Here’s What Happens When You Mix Too Much Alcohol and a DJ That Won’t Quit Playing

There are few pleasures as great as selecting records for a packed room of adoring fans. Just ask Jonny White of Art Department. White, who is currently on tour, has toured the globe as part of Art Department since 2010.

Here, White recalls what happens when you mix alcohol with a DJ that's a little too enthusiastic.

Ages ago at a club in downtown Toronto, Junior Sanchez was playing a set and I was hanging around in the DJ booth with my friends James Teej, Teeloo and Mario J (A.D/D). Another friend of ours (who will remain nameless, but we'll call him Andy) played earlier in the night before Junior Sanchez.

Nothing exciting happened until I saw a wasted Andy pull out his headphones and start leafing through the records in his bag as if he was playing. For some unknown reason, Andy decided that he was going to play a back-to-back with Junior since there were four decks and two mixers set up from another back-to-back earlier that night.

I leaned over and asked, "Are you playing now?"

He replied, "Yeah, I'm gonna jump on with him."

It was obvious to me that this was news to everyone but him. As he put his first record on the turntable and started queuing up, I gave Mario a look indicating what was about to happen. Mario clued in straight away and casually reached forward to make sure the output on the feed from Andy's mixer was turned down.

Eventually, we were all aware of what Mario did to the output and waited for Andy to turn around and give us the finger or something, but it never happened. Instead, we watched him mix in his track, EQ-ing the shit out of his record. He danced around with his hand in the air.

Some time passed and he continued doing his thing. Or at least that's what he thought. Eventually, he started looking for the next record in his bag as his previous record continued spinning. There was absolutely no sound coming out of the monitors from his mixer. He was literally imaginary DJing next to Junior and loving every moment, completely oblivious to the fact that the music from his record was not the music coming out of the speakers.

James Teej was uncomfortable.

"I can't watch this anymore," he said and actually left the booth. But the rest of us couldn't say anything.