This week: “Working Nights” with Donny Vegas, Wed. at 7:00 p.m.
Disco music is a little distracting to be ideal study music, but whatever Donny Vegas pulls out on his disco show just might be okay for it. Wide bellbottom pants, velour jumpsuits and huge Afros define disco. The DJ of this show does not wear any of those things, and he goes on to challenge the definition of disco music as well.
Imagine yourself on a Wednesday evening in the library, a snack next to you. You scroll through your iTunes library for a while, then Pandora stations, searching for the perfect playlist.
Spotify isn’t even cutting it so you turn to your last resort, KUPS. You click on the Listen Now icon and if you begin to boogie a little in your seat, that might just be because Donny Vegas is on the record.
What is coming out of your headphones is sort of electronic, kind of disco, but definitely grooving. It is a good show to bridge the gap between the notoriously random music heard during commuter hours and the heavy mixes of electronic hours.
The songs Donny Vegas chooses are of the longer variety. Sometimes they are wordless. Often the vocals are presented in the songs as if they were a rhythm track or a repetitive refrain so the voices don’t usually take a front seat.
For each show Vegas chooses three to five songs he knows he wants to share with his listeners. To flesh out the show he chooses songs that “wouldn’t sound too bad” with his top picks. Why not pick out tracks that would sound great?
This method of picking songs really tests his knowledge of his music library as he has to listen for songs with similar beats per minute and musical themes. Then he pulls a little DJ magic, cueing up two records at the same time, holding one back until the perfect moment when the beats of both songs match up and he lets them fly together. At this time he must be praying that they sound good together. They do.
One of the best mixes from this show was a layer of heavy piano over more house–sounding danceable grooves. An artist from this week’s show was Gibbon and Andrés with his track “New For You.”
An interesting element of this show was the nonstop music. As an almost electronic show, the music portion of the show and the transitions between tracks become more important. The songs speak for themselves.
The DJ’s character, therefore, becomes less important. As a result, Donny Vegas, although he may want to embody the cheesy velour-suit-wearing disco dude who named his show “Working Nights,” he turns out to have a smooth, slow-talking radio voice.
It is also clear that this disco music, loosely defined, is inspired more by house-party dance music than it is by the Bee Gees.
On a Wednesday evening this means that the tracks are exciting and interesting enough to keep you perked up. They have enough of a drive to get you revved up for whatever your “Working Nights” look like. If you end up dancing around by the printer I’m sure Donny Vegas would be proud.
Electronic and house music has been taking Puget Sound by storm recently; everyone and their grandmother has a turn-table. But it’s how a DJ uses those turn tables that really makes a difference. It is easy to go wrong with disco (just think of the outfits), but it is harder to go wrong with Donny Vegas.
For more information on KUPS and other weekly shows visit thier site: www.kups.ups.edu, or like their facebook page “KUPS 90.1 FM The Sound” at https://www.facebook.com/KUPSTheSound?fref=ts
