Posted by: Jay

I need a whole different cure for my Mondays these days.  I’m now on my second week of holding down the ultra coveted Sunday and Monday, 7pm - 3:30am DJ slots, and let me tell ya: It’s brutal.  If I had my druthers I’d be headed to bed early on Sunday after a weekend of partying, not staying up ’till 3:30 am DJing pop music*… but I’m not here to look a gift residency in the mouth.  No, this crazy gig of DJing for vacationing tourists on off nights actually has opened me up to wells of new music, which has been really fun!

* My Facebook status after last Monday’s set: “Jay Austin Gregory officially sold out as a DJ… errr, changed his style so that the 40 tourists would remain on the dance floor. Black Eyed Peas? Sure! Shakira? You got it! Kings Of Leon? Coming right up! Daddy Yankee? But of course!”

Of course a good chunk of this music that I’m “discovering” is what they play in heavy rotation on top 40 radio station, and while these songs never fail to get the crowd hyped I won’t subject you to them any more than you already are.  I want you guys to check out some of the other stuff I’ve been throwing down though!

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Posted by: Jay

As many of you know, I’m living down here in Bolivia these days.  Being a big fan of music and dancing, whenever I’m in a new place I love to check out there night clubs.  You can learn a lot about a society from their nightclub culture; things like what kind of music they listen to, what time the club gets full, how long the peeps stay out, the interaction between the sexes, the type of dancing, the clothes, etc… These all give you hints into the culture as a whole.

Bolivia is a poor country (the second poorest in Latin America after Haiti) so the clubs are not extravagant, but they’re not hella ghetto either.  What they lack in flash they make up for in energy and musical variety  I don’t know if I’ve ever heard such a crazy range of music played than I do at the clubs out here!  It’s nuts, they’ll go from Latin pop, to reggaeton, to US pop, to hip hop, to traditional Bolivian music to house in the span of the night.  And somehow the DJs manage to blend all of these styles smoothly.  I am continually impressed!

Music, photos, videos and impressions from a trip out to “Club Lujos” in Cochabamba after the jump.

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