On Djing...

what kind of venue is it?

It's actually a very long but narrow room with booths either side. The strip of hardwood inbetween could be used for dancing, were one so inclined. I'm not sure how London licensing laws about people "swaying rhythmically to a beat" may constrict us, or not.

And did I mention it's in Camden?

call it chalk farm, it sounnds classier.

I really shouold sort out that place for yoink!

Spot on. My description was obviously v. accurate!

First three,

If you can scratch well(or not), here ya go:

1. Start it up with a sexy hip hop joint or a downtempo track. Nothing bangin', just sweet yet attention grabbing. Make it a track that people aren't exactly familiar with but you wanna make them curious. You must scratch/mix something with it you are sure of your abilities though.
2. Mystic Moods' "Cosmic Sea" is a massive cut to ease into as a second song. Flip it and mix/scratch with something comfy.
3. When the ridiculousness goin' off, the crowd should be into it, then really go into funky overdrive with something like "Theme from Blackbelt Jones" or your holy grail blaxploitation of choice. The party should be off to a good start at this point.

Then when they are getting drunk and frisky and ready to dance,"More, More, More" and "White Lines" are never disappointing spins.

try to keep it interesting, that's my only advice.

i opened my last set with the books' "enjoy your worries, you may never have them again" with robert ashley's "in sara, mencken, christ & beethoven..."... tried to keep it fun and strange.

closed with a bird songs record that i was messing with into the long intro to the colette no5 DFA mix of casiotone for the painfully alone's "baby it's you"... for me it's just something that makes my hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

i really want to do this in some form or another and i think i have a potential foothold at an older gay bar in town. i know/am casual friends with the manager and i've asked him a few times about an empty monday night slot. he's been a little cool about it so far but encouraged me to come on a monday and hear what the later guy was playing. i'm not really hip to popular gay classics or anything but i think some italo and etc. disco wouldn't bomb? (crowd is older gay dudes and random hustlers.) the manager is an ex-cattle-showing country guy who probably wouldn't get too excited if i talked to him in playlist-ese, which is how i'm used to talking to people about music. but i really think the bar (one of the oldest landmarks in the city but kind of "uncool" now) might benefit from something a little more interesting than what it plays right now -- bring in a younger crowd, etc., but also keep its current clientele psyched to come out.

really my question is how should i make this happen? (obviously the first step would be to go there on a monday night and check it out and talk to manager; i haven't yet because of the holidays and assorted stress.) any things to say / pitfalls to avoid? i really want to dj somewhere, somehow, and right now this seems like my best bet.

in general though, how pathetic and gauche is it these days to do the mp3jay thing with an ipod? i think at this particular bar no one would really give a shit, but if i want to keep it up / do something else... i need to invest in a turntable and start buying vinyl right?

re general dj-ing advice: what's the best way for someone who likes music a lot and likes watching people enjoy music and has music he thinks people would enjoy to start playing enjoyable music for people in a public (or any kind of) setting? keep in mind i'm not very good w/ people or schmoozing but getting better and i feel like this is necessary for my future uh happiness. thanks

do you have a laptop?

download traktor and use that.

Based on my experience I'd give two general pieces of advice:
1) Get used to people making ridiculous wishes for a tune, and generally not understanding you don't have every record they'd like to hear readily available in your bag.
2) Get used to people trying to hit on you.

I've DJed mostly in university student parties though, maybe your club is a more specialized setting so these things won't happen so often.

I am a rock guy that came to the DJ game pretty late. It's a fucking blast getting to play my records for other people.

Here's a few quick tips:

1) unless you are going to do dance nights, you don't need to learn to beat match, scratch, or show off any other "skills"

2) FLOW is the single most important thing you can provide. Don't fuck with the audience repeatedly, even if you're playing adventurous music. At least use the "punishment/reward" concept if you must satisfy yourself

3) Don't be embarrassed to pick up a really cheap and useful book called "How do Dj Right". I read great reviews of it, and was blown away at how simple and correct its methodology is.

***

Other than that, yeah--don't use mp3s if you can help it. That's gay.

BTW, you don't need to own turntables unless you're going to do a lot of gigs at places that don't already have them. I do recommend investing in your own cartridges though. That will run you around $60 and will save your records from harsh needles on public decks.

Also, in case you didn't get it, my mp3 comment was a joke. I rely heavily on my vinyl collection because I don't beat match or whatever. So I fall back on two things: my great record collection and my immaculate flow.

