On Djing...

Then there's DJ Balearic, which for me is balearic but also Cosmic and Loft classics. I actually put that into one giant playlist on spotify for listening pleasure and kept adding and adding:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4bv9Fa4IfStJNwZW282yjb?si=77d1a3c868634c36

Just popping in to say that I've listened to this playlist loads; it is an absolute banger.

Thanks

I Djed my dad's celebration of life party after his funeral service (well, I made a playlist and thought I would make decisions on the fly but I did not) The whole experience from start to finish was much less fraught than I expected it to be. Just popping in to say that DJing is fun even when it's after someone passes!

Glad it went well LL! What sorts of things did you play?

WELL since you asked:
I had to be very methodical about it because I needed reassurance that I had a methodology and it wasn't just a bunch of random songs I chose. So I started with songs that reminded me him or that I remember him singing/enjoying/whistling. Most of my memories are pretty old because I left home ASAP and that marks an end to the musical memories. That was about 2 hours worth.
Once I had those in the playlist (I used spotify for my ease and the venue's ease; I am not a DJ), I peppered my own era-appropriate faves in there so that I would feel supported by the music that has always kept me company when I needed it. The result was a playlist where only I know which is which and therefore I am ultimately in control of ths situation.

Here's the funny part: the playlist was 4 hours long (just in case; I could have kept going but had to stop at some point) When the party was coming to a close and people were packing up stuff and leaving, I turned off the music at what I thought was the perfect and most appropriate place, at the end of a sentimental Beatles song. If I had waited just a few seconds, I could have ended the party in an unforgettable fashion with the song bearing the same name as my dad, the ultimate send off. But I cut it off early! I think I did what he would have wanted, but in hindsight, if the party had to end when it did, what I would have wanted was to end the entire endeavor with this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auLBLk4ibAk

i love that, LL, what a sweet tribute <3

just wanted to note that last night was a good night. feels like it's been a while since i had a good night. i did my 'no requests' line again and played a lot less pop, more deep and adventurous. a handful of cool people who wanted to dance to house music showed up. thank you for being there cool people.

Thanks for sharing that LL, glad that music helped you through it in some way. And map ♡ always

I had a great night last night as well. Incredible energy and connection during the second hour, just total euphoric frenzy.

I'm very lucky to have a Friday night residency in a bar which is a) three minutes walk from my front door and b) the only bar in town where a night like mine could possibly work. If you want to go out dancing in this town, then (apart from a monthly Northern Soul thing, which I used to play at) I'm the only option, so I'm proud of having held the residency for 5½ years and counting.

Yes, I have to play a lot of obvious stuff that people know, but I won't do it in a way that totally sells me out. Playing the hits is as much of a challenge as any other form of DJ-ing - more so when you're playing to a crowd that ranges from late teens to late sixties, and all points between - and I'm tempted to say that it's an underrated skill. I can't rely on well-worn, tried and trusted sequences, as I have a lot of regulars who would spot the laziness in an instant, so every set is constructed from scratch, and every set contains some tracks that I've never played before.

I mainly stick to pre-planned set lists, with very carefully pre-planned transitions (set prep takes me a whole day per week); I think that's essential when you're mostly playing vocal-led three minute pop songs. Sometimes the planning has to go out of the window, but not very often, as I know from weekly experience what works. I'll occasionally slot in a good request, but in general I favour the security of always knowing where I'm going next, over the risk of making panicky and over-safe choices on the fly.

This is last night's set list. People are rarely ready to dance in the first half hour, so I get to warm them up with deeper cuts, which is every bit as enjoyable as what comes later, albeit in a very different way. One track was a request; one transition was a big risk, but fuck me it paid off BIG time.

Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway - Back Together Again
Trussel - Love Injection
Ned Doheny - To Prove My Love
Patrice Rushen - Number One
G.Q. - Disco Nights (Rock Freak)
Lonnie Liston Smith - Expansions
Light Of The World - Time (Remix)
Chicago - Street Player
Candido - Jingo (Shep Pettibone 12" Remix)
A Taste Of Honey - Boogie Oogie Oogie
Brothers - Are You Ready For This
The Trammps - Disco Inferno
The O'Jays - I Love Music
Billy Paul - Only The Strong Survive
Gonzalez - Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet
Musique - In The Bush
Azymuth - Jazz Carnival
Blondie - Atomic
Pointer Sisters - Jump (For My Love)
Wham! - I'm Your Man
The Clash - Rock The Casbah
R.E.M. - Losing My Religion
Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World
Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me)
The Stone Roses - Fools Gold
Indeep - Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life << request
Young MC - Know How
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue
Pet Shop Boys - What Have I Done To Deserve This? (Shep Pettibone Mix)
Madonna - Music
Crystal Waters - 100% Pure Love
Robin S. - Show Me Love << this is where the bar just totally exploded; it's always a popular track (obviously!), but the timing was somehow just right for it to have maximum impact
K-Klass - Rhythm Is A Mystery
Xpansions - Elevation
Bobby Brown - Two Can Play That Game [K Klassic Radio Mix]
Brothers In Rhythm - Such A Good Feeling
The Supermen Lovers - Starlight
Fred again - Billie (Loving Arms)
D.O.D - So Much in Love (Extended Mix)
Kylie Minogue - Padam Padam (Jax Jones Remix)
Scissor Sisters - Filthy/Gorgeous
The B-52's - Love Shack << risky transition...
AC/DC - Thunderstruck << ...that paid off big time (never played Thunderstruck before)
The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
Mark Morrison - Return Of The Mack
Shaggy - It Wasn't Me
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Summertime
TLC - No Scrubs
Blue - One Love
Toto - Africa
Ace Of Base - All That She Wants
Grace Jones - Pull Up To The Bumper

Do you ever play remixes/remakes of classics or stick to “only originals”?

I do play a few Dave Lee / Reflex / Late Nite Tuff Guy / Psychemagik remixes from time to time, but I'm not massively into remixes of classics. The two I play the most are the Reflex revisions of "Got To Give It Up" and "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now", as they're excellent, but a lot of his other stuff is hit and miss. The Psychemagik mix of Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" is also good, as are the Dave Lee remixes of "Ride Like The Wind" and Fatback "Bus Stop".

LL I just wanna say that sounds really fun and also therapeutic, nice

mike do you play this stuff from vinyl or is it all digitized?

All digitised, but quite a lot of them are rips from my vinyl. I played vinyl from 2018 to 2020, then sold it all off during the pandemic.

Mike, a few of us are are listening to your mix post-gig tonight and you are absolutely nailing it, these transitions and drops are god level.

Wow, thank you so much!

Had a gig tonight at a brewery. Had anticipated that it was going to be scorching and smoky, so I put together a set that sounded like a JWM Turner painting: oppressive and druggy.

It turned out to be a beautiful perfect fresh evening, not at all the kind of night when people are going to want to be assaulted by their soundtrack, so I panicked and threw a bunch of jamz in a box.

I’m 2 hours in out of 3. Cyndi is singing “Money Changes Everything”. It’s going pretty well.

Five and half years in, my Friday night bar residency seems to have exploded in popularity; it’s been immense for weeks now. Curiously, the bar next door has now installed their own DJ, whose set bizarrely starts at 6pm; I popped my head around the door while setting up (9pm for a 10pm start) and he was playing generic current pop-dance, to an older bunch of drinkers who didn’t look like current pop-dance was their thing at all. Meanwhile, I had fun mixing Aqua into AC/DC into The Specials, shortly followed by Panjabi MC - a first time play which sent them so crazy that I wondered why I’d been holding back on it for so long. My partner unexpectedly wandered in at the end of the night - he almost never attends - so I treated him to “Dance Me To The End Of Love” as the final track of the night, after the house lights had gone back on. He was thrilled that it cleared the remaining stragglers, but that’s introverts for you.

