From Lord Kook's Myspace blog ::

"Gather round kids, because I have a story for you.
It's a morality tale of sorts, one that teaches you even though you can try and plan for everything, there are still surprises around every corner. Life will find a way to tear yo' ass up.

Friday rolls around, and I am very much ready to rock out at Blood Pact, the party I spammed you all about for the last few weeks. I was so excited about doing a good job, I even planned out my set. I only do this for big events, ones that I want to sound flawless, and especially when I want to play almost all tracks I don't usually play. So I started toying around in Live, seeing how certain things went together. Forcing myself to only use volume and a basic 3 band EQ (almost identical to that found on the Pioneer DJ mixers), I figured if I could get something rad in Live, I could use it as a template for my set on Friday.

So I toiled and toiled (just kidding it was fun), and finally came up with a solid hour and a half of material. I listened to it about 20 times, and made myself an Excel Spreadsheet of all the cue points (starts, ins, base flips, etc.). I practiced it that night, a few hours before the party, and to my surprise it went exactly as I wanted. I was ready.

FF to the party. I go on about 11:30. Some friends had come to hang out during my set, which was really nice. I drop my first track, make my first mix, then the second. Everything is going great, and the kids are eating it up. I do mean kids, btw, because this was an 18 + party, and it seemed like almost everyone there was under 21. It was kinda refreshing... they didn't have the scene baggage I associate with the 21+ crowd in the city, and were all willing to seriously get down.

And I was feeding off that energy. Jumping up and down, getting crazy with the buildups and playing with the filter on the mixer perhaps a little too much. I was about 3/4 of the way through my set, had just dropped Chris Lake's "Shake", and was taking some time to bounce. The buildup hit, shit went nuts, and so did the crowd. I repsonded. We were all jumping up and down. Twas awesome.

Then something horrible happened :
My right knee decided to dislocate.

In a split second I was on the ground and in excrutiating pain. The thing about a dislocated knee is that you can't more your leg a millimeter in any direction because the tendons are already stretched waaaay beyond their limit. I've had this happen once before, 5 years ago, and it was just as shitty then. I writhed on the ground behind the decks, using both my hands to push, push, push on the kneecap, trying to get it to pop back in. Someone came up and tried to pause the decks, and then someone else came up and started them again, a track later. I remember thinking "oh shit they just skipped a track in my set". The party's safety guy came up and asked me what he could do. I said "can you fucking get my knee popped back in?!?!?!". When he responded no, I told him to go call a paramedic. He disapeared, and about 30 seconds later I was able to pop the knee back in. Thank you jesus.

Oh, and look! It's time to cue the next track! What should I do? I'll tell you what I did do : I got up on my one good leg, sweating like a pig, in shock and feeling like I was going to pass out, and finished my goddamn set.

*phew*

I didn't stay long afterwards, so I'm not sure how the rest of the party was. I spent the rest of the night and Saturday giddy on painkillers and self pity. I really wanted to have a good time that night, and in a way I did, but seriously, at what cost? I'm going to go see a doctor this week, get it checked out, and praying I won't need surgery.

The moral of this story is : you can plan everything out you want, but crazy shit is still liable to happen. You can make a cue sheet, down to the millisecond, with all your ins and outs. You can practice it perfectly. But Halloween night when you're lying in a pool of sweat behind the DJ booth trying to pop your knee back in, none of that shit means a goddamn thing. What matters is how quickly you can pop your knee back in, and if anyone can get you some Vodka to wash down that Vicodin. Remember that, kiddies.

---

"