:)

Oh yeah, one more thing I've learned: the more drunk the crowd, the less adventurous music the probably want to hear. If you're playing at some club centred around certain genre(s) it might be different, but in general clubs people just want to have a bit of fun and not expand their musical horizons too much.

i've got good flow, thanks. gr8080, no laptop :(. do you think a cheap-ish notebook/laptop w/ traktor or whatever is a better investment for all-purpose dance-ish semi-weirdo dj-ing than a turntable in the future?

tuomas, i'm not gonna be too weird. if anything i'm too sensitive to crowd moods--that is, if i take advice from upthread and don't do it drunk.

And Nate is correct about not needing specialized DJ skills: if it's not a dance or hip-hop club, people probably don't care shit about such tricks. Basically you just need to learn to use the crossfader and try not to follow one tune with another one in completely different tempo (no slow r'n'b jams immediately after a fast house tune). The only things people will notice are blatant fuck-ups, like accidentally pressing the pause button. Which leads to one more piece of advice - don't get drunk, even if your drinks are on the house. A few drinks might be good to ease the tension, but if you get too drunk the potentiality of such fuck-ups is very high.

(x-post)

thx tuomas, good advice.

p.s. manager told me cds were the operating media here so i guess that would be best (though i think i can get away w/ an ipod since the mixing "booth" is like above and hidden from anyone and i could probably find a stereo in and bring some jacks). what i really need to do is check out the set-up tomorrow and see how they're mixing em.

i'd stay away from using your ipod and use cds if you can. burn your best sounding files to cd at least.

ok thx

if you're unfamiliar w/ the basics of using a dj mixer (or even if you are familiar but haven't used the specific type the bar has) see if you can drop in before they open and mess around for half an hour or so, so you can get comfortable with the basics of going from one cd deck to the next.

even if you don't plan on beat matching, the more comfortable you can get with compensating for volume variances between different tracks, minimizing dead air between tracks, perfecting your general flow, etc.

also, bring your own headphones if you have a pair with a 1/4" jack.

also, nate otm. at least stop by the book store and spend half an hour thumbing through "how to dj right".

ok. i'm not a total mixer n00b but i'm unfamiliar with dual cd mixers if that's really what they have. this is great advice + making me think about what i haven't actually thought about yet because i'm too self-deluded and arrogant. i'll check out the set-up tomorrow if i can and report back for everyone's reading enjoyment. and i've got to grab that book; it looks really really helpful. thx nate!

dont forget to have fun, too.

dont get too caught up in pre-arranging your music ("i'll play this track and then this track and then this track...") the best part of deejaying, even at a bar w/o a dancefloor, is connecting with the room and seeing where they're at with regard to what you're playing and how that influences your next selection.

if someone makes a request and you have it, play it. if you don't have it, be honest, but use their request as a springboard to a different topic, musical or otherwise. if people are super annoying and complaining about what you're playing or making vague and non-specific requests, tell them that the next deejay plays the kind of stuff they're into and he goes on in an hour.

also don't listen to tuomas; if you get to drink for free take advantage of that shit! its a bar, not a dance club, right?

always play 'you make me feel mighty real' by sylvester.

haha yes! sylvester will not be MIA

yeah gr8080 i just need to check their set-up and make that work w/ what i have +++++ the flexibility axis. this place is definitely NOT a dance place. people are drinking, eyeing other men and occasionally playing pool. some nights the bar just plays an xm radio station. monday is 'oldies' night but god knows what that means (general '70s/'80s). if anything i need to educate myself on some mainstream (gay) shit from that era to keep the crowd alive. and i am NEVER one to turn down a free drink.

I understand your frustration. When I was an occasional resident for a queer industrial/goth/postpunk night in San Francisco, it forced me to do a ton of research and find new ways of thinking about dance music— it’s how I got into Nitzer Ebb and Armageddon Dildos, among other groups. To me, this kind of research definitely takes time and effort but it is also FUN! So maybe framing it that way could help?

don't think it's ever going to stay too specific unless it's just you and one other person or similar. it can be nice for clubs to have a range of djs even within some overarching plan but it's also inevitable that some of you might dislike some stuff that others play, speaking from experience of such a setup. the only time i did a residency where i could programme stuff as i chose, i ended up just getting one good friend in as the other dj, and we could go back to back and stuff cos we knew each other's style well.

