On Djing...

i got an opportunity to play in a goth basement club at the end of last year, the people that put on the night heard me playing at a party my friend and i throw. it was extremely gratifying to get asked to play somewhere purely based on my own merit rather than through a recommendation or social connection or through putting on the whole damn thing with my friends.

and the set was recorded!

http://www.mixcloud.com/karljaims/karl-jaims-the-catacombs-dark-heart-disco-122823/

i was playing on equipment i wasn't familiar with, so i think i sound a little tentative, overall pretty happy with it though

that must feel great, happy for you.

my bar put me on pause again until the spring. my guess is it's just slower and maybe there's a tax thing.

i'm not antsy about it like i was last year, just tired and enjoying the break. we'll see how the year goes but right now i'm kind of thinking about letting it go and moving on to something else.

thanks map! i tend to appreciate the ebb and flow of gigs, too. i'm not a person that wants to play out constantly

I have been doing my bar gig for ten fucking years this year, jeez

My bar gig is exactly six years old tonight, which is cool because it’s also my birthday at midnight.

think I've got a regular monthly gig now too, but it's more of an overall vinyl night...people bring in what they want and it's on me to find a way to make it work. so I bring a pretty esoteric collection of records. it's been really fun so far, each night has a very different vibe to it.

that sounds cool!

that sounds great, frogs. i've really been itching to play out again. the pandemic killed whatever was left of the gigs i had going, and i still haven't managed to get something else going

my hour last week went really well. I was so nervous for the first ten minutes - what if I broke the unfamiliar equipment? What if I flubbed my mixes? What if nobody enjoyed what I played? - but I looked up after finally realising I was fine with the set-up, and I saw a busy dancefloor with everyone singing along to I.Jordan's "I'm Waiting (Just 4 U)" and a room full of people who were enjoying themselves. I played some speed garage which went down well and Hugo Massien's "No Return" (which is basically Ashanti's "Foolish" with a massive bassline donk over it) went down REALLY well.

After it I had people coming up to me to tell me it was really good and I've picked up a few new followers on the socials. One guy asked me to contribute to his podcast mix series. I feel like I definitely held my own with the rest of the line-up. My group of best pals, not a single one could make it due to prior committments, but it turned out for the best - I didn't have them there to rely on being present on the dancefloor for me, so I know that my success was all my own. It also meant I could actually chat to people rather than worry about who was where and what was happening with them. The guy who runs the night told me that he was really happy because I clearly understood what the vibe and idea of the night is, which was really nice to hear.

I mean, it's not much in the grand scheme of things - a busy dancefloor in a small city centre venue for an hour - but I'll take it. I don't have anything on my calendar now, either the pub or Actual Dance Music, but I'll see what happens next.

heard this, thought of youse..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9t6LDJpd3k
Auramatic - Talk 2 The Deejay

there's an italian-american social club across the street from my apartment, the building's been there since the sixties but the society itself has existed since the mid-to-late 19th century. the club has a giant wooden dancefloor illuminated by many chandeliers and a disco ball, a stage, a wood-paneled bar that looks like it hasn't been touched at all since the 1960s, and an indoor bocce court behind the stage. every month they host large pasta dinners that are open to the public, and they have a bunch of events that are open only to members of the club and their guests. the bocce court is typically open for members a couple days during the week, it's mainly older retirees who play and they occasionally host tournaments there with other bocce leagues in the city.

the club started getting a lot of attention last year because of their social media presence - about a year ago only a couple dozen people at most came to the pasta dinners, now they routinely sell out a couple hundred tickets within 24 hours. i started following them on IG and they posted a story asking if anyone who follows them happened to know any italo disco DJs, and i obviously jumped at the chance lol. i ended up getting a tour of the building from the president, and we talked about the idea of me playing music there sometime. i started regularly attending their dinners and eventually applied for membership, i became inducted as a member in december of last year. i've gone to a lot of the member events since then and i've also volunteered to help at their events too, it's been really sweet and great to be a part of this community for lots of personal reasons i won't go into here.

