by Dee Simon
Regardless of the status of the club, all people are affected in some way by the music blasting through the club’s speakers. Music is a very emotionally charged form of expression that often has a deep personal meaning or association for the listener. I’ve often surmised how the Déjà Vu strip clubs located across the country chose their moniker. Why the name Déjà Vu? In my mind, it’s based on the sensory recollections of the customer invoked by the dancers as well as other factors, such as the background music. For example, a customer walks into a strip club, a twenty-year-old dancer sits down alongside him, and she casually initiates a conversation. While engrossed in stimulating discourse about Zodiac signs or the song she just danced to, the customer takes a deep look at her and suddenly realizes that she reminds him of his girlfriend from college or his wife when they first started dating. Déjà vu. A patron sips his overpriced domestic brew and casually observes the dancer onstage. He briefly diverts his attention from her for a moment and realizes that she is dancing to the song “Ready For Love” by the critically acclaimed arena rock outfit, Bad Company. Pausing for a brief moment of reminiscence, he recalls how he lost his virginity to that song many years ago. Déjà vu. In reality, they probably chose the name based on a recurring venereal disease that the owner caught from the dancers at one of his clubs. But it really doesn’t matter how that company came up with their name. My point is that music can have a deeply emotive, nostalgic affect on the listener, and any decent DJ recognizes this fact and selects music accordingly. Music selection is essential at any club, particularly a strip club. Yet, a strip club DJ not only has to select music for the audience, but also has to select music for the dancer. And this is the most difficult part of the job. Your manager is constantly telling you to play upbeat music that is recognizable to the audience.
“Play to the money,” he growls as he exhales thick plume of smoke from his Kool cigarette, his forked tongue darting in and out of his mouth.
Management’s philosophy is that the music should be aimed towards the big spenders, the high rollers, and the money crowd. I must admit they had a healthy amount of reason behind their rhyme. If the high rollers are comfortable, they will spend more money. And the club’s top priority is money. The problem is that most strippers couldn’t care less about the livelihood of the club and want to dance to music of their preference. And nine times out of ten, their preference sucks. All strip club DJs can attest that most strippers have atrocious taste in music, but they are the ones giving us a $20 tip at the end of the night. DJs hardly receive minimum wage from the club. The majority of our income is based on the generosity of the dancers. And their tips can range anywhere from $5 to $20 to even $50 or more per dancer depending on how much they like your music selection, how much they like you personally, or what drug you’ve dealt to them on that particular evening. And therein lies the strip club DJ conundrum: Do you play music for the crowd and your managers, or do you play music for the dancers who tip you well?
I strove to achieve a healthy balance between the two divergent forces, but this task was far from simple. While the managers are calling you on the radio, screaming about the lack of energy in the room, the stripper in the DJ booth is requesting a Portishead song because she feels tired. To the managers, a dancer’s musical preference is irrelevant because a girl can get naked to any song. And I agree with this statement, to a point. The customers spend excessive amounts of money on the dancers and on drinks and food, and the DJ should placate them with the music they want to hear. However, the dancer has to disrobe in front of a throng of drooling perverts and should be allowed to feel as comfortable and as sexy as possible while she is onstage. Allow me to illustrate this conundrum with a common strip club DJ scenario:
It’s Saturday night and the club is packed. In fact, there’s a line outside twenty-five-deep of people waiting to get in. The stripper currently onstage is dancing to ACDC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” and the crowd is singing along, moving their heads, slapping their thighs, and covering the stage in crumpled dollar bills. They love the energy and the familiarity of the ACDC song. It’s obvious that we have a rock crowd in the house tonight. The next dancer on rotation comes to the DJ booth to request a couple songs for her set. She requests R. Kelly’s “Bump and Grind” because his music makes her feel sexy. If the DJ plays the R. Kelly song, he’s going to decimate the energy in the room, lose the entire crowd, and consequently, invoke the wrath of his manager. On the other hand, if he doesn’t play the song, then he’s going to anger the dancer and forsake his tip. Keep in mind that this is only an issue if the dancer is a good tipper. In that case, I wouldn’t outright refuse to play her song. Rather I would attempt to convince her to choose a more upbeat song that will please both the crowd and the managers. Like a shrewd diplomat, a seasoned strip club DJ knows how to use a combination of charisma, charm, and flattery to achieve his aims.
“Baby, ‘Bump and Grind’ is a great song, but if we play that right now, we’re gonna kill the vibe. We got a rock crowd in here tonight. I’d recommend some Motley Crue or Guns N’ Roses.”
“But I don’t know them.”
“I know you don’t. But look at the money on that stage. If you play a slow song right now, everyone’s going to leave the front row and return to their tables. We’ll play ‘Bump and Grind’ on your next set.”
“You think so? Okay. I guess play whatever you want.”
“Trust me. You’re so sexy that you can dance to anything.”
