Not your everyday deejay booth

2/27/2007

“One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain. So hit me with music.” — Bob Marley
Another Patriot hockey season has come and gone, and it was a season of highs and lows. There seemed to be more lows than highs at times, but the Jr. Cs managed to rise above the adversity, and finish the season on a positive note. Week in and week out, one of the surefire positives the team had to offer was the music at home games.
A pair of Wellington Heights Secondary School students, Josh McLean and Steve Noble, took up residency in the sound booth, and filled the Mount Forest arena with some of the most varied and eclectic song choices ever blasted over the bleachers at a sporting event.
Filling in their high school community service hours and then some, the deejay duo served up the best music the Patriots have heard in 10 years, since Linda Spahr was up in the booth playing Elvis Presley every third song.
What made Josh and Steve’s work so entertaining was the mix and musical knowledge the mad musicologists brought to the table. It was a downloader’s paradise.
Most of the deejays who play music at sporting events are stuck in a dull rut. There are only so many times you can hear jewels like “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones, or “Taking Care of Business” by B.T.O. before the gems begin to lose their lustre. Listening to Stompin’ Tom croon about the good old hockey game, or Ozzy going off the rails on a crazy train, is never a bad idea at a hockey game, but we’ve all heard them about a hundred times too often.
There were songs rolling through the rink at times this season that no one has heard in years, perhaps ever.
After a particularly one-sided blowout, fans filed from the arena to the manic sounds of the old theme music from Benny Hill. It was a perfect case of farce meeting farce. More often, however, spectators relaxed on their way to the parking lot with the soothing tones of “Happy Trails.”
Josh and Steve were particularly hard on opposing teams whenever they scored. Rather than pump them or their fans up, crowds could be subjected, at random, to the whistling theme from Andy of Mayberry, or “Sunshine and Lollipops”, or an excruciating “I Love You” from Barney.
The Patriots fared far better, picked up and carried along by the fist-pumping energy of Pantera, or new artists such as Wolfmother or White Stripes. No DJ worth his turntable goes too long without playing an AC/DC or Who staple, but long before anyone could settle into a classic rock daze, the Goderich Sailors would take the ice and the guys would blast out the Gilligan’s Island theme song.
My personal favourites were the long-forgotten gems or deep-buried classics that only one person in 100 has heard. Just off the top of my head, I can recall hearing “Call Me Mr. In-Between” by Burl Ives, “Stranglehold” by Ted Nugent, “Tired of Toein’ the Line” by Rocky Burnette, “Hocus Pocus” by Focus, and one of the strangest songs to hit the airwaves in any country, “Da Da Da” by Trio.
On nights when the Patriots didn’t, the music always scored a direct hit. Thanks guys, for hitting us with music.