The Black Eye Ball: DJ Brent interviews DJ Jens Irish

Resident DJ Jens Irish brings Black Eye Ball - The Naughty List to The Compound for the first time this Saturday, December 17. It's got everything you want. Spankings from Santa. Free shots (if you have a black eye), sexy go-go dancers (with black eyes), and $4 Svedka Vodka drink specials. And joining the fun will be special guest, DJ Brent. 

DJ Brent - Ho, ho, ho?

DJ Brent: For people who have never been to a Black Eye Ball, what can they expect on Saturday night?

DJ Jens: Our basic goal is to make the Black Eye Ball a different experience from what you would typically encounter at a gay club in Denver on your average Saturday night. Jerrod Wilkins - the other promoter - and I are both slightly off-kilter, so we tend to get into things like somewhat ridiculous, tongue-(firmly planted)-in-cheek themes, coordinating costumes with the Ball patrons (a lot of our attendees come with pre-party make-upped black eyes, for example, which is pretty fantastic) … stuff like that. We also try to cater towards a more diversified crowd with the parties. A lot of events in the gay scene end up being primarily bears, or twinks, or some other sub-culture. At the Black Eye Ball we get a pretty diversified crowd … bears, twinks, leather/gear enthusiasts, club kids, etc., and definitely encourage anybody and everybody to attend. It makes the party itself more interesting.

DJ Jens Irish - Naughty never looked so nice

On the music side, I tend to steer clear of tracks that you’d typically hear at a gay club. I don’t have any qualms with mainstream/circuit music or what other gay DJs are playing by any means, but I do want people to hear music at the Black Eye Ball that they won’t hear at other gay events in Denver. From the beginning we’ve built the Black Eye Ball to be a space where the homos can go to a gay party - as opposed to a straight club, for example - and not necessarily have to hear the same music that’s pretty much ubiquitous in gay clubs. That said, when we have guest DJs, we don’t impose any sort of genre constraints on what they play …t he “different music” spiel is just a personal preference. But we do encourage them to stretch their usual boundaries a bit.

So yeah, I guess newcomers on Saturday can (hopefully) expect a different experience from the norm (read: naughty).

This is the first time the Black Eye Ball is being held at The Compound, what do you think the new space will bring to the party?

I’m really psyched about moving the party to the Compound. They’re definitely more amenable to what we’re trying to accomplish with the Black Eye Ball, being an actual club with a solid, dedicated sound system, as opposed to primarily a bar that occasionally throws music-oriented parties. And they’re excited to work with us, which is pretty damn nice. If these initial parties go well, there are definitely plans in the works to expand the BEB in a big way (*wink*), with their support.

The Eagle was (is) a fantastic, unique space, and I’ll miss having them host the parties, but there were issues that just – after almost 2 ½ years, a solid run – ended up killing the possibility of continuing there.

DJ Booth at The Compound

You have a regular Wednesday night at the Compound - Altered Wednesday Social - do you take a different approach when spinning for The Black Eye Ball? If so, what is it?

Well, Altered Wednesday Social is definitely more low key than The Black Eye Ball. The way I view it, it’s a Wednesday, middle of the week, and people aren’t looking to go crazy, or hear peak-hour dance music while they’re getting a casual drink with friends – which is what most people are doing when they come to the night. I try and make the music interesting, funk-tastic, danceable if you want, but also the kind where you can just bob your head along and enjoy it without feeling the need to throw your shirt in the corner and find the nearest sub-woofer. It gets more energetic as the night progresses and people start dancing, but it’s usually dependent on whether the latter is happening or not.

With the BEB – especially at The Compound – the party is (going to be) fundamentally geared towards dancing, and being more energetic. But there’s overlap between what I play at the two shows. I’d say along a spectrum of the evening, what I’d play the first hour or two at the BEB is about as energetic as I tend to go at AWS. I would say I play darker at the BEB, as well, but I’ve actually taken a different route over the past year or two. The BEB used to be all darker techno stuff, but I’m not really playing that anymore. Kinda grew out of it.

The most famous reindeer of all

What and who in the music scene have been grabbing your attention lately?

I’m in love with the whole Disco/90’s Miami House revival sound that’s taken over the last 1 ½ years or so. Like I said earlier, I used to be all about 126-128 BPM, dark, after hours techno, no vocals whatsoever. Something you’d only hear after 3am in a basement somewhere (and I’ll still play that when it’s appropriate). But all of a sudden, some of my favorite techno producers and record labels started putting out these 110-118 BPM tracks saturated with diva-esque vocal snippets and warm piano stabs, with a lot of classic electro/breakbeat rhythm structures on top of the typical 4/4 throbbing House beats, and it was a total sea change. I think Seth Troxler – who’s an amazing producer – said it best when he called the whole movement “underground pop,” which is totally contradictory, but suitable in a vague sense.

In terms of individual producers and record labels, there are so many of ‘em producing great music right now. I usually track labels over individual artists, since most labels tend to focus on a specific sound, then gather like-minded artists around it, so if you find a label with a specific style/sound you like, you’ll discover a bunch of artists along that vein you might have otherwise overlooked. Right now labels like Hot Creations/Hot Waves, Crosstown Rebels, Pets Recordings, This is Music – More Music, Visionquest, The Exquisite Pain, Needwant, Leftroom Records, etc., can do no wrong.

Who is your favorite musical guilty pleasure?

I don’t know! I don’t really feel guilty about too much of anything I listen to. I guess I used to be a raging hippie, and still listen to things like Grateful Dead, Phish, Jefferson Airplane, etc, quite a bit, which shouldn’t be mentioned in certain circles. And Antony & The Johnsons makes me cry (heavily) and wish I had butterfly wings. Does that count?

If you had to pick a character from The Venture Bros. who's most like you, who would it be?

Best question ever! I’d have to go for early Henchman 21, before his muscle-daddy transformation. He’s a total dork, randomly obsessive, develops crushes then never acts on them – or acts stupidly – out of general social incompetence, constantly needs other, more competent people to bail him out of jams brought about by his own devices. He’s also loyal, good-hearted, and hilarious. And I’m hilar-balls.

So, this is my second gig and I'm very excited but also very nervous. Any great wisdom you can give me?

Play the music that gets you excited, and especially in the moment! The hardest thing I learned about DJing live, is if you fret too much about playing a set that absolutely everyone will like, or strictly adhering to some pre-defined notion of how the set should proceed, you’re not only going to fail (people are fickle, and every set throws a curve-ball), you’re going to end up stressing yourself out, play poorly, and won’t have a good time. And having a good time, getting happily engrossed in what you’re doing, is the key to playing a great set. If the DJ is having a good time, it shows in the music, and the crowd will have a good time. Well, maybe not the entire crowd, but you can’t win ‘em all over, so don’t expend too much energy trying to. And you should be having more fun than the fussers n’ trainspotters, anyway.

Also: slip-ups, beats drifting during transitions, cool ideas not working out the way you had planned them, etc, things that seem like a mortifyingly big deal to you when you’re DJing, it’s mostly in your head, and nine times out of 10 the audience doesn’t even notice – or realize something went wrong – and when they do notice they usually don’t care. So don’t fret about making mistakes, or mistakes made.

Learn to forgive yourself when things don’t go exactly as planned, and just focus on having a good time!