Aged fourteen he realised that if he was to make it in music, his basic knowledge of the four chords of Nirvana's Incesticide weren't going to carry him. His little sister thought he looked cool with a guitar over his shoulder, but his friends had begun to learn how to shred along with Dimebag Darrell - and had left him far behind. It was time he thought, to follow the alternative path. He would become a DJ.
He combined his Christmas and Birthday presents to get a Numark Battle Pack - the essential beginners DJ setup, and from that moment forth, he knew his place in the world - behind the decks.
The imaginary sell out crowd that filled his bedroom every night like job seekers in a smoking area would cheer his every move, as he chopped and changed, dipped the bass, tweaked the treble and ferociously worked the flanger. In six months time, if he kept at it, he'd be making the ones and twos his bitch.
He did stick at it, and as the years past he soon became very capable on the tables that turn. His friend's would pass him cans of Kronenberg 1664 as he rocked their birthday parties for free. He spent hours leafing through dusty vinyls in crumbling
But this is where the glamour ends. This where the choice is made, to hit the underground scene and woo the cool like a crease in the trilby of Jam Master Jay, or to succumb to the lure of the pop club circuit like waking up naked with your face glued to a Milli Vanilli shoulder pad by your own saliva.
And in this case, he felt the mounting gas bills and the thirst for crowd pleasing made the decision for him.
The bills got paid, but the crowds that he pleased were so smashed on VK Tropical that he couldn't make out if their moronic dancing was seeping with irony and whether their yelps of enjoyment were in fact cackles of mocking laughter. 'Summer of 69' followed 'We're going to
But good things came to no one that night, however long they waited.
The masses gathered in a patronising circle around the dance floor holding hands as the crooning of Robbie Williams signalled the end of the night. 'Another day, another dollar' he grunted as he kicked a path through the discarded plastic cups on the dancefloor, showering his Crocs with budget branded energy drink and vodka.
The student night DJ - a misunderstood creature - seemingly cocky yet his sad eyes drown in insecurity and his hollow soul buckles with the weight of a thousand what-ifs. No DMC finals, no cries of 'one-more-tune' and no clever pseudonyms will befall this guy. He is DJ Darren, he is '...Plus Resident DJs', he is the Monday/Wednesday/Friday night CD spinner at a generic student night called something awful like Smashed!. When you die, he'll be manning the wheels of steel as you descend the proverbial escalator to hell.
But he is by no means doomed to this existence, he may have traded his pride at a record hop in the 90's for an extended edition of Aqua's 'Dr Jones' but he still has options.
If the the moronic dancing ceases when the world suddenly realises that he is the physical embodiment of a Now That's What I Call Music album from 1992, all is not lost for Darren.
There's always local radio.
SM
