....RED NIGHTS....

BERLIN – WARSCHAU – KIEW – MOSKAU

The „DJ Dawaj“ - Story

I was born in Poland, of Ukrainian mother and Polish father. My musical education started already as a small child. At all the gatherings of my mother’s family my grandmother would sing the old Russian songs. The heart-wrenching melancholy of these songs is still with me as a beautiful childhood memory. My three uncles would then sing the deep bass harmonies or take out their violins and launch into an impassioned solo. I would fall asleep to the sounds of the music and the partying.

As a teenager my parents emigrated to Australia . There we were immediately drawn into a large community of other Poles, Ukrainians and Russians. They were all refugees from the political suppression and economic misery of the Soviet system. And every weekend there was a big party at one of the clubs. The accordion would always be there. The smallest dance bands would always be made up of a singing accordionist, a bassist and a drummer. The atmosphere at these parties was fantastic. Young and old would dance all night, only coming to the bar to fortify themselves with a large glass of vodka and a bowl of borshtch. I learned the polka, the mazurka and the kazatchok and was soon recruited into a Slavic folk dance troupe. We practiced hard and performed at folk festivals.

At the same time I learnt to play the guitar and joined a band. We played dance music and soon I was more on stage than on the dance floor. But I wanted to go further and so eventually I got into the conservatorium. I learnt a lot there but I was not to stay with classical music. The music I liked was the one that makes you want to move. After my studies I was playing in bands again; Armenian, Latin, Spanish and Slavic. Often in two at a time. I also became a hobby ethno-musicologist. Built up a formidable world music record collection and started to do “World Music Discos” here and there.

Through an accident of fate, I now live in Switzerland. But I go to Warsaw, Kiev or Moscow a couple of times a year, to keep in touch. That’s where the sub-title of the “Red Nights” comes from; my favourite train journey. Since many years I’ve been collecting records of music from there that is good to dance to. And so it was inevitable that one day someone would ask me to put a program together for a dance party. That’s how this project started.

It’s not quite like other discos. For a start, the people that come are of all ages, from 20 to 60. A lot of what they call „alte 68er“ come too. I guess its the nostalgia for the lost socialist ideals of their youth. Most of them really get into the wild dances. Jump around and shout. Sometimes there are people who get so happy that they come to hug me, with tears in their eyes. I get excited too of course. I dance around the DJ desk. I used to shout „dawaj, dawaj!“ to encourage the dancers, like we do back home. Then someone said to me: „You’re the DJ Dawaj“ and it stuck as my name. I guess it fits because that’s really what I do; encourage people to dance...

At most of these dance nights there’s also a live performance. Sometimes its Slavic musos from here. Other times it’s a great band from over there. Or I perform myself with “Bajanski Bal”. I always make the sandwiches with the pickled Baltic herring, with horseraddish. One bite of that between each shot of vodka. Like they say in Poland: „One must drink vodka with herring, otherwise the herring will think that it’s being eaten by a dog.“ So I’m probably the only DJ in the world who turns up to the gigs carrying his record collection, an old guitar and a bag of fish.