As we prepare for our move and went through the storage unit in the basement, I was delighted to find several crates of records from my DJ days. I knew they were down there somewhere, but they hadn’t seen the light of day in nearly four years. And now they’re being packed up and prepped for a ride across the country to Tucson.
When I was DJing three or four nights a week I heavily relied on a few of the remix services, including Ultimix, Hot Tracks, and Hi-NRG from Hot Tracks. These “For DJ Use Only” mixes featured custom mixes of popular songs, often with the necessary lead in and break out beats necessary to keep the dance floor moving in constant time as you moved between songs. It’s not nice to make gay men and lesbians trip and fall as you just mash two songs together; you have to beat mix them, and more importantly, do it at the proper time in the track to keep the energy up and the people dancing.
Ultimix, Hot Tracks, and the like certainly helped in that situation.
