Hang the DJ

It's sometimes remarked that running a quiz the way we do, choosing questions as we go and responding to the mood of the participants, has similarities to being a DJ. There is, of course, one round where it is more explicitly like being a DJ - namely the music round. Which raises questions in my mind about what kind of DJ I would be....
Much as I take care in my own taste of music and have a reasonably merited reputation as a bit of a rock snob, on the guess-the-artist music round you're not going to get very far with Question 1; The Decemberists 2; Moby Grape 3; a bit more mainstream, it's a Super Furry Animals b-side... blank looks all round. But still, I ask myself, is there any excuse for the fact that I nearly always start my music round with 'it's all coming back to me now' by a certain long-faced Canadian (one of the people who regularly helps me thinks I have a secret Dion fetish) and follow it up with Deeply Dippy by the finest bald brothers in pop? Surely there is a middle ground, or maybe this IS where I release my darkest musical secrets ---I'm now wondering if i've mentioned two of the artists I often play so that it will encourage me not to play them again in future, as, no doubt, all my future quiz clientele our feverishly scouring this blog for any clues.
The times where a client does ask me to play music before or after a quiz give me a renewed respect for the skill and patience of DJs, both those who are tastemaking in swinging london's hippest nightspots and those who know how to get a tired and emotional wedding party clumsily bopping and congaing into the night.
So far, I've found you get asked 'Can you play something a bit more...modern' a lot, and the even more dispiriting 'Can i plug my ipod in and play my music'. At least when running quizzes, though we often get requests on style and content beforehand, which we're fairly happy to adhere to within reason, there isn't yet too much of an interactive 'request' culture - perhaps because people think we have a set list of questions which we can't change. Having said that, if someone shouts out 'ask a question about New Zealand/pottery/eggs/Thundercats' and I am able to comply within seconds, it tends to quite impress people, so perhaps we should introduce a new off-the-cuff 'Requests' round. Perhaps not.