I want the dancer’s tip, but I don’t want to lose the crowd in order to get it. I’ve found that if you slant your speech in terms of finance, most dancers react favorably. Like the owners of the club, they want to make as much money as possible. She ends up dancing to a rock song, making good tips onstage, the energy in the room remains intact, and the managers are content. At the end of the night, she thanks me for helping her make money and gives me a good tip. Everyone wins. This technique worked for most cases, in particular on the novice dancers. I didn’t worry about the seasoned dancers because they knew not to request slower music during peak hours, especially on weekend nights. Achieving equilibrium between the managers and the dancers with music selection is by no means a simple feat but a necessary one, if you want to keep your job and make a lot of money at the same time.
Some dancers were very particular about their music and would tell me their selection early in the night, hours before they had to go onstage. We had erasable boards in the booth, and I wrote their song selections on the board next to their name. I had to write it because I smoked far too much marijuana to remember the names of every song that a dancer requested. And heaven forfend, the DJ accidentally plays the wrong song, the dancer would feel personally violated. Their reaction was absurd and completely unwarranted. On occasion, I’d forget to write a dancer’s song title down and would pick another song within her preferred genre. She’d walk onstage, hear the first few notes of the substituted song, and stare with this incredulous expression up towards the DJ booth. It was as if I had flung a ball of my own feces, like a wild primate, and hit her dead center in the chest. The unprofessional dancers would refuse to dance altogether and yell at the DJ to change the “fucking song.” If this occurred, I’d completely ignore her bleating and force her to dance to the song. And depending on my level of annoyance, I’d let the song play a few minutes longer than usual. Most dancers would begrudgingly dance through to the end and then rush to the DJ booth afterwards for an explanation of the grave offense. Apologetically, I’d tell them that I couldn’t read their writing or forgot to write the song down. It was in my best interest to placate them, as they were tipping me. At the Ruby Club, I devised a system where I would write the dancer’s music and lighting preferences on index cards. I’d write the song titles that she had requested in the past and reference the card before she went onstage. This way I always knew what music she preferred and would invariably play her a great set, which ensured me a good tip at the end of the night.
I never shared these cards with the other DJs and would lock them up with my equipment at the end of my shift. While it amused me that most of the dancers thought I had some mutant-like musical sensibility through which I intrinsically knew all of their favorite songs, it was obvious that they were too drunk or high to realize that I wrote the song titles on index cards. They’d remark that the best thing about working on my shifts was that “I always know what to play for them, and they don’t even have to ask me for a song.” They fully trusted me with their music selection. I’m probably the only strip club DJ who actually took notes on strippers. Most DJs couldn’t care less. It worked out well for me, and I made a lot of money from those index cards.
If the dancer tipped well, I would usually play her any song that she requested, well, within reason. Most don’t care what the DJ plays or are simply too high to be bothered to pick out their music. It’s the new dancers that are problematic. The Ruby Club had several hundred girls on their roster. There were new girls almost every shift, which kept the job interesting but also incredibly irritating for the DJ. When I first started working night shifts, I grew accustomed to encountering novice dancers and created an elaborate introductory routine where I’d call the new dancers to the DJ booth, introduce myself, and inquire about her musical preference. That way, it appeared as if I actually gave a semblance of a fuck. These initial encounters were almost always frustrating and extremely annoying. One Thursday we had several new dancers start that night shift, and I called them all—over the microphone—to the booth to check in with me. After about ten minutes, only one dancer actually showed up with less than two minutes left before she had to go onstage.
“Hello, darling. My name’s Dave. How are you? You’re new, right?” I extended my hand, but the lithe, blonde dancer merely looked at it with the puzzled expression of someone completely ignorant of the custom. Perhaps she was foreign. Most upscale strip clubs have a diverse assortment of dancers from around the world. I’d say it’s one of the more culturally varied environments I’ve ever worked in. After a few seconds of staring at my hand, she gingerly shook it, and nodded rather than answer my question. I noticed that she was a thin girl—not much older than twenty-two—with large, pendulous breasts that appeared authentic but were most likely artificial. Nevertheless, I’m always impressed by a top-notch breast augmentation.
“What’s your name?” I had to look up when I addressed her because in her seven-inch heels she was at least four inches taller than me.
“Brie.”
“Like the cheese.”
“No, not like the cheese.”
“Okay. So, B-r-e-e.”
“No, B-r-i-e.”
“Yeah, like the cheese.”
“No, what cheese? There’s no cheese.”
Apparently, she was unaware that Brie is a type of cheese. “All right. Brie-not-like-the-cheese. I’ll remember that. So, you’re going onstage next. What type of music do you like?” Brie stood fixedly and stared, doe-eyed and quizzical for several seconds, twirling a lock of her hair around her right index finger, before responding.
“I dunno. What do you have?”
