The Job Interview
I got involved in electronic music in the late 1990s when I was hired to start a magazine called Revolution which was going to bring electronic music into the mainstream youth. Since I didn't come from the scene, having spent my own life in the rock world, I knew very little about DJs and their culture, but younger friends of mine kept raving about Sasha and Digweed and played me Northern Exposure with the reverence I used to treat groups like The Doors and David Bowie.
During the staffing process, I was under corporate pressure to hire one of their own as the second in command. He had access to everyone, they promised me. As I test, I told him he could have the job if he delivered Sasha and Digweed, who were playing at 1015 later that week, to me for an interview.
He complained that it wasn't going to be that easy, but if that was the deal, he'd do his best. I forgot all about it, but a few days later, he dropped by the office to tell me I could meet them at a record signing Spundae was sponsoring at their record shop.
I got there early and spent an hour or so milling around the tiny store with about 20 or 30 other people, patiently waiting for their appearance. After that, hungry and bored, I asked the guy at the counter when they were coming. He looked at me like I had just asked the dumbest question he'd ever heard.
"Like, never," he said.
So I left. But a deal's a deal, and, while I still hadn't met Sasha or Digweed, I ended up with a new editor.
