On Djing...

Not that I don't like any proper contemporary DJs but even then I find it more likely that they'll mix it up more. Optimo never sounds like the same thing all night long to me, thankfully. I saw Scott Zacharias DJ a sunday night in a bushwick record store 2 months or so back and it was mindblowing. I didn't know a single song and there were long stretches of just deep banging jacking house stuff that could've been chicgo 1987 or somewhere now and then stretches of weird european classic rock or whatever. I don't know what but it was fantastic and everyone was dancing. And I was there from 9pm to 11pm, then went home and got a good night's sleep! What a dream.

I miss Detroit parties.

I've always been a fan of djay pro. Started using it in the pre-pro days and thought it got written off because it was so mac/iphone based and had a cute skeumorphic interface. But it was obvious to me at least that it was also extremely easy to use, totally functional and powerful. I've had two controllers over the years that worked primarily with djay off the phone or iPad and was very happy with it. I only moved up to getting a pioneer XDJ-RX2 so that I could DJ with just a thumb drive and get more used to the same controllers/mixers that are in most venues.

Siegbran was right about the cross-fader. It’s sick. It does all the transitions I’d want as someone who almost exclusively plays dance music. However, it’s so sick that I now want to customize or build my own cross-fader automations, e.g., it doesn’t ship with a jungle or drum and bass rewind transition!

I say “it” because, in my limited experience, I couldn’t find much tooling to modify the track and even less tooling for modifying the grid.

The Crossfader Fusion thing, I can see where that is headed: put 8 crossfader presets under your performance pads, select one and map a button to "apply crossfader", and voila: automated transitions. I can see why Algoriddim is hesitant to put this in the interface too prominently though, this is going to absolutely infuriate traditionalists.

Oh and the other cool thing about Djay Pro is that it's as of now the only DJ platform that can use Apple Music (the streaming service).

Me and Nick B have started a new radio show (I’ll post a link when the archive is up). I was a bit sceptical of the studio because they don’t have physical decks, just a little controller with Djay Pro - I’ve got to say I was pleasantly surprised how good it is.

eh speak for yourself, i was having a mare (just for a change)

At the risk of mortifying Nick, here is our first show warts and all! I like it, but I think we’ll get better :) In particular on my side I had a very busy and stressful week at work and have about 15 minutes to get some tunes ready.

https://www.totallyradio.com/shows/special-treatment/episodes/special-treatment-09-may-2024

Nona Hendryx - Transformer
Asti Spumanti - Luxury Life
Fun Fun - Sing Another Song
Scan Man - Arabian (Mang & Trujillo Long edit)
Stone - Girl I Like The Way That You Move
Time Capsule - Sexual Desire
Electric Party - Caribe
La Sellrose Can Can - Happy Morning
Van Jones & Mary Diggs - Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?
Rude 66 - In Exile
Mark Du Mosch - Nazomer
Bolis Pupul - Completely Half
Hannah Diamond - Affirmations
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Signal
Jesse Rae - Hou-Di-Ni
Lime - On The Grid (extended)
Gino Soccio - Remember
Pleasure Pool - Ask Your Body
Haruomi Hosono - Turquois
Perfect Vision - This Hook
Jean Luc Ponty - Open Mind (Luke Solomon Body Edit)
PowerPlay - Foolish 4 Ashanti
Life Form - Come Down (June Mix)
Erika De Casier - My Day Off
Needs - Walkin Thru Circles (Thump Mix)
Jordan GCZ - Sunny Side Up
Propaganda - (The echo of) Frozen Face
Change - The End

yeah some truly abysmal mic technique on my part, ugh. it's the one thing that you never practice isn't it? and then you open your mouth to speak and all words and thoughts have vanished from your mind, like cats out of an airlock

i would love to do a presenter-led radio type thing but my delivery is poor. i can talk for england but as soon as a mic is on or i feel i have an audience, i hesitate, repeat myself, lose my train of thought, run out of breath

exactly that. OTOH chewshabadoo is freakishly pro at it, so unflappable. it's just not fair tbh

yup. i have frineds who d a weekly one and they're just great - really clear, no umming and ahhing. it's a chore to listen to me

Haha, pro is definitely pushing my radio abilities! But I have got more confident in managing to bluff a load of utter nonsense out in a clear-ish fashion

loving the show guys

I never heard that Nona Hendryx song. So good.

