Tommy Lee

Hey all,

Just thought I'd bring this up... I went to a deadmau5 show in Boston last Tuesday (10/11) and he had a whole slew of openers: Feed Me, Excision, Tommy Lee & Aero. The show was fair at best... probably some had to do with it being a Tuesday, and the rest dealing with the fact that deadmau5 is a much better producer than he is a DJ/live performer (probably another one of the reasons why he doesn't like to be called a 'DJ'). But that's neither here nor there. The light show was worth the ticket cost anyway.

Anyway, I want to talk about Tommy Lee. They say this business is all about who you know... ain't that the truth. Tommy Lee got plugged in via deadmau5, Skrillex, and Aero and is now making a name for himself within the EDM community. If I must see a positive about this, it's that it will likely garner EDM more attention from the masses which is a win/win for us all. The problem is, he is playing at sold out deadmau5 shows with little better skill than your run of the mill bedroom DJ/hobbyist.

One facet of his set bothered me and I wanted to vent to all my friends here. He pulled an amateur move and left his Traktor metronome on throughout the entire set. Okay, stop laughing now and then watch this video to laugh again... you don't have to listen too hard to pick up on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQl5vcqmhQc

I just found that video on YouTube, and certainly am not the author (as I was amongst the masses of folks on the floor). Regardless, I didn't want to be a dick about it and sit with my arms folded in the corner like some kind of self-righteous diva, so I just kept drinking more booze until the sound of the metronome faded into the background and I just kept dancing. I can only imagine he must have had really poor monitoring if he couldn't hear that at all... I even went out of my way to tweet the poor bastard and see if I could get his attention (http://twitter.com/#!/dj_omaga/statu...29134048088065). My point here is twofold: One, everybody makes mistakes, even the pros. If you make a mistake like Tommy, just keep partying hard and keep everyoine's energy up and the only one who will notice is a nit-picky diva like me. Two, if you're going to make a mistake, make it the result of botching up a challenging transition or something more substantial than this crap. A third point is that Tommy Lee is simply not ready to be performing for the world, but that is indeed the way of the world today and established celebrities will always sell.

I hope you get a chuckle and can laugh to yourself when you realize we are all likely better DJ's than Tommy Lee who pulls 5 figures for an appearance.

Peace,
Ω