He gets to pick the music when I get back, so we are now chilling to Bitches Brew on the good speakers, at some considerable volume, while the adrenaline subsides.

congrats, sounds awesome

that's really amazing mike - you're doing god's work.

meanwhile i've backed away from the vocal-heavy dance pop i used to play more of and i'm indulging in my taste for weirder, darker, heavier dahnce, kompakt-adjacent stuff, dark disco, stuff released by the likes of *ahem* optimo. it's very refreshing. i still mix in vocal remixes, more soulful house stuff, a lot of soulwax remixes and that sort of thing. the ladies who bar tend my night like the darker sound, and i was more than happy to be given permission to go there. i'm still saying no to requests and it's fantastic, i don't know why it took me so long to get there. last night i had a couple of dancers who went for it for an hour or so, even though i could tell that they weren't exactly familiar with zillas on acid. i feel like after years of trying to back away from my predilection for heavier or weirder dance music, i'm rediscovering my voice and finding support for it - feels very encouraging.

I haven’t had a dj gig in ages, but damn this thread makes me happy.

map that is so awesome, happy for you!

I don't think I updated on my Saturday opening gig but I made $100 for a 1-hour early set (this is entirely due to the draw of the headlining bands) and got to play shit like Amon Duul II's "Archangel's Thunderbird" (the musician who got me on the bill loved it, he came up after and was like "what was that tune that sounded like Rush", it took me a sec but uh yeah)

Haven’t djd in ages but my next gig is pretty exciting. A good friend rented out the El Dorado bumper car space in Coney Island for his 40th bday. A few years ago it was discovered that the sound system is a vintage Richard Long system. The guy behind Paradise Garage, Studio 54 etc. I went to a New Year’s party there djd by Nicky Siano and it was a blast. They just park the bumper cars off to the side and the djs take over the system. So I’ll be playing there for this bday party next week as one of 4.

I haven’t had a dj gig in ages, but damn this thread makes me happy.

Dan, that sounds utterly awesome! map, that’s a great development. The one thing I can’t do at the bar is create an immersive, hypnotic club-like vibe, but occasionally I do see people lose themselves in a track as opposed to hollering along to the chorus; it happened last night during a sequence that went: Push The Feeling On, Closer Than Close, Where Love Lives, A Deeper Love, Soulsearcher “Can’t Get Enough” (Dr Packer remix), Make The World Go Round.

this is the most active DJ thread so I just wanted to post this recent radio show playlist I did that I am very proud of, totally improvised and on the fly and it captured a certain shimmering summer vibe

https://spinitron.com/m/playlist/view/17661983

whoops sorry, here it is
https://spinitron.com/KWVA/pl/17661983/The-Forest-Of-No-Return

featuring two ILXor bands!

there were voiceover breaks where I gave track info, but that doesn't show so you can't really get a sense of the set flow, mostly 15-20 minute blocks

that looks fab. i love the feeling of making something that feels good on the fly.

thursday night was another in a string of good nights for me. no requests again. had 15-20 people dancing for a while there. i was feeling soulful, blissful stuff. i played the two vocal round one-five tracks, "i'm your brother" and "new day", for the first time in a long time. wonderful classics. they sound amazing of course but they're kind of tricky to mix in with more current brickwalled stuff. you sort of have to turn down the bass imo (heresy probably lol).

My Friday was fairly quiet compared to recent weeks, which is odd for the end of the month. I think people were cashing in their pay cheques for Barbenheimer.

Five and half years in, my Friday night bar residency seems to have exploded in popularity; it’s been immense for weeks now.

uh, holy shit!! go mike!

meanwhile i've backed away from the vocal-heavy dance pop i used to play more of and i'm indulging in my taste for weirder, darker, heavier dahnce, kompakt-adjacent stuff, dark disco, stuff released by the likes of *ahem* optimo.

whoa that's huge!!! and reeeaaaally great to hear

Haven’t djd in ages but my next gig is pretty exciting. A good friend rented out the El Dorado bumper car space in Coney Island for his 40th bday.

ok, i love the shit outta this thread rn

a few weeks ago I was drinking with friends, and one of my pals texted her cousin nominating me to do a night DJing in the pub her cousin runs. Her cousin was very enthusiastic and, fuelled by gin and the good time I was having, I agreed I would do it. Two days later I was in a blind panic, as I have never DJ'd in public before, only at afterparties with friends in my own home or pre-recorded mixes for the radio show. And this pub is a great place to go but it's a very traditional place - you're much more likely to hear Brown Eyed Girl and Sweet Caroline than the kind of disco and house I love. But, I got a group of pals to agree to come along and I prepared a set that was still full of crowd-pleasers but more aligned with my own tastes: contemporary r&b, disco, vocal house and dance-pop hits. The cousin had also sent a few requests - nothing too "difficult" but definitely stuff a little bit unexpected and from the less populist end of dance music.