with a bigger group i would say you are always going to feel like it isn't quite as you envisage it, but also it's hard as you say to set rules for others.

like you either decide to control it/reduce it or you don't imo, can't please everyone. tyrant or broad church, such is life, lol.

yeah. true dat. for me though, we do promote it as "pan global riddim'n'rave" and talk-up what it's about: Specifically that it's contemporary outernational (or whatever) dance music.

so if a punter came to the night expecting to hear those sounds, it would be a bit weird if they heard a whole section of classic US house tunes (which listening back is what one of the DJs did). I don't mind a few curveballs - I'm prone to them myself - but my residents should know there's a remit and not just play, like, whatever. there are already a million house nights in the locale

the other thing is, your guests might not be aware of just how "away" they are from the remit you've established in your head.

My boyfriend does an online radio show which he describes as "gothic balearic" and a few months back he couldn't manage it so asked me to fill in for him. I thought I was executing the brief but he was horrified by what I was initially planning to play, "this isn't right at all"

if they aren’t a close friend i’d just not invite them back. if they are a friend you should be able to politely explain that you have a specific vision for the night and you’re trying to establish its identity. i have a night with a specific focus and when we have guests i usually of have a sense beforehand of the extent to which that person will likely deviate and i’m happy to accept that, but i’m not going to have the ones that are most “off” play frequently and water down the night

for the guests, do they specialize in the genres you want or is it more like House or DnB DJs trying out some different stuff?

with the residents, maybe it would be nice to have some casual meetups outside of the gigs where you hang and play music for each other and work on the vibe.

my opinion is, you need to endorse/support DJs you really believe in artistically & let them have absolute free reign (assuming they understand the remit)

I think whether or not the DJ is any good at what they do is more the issue...a great dj can sell a 'corny' record and a mid dj will draw attention to how unimaginative what they're doing is

by 'understand the remit' I basically mean, tell them that's the remit, but you dont really 'enforce' it ... then the syncing of trusted creative minds kind of *determines* the remit ex post facto

The pub has been a lot of fun and I'm going to keep doing it, but my taste in music lends itself to clubs more. I've been picking up the odd hour-long slot here or there, or doing theme nights that still feel further away from what I should be doing, but in terms of playing to people actually dancing it's not really been happening. Until last week. A local venue recently changed ownership and was offering cheap venue hire for club events, and with a considerable amount of persuasion from some pals we decided to put an event. We called it Zhoosh, we positioned it as "dance music and disco, for the girls the gays and the theys" and for four hours I played a mix of house, pop, garage, hi-NRG and disco.

I didn't record it live on the night but I did record a run-through of it the next day. Here's the last three hours of it.

I did an absolutely rotten job of promoting it - I had plans to post on Instagram, share Soundcloud mixes, all that kind of stuff. But a) my roof sprung a leak and I got distracted dealing with that; b) I find all this stuff so boring and stressful and embarrassing, "please come to my event, please"; c) I believe in what I do and so do many people around me but it's a comparatively small amount of people I actually know who would come to something like this for various reasons. I paid for some flyers to get printed and given out on the night but I don't have the online profile or local presence to really be known or be a "draw" so it was a gamble.

We broke even, which was a relief, but more importantly - I had the best time doing it. The first hour I struggled, between unfamiliar equipment, nerves, and the lack of crowd. But about midnight it started to pick up, by 1am it was busy and I was fielding requests, and by 2am it was busy with everyone dancing. I got so many compliments at the end, a few new followers, a girl gave me her phone number and asked me to text her about the next time I'm playing, and a group of lads asked me if I could come DJ at an afterparty there and then (which was tempting but I didn't). Obviously you have to take this stuff with a pinch of salt - at 3am when they're full of booze and whatever else it's easy to get swept up in the momentum. But it's such a nice feeling and it has helped me with believing two things: I'm good at what I do, and I do it in my own way. I hope to do it again.

One thing I am really not a fan of: people standing in a line at the front to watch me. What happened to dancing in circles with your pals, ideally round a pile of bags and coats, instead of staring at the DJ? It feels very intense, especially when you're just letting a track play and they seem to expect you to be twiddling knobs and filters instead of just dancing or having a drink. I had a few moments where I felt like I was being very seriously watched rather just observed and looked at.

haha I had my first hater call in years on my radio show yesterday, ironically a university professor had just stopped by the station to tell me how much he loves the show. but this caller was having none of it, he was soooo mad about the (very noisy and challenging) Virgin Prunes track that was playing. I told the GM about it, we laughed and laughed, and on my way back into the studio one of the college kids says "I like whatever you're playing right now"

in conclusion, suck it haters

Great weekend! Friday night I played a 3-hour set of soul, R&B, beat and new wave from the 60s and 70s at the local pub.

