My first memory of music

My first memory of music is not tied to a particular song. It is tied to home.

My father was a DJ and radio host. He started at Czech Radio Hradec Králové, later broadcast from Černá hora, and spent the last years of his life at Radio Metuje in Náchod.

Music was a natural part of our life. All around us were vinyl records, tape recorders, microphones and gear. As a little boy I would sit by an old gramophone that my grandparents kept as a piece of furniture. I wished so much that it would work — but it was already broken.

Then came my first attempts with a paper gramophone from ABC magazine. You had to spin the record by hand, but to me it felt like magic.

The first real machine on which I could listen to my own music was a Hungarian MK27 tape recorder.

Back then I still had no idea that music would not remain just a hobby. It would become part of my whole life.

How it all began

I hosted my first disco in 1986. I was sixteen.

It was not in any big club. It was a cultural centre in Dvůr Králové nad Labem, where students from two boarding houses would gather.

There were about two hundred people in the hall.

The equipment was simple. A local mixing desk, two cassette decks, one reel-to-reel recorder, and two friends who shared the same enthusiasm.

We even discovered that neither microphone worked.

So my friend just whistled, smiled and said:

“Sorry — the microphones don’t work. The fun starts now.”

We put on the first song.

The dance floor filled at once.

I don’t remember exactly which track played first. Maybe Modern Talking, maybe Madonna or Bad Boys Blue. But I remember exactly what I felt.

It was not fear.

It was not nerves.

It was pure joy that the music was beginning — and that we could shape the whole evening.

After about two months I began hosting discos regularly at the SSM Trend club in Trutnov.

From 1986 to 1990 I stood behind the mixing desk there almost every week.

The club was not large, but it was often full.

In summer it was hot inside, there was no air conditioning, we made lights from whatever was at hand, and by the end of the night the back walls were wet with sweat.

People moved between the dance floor and the bar, laughed, danced, met each other — and I was enormously lucky to be part of all those evenings.

At the time I still thought the most important thing was choosing the right songs.

It took me about two years to understand that the most important thing is people.

Music taught me how to look at people

The turning point came unexpectedly.

Once I arrived as a guest to host a disco.

The organisers had invited me, but one of the local students insisted he would play instead of me. He wanted to prove he could handle the evening alone.

I let him.

After a few minutes I could feel the floor losing energy. The music was playing, but people were stopping responding to it.

I said I would go home.

The organisers stopped me, asked him to step aside, and I continued where the evening had started to lose its breath.

That was the first time I fully understood that a DJ does not just play songs. He leads the mood of the whole room.

Of course I made mistakes too.

Sometimes I chose the wrong track and the floor emptied within moments.

But I learned not to panic. It was enough to stay calm, respond well, and within a few minutes people would come back.

Once I even got an electric shock when, mid-set, I switched on a damaged light hose without a cover. The microphone flew straight out of my hand — but the evening went on.

And then there were moments you never forget.

Boys would come up and ask if I would play a slow song, because they liked a particular girl.

At the right moment, I played it.

The rest was up to them.

That was when I understood that music sometimes connects people more than words.

Today I no longer read the dance floor the same way I did forty years ago.

People do not dance from the first track.

You notice it differently.

Someone starts tapping a foot.

Someone else sways by the bar.

Someone smiles at their partner.

And children?

They are still the same.

They do not yet care what others think of them.

As soon as the music reaches them, they simply start dancing.

And that is why I never watch only the dance floor.

I watch the whole room.

Because music is not only about who is dancing right now.

Music is about how people feel.

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Why I still stand behind the mixing desk

After so many years, people sometimes ask whether I still enjoy it.

The answer is simple.

Yes.

Before every event I look forward to what its atmosphere will be. I look forward to meeting new people and becoming part of their story.

Whether it is a ball, a wedding, a company party or a birthday celebration — every evening is different.

When I pack up the gear at the end, people often come over, shake my hand, thank me and tell me how they enjoyed the night.

In those moments I do not feel as if I am saying goodbye to clients.

I feel as if I am saying goodbye to people I have known far longer than a single evening.

And if a sixteen-year-old boy who is standing behind a mixing desk for the first time came to me today, I would tell him only this:

“A wonderful journey awaits you. Enjoy every minute of it.”