On Djing...

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 didn't mean you should take any free drinks, just that you shouldn't get too drunk, if you want avoid errors. But if it's just a bar night I guess it doesn't really matter that much.

I think it's always good to know the general age of your audience, because people usually tend to love the music of their youth the most, so you'll know what songs will be guaranteed floorfillers. For example, I usually DJ in student parties where people are in their early twenties, and I've noticed I shouldn't play too many eighties and early nineties tunes, because those youngsters might not be familiar with them at all. One time I was playing "Informer" by Snow, and two girls actually came to ask me what song it is, they'd never heard it before.

x-post haha i'd like fuck you if you played informer.

nah it really does since i won't be familiar with the setup. but you know, i know my alcohol limit for basic motor/mental control etc. this is all riding on future knowledge at this point though so.....

thanks everyone for yore knowledge and responses. i really needed the feedback, if only to get my own juices going for the whole thing. do you ever have something stewing in the back of yr mind for way too long but you just don't have the guts to bring it into a frontal lobe until you mention it to other people? that's me on this thread. thanks bye

I had weekly DJ gig at a Irish pub in Sunnyvale for a couple of months but ended up quitting over some (admittedly) mild drama. The owner wanted Thursday to become a "Rockin' College Party Night" but we ran into a few problems:

1. The bar was totally dead almost every Thursday, not very rockin'
2. When remotely college-aged people showed up they wanted to hear hip-hop
3. Barflys would bitch and moan when I went off the classic rock playbook and tried to play something edgy like The Clash or Talking Heads.

All of this would have been much more tolerable if they ever gave me A DRINK TICKET OR TWO. I stuck it out for a couple months because the pay was decent, which is never a good reason to keep do something you otherwise love. But after some drama with being replaced without notice for a couple weeks by Ronnie the Karaoke DJ I decided to quit.

I've gone back to mobile DJing and private parties and am much, much happier.

anyway.. strongo break a legski!

haha that's not strongo.

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.

this is great advice.

strgn u know u better announce ur first gig we'll be there. i don't know shit about djing so carry on.

if you ever want to play vinyl, needles are essential, as not all clubs even have a house pair and you're expected to bring your own...and if they do have a house pair they're usually crap.

Depending on the quality of the dual CD players, you'll likely find it much easier to use than mixing with your ipod, though having the ipod as back-up won't hurt.

If you're going to burn a set of CDs, make 2 copies of each, that way you can mix from one song two another on the same comp.

Use a short fade or do a quick fade on the first song and fade in or even just start the second song from zero. For instance, when you're cueing the second CD you'll start getting used to finding the beat and even when not beatmixing, you can still make for a smoother transaction by starting on beat. You'll also find yourself getting really bored back there and you'll play around with beatmatching in your headphones because there's nothing else to do. That's how I learned to DJ at least.

ok that makes more sense now that i've finally checked out the two-cd deck. the guy who drops it there monday evening (6-9) is gonna school me on the decks next week (hopefully). and in any case i think i've got a night, or something. thanks everyone for the info and encouragement.

p.s. what sounds as good as "inspiration information" by shuggie otis?

eddie kendricks - 'date with the rain' y/n

definitely practice a bit beforehand. it's actually quite scary, even in a bar or something, suddenly being in control of the music that's playing. stuff like volume levels is actually really important too especially if you're using music that's come from bought cds and mp3s etc, just make sure you stay with the lights at the same level on the individual channels and use the gains to help you with this.

it can be sort of embarassing if you are not beatmatching and the track you mix in is way too loud (or way too quiet)

I wouldn't bother using the crossfader, just volumes up and down, it's more logical when you start off.

if you can practice on the soundsystem even for 45 mins or an hour beforehand that's pretty good too. I know it's a bar but some records sound much more manic and loud when you play them on a bigger system: you may have stuff you planned to play early on that is like this and you'll think "oops" when you play it.

if nobody is dancing, don't be afraid to make things more mellow rather than more intense.

i had a recurring and cliched dream where the track is about to finish and for some reason you haven't and can't get the next one going.

we talk about that a lot on a DJ mailing list I'm on. I don't know if it's specifically anxiety about DJing, or just your mind using that as a way to express anxiety in general. I've been DJing for well over 10 years and in every situation possible, and while I still can get a little nervous, I'm pretty comfortable DJing, yet I'm constantly having these dreams where the song is about to end and I don't have my records with me or I have records but they're all the wrong ones or the equipment is working...

