Being a travelling DJ sounds like a pretty miserable job to us. You have to spend hours at airports. You live in hotels whilst on tour. You won’t see any of your friends and family. And you’re expected to provide top drawer sets everywhere you go and deal with endless industry politics as you go.

So in many ways, Ears To The House sympathises with DJs. But only to an extent – something we were reminded of yesterday when Melvo Baptiste, one of the A&R guys at Defected, tweeted this…

Quite what motivated Baptiste to publish this tweet is unclear. Perhaps one of the many artists in the Defected stable had been complaining about a flight being delayed – the supremely disciplined company machine ensures next to nobody will ever know for certain.

Whatever the reasons though, Baptiste has got us torn. On the one hand, he’s right. These DJs choose to do the job they do and lots of travel comes with the job – and when travelling by plane, ferry, road or whatever, delays are always possible. And yes, some hotels are so bad that even rats wouldn’t inhabit them – but that’s part of the life you chose, isn’t it?

On the other hand, Baptiste sends out a terrible message with his tweet – the response by his boss Simon Dunmore suggests it has his full approval. DJs are people too – despite how some of them act – and they’re perfectly entitled to point out the bits of their job which they don’t like.

People will make what they will of it. They might decide the DJ is making a fair point, or they might decide the DJ is showing a shocking lack of self-awareness – the infamous time Richie Hawtin tweeted about being unable to clear his mind whilst 10,000 feet up a mountain comes to mind.

Ears To The House says to all the DJs out there – keep the complaints coming. Aside from giving us content, it means we get to see the truth about what being a DJ means. Not the varnished, polished, Instagram friendly version that Defected employees would have us believe…