anyway, one of the member events they're doing now is a first friday deal where the bar and the bocce court are open to members and guests, and they asked me if i'd be interested in setting up in the bocce court to play some tunes while people played games of bocce. they set all this mood lighting and had glow-in-the-dark bocce balls and it looked really fabulous. my playlist was all italian music from the 70s and 80s - italo of the robots n' synths 83-and-after era but also lots of '76-82 italian disco, your raffaellas and minas and ornellas and whatnot. not super easy to mix those eras together but i think i managed to get a good flow going. one guy was stoked that i played moroder's "the chase" lol. it was one of the best gigs i've ever played - i got such a warm reception from everybody and several people were like "we gotta get you on the dance floor at some point!" seeing one of the older members, a guy who's very easily in his 70s and was born in italy, bopping along to "a far l'amore comincia tu" made my heart swell. i am a little headache-y from the negronis i had but all in all, a wonderful night :)

I love this! 83-84 Italo has a special place in my heart.

so cool

wow dr i'm so happy for you

tremendous

What a dream

that sounds amaaaaaazing i wanna go to the next one so bad

same

that sounds amazing. bocce! italo! glow in the dark!

do post a tracklist when you do it

:) :) :)

i didn't keep a tracklist, but off the top of my head and in addition to what i already mentioned i played:

- lots of the "big" italo tracks ("hypnotic tango", "take a chance", "dirty talk")
- some deeper cuts (helicon - "you...see", angie care - "your mind", laura angel - "if you want")
- "magic fly" (duh)
- a couple petrus/malavasi joints ("the glow of love", peter jacques band - "going dancin' down the street")
- the 1978 version of mina - "città vuota"
- honorary italian amanda lear - "fabulous lover, love me"
- closed out w/ this v sensual ballad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AMpZGNx5EE

maybe i'm still riding on the high of last week's bocce gig but i had my regular happy hour gig last night and i feel like i played a really confident, technically smooth and fun set. i'm self-critical about my abilities to a fault but after my set i was like...idk maybe i'm halfway decent at this thing after all?

also re: this from my post about the italian club:

several people were like "we gotta get you on the dance floor at some point!"

this may actually be happening next month :)

same

I spent the night recording a two hour mix in my new spare room. I'm so excited to share it with you guys

I avoided this thread for years because I was always afraid it would turbocharge all the bad feelings I’ve felt about my dashed amateur dj aspirations, which never went beyond my bedroom. Having come to terms with that, I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread. It’s fun and inspiring to see people embracing meaningful opportunities to dj out and I appreciate everyone sharing these stories. Way to go ilx dj massive!

Same

lol I was the same as you but just stumbled into an opportunity

I do this thing at a local bar where it's me and a couple of turntables, I bring a variety of stuff and encourage others to bring in their own records, then we make a DJ set out of it. it's all over the place but evey time I think I get a little better. it's something I've always kind of dreamed about but didn't think anyone would really be interested in. but I think there are lots of people who are really into an idea like that, you just need to find the place to make it happen.

The manager of the pub I've been playing at monthly has gone on maternity leave and a new guy has come in to replace her.
Suddenly I find my slot has disappeared from their promo calendar, so I emailed in.
"Ah yeah, sorry we forgot to say we're itemising the entertainment at the Bell, so we'll be concentrating strictly on garage and drum machines bass going forward. Big apologies".

Well needless to say, I wasn't too pleased at the unceremoniously ghosting. Naturally, I understand they want to go for a more student-based market and it's not as though I was bringing hordes of people in every Thursday, but still, it would have been nice to have been told.

Last night I decided to commiserate, drink a few beers in my new little home studio room and put together a mix based on the kind of house/disco grooves we often used to play out there

https://on.soundcloud.com/DG3SY

frogbs, that's lovely. Very similar to the thing I was doing. I'd often get a friend or a fellow dj to guest with me, so it was a great way to improve and keep me on my toes

yeah it's fun when my friends show up, especially the music dorks who you know have always wanted to do something like this. you can just bring 'em behind the decks and tell them to pick something out. i love making it interactive like that, it's cool when people show up with obscure records because they always wind up being really cool. like obviously it's a risk telling people to bring their own jams but the people who do put more thought into this than I do

I can relate dog latin. My thursday ghosted me too, in January. (The bar is currently closed lol.) After just taking a break from it all I’m currently knocking on new doors. A few vague possibilities. It was nice going back through old posts recently and remembering I’m a good dj. I don’t know if you need to hear this or not, but you are too.

