four of my work-mates had started dancing like mad, and the girl just left. I couldn't feel sorry for her. Really, when people say "But the dance-floor is empty, you know they live their lives harbouring the popular misconception that says a DJ constantly has to pack a dance-floor. I, and many like me, are not that. In fact, I have twice during my gigs been asked to play crap music or something to just clear out the dance-floor, to keep the cash-flow at the bar up.

Then a really weird thing happened. It wasn't the fact that I'd cleared the dance-floor again (which wasn't all that strange - Swedes are mostly comfortably being numbed by alcohol before heading out to the dance-floor, and this was early on) but that a guy threw himself on it and started some extremely weird robotic jig. I can't explain it. I can't even remember which track I was playing at the time, but his dance-moves nearly made me miss a beat. He did, however, step up to the DJ booth and asked me when I was going to play something danceable again - while the track was still playing! I tried to joke with him by saying that all the tracks I've ever played were danceable, but evidently that was equivalent to spinning a dreidl before a nazi. He headed off the floor, and others came on. Just before I left I spun Blueboy's "Remember Me", which has a brilliant intro with bells and easy break-beats, before becoming a bopping house track. Frederic loves the refrain, as it complements his vocal tics perfectly. He sings "keng-keng-ke-keng-keng-keng-keng-keng" into oblivion.

Ivan took over, and as his second track, he played...Blueboy's "Remember Me". What! Immediately, Robin from my work-place asked me what the hell was going on. What could I say? I ran up to Ivan and asked how come he played a track I'd already played. "What? Did you play it a long time ago?" - "No! Just a few minutes ago!" - "What?". Well, more people came up to me and wondered what had happened, but fawk it, that stuff happens to everybody. Ivan did a few rounds of old indie stuff, including a couple of tracks that the Irish girl had played earlier in the evening.

I then took over and a girl asked me if I could play any Slayer or Slipknot. Well, imagine that! I thought it was a perfect question, as she was very nice about it. I told her I would definitely play something akin to those types of metal, but no Slayerish stuff, sadly. I few songs later I dropped "Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy, which caused her, nearly all my work-mates, plus somebody looking just like Rob Tyner off MC5 to punish the floor. It was great. Then I actually managed to mix that track in time with a track by Hardfloor, an acid house outfit. If there is a group that can mix hard house with acid better than them, please, let me know. At times I had to stop dancing in the booth as the music was so good. If you're not playing the stuff that makes you react madly in some sense, don't play! By this time Ivan had to leave the rest of the DJ'ing to me, as he was due for a defence of a doctoral thesis. The girl who wanted to hear ragga turned up again, incensed by the fact that I had yet not played any ragga. "Where's my ragga?" - "Well, I am going to play M.I.A. in a moment, I promise you!" - "Promise?" - "Yes." She then headed off, and I played "Pull Up The People" followed by The Clash's "Wrong Em Boyo". A rastafari guy had turned up! He sported a gigantic hair and danced to M.I.A. and Dr. Dre's "Keep Their Heads Ringin'".

So I played everything under the roof. I got the chance to play Sparks' "The Number One Song In Heaven" which is an amazing track - if you haven't heard it, GET IT. My only regret is I didn't play Sena Jurinac's "September" aria. It's so beautiful and nearly makes time stand still. My recording is from the 1950's, in Stockholm. I did, however, break off Beastie Boys' "Sure Shot" with Björk's version of Cole Porter's "It's Oh So Quiet", that turned a few heads. Everybody and their mother seems to have seen Spike Jonze's video for that song, so everybody on the floor went into clone mode and did their parts from the video, which was incredibly fun to see. Erica, who's together with Mattias, another work-mate, asked me for Saint Etienne, but she didn't at all recognise the version of "Action" I played, mixed by DJ Tiesto, but when Sarah Cracknell's vocals came into play, you could see twists of recognition in her face as she and Mattias crashed up to the dance-floor, followed by other fans of the group.

Just as I was playing the final song, "Rob Tyner" came up to the booth and asked if I had any Iggy. "Well," I told him, "I'd love to play something off 'Raw Power', but we're only open for a minute longer!" He said "OK, I see" and left, looking disparaged. The bartender turned up and pointed a finger at his wrist-watch. I asked if I could play just one song more. "Well...OK. Just one more". No sweat.

At the first chord of "Search & Destroy", Rob turned into a demon and launched onto the dance-floor. I followed, and a couple of my work-mates turned up. I started slam-dancing, nearly breaking stuff by forcing Kalle into a wall. If I'd followed up with "Reign In Blood" no doubt would that metal girl have turned up for a bash as well - if she wasn't already busy snogging Alex, a work-mate of mine! They'd been chatting away all night, my other work-mates turning up to ask me to play something that'd make her dance more so that Alex could spin his magic. For sure! Alex is such a terrific person that I'd be glad to. When I left the place he was alone though, but she'd only left for the loo. I wish them the best.

Anyway, Ivan said he'd like me to DJ there the next time around, i.e. the first of July, but he'd e-mail me about that so I guess we'll just see what happens. Let the music play!