Saturday night was even better, with 5+ hours of Dutch hiphop and R&B for a packed dancefloor of 90% ladies. I felt like a rockstar!

For 18 months now I've been playing weddings and parties via a booking agency, but I'm getting more and more bookings directly through club/bar owners and guests from earlier parties. When I started I played maybe five shows a year, now I'm usually doing two every weekend. Things are going well, I love it.

btw, I would love some technical tips on the second show, especially on transitions. I suspect I could make more use of filters, but those rap tracks are so short that it's often not worth bothering I guess?

I’m excited to listen but scratches if you’re not already scratching. Learning to scratch is easier than ever!

Scratching on digital always feels like a gimmick to me, but I'm happy to change my opinion on that.

I went out to see/dance to Objekt last month and it knocked something loose; hooked up the Traktor controller that’s been gathering dust in my closet for like 8 years and I’m trying to really put in the time to not suck. I don’t expect to ever do this outside of my apartment but it’s just fun, you know? It just feels so much better engaging with dance music when you can really just get your hands in there and fuck around with it

Currently working on getting better with using the upfaders and channel EQ instead of the crossfader, and just going through the music I’ve put on my laptop (which is probably far too much at this stage even though it’s just from my Bandcamp library) and setting cue points, tweaking beatgrids, making playlists, etc.

I’d really love to know how people manage their files— I don’t use the id3 genre tag (never have, honestly) but instead I’m making playlists for subgenre (bleep, Birmingham techno, dub techno, etc) and structural features/sounds (acid, breaks, whatever). I’m hoping Traktor’s search/smart playlist functionality is good enough that I can just dump a bunch of tags in the comment fields and work with those without cluttering up my library view too much

I just have a bunch of genre playlists, some clear and obvious and some that just make sense to me.

I also have a folder called "slowish" which is a large selection of sub-115 bpm stuff.

Finally I have a folder called "crate" which I empty and fill before each time DJing, stuff I'm thinking I'd like to play. Helps me find it faster and keep a rough sense of what I want to do.

Oh man yeah. I have a similar playlist for stuff I love and that is *kind of* mixable but not necessarily at my current skill level. Like I don’t want to just play house and techno but it feels like there’s a certain amount of homework I have to do before I can play around with stuff like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtNqcGKBmI

oh god I have completely forgotten how the markdown for YouTube embeds works here

Maybe if I clean up the url a little?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtNqcGKBmI

of my less obvious playlists, there's one called "Dazzle Ships", which is basically the kind of stuff I played at a party I used to have that was more of a listening thing. So it's a lot of more experimental dubby post-punk/krautrock type things.

I also have a Balearic/Cosmic/Loft playlist that follows a playlist I've had up on Apple/Spotify, which is what it says on the tin more or less.

Was asked to do a warm-up set (5-8pm) at a lovely bar called Renae in Manchester. Started with some slow things and slowly brought things up, ending with house and techno.

It is up on some new site for music (which may disappear at any time). https://plyr.fm/track/69

Ooops, wrong link! Make that: https://plyr.fm/track/70

On the lot tonight 10-12. Gotta pick some records

eh. good records. terrible transitions.

I’d really love to know how people manage their files— I don’t use the id3 genre tag (never have, honestly) but instead I’m making playlists for subgenre (bleep, Birmingham techno, dub techno, etc) and structural features/sounds (acid, breaks, whatever). I’m hoping Traktor’s search/smart playlist functionality is good enough that I can just dump a bunch of tags in the comment fields and work with those without cluttering up my library view too much

I heavily use Genre(s) tags, and make sure Year is populated correctly too (otherwise filtering for "House" or "Pop" will return decades of music). Annoying thing is that the current DJ platforms don't support multiple values (i.e. "Acid;Techno" is a different genre from "Acid" and "Techno") but if you search or filter with "Genre contains Acid" this doesn't matter too much.

For preparing sets I create these big genre crates/smart playlists (say "1985-1990 House", "Italo Disco", "2010-2019 Pop" etc), that makes selecting a lot easier. I now have almost 300,000 tracks in the library, if I don't do this I'll never find anything.