Local coffee shop hired me to do a Saturday afternoon mellow set — looking forward to having a chance to play tracks that don’t sit well in the more upbeat sets I’ve been doing — like Wings’ “Arrow Through Me,” Air’s “Femme d’Argent,” Sun Araw’s cover of “December” by Teenage Fanclub, etc.

I would go to that

i'm playing at the italian club tomorrow, on the big dancefloor. there's a sit-down dinner that's happening first so the evening will basically be a social hour, followed by dinner, followed by dancing, and the whole evening is a charity fundraiser for an animal rights org. i'm pretty excited about it all, buuuuut...

the host of the party gave me some ideas of things he'd like me to play that i'm feeling a bit stymied by, tbh - like a lot of things he suggested i'm happy to play (madonna, gaga, blondie, etc) but he also mentioned this one current-day italian rock band, i listened to some of their songs and i think they're awful. he also mentioned neil diamond and asked if i could play "murder on the dance floor" as the last song of the night (tbh i'm at a point now where i just never need to hear that song ever again, and i like the damn thing). idk, just feeling vaguely annoyed by his requests - but also maybe i'm just being a brat, and it'll probably all be fine.

had my usual happy hour gig a couple days ago, not as well-attended as the last few i did but still fun. had a few ppl ask for song IDs, and the guy who runs the bar's kitchen (who also occasionally DJs) proposed we play out together sometime, which was cool - don't know him super well but he always says really kind things about my sets. maybe i'll take him up on it! feeling very "seize the day" about things in my life lately.

you're not a brat, i'd be more than vaguely annoyed

yeah I am done with Murder On The Dancefloor as well. Can you play all the Neil Diamond/Italian rock stuff at the start of the night so it's out of the way? Or save it til the end, and tell him you're leaving it until everyone is drunk and ready to sing and dance along? That way you don't have to think about this stuff as part of your set in the same way

there's always Neil's synthpop phase:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b9bWNA1dKs

ok glad it's not just me lol

yeah i'm def gonna start out the night on the more rock end of things, and the dinner may start out as quieter ballad-y stuff that slowly builds into a groove by dessert time or so, leading into the disco bombs portion of the evening

i believe i have found a way to breach the neil diamond impasse at the very least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msWuL-g_KA4

(i would rather eat glass than ever, ever play "sweet caroline" in any of my sets, for the record)

oh there's an italo disco version of that one too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUA2rVQ-feE

ha! nice find

so my bar closed in march and forfeited their liquor license (weird utah alcohol laws).

i've tried two other gay bars. one basically shooed me away. the other expressed some interest but now they're ghosting me.

i'm tired of dead ends. fuck this city into the ground. can't wait to ghost this place after it's ghosted me so many times. i don't vibe with anyone here at all. such a lame scene, juvenile and not for me anymore, i never fit in with those douchebags anyway. ready to hang up my hat for a while. i've been mostly listening to metal and rock lately anyway. time to drop all the frustration and move on with my life.

xp to NickB - I thought you meant an italo cover of 'Sweet Caroline'. That would have made my day!

Ewww lol no! There is a Fun Fun version of I'm A Believer though. It's... not great

sorry things are so dispiriting map <3

tho tbh your post flashed through my mind at my gig yesterday after a woman not once, but TWICE, requested that i "play music that people know"

and someone did, in fact, request "sweet caroline." i told him i didn't have it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

DJ Ötzi version is the only one you need:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFq2v5MC4YA

SO GOOD
SO GOOD
SO GOOD

haha ty dr. i'm ok with it tbh. sort of just want to be a fan and not feel like i have to 'keep up on electronic music' all the time. i'm thinking seriously about a pretty radical career change too. if i ever want to dance i'll probably try to find an amateur modern dance troupe or something. no pressure no social scene bs just move around emotionally to music some time before 9 pm lol.

and hmm yeah i can see that gig resulting in some dispiriting requester situations. good luck and godspeed.