Imports Series Podcast #013 by Paul Gilmore

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Added to this is the job’s enviable cultural clout. The DJ is the taste-maker the discoverer, the champion of a new sound or scene. No musical movement can spread its wings too far without the DJs approval. People still write endless books about how Muddy Waters, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan changed music. The truth is thy wouldn’t have affected much beyond their own backyard’s without DJs playing their records. And a good DJ is by definition a permanent revolutionary. While musicians live in a time capsule built around their one greatest year, a DJ is always searching for the next song – “the new Fatboy Slim single, ” not he old one; “the next U2,” not the last lot – never playing the same set twice for fear of losing his reputation as music’s evangelist. The DJ is the only figure with any power in the music industry who isn’t an indentured slave to the record labels and their conservatism – the greatest freelance music maker to date.