Welcome to the club, ivy!

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

recorded the set in my living room yesterday. full of mistakes, not nearly as good as it was live, but whatever!!!

Ace.
Lol at your cat

i'm gonna try to not clog this thread with youtube embeds but i put together a playlist of tracks that didn't end up in my dj graduation set and ran through it yesterday. turned out pretty well! djing for longer than 20 minutes is hard btw, i gotta build up endurance, maybe do some stretches beforehand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2otpEQNVzwg

sorry but there is nothing like the buzz of seeing people who don't know you (and therefore owe you nothing) enjoying the music you're playing and mixing, and there is nothing like the buzz of strangers actively coming to you to tell you they really enjoyed what you do

indeed. i was on warm-up duty on thursday night, using the sparsely populated dancefloor as an opportunity to play extremely slow warped chuggy mutant stuff, literally started at 60 BPM. a (sober) college girl from tallahassee came up to me with compliments and a fist-bump, and claimed i'd kill in tallahassee. you just never know who will dig it

yep

today I bumped into someone who was like "hey I know you! you're that old school DJ right who uses the turntables? that was really cool there was one song I really liked that I had to Shazam"...it was "Moskow Diskow"!

hahaha <3

awww!

bartender from last night's happy hour DMed me to ask for music recommendations :)

<3

out of curiosity how do y'all find new places to play at? I've got two regular spots, one just shut down (blame the landlord not me), the other is nice but kinda small. I've done a few bigger places and they seem to go well, I make good tips and people say nice things, but I can't get the owners to bring me back!

I have pretty much zero interest in new gigs, but if it helps spark ideas I would ask local breweries, distilleries, etc.

I am doing a rare vinyl-only set tomorrow at a record show (where I am also selling, fortunately I have a helper). It's an hour-long set and I uncharacteristically have most of it blocked out already. Starting out with the Chordettes "Lollipop", will post my actual in-the-moment setlist later.

xp or ask bars/restaurants/venues about early opening/afternoon sets, I like those myself

first of all actually I would get a business card!

I was invited to a private party last night that was a gathering of all my favorite local techno DJs. It feels nice to be included in the community as the scene experiences the most growth I've seen since I moved here 25 years ago. It really seems like something real is building here. My only reservation is that as I've become officially old, I find myself silently tut-tutting the rampant drug use that inevitably goes along with such a scene.

oof, yeah I bet

I guess my approach would be "nah I don't, thanks" and then subtly over time make it known that I'm open to anyone struggling with those issues

Pretty much, yeah. Honestly, I just don't have the physical capacity for it anymore, but I want to be a part of things without raining on anyone's parade.

showing off with a willfully eclectic all-vinyl set:

Firesign Theater - "The Straight People" (excerpt from the Station Break 7")
Chordettes - Lollipop
Adriano Celentano - Prisencólinensináinciúsol
Juca Chaves - Take Me Back To Piauí
King Curtis And The Kingpins - Whole Lotta Love
Wynder K. Frog - Green Door
Kleenex - Ain't You
GISM - Endless Blockade Of The Pussyfooter
Trashmen - Surfin' Bird
Kiyohiko Senba And His Haniwa All Stars - Slightly As Friend Around Party
Skull Cult - Cyco Killer
Martin Denny - Llama Serenade
Alice Cooper - Clones (We're All)
Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy (Spanish version)
Pheno S - Wahidjo
Rolets - Top Ranking Girls
English Beat - March Of The Swivelheads (Rotating Heads Dub Version)
Brigitte Fontaine - Le Goudron
Dick Hyman - Blackbird

Prisencólinensináinciúsol

olright!