Expecting this response and conscious of the rapidly depleting time, I remarked as politely as possible, “Well, I have about six books of CDs filled with music from just about every genre. What type of music do you like?”
Again, Brie greeted me with her thousand-yard stare and complete lack of comprehension. With her face staring down at her cellphone, she apathetically inquired, “Do you have that one song by that guy?”
“And what song would that be? I have a lot of songs by lots of guys.” I’m struggling to maintain a polite demeanor.
“You know, that one? Everyone loves it,” she replied, still staring down at her cellphone, not even bothering to make eye contact. I felt like her tenth grade Geometry teacher.
“Is it a rock song or a rap song? Do you know the chorus or the name? Do you know anything about this song at all?” At this point, my patience was wearing thin.
Brie stood there utterly perplexed. Cogitating my difficult query for a few moments, she looked up at me with her inherent vacuous expression and said, “I dunno. I don’t care. Just play something dancy.”
Just play something dancy, she said. Play something dancy. I still sigh when I hear this phrase. In fact, I’m sighing as I write it. I sigh because the words feel like heartburn when I hear them slide between a stripper’s glossy lips. I sigh because I realize that I’ve been slowly drowning in the shallow end of the intelligence gene pool for the past five years. Finally, I sigh because what the fuck is “play something dancy” supposed to mean? Seriously, what the fuck is that? I still have no idea. “Dancy” has to be the least descriptive term I have ever heard applied to music. I wouldn’t even use the term to describe a type of dance music, like house or trance. All music could be considered “dancy” to some extent. The state of being “dancy” is purely idiosyncratic. What one might consider dancy might not be considered the least bit dancy to another. And I’m quite sure that what I consider to be dancy would not be accepted as dancy to any stripper that I’ve ever encountered.
Regrettably, we were at an impasse. I watched Brie indifferently texting away, her hot pink fingernails furiously clicking on the plastic buttons of her BlackBerry, and I realized that my life was an endless game of Chutes and Ladders, except the chutes and ladders in this game were covered in herpes. I still had not determined the type of music this girl preferred, and even worse she had about ten seconds left before she had to go onstage.
I was baffled and beyond the point of exasperation. “And what do you consider to be dancy?”
Before exiting the booth, she paused in the doorway, turned her head to face me, and with an expression that clearly registered her disdain for the pathetic whining dwarf of a man behind her, she replied, “I dunno. You’re the DJ.” And, with that, she flipped her head back around and sauntered down the hallway, pausing momentarily to adjust her neon pink thong.
She had a point there. I was the DJ. And in her mind, all DJs possessed a prescient ability to know exactly what music a girl considered to be dancy. I played her two popular house tracks from a Paul Oakenfold compilation. House music: innocuous, rhythmic, and played in clubs throughout the world. The music is so generic that it’s invariably a safe bet. An hour later, in a drunken state, Brie stumbled to the DJ booth and while clinging to the doorway for balance she screamed, “Hey, DJ. You suck. That wasn’t dancy.”
I looked at the drunken girl leaning through the doorway and cracked a wry smile. “I suck, huh? Well, please tell me something more ‘dancy’ that you’d like to hear.”
“I dunno. I’m not the DJ. You are. Just fucking pick something.”
I really despised that woman. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still have sex with her, but it would be a hateful, unforgiving rut, like the kind that occurs in the animal kingdom. For her next set, I chose two eighties songs: Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round” followed by Prince’s “Kiss.” You’d be hard-pressed to find a more “dancy” set than that. In my opinion, Prince songs define the neologism “dancy.” Two hours passed before another unwelcome Brie appearance. She was completely inebriated at this point and could barely maintain her balance on those stilts she was wearing. I watched her precariously sway back and forth in her seven-inch stilettos, tightly clutching the doorframe with her right hand and her martini glass with her left. I didn’t try to help her because, honestly, I wanted to see her fall. A new dancer tumbles at least once or twice every shift. It’s an impressive feat to walk around in seven-inch heels stone sober, let alone after drinking martinis for the past three hours. Tumbling down a staircase and having a customer prematurely ejaculate on your thigh are rites of passage for new strippers. Brie stared at me for about a minute, her body leaning on the doorframe. She mumbled something, but she slurred so heavily that I couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.
“Are you okay?” I asked, trying to
sound concerned.
“You…You…S-s-s-uck,” she stammered.
“Okay. Why do I suck?” I thought I’d try to reason with the intoxicated person. That’s always entertaining.
She could barely hold herself up. “You j-j-ust s-suck.”
“All right. I think you should probably head home. You seem pretty drunk.”
Brie’s martini glass slipped from her hand and crashed onto the floor, splashing vodka and vermouth across the wall. This made her laugh hysterically, and when she bent over to pick the glass up, she fell forward, face first, onto the ground. I rushed over to help the sprawled dancer.