Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 04:04:53 -0500
From: "Christopher Gillen" <c-gillen at sjca.edu>
Subject: Kids today! Grrrr....

Grrr...just got done DJing a swing party at AACC (Anne Arundel Community
College or 'Any A**hole Can Come'...depending on how I'm feeling about
them at the moment) 

Okay, since the new 'jump-swing' movement started I've been a pretty big
supporter. Anything that raises awareness of the clear superiority of
swing to any top-40 fluff must be good. Tonight was almost enough to
make me change my mind and ban the stuff as subversive. The crowd was
primarily the young set (15-19) who had come out to swing because it was
trendy. What they know of swing they have collected from Gap ads and
alterna-radio. I figure if these kids like Cherry Poppin' Daddies and
Setzer they're gonna go wowsers for the real thing, so I pull out the
stops and hit 'em with Prima and Sinatra...blank stares...crickets
chirping...shuffled feet... Some lil punk (from his clothing I'd guess
that to be literal, not figurative) comes up and says, "Do you have
anything -faster-?" Faster... hmm... okay, fine. Woody Herman and the
Swing Kids soundtrack....some scat by Ella...Hell, BUDDY GRECO! Still
nothing. Murmuring voices saying stuff like, "Is he gonna play any real
swing music?"

I spent the next three hours DJing exclusively off four jump-swing
albums...raver-kid beat-driven rehashes of old classics, thinly-veiled
Ska, and what would be more accurately termed 'rock-a-billy' by Setzer.
They loved it.

Friggin' depressing.

I got into the whole 'new swing' movement through the Squirrel Nut
Zippers, a band that honestly worships their spiritual predecessors,
having distinct undertones of Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller, Duke
Ellington, and a dash of N'Orleans jazz thrown in. Maybe its the
marketing, or maybe I'm just guilty of seeing what I wanted to see in
the other new bands, but the kids aren't picking up ANY love of swing.
They sneer at SINATRA for god sake! Impudent rug-rats! Sterilization's
too good for 'em! So I slogged through the rest of the party on sheer
willpower (no gaggle of uncultured ragamuffins was going to get the best
of a Johnnie, for crissakes!) At one point the party sponsor comes up to
me and asks how I'm doing. "I'll survive it", I respond. She laughs as
if I've made a joke and wanders off.

At the end of the party I shrugged off an offer of a ride (I really
didn't want to talk to anybody who was going to bubble about how great
the party was) and walked a ways back on Ritchie Highway till I had
cooled down enough to call a cab.

The exception:

The highpoint came when a kid (indistinguishable from the rest for all
intents and purposes) came forward and asked if I had 'Boogie-Woogie
Bugle Boy'. So soul-weary was I that I merely turned and asked who had
done the remake. 'I dunno', he says, 'Do you have the old
one...y'know...by those women...' 'The ANDREWS SISTERS?', I practically
yell. 'Hell YES, I have it! You wanna hear it?' The kid just grins at me
and says, 'Yeah. I love that song!' I tell ya, I've never been happier
to play Andrews Sisters. Kid couldn't dance worth spit...but he looked
happy. Maybe there's some hope for him.

As for me, I plan to DJ my everloving ass off at the Black Ball on
campus tomorrow. REAL swing music, champagne, and a crowd with some
sense of style and class! Sometimes it just takes a sojourn among the
cretins to realize what we've truly got here.

I tell ya, NEXT time (assuming I'm enough of a masochistic sunofabitch
to actually do it again) I'm dragging a bunch of Johnnies up there to
try and swing some sense into those kids. Y'know me...the eternal
optimist. heh.

 Christopher "'twas caviar to the general" Gillen, A'90