Skeletons Might Be the Future of DJing

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Skeletons Might Be the Future of DJing

We imagine a world in which flesh has been made redundant but club culture is even more alive than ever.

The human body is an incredible thing. It is a largely self-regulating machine that allows us to enjoy life's many splendors. We can swim in azure blue seas, drink fine wines, and watch the sun rise over the Axminster Tools & Machinery warehouse without having to think about it. We never need worry about how to keep the blood flowing round our chip-clogged arteries, nor should we lose sleep about wondering how we keep breathing while we are asleep. Having a body is a fantastic thing indeed.

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What's slightly less fantastic, though, is the thought of what lies underneath the hair and skin and muscles and fibers and the gelatinous gloop that oozes out of our very pores. Underneath that are cold, hard, stiff bones. We carry around with us 206 bones that could break at any point. A rogue banana peel left on the floor results in an arm arcing out of its protective pouch of skin. A mistimed two-footed tackle sees a promising career ruined in seconds. A man in Helsinki attempts two and a half back-somersaults with two and a half twists during the 1.5 seconds between launching himself from the 10 metre platform and entering the water at 40mph. The dive does not go to plan. Her neck snaps in several places. That, after all, is all we are. I am bones. You are bones. Kim Kardashian, Leon Trotsky, Oona King, John Inverdale, Stacey Dooley, Peter Stringfellow, Jo "Supernanny" Frost—they are all just a collection of bones.

Given that, you'd be totally right to argue that DJs are just bones too. DJing, you might say after two swift shandies with the lads on a Friday lunchtime at the pub round the corner from work, is just a case of bones being used to manipulate things that other bones made using tools engineered by further sets of bones. And you'd be bang fucking on. That is all they've ever been, all they ever were. They were just better at hiding it before. Now things are changing. Now skeletons are the future of DJing.

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You probably thought the future of DJing involved loosened licensing laws and a greater sense of cooperation between clubs and councils. You were wrong, mate. It's literally just going to be skeletons. DJs are going to be the first human beings brave enough to cast off the shackles of flesh and bone. DJs are going to tell the world that it's totally cool to talk around showing off your Proximal Phalange 1. Be proud of your pubis, they'll say, even though their lack of tongue, lips, lungs and assorted other bits of viscera make talking a technical impossibility.

We will get back to exactly why and when this change will happen, but first, here are three reasons why the rise of the skeletal selector will benefit club culture, making it as truly important as the elrow family, or some bloke you met backstage at a panel talk featuring Andy Peyton, Barely Legal, and the ghost of Larry Levan tell you it is.

Firstly the skeleton DJ will be incredibly cost efficient, due to his or her's lack of dietary needs. Those savings—which will stem largely from the total negation of the currently pricey rider system in which the DJ can demand anything up to several platters of cold meat and a few beakers of warm squash—will in turn see a reduction of costs in clubs, which will lead to greater footfall, which means that promoters can launch even more festivals. Never again will a man, woman, or child have to go more than two days without seeing The Black Madonna playing "It's Raining Men" while they chow down on an eight pound cheeseburger.

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Secondly, the DJ will now have a limited shelf-life, which means there will be a greater turn around of talent. As pure skeleton, the DJ is more prone to injury than his fleshed-out contemporaries. Without the protective layer of fat to buffer their cue-finger, breakages are far more likely. A lack of nervous system means there will be no pain attached to the damage, but it will pose practical problems. A greater number of DJs rising and falling will bolster an industry built on hopes, dreams, and expectations.

Thirdly, because all skeletons look the same, punters will no longer spend their nights looking at the DJ. Looking at the DJ is akin to committing a war crime apparently, so anything that we can do to eradicate this threat to clubbing is welcome. One the initial novelty of seeing a skeleton—who, remember has no sense of hearing or sight—DJ we can really lose ourselves to the new Rhythm Section 12"! At last!

The answer as to why it'll be DJs rather than nurses or barristers or sculptors who will become the first of us to transcend the notional normal human body, the answer is simple: DJs are inveterate show offs. They show off, we lap it up, so they show off even more to keep our attention. In a few years time, they will have run out of shock tactics. The cakes will have been thrown. The masks donned and undonned. There aren't enough lasers in the world to keep DJs interesting in their current form for more than ten years or so.

And that is when they will, one by one, start to peel their skin off. The back rooms of clubs the world over will become despostories for torn flesh. Booths will fill with offal. Blood will drip from the ceilings, atomised in the air conditioners. Crowds will lap it up, of course, throwing their heads back with reckless abandon, high on the fumes of heated human remains.

The DJ will still be a shamanic figure, still able to coerce us into moving in ways we didn't think possible. They will still command absurd amounts of attention and money. We will still be in thrall to them. Except now, they'll be skeletons.