DJ Request Innovation

Most DJs I know have a pretty good idea of their playlist before they start DJing (proper dance DJs even more so, I'd guess), so should requests ever be positively discouraged?

So really, everyone wins. If ppl scan the list and find that the music on offer is not to their taste they can always go elsewhere.

The DJs were on from 11.20 to 3 iirc, so that's quite a lot of songs. I think the downstairs band finished late anyway (11.20 instead of 11).

At the weekend a mate came up and was telling me how much he really liked what I was playing and asking about stuff, and it was cool but I was trying to mix (or crossfade in DJ Ronan parlance).

I wonder if dance DJs have any idea of their playlist, I guess the playlist=the records you put in your bag.

Sometimes, really, it's just an excuse to talk to the DJ. Especially if the DJ is consistently playing good stuff.

However, NO ONE at the last Freaky Trigger night having Boney M... that was an abomination!!! Call yourself DJ's? You should have your hands chopped off!

i remember reading in Muzik that Francois Kervorkian did a request set once - i think the theme must have been classics as i imagine it would've been difficult otherwise

X-post - I'd happily play Christina Aguilera at an indie night, but maybe my purist indie DJ days are over (though really they never begun - even in the heady surge of britpop I was always throwing in hip hop, Madonna etc.).

I was accused of not keeping my cool on Saturday as I danced and wiggled my ass behind the decks more than I did at any stage while anyone else was playing.

Yes, that's why it HAS TO HAPPEN!!! Creation will be unmade, the name of god recited backwards, etc. etc.

I used to dance behind the decks back when I DJ'd. I used to try not to, but it was really hard not to. Then I'd look up and see a row of indie boys watching me and feel really self conscious and embarrassed me.

(I shouldn't joke. I met Hilton while DJ-ing.)

I hate requests when i am DJ-ing. You want to listen to what you want to listen, listen to it at home. Equally if I fuck up, don't dance and I'll soon get the message (Club FT not relevant here). I never have a set list before I go to the club either. I suppose it is why I like tag-team DJ-ing so much.

i deejayed a party last nite on Staten Island for what turned out to be mostly uptight people and about 20 firemen.... i played a mashup of "Short Dick Man" that used the bassline from "Groove is in hte Heart", it really got the floor moving, and the next song the person whose house it was comes up and goes "this might be a weird question but do you have 'Groove is in the Heart' by Dee-Lite??" which was cute and kind of cool, deffo better than the person who came up during "Here Comes the Night" (CHEERS DAVE Q) (a Beach Boys disco epic from 1980) and goes "umm everyone here is in their 30s, kind of OLDER...." and she's sort of struggling for the next thing to say so i reply "older than disco??" ha ha go back to your canapes, bitch

DJs: piano-dropping moments

"talkin to the DJ when he's tryin to mix / and you fuck it up good and proper!!" - dj frenchbloke and son

??

Ronan, "easier"? Well, man, I'm lame! I'm going back to Manc...mind you, last house party I played there, no one would dance, even though everyone headnodded to it all (Sugababes, DFA,Jaxx, G-Swing, Mylo, Richard X, Cut Copy, Nona Hendryx etc). My unmixed chill set was great tho (Manhead, Lemon Jelly, Avalanches, Michael J, Stevie Nicks, Minotaur Shock etc).

As for requests, while playing the opener at a semi-popular student night a year ago, with a musical mandate for funk, hip hop, and 80s/90s dance classics, though increasingly updated with chinstroke-dance and instro-hip hop, courtesy of my close friend who was following me, I got asked for 'Buil Me Up Buttercup' by some pissed-up girl. For some reason, I said "yeah, sure" instead of something perverse.