(class sways rhythmically, clapping hands)

Killer set sleeve. I brought that King Curtis 45 out with me the last time I DJ'd but I couldnt figure out a way to work it into my set - its so good!

Last weekend I was playing at a wedding. By the end of the night things were already winding down, the first guests had left, and the mood was mellowing out. The bride had one last request: a song I didn’t know, by a couple of artists I’d never heard of before. I downloaded it, put it on, and it turned out to be this gloriously upbeat gospel song. Literally everyone who was still there sang along, hands in the air, clapping and smiling. I'm no gospel fan, but this was a beautiful way to end the night.

got to play a bunch of 45s for my friend’s 45th bday at a bar in chinatown tonight. it was me and three other DJs (including my friend’s husband), i went on last. mostly played fun italian disco songs (not really italo, much of it was late 70s) and had people dancing for a hot minute. it was really fun but had to cut my planned hour-long set short by 15 minutes because the karaoke DJ needed time to set up in the booth, which i was kinda bummed about tbh. playing 45s is fun! all four of us each played different stuff too, which was really cool. would love to do stuff like that more often.

that's fun - I know there are people are locally interested in doing things like that, but it's so hard to organize!!!

anyway, I just realized I have a lot of difficulty describing what exactly it is I do as a DJ, so I'm thinking about making a video. these are all over YouTube, of course, I get sent them all the time, most of them are pretty great...unfortunately I don't really know how to record from a mixing board, so I was thinking I might just have to reproduce the audio on the other side

I haven't really played anywhere much recently - I've had a lot going on, the bar has been quiet, and truthfully I feel like when I do out as a drinker/dancer I'm not really feeling a lot of what other people are responding to in 2025.

I got asked to DJ a 21st two weekends ago. I could do with some cash as I'm moving house soon, so I said Yes despite only having a few day's notice. It was good! I had to make some sacrifices of taste to keep people happy - I honestly thought I would not have to field off multiple requests for Andy Williams at a 21st birthday party in 2025. Highlights:

- people going wild for Destination Calabria
- the girl who delivered on her promise to "do the worm" if I played 212
- an excuse to play some house music, a bit tougher than I usually get to at these things
- the table who leapt up to sing along to Horny
- the floorfillers being the fulfilled requests for Robbie Williams and Jamiroquai - everyone in the late teens/early 20s went crazy for them, I could not have predicted it

The person who usually DJs in the pub every Saturday/Sunday was a bit put out I got asked to do it. He offered to set up equipment for me and warned me -sternly - if I broke it I would need to pay for it. Sure enough, I got there and the amp seemed to be faulty. It's working fine but it really spooked me that it caused a power surge the first time I switched it on. He didn't get asked to do the party because it wouldn't be his wheelhouse - he's great at playing Motown and country and disco, but even I felt like my choices were skewing old for a 21st so he would have probably found it a challenge. I felt like I was being set up by him.

BUT I think I was just being too sensitive and a bit paranoid. He called me on Friday night and asked if I could cover for him because he needed to cancel last minute, he had to be somewhere at midnight and the pub closes at 1am. He came in for a drink before he went out and we had a really good chat while I was DJing. I basically told him, although a bit more subtly than this, that I have no interest in taking gigs off him or trying to do the same as him - I think he's really good at what he does and I think it would be stupid to try to do the same thing as him because what's the point? He said he's been asked to do a few 21st and 30ths and turned them down but he said he would pass on my details. He also suggested that if I do a few events I'll easily make the money back that I would need to spend on speakers and lights if I wanted to get into doing that kind of party work. It felt very encouraging.