Question: Is the Quantize function on CDJs actually necessary? I usually find it's on by default when I get on the decks. But as not all my tracks are properly gridded sometimes the first beat is in the wrong place and trying to start the track in the right place is a nightmare.

What does quantizing actually do beyond snapping your cues to what it thinks is the first beat, really? Am I better off just switching it off?

I think it's useful if you're using the sync function. If you're not, def turn it off. I think it's not just the cues but the entire beatgrid once it's been analyzed?

I don't really understand the beatgrid in that case really. I did manage to get a track with a tempo change to switch tempo correctly, but it took some faffing and 99% of the time tracks don't really drastically change tempo depending on the style.

I will continue setting the beat grids, byt i'm not going to go through my whole library and do it

I always manually set my own beat grids. It would be a boring world if every track started on the one!

Man. If i were to do that it would take a full week and no sleep. But wait, don't all beats technically start on the 'one', or am I splitting hairs here? It wouldn't be the one if it wasn't the first beat

I don't even own a beat grid ;)

By “the one”, I mean the first beat in the bar. Plenty of tracks start in different places, and so track analysis software gets confused.

80s night at the local pub. It was a pretty slow night, so I got to play a lot of personal favorites and try out some transitions between popular tracks I hadn't mixed before. 'Cantaloop' was one of only three requests. 1992, whatever.

PLAYLIST:
Sheila E. - A Love Bizarre
Sharon Brown - I Specialize in Love
Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
Club House - Superstition Medley with Good Times
Blind Date - Your Heart Keeps Burning
Scritti Politti - Absolute
Duran Duran - The Wild Boys
Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam With Full Force - I Wonder If I Take You Home
E.G. Daily - Say It, Say It
Modern Talking - You're My Heart, You're My Soul
Dolly Dots - Hela-Di-Ladi-Lo
The Cure - Why Can't I Be You?
Julian Cope - World Shut Your Mouth
Noel - Silent Morning
DeBarge - Rhythm of the Night
Jan Hammer - Crockett's Theme
Tears for Fears - Shout
Alphaville - Sounds Like a Melody
Howard Jones - What Is Love
LeVert - Casanova
What Fun! - The Right Side Won
René & Angela - Hotel California
Kim Wilde - You Keep Me Hangin' On
Fun Fun - Color My Love
Bros - When Will I Be Famous
Deodato - S.O.S. Fire in the Sky
Prince - When Doves Cry
Corey Hart - Sunglasses at Night
Debbie Deb - When I Hear Music
Evelyn Thomas - High Energy
Toontje Lager - Net als in de film
Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is a Place on Earth
Depeche Mode - People Are People
Anne Clark - Sleeper in Metropolis
Janet Jackson - Control
Bananarama - Love in the First Degree
Madonna - Causing a Commotion
Mel & Kim - Respectable
Sabrina - Boys
Taylor Dayne - Tell It to My Heart
Nena - 99 Luftballons
Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
Human Beat - Paint It Black
Trans-X - Living on Video
New Order - Blue Monday
Irene Cara - Fame
Bon Jovi - Livin' on a Prayer
Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill
Propaganda - p:Machinery
Talk Talk - Such a Shame
S.O.S. Band - Take Your Time (Do It Right)
The Human League - Don't You Want Me
Harold Faltermeyer - Axel F
Bandolero - Paris Latino
MC Miker G & DJ Sven - Holiday Rap
Images - Les démons de minuit
Roger - I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Yazoo - Situation
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax
Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters
Bee Gees - Tragedy
Matia Bazar - Ti Sento
US3 - Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)
Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal
Prince - Raspberry Beret
The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian
Duran Duran - Rio
Dolly Dots - Do Wah Diddy Diddy
Spandau Ballet - Gold (12")
Ultravox - Dancing with Tears in My Eyes
Het Goede Doel - België (Is er leven op Pluto...)
ABBA - Lay All Your Love on Me
Kiss - I Was Made for Lovin' You
Frank Boeijen - Zwart wit
Madonna - Material Girl
Paula Abdul - Straight Up
Maywood - Rio
Dolly Dots - Love Me Just a Little Bit More
Toontje Lager - Stiekem gedanst
Dire Straits - Walk of Life
Les Rita Mitsouko - Marcia Baila
Billy Joel - Uptown Girl
Bryan Adams - Heaven
Tight Fit - The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Time Bandits - Listen to the Man With the Golden Voice
Aneka - Japanese Boy
Agatha de Co - Avion de nuit
Ricchi e Poveri - Sarà perché ti amo
Madonna - Borderline
A Flock of Seagulls - Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)
ABBA - Head Over Heels
Jermaine Stewart - We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off
Limahl - The Never Ending Story
Roachford - Cuddly Toy
Kylie Minogue - The Loco-Motion
Strawberry Switchblade - Jolene
Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
The Jets - Crush on You
Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes - (I've Had) The Time of My Life
Klein Orkest - Over de muur

