There was a time when a higher echelon DJ could simply concentrate on being a DJ. Go to a gig with a box or two full of vinyl, play for a few hours, get paid and that’s basically it. Those days are long gone, with DJs increasingly having to push other products in order to pay their vast bills.
This is something which Danny Tenaglia – he with the massive trunk – and Carl Cox, who flogs babygros on the side, noticed a while ago. And guess who’s the latest to jump onto the bandwagon of selling any old crap they can get their hands on at inflated prices? Step forward, none other than the Instagram-blocking occasional 59-year-old DJ from Detroit, Mr Derrick May!
So what has the man himself got to offer? Well, we decided to take a look on the Transmat Detroit website might be disappointed at the sheer number of items which aren’t actually available to buy – at the time of writing, only 15 of the 24 items are in stock. That’s a less than impressive ratio of 62.5%. Call us cynical, but any physical shop where nearly 40% of its items are unavailable would be unlikely to last for very long.
But we digress. Items available to browse, if not necessarily to buy, include a surprising number of crop tops – given the notoriously cold weather in the city of Detroit during the winter, exactly why this is the case is a mystery. Elsewhere, May is selling T-shirts, cups, hoodies and a laptop bag. All branded, naturally enough, with the Transmat logo.
As is nearly always the case with Derrick May, however, all is not well. Anyone clicking in to find more details on the items in question will invariably be disappointed. Clicking the link to see a unisex hoodie, for example, brings up drop-down arrows to see further information on things such as how to look after the clothes or how much it’ll cost to ship said item. Unsurprisingly, however, none of the links actually work.
And there was us thinking that New Zealander Mike Weston – who is allegedly funding this attempt to rehabilitate Derrick May into the dance music world – had deep pockets. No expense spared? More like no expense spent.
But the absolute worst thing of all? You cannot buy a cardboard cutout of Mayday – a sharp contrast to Richie Hawtin, whose cutout you can buy for around £46….