I am a little child of ten or eight or six. My jetsetting parents have taken me to Brazil for a vacation, I think. Nothing is clear in this hazy drug-induced environment that spawned “The Girl from Ipanema.” All I know is that I am thrilled. I have been listening to Brazilian jazz and bossa nova since birth. Soft bossa rhythms are bonded to my DNA like Coppertone on the suntanned skins of the puta elite.
There is a nightspot in a Spanish villa which looks like the one where Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie once cuddled in a bathtub. The music is deafening and pumping testosterone into the air even from outside. And my father brings me in even if I am too small to smell the whiff of putaria all over the place.
The disco is packed and sweaty. Dancers are responding to the DJ who spins aggressive German techno. It makes my head spin and the beat makes me giddy.. I am not on ecstasy but rather in it.
Suddenly my father mans the turntables, taking the spot where the technomeister once was. Daddy is mixing in latin guitar over the beats. The mixture of soft sensuality and screaming synths makes the club go crazy.
I am in an upper balcony, where I watch both my dad and the crowd from my overhead perch.
It dawns on me that this may be the reason why electronic dance music appeals to me so much: that with one flick, with one fell swoop, a single man can whip a crowd into a frenzy and give them a night that is both unforgettable and undechiperable. And suddenly, the world is a better place for it.