I had the BEST time. I was a bit worried because in the first hour a woman came up to me and said "play more 80s! I thought this was an 80s night!" but I also knew that what she really meant was, "go full school disco and play only the songs from The Wedding Singer soundtrack that I like" so I kinda brushed her off and anyway ten mins later she was up dancing to Shakira. I have no idea where she got the idea it would be an 80s night from either.

I don't think everything went perfectly. I've played the Frankie Knuckles remix of "Unbreak My Heart" and had people absolutely love it, but it didn't do a lot on Friday night. And I've seen the pub go wild to someone (ie me) singing "You Spin Me Round" at karaoke but it felt a bit more muted when I played it. But I had a big singalong to the Purple Disco Machine remix of Lizzo, and people running to the dancefloor for "Gypsy Woman" and "One Night In Heaven." Best of all was when I played Boys Town Gang "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and people were actually standing on chairs and tables shouting along to the main riff.

My main worry was that people wouldn't enjoy it, and I would end up chasing away more people than I had managed to bring with me, and that the pub would suffer if I couldn't convince people to stay out. One of the barmaids told me that she heard some people actively saying they were planning to leave earlier but they were having a good night, and everyone I convinced to come along stayed til the lights came on. I said I was happy to do it as a trial night and just take payment in the form of a few free drinks but they paid me - a lot more than I would have expected - and I've been asked if I would want to make it a monthly event. So I am considering the whole thing a total victory for now!

also I want to thank people on ILM who have encouraged me since I started doing this as a bedroom hobby and sharing mixes on the DJs Post Etc thread, and I specifically want to thank map and mike-t-diva whose contributions to this thread made me think about my approach to what I did on Friday night, which I found really inspiring and helpful.

hahahaha congrats on your new gig!!! <3

Sounds like you had an awesome time :)

That is SO good to hear, congratulations!

yayyy boxedjoy that is so awesome

I’ve had that reaction to Boys Town Gang as well. There was a UK hit about three years ago that quoted it, which might have helped.

I think if this does turn into a regular gig, the biggest difficulty I'm going to have is trying to find the balance of pleasing a crowd with not losing my own voice. I don't want to be just another Chartpop & Nostalgia guy who you can find in any pub but I also know that it's not the right place to indulge in songs that don't have words.

That’s a constant struggle! I can still err in both directions, but there’s always something to be learned from it.

yay boxedjoy! <3

yeah i mean even if it doesn't turn into a regular gig, which def has that stress, i'm so glad it gave you a taste of the positives. sorry i don't mean to sound presumptuous. i don't think you would be capable of losing your own voice tbh. there's a lot leeway in chartpop and nostalgia. and i've recently been surprised by how much energy people can feel during a wordless song now and then - if you really love it and play it like you do, people tend to respond. anyway, way to go. i think it's obvious you have talent and could do this in any number of ways that felt right to you and people would enjoy it.

i do think it's important to let yourself off the hook for 'keeping the energy up and right' all the time. the truth is everyone will need to take breaks from the music anyway, whether it's to get a drink or just to socialize. some things that don't have as much of an impact as you think they will - that's the absolute mystery of timing for you, which is so fickle, so much out of our control. when i find myself peaking with the energy and i don't know what to play next, i think it's a valid move to deliberately go down a step in energy or switch to a slightly different feeling. also, i have this background sense that we're supposed to basically know what we're doing by a certain point in time, but i still think it's ok to experiment a little bit while you're playing, take a risk or two. if it pays off it's quite a rush, if it doesn't you just gotta let it go and move on. i think one thing that is always urgent and key no matter what is to love your music. for me that means listening to stuff just for enjoyment, outside of the context of 'prepping for a dj gig.' i think everyone itt is very much that kind of music enjoyer. the more i do this the more i feel like it's very important to hold close to that.

