As well as being the the darkest corner of the underworld, Hades is also a club in my hometown of Norwich that hosts regular metal, goth and alt nights including Run With Us, an alternative 80's night. I was asked if I wanted to guest DJ and being a girl who can't say no I accepted.

Unless you count the time I ran a punk night at Uni with two cd players on a table in an empty pub I had only DJ'd once before. That night was called Crash and Burn and the general feel of the evening was fairly relaxed - anything dark, odd and kooky - so I played some Neurosonic, The Tea Party, Pitchsifter and VAST amongst others. Doing this guest set sounded good to me initially but being a little bit of a perfectionist (and being quite intimidated by the amount of buttons on the desk) I was a little nervous. The evening went well though and I was looking forward to  playing again before the venue was sold and turned into a gay bar. Typical.

So, back to my guest slot at Run With Us. This particular evening had much more restrictions on what could be played: it had to be released in the 80's and it had to be dark. Cue Sisters, Cure, Cult, Mission, Numan, etc etc. I wanted to play something a little different to what I normally heard and make a small impression in my guest slot but as the night progressed the songs I planned to slot in didn't seem to come about. I played some Fiction Factory early on, as well as New Order (not Blue Monday), Eurythmics (Love is a Stranger) and one of my favourite tracks of the moment To Cut A Long Story Short by (gulp) Spandau Ballet.

Then one of the few people who was there as soon as we opened requested some Iron Maiden. Um...not sure what to do there. I didn't have any and called for assistance from one of the head DJ's who stepped in to help. Psyx was trying to tell me how to get from one song to another via other tracks and how to arc a set etc and once I'd got the hang of the headphones, listening to a track before playing it and deciding it would or wouldn't follow the current one I think I got the hang of it. By the end of the evening I was enjoying myself and even made a snap judgement to cut The Clash and substitute The Cult with 25 seconds left to run. Phew! Got the last half hour free and danced my boots off, pleased with a job well done. Still didn't get to play Devo or The Misfits but I did good.

At 3.30am the DJ's tried to give me money. I said I would take their money when I didn't need their help anymore, maybe the next time I did a set. All by myself. They agreed. Guess I'm going behind the decks once more...