Melissa Lane

The Jason Rem documentary "Put the Needle on the Record" checks in with the latest evolution in dance-music culture: the rise of the commercially viable superstar DJ.

Previous efforts to capture this subculture on celluloid were largely investigations into all the elements that went into an event--and as such, reflected the eras they were made in. Iara Lee's "Modulations" came out in 1998. Jon Reiss' "Better Living Through Circuitry" came out in 1999. A handful more have been released since then and even more still if you include fictional renderings.

In Rem's film, the narration is supplied almost exclusively by the DJs. A roster of international artists that includes BT, Christopher Lawrence, Paul Oakenfold, Mark Farina, Jesse Saunders, Danny Tenaglia, Dieselboy and Dirty Vegas casually talk about just exactly what it is they do. They explain what kind of dance music they spin, how they got started and which events and venues they play now. They list off itineraries that span through more countries than days.

To their credit, as a category of artists, DJs have struggled for legitimacy for years. As one guy reminds us, "the way it used to be, the DJ might as well have been the bar-back." Actually making a living out of spinning other people's recordings was not seriously considered. In a segment of the film that explores the Heineken-sponsored, limo-riding, babe-surrounded, autograph-signing lifestyle that has emerged in the last seven or eight years, the phrase most bandied about is how much they are now "like rock stars."

There is no arguing that DJ culture has come full circle and the movie zeroes in on its glitziest aspects to emphasize this: the Winter Music Conference in Miami (where the film was shot over the course of five days), the Dance Star Awards, Ibiza and a virtual barrage of silicone boobs.

That the original clandestine warehouse parties that nurtured them were partially born in reaction to the elitist admittance policies of clubs is an irony untouched in the film. But the bittersweet reality it captures of a scene that sought legitimacy and got it is a reality nonetheless.

"Put the Needle on the Record" makes its Chicago premiere at the film festival IndieFest, running from July 29 through August 7.

(2005-07-26)

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