Office DJ

I get to be a DJ at the office every day.

I need to listen to music constantly, throughout the day. That’s how I work, that’s what feeds me, that’s what energizes me. When I worked from home it wasn’t a problem, of course. Then, as I started spending more time at the office — the PechaKucha HQ is at the offices of Klein Dytham architecture— this meant spending my day with headphones on, which I realize is not the most social of things to be doing in an open office space.

Then, about a month ago, they introduced a Libratone wireless AirPlay speaker to the office. The idea is that anyone can send music to it through AirPlay. That’s easy enough to do from any app on an iPad or iPhone, and if you want to do it from something other than iTunes on your desktop, you can useAirfoil (which is what I use, because I play music from the Spotify desktop app).

So now I get to play the DJ every day — and my co-workers too, of course. I do worry about monopolizing the airwaves, and sometimes I’m in the mood for something that I think isn’t suitable to play out-loud for everyone — and so on go the headphones — but in general it’s good fun.

Today saw the day start with Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else — I tend to start off the day (10:00) with jazz — which I then followed up with Tito Puente (The Essential Tito Puente) for some summertime vibes. After lunch, I started with The Do’s Both Ways Open Jaws, and then continued with Stereolab’sChemical Chords, followed by the Dirty Projectors’ new album, Swing Lo Magellan. I sometimes play myCodex playlists too.

It’s not a bad idea this speaker thing.