sorry to jump in, but i have done a couple of things up at my local pub.
and it was a lot of fun (and stressful being surrounded my everyone you know !).
however, i don't beatmatch cos i play stuff that can't be easily mixed together and i cant be arsed to learn now that i am a grey hair.
when doing pub gigs map, do you beatmatch and go for the whole 4/4 build up ?
as i can guarantee that would not work well in my local.

map, I 100% agree with you. At a bar/pub, it’s fine to let the floor thin out from time to time. I’ve even had people come up and thank me for playing tracks that nobody was dancing to. Sometimes you play to the crowd, sometimes you do you. And sometimes you’ll play an obscure track that connects, and there’s no way of knowing beforehand if that will happen, and when it does it’s wonderful.

mark e: I beatmatch about 90% of my sets, but there aren’t a lot of people there who care about my transitions. It’s just a thing I have to do. And when I do an unsynced hard reset, that’s often the moment that brings people onto the floor - especially when it’s a big drop in tempo.

mark, i also beatmatch, but i'm playing straight-ahead 4/4 music, often with longish lead-ins and lead-outs, so it just makes sense. i agree with you that it's not necessary for other types of music. also agree with mike that changes in tempo can be a catalyst at the right time.

what i've figured out at my bar is that friday and saturday nights are already the "gay pop singalong" nights. for the first year or so i was convinced i had to master that format, and indeed, because i was asked to fill in on fridays and saturdays once in a while, i really had to push in that direction. i tried to do that while also playing dance pop i'm more attached to but that people here are not connected to (i.e. jessie ware, roisin murphy). but what i've learned about the weekends there is that there is a fairly predictable list of songs and artists that will be played and programming sections that everyone expects (i.e. 12 and after is reggaeton and hip hop). weirdly it's somewhat still radio-driven i think? i often hear complaints about the weekend dj that he plays the same songs and the same set almost every time. it is very similar at other gay clubs in this town. a certain kind of clubgoer here has been trained on it. and so when 'weekend people' wander in on my night and come up to make a request, when i was saying 'yes' and trying to find their song, i was signalling that it would be another 'weekend' night. by saying 'no' i'm letting them know that things are gonna be different. and surprisingly a lot of the 'weekend' people make an adjustment and go for it! it's weird how sometimes people are more satisfied if you tell them you won't be taking their requests and they have to be happy with what you're going to play.

i love when i get compliments from people who are like, "i'm from chicago..." or "i'm from new york..." they tend to get it, lol, like they've been raised on djs who are trying to do something a bit more special with music. i'm certainly not one who turns his nose up at pop music. at a certain point though it becomes relying on the recognizability of it rather than the musical qualities, at least in my particular context. it's a tricky balance to strike ime. i'm finding out that i like a well-placed pop song or remix after two or three 'not really recognizable but good and hopefully interesting or catchy' tracks.

there’s a lot more to it than tempo

ime the continuum for cdjs to current controller dj’ing makes it possible to do something you really can’t do with vinyl at any skill level, which is to make any music like jon digweed mixes tech house. i can do that with anything from 100 bpm “poolside” to 180 bpm dnb but from ukg on up (135 ish) you actually count the measures differently than you did mixing house and techno

so even though i have the skill to mix 90-100 bpm trip hop and old funk 45s like that, i don’t want to mix like that because the music is not “built to do that” the way anything post chicago house is. i end up using the crossfader, when i am playing downtempo and jazz and prog rock and ambient (ok balearic) i mix more like a reggae dj based on mood and special fx transitions

even if you listen to larry levan do it with long 4x4 drum breaks (what i call “get down with the genie” type breakdowns) it’s really different how he rides the blend vs how ron hardy is doing it just five years later mixing “happy song” style edits with early armando jack trax

which is to mix* any music like 4x4 “dj’s” mix trad house

i think my main feeling is nobody wants to hear long blends in any genre unless i’m playing house / techno (and even then maybe sometimes you want play more like jeff mills or bad boy bill adding in lots of fast cuts) or just utterly formless ambient / field recordings / new age music