This weekend was fun - I didn't do a lot of meticulous prep, and I know the Saturday crowd generally don't like anything too fast. Plus there was a festival happening two minutes away - TRNSMT, which is basically a rock and indie event for 18-30s. I packed the student anthems, the pop hits of yesteryear, and some soul and reggae for the heatwave we're experiencing. I did very little blending/mixing, and kept it very obvious, and it worked very well. I don't think I could do it every weekend because I think I'm not excited enough by the more traditional stuff that crowd expects to hear. But it was challenging and interesting to do something different, and I think reaching for things I wouldn't normally play is going to make what I do a bit more interesting. Highlights from Saturday:

- Teenage Dirtbag being received rapturously! Who knew?
- a slightly adventurous choice to play Alicia Keys' Fallin', and watching another singalong happen
- Kingston Town/Could You Be Loved together making everyone do the reggae shuffle
We are considering the possibility that we might make my Friday nights a monthly event rather than an ad-hoc situation like it currently is where I get asked to a random date and then try to drum up a crowd. That way it's reliable and people might actually actively plan to keep coming back. Which of course would be excellent.

Also a big thanks to mike-t-diva, whose Strut Ya Stuff recordings continue to be a real source of inspiration <3

I love this, boxedjoy. Teenage Dirtbag has more legs than I could have guessed, and Kingston Town was my floor filling set closer for many months.

Been teaching myself some DJ 5D chess tonight. Here's what I've learned:

1. You can sometimes switch-up by two-thirds of a bpm. So for example, if you have a track playing at 88bpm, you can, with a bit of clever-cloggsing, shift it into a track playing at 132bpm. Some people use a delay out set at the right time signature, but I'm not very good at that so I'm bodging it for now

2. I have a track I like which plays in 9/8 which I never thought I'd be able to happily fit into a mix. Turns out the old adage that "everything is 4/4 if you don't sit there counting like a dweeb" is true. You just have to find the right tempo. So this track is 78bpm in 9/8 but that means it should technically work with a 4/4 track at 138bpm. Mindblowing, but true. I worked it out with fuckin SCIENCE!

3. I also have a 3/4 track at 90bpm which I figured should work with 4/4 tunes at a nice neat 120bpm. Really handy for jumping around tempos and keeping things interesting.

4. Because I'm terrible at maths, I have saved the following two-thirds tempo chart in the Notes on my phone:

73.3 - 100
76.6 - 115
80 - 120
85 - 127.5
88 - 132
90 - 135
93 - 139.5
93.3 - 140
95 - 142.5
97 - 145.5
100 - 150

So next time I want to jump up or down in tempo, all I need to do is check this guide. Boooom!

NB: I didn't have time to properly test this all out, so it might all be nonsense. Anyone who knows more about DJing or music theory, feel free to correct me. If it works then I'll be very happy though

i can't find it now but I feel like Avalon Emerson did a youtube tutorial about that at some point.

i should really do some math next time i do a tempo jump. i did one in the set i recorded recently and it works fine but it’s largely a smash cut (cranked the echo on the previous track and did a big scratch), and i think if i calculated a complimentary bpm it would sound better oh well

xps I should be more clear, you're not mixing by two-thirds, you're mixing by a half step up.

Love this dl. That math looks right to me, and some of my UK dj pals were/are very into triplet transitions.

Basically what you're doing is superimposing an 1/8th note triplet pulse over the slower track, and using that as the new faster 4/4 tempo. Or the reverse - using a 2 against 3 polyrhythm to set the new tempo.

I'm bad at math so I could never calculate the bpm on the fly, but I can feel the rhythms and do it with tap tempo. I highly recommend internalizing the rhythms and being able to do them both with two hands/limbs, then removing one, bringing it back, etc.

(nothing wrong with smash cuts either, lol)

xps I should be more clear, you're not mixing by two-thirds, you're mixing by a half step up.

I don't think that's true?

It might not be! I didn't study music and I all but scraped my maths gcse, so it's all a bit confusing to me. It's exciting to be able to try out new things though

To give a real world example (and plug my latest mix a bit), I do a transition here at around 39.30 going from 88bpm to 138bpm. It's not perfect because it was the first time I'd tried it, but it works quite very effectively as I managed to use Serato Stems to cut any clashing drum patterns

https://soundcloud.com/charliestoicdj/2025-summer-jams