i like ppl posting their playlists in this thread so here's a recent one of mine: a mostly funk/disco/boogie set from my most recent night at the italian club. i need to get better at actually recording these things!

Rosa - Acqua di Sale
Pink Rhythm - Melodies of Love
May East - Bamboo Dance
Mike Francis - Let's Not Talk About It
Alan Sorrenti - Casablanca
George McRae - I Get Lifted
The Heaadhunters - If You've Got It, You'll Get It
Vivian Reed - Don't Start Something You Can't Finish
The Bar-Kays - Too Hot to Stop
People's Choice - Turn Me Loose
The Jacksons - Enjoy Yourself
The Crusaders - Stomp and Buck Dance
Diana Ross - Mirror Mirror
Tom Tom Club - Genius of Love
Rufus & Chaka Khan - Ain't Nobody
Carrie Lucas - Show Me Where You're Coming From
Geraldine Hunt - It Doesn't Only Happen at Night
Debbie Jacobs - Lovin' Spree
Jimmy James & the Vagabonds - I Want You So Much
Margino - Rescue Me
Rocky Winters - Vicious Circle
The Antilles - I've Got to Have You
The Final Approach - Que Pasa
Malcolm's Locks - Get Up Stand Up
Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette
The Staple Singers - Slippery People
Eddie Drennon - Disco Jam
King Sunny Ade - Oremi
Lonnie Liston Smith - Floating Through Space
Eddie Chacon - Fate

ok so I've finally reached the point where I need a mixer program. I use a Mac Mini running OSx Tahoe

what's out there that's simple? I don't need anything fancy, no beatmatching, just a way to mix tracks that is FLAC and MP3 compatible

oh actually I am gonna use the older laptop, still OSx but from 2013 I think

there are some free things and simple things but algoriddim Djay is prob the gold standard for fully featured but also easy to use/well designed.

Mixx is the free option. VirtualDJ is the most popular, but Djay is the one I liked.

If you have an actual controller then you can use Rekordbox or Serato.

haha no, I'm lucky to have an old laptop where I'll be going. thanks Dan!

There are cheap controller you can get, with any of those programs, and it makes it a lot of fun.

link for a noob? I have never even tried to work with one

lol no wait never mind

Algoriddim djay yes.

I took a peek at Mixx and it's way more features than I need! I think I'm good, thanks.

My DJ calendar is so barren I'm reduced to making begging reels on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYUB85ZMxH1/

(but seriously if you have any gigs for me I am here, hi!)

Whereas most hobbies in my life have waned or come to feel pointless by mid-life, DJing has seemingly gotten better. I wasted so much of my 20s and 30s yearning for gigs and opportunities, and felt a lot of bitterness at not having that. But it’s become something else, like a kind of daily devotional ritual, a span where I put my phone in another room and be present with records/music. I think the shift comes from deciding to significantly cut down on buying new records and to mostly stop following new music. I think I spent so much time wondering “what’s the point if I’m not doing this for anyone or getting any recognition” that, when I embraced the answer (there is no point) it just started feeling easier and to feel like djing in my living room alone is not something I do out of circumstance but of choice

That's a really good way to think. I do get a kick put of feeling like the music is getting heard too of course. But the root of it is about listening to music deeply and drawing parallel lines from one expression to another and being creative about it

I was a little hesitant to post that right after your post, since I didn't want it to read as dismissing the totally legitimate desire for, and effort in pursuing, gigs, much less as advice on what the right attitude is. I spent a long time avoiding this thread because I felt so insecure about my non-existent DJ career, and found myself being envious of people here in a way that felt unhealthy, but when I think about my relation to DJing now (which feels closer to, say, gardening, than playing music for people) I feel like, yes, this is not a lesser version of some defined ideal, but it's own thing that is continuing to unfold nearly 21 years after I started.