Sometimes the best ideas come to us while we sleep and so it was with me. Two days after catching "A State Of Trance" -the tuneful, rigorously constructed soundscapes were watched by 18,000 people and listened to by 6.5 Million people worldwide between radio and the internet, then going home and reading Steve Crawford's "Legends Of Memphis Wrestling", the two came together like a lightening bolt: EDM should promote their nondescript DJ's the same way the WWF promotes their wrestlers.
Dance music is big, but how can big can it get with nobody to root for. Here at rock nyc we, like everybody else, turn our rock stars into characters if not cartoon characters, everybody is drawn in large so it is easy to pick and choose between the, The REALITY of, say, Taylor Swift or Iggy Pop or Lou Reed or … we subject them to horoscope simple litmus test, adjectives to describe em. Bono is an egomaniacal caregiver, Lo a darked hued misanthrope, Jerry Lee a dangerous God fearer… so on and so forth. But in rock the personalities are too strong to stay in one place, we root but change.
In wrestling the two adjectives become one: good guy, bad guy, and from that line of character development soap opera back stories are written and acted out. This would be perfect for EDM where DJs and producers are all but invisible. Managers and organizers can project just about anything on to them and they would stick and then, over and above music, there would be an ongoing story for identification, for rooting purposes. Finally. some form of performance can be added to EDM because really, that is exactly what is missing. Trance is more song oriented than any other form of dance except the pop crossover of the Wii I Am's of the world. But the Will I Am's working on a different platform. They are pop bands not DJs (the one time I saw Will I Am perform a DJ set he was terrible -it isn't as easy as it looks).
The difference is that DJSsand producers, even the biggest of em, even the David Guettas and Calvin Harris, lack definition whereas the professional wrestlers are ALL definition. Wrestlers can be viewed at a glance while after an astounding 90 minute set by New World Punx on Saturday I am not bigger a fan. There is nothing to hold on to -they are ethereal visages seen from miles above, manipulating buttons and knows and completely removed from us. Figuring out a DJs reasons is impossible. It is all usefulness… is your body moving? There is your reason.
Which is fine as far as it goes but how much further would it go if there was something to root for other than form. If their were movers and shakers, managers and fights, a world within a world as the DJs go from one dance fest to another and fans can pick a side and go for it. This would solve the problem of anonymity that plagues dance and leaves it the biggest cult this side of Scientology.