OMG! They used to play that Nona Hendryx song at the first club I ever attended regularly and I never knew what it was. Thanks for solving a 40 year mystery!

Looking forward to listening to the rest.

Not umming and ahhing is way harder than one might imagine.

when I first started doing "real" radio DJ slots in early 1991, I had only ever broadcast on cable FM, which like its name is only available in homes w/cable. so I had to get a real paper license from the FCC, I still have it. the station manager had this little tape player rigged up so that it started recording as soon as the mic went on, and stopped when the mic was cut. then he would sit there with you, listen back through your show but just the voiceovers, and (pretty nicely really) shred you to bits over every obvious mistake. he turned out to be a jekr in some ways but he was a great old school radio teacher, and those lessons have stuck with me ever since.

also, for most normal mics, position them at a 45 degree angle to your mouth, it helps minimize the sibilants and plosives. and listen in headphones of course.

"jerk" lol

Celia played the Nona Hendryx - it’s featured on the film Love Lies Bleeding out at the moment.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with Laswell and his catalogue, but when he was great, he was great. I was already pretty steeped in NY disco not disco type stuff and had that Material album One Down and probably had never listened to it. Then a few years into my descent into italo-disco I finally realized my favorite ever italo song was a Material cover. The cover is better...but not much.

I like all the early Material stuff from when they were an actual band, Temporary Music and Memory Serves, I have zero interest in everything afterwards

was interviewed for a radio show...DJ was exploring the book Meet Me in the Bathroom and wanted to talk more about what was going on in NYC in the early 00s. As I'm happy for any attention and chance to reminiscence, I was game. Plenty of talk about DJing, then and in general, as well.

https://soundcloud.com/donplay/interview-w-dan-selzer-on-meet-me-in-the-bathroom-plant-bar-and-deejaying-in-the-electroclash-era

I keep meaning to give this a listen, but I’m so bad with audio interviews… any transcripts around?

I played two Grateful Dead songs last night at the restaurant/bar, 1st "Alabama Getaway" and I noticed a dude at a table close by was real into it. Later when things really got going (it was packed for a good hour) I threw on "Shakedown Street" and he and a buddy applauded after it ended, that's a first for me!

no transcripts unless he puts it on youtube and it's automatic. don't think soundcloud does that.

so the bar i was djing at, the oldest gay bar in slc, closed in january without any notice. apparently the owner wasn't able to purchase insurance. eventually they forfeited their liquor license. i thought they were gone for good, and i was trying to get booked at other gay bars with no luck.

well, three weeks ago someone told me they had an 'opening soon' sign up. lo and behold, they were bought by a new owner and opened up a week after utah pride. i talked to the new owner today. she is totally amazing. has a small successful accounting firm and bought the bar because her queer daughter experienced her coming out process and a lot of growth there. she has already done major renovations on the bathrooms. they needed it so bad. the previous owner, who i never met over the course of two years, was by all accounts a stingy asshole. anyway, the new owner is not like that at all. so, so competent and determined and driven in a 'mama bear' kind of way but very humble. i'm pretty sure i made a good impression, she definitely made a good one on me. she was telling me that all the bartenders she hired back had good things to say about me, but not so much the other djs. it's looking up for me there i think, as far as djing goes, and weekend slots are definitely on the table. nothing set in stone yet but the last saturday of this month has been tentatively offered to me. i just have to meet the young woman she has put in charge of marketing, who apparently likes young-person dance music and maybe has reservations about having an older dj there on saturdays, which fair enough, that crowd is young af. i have a little bit of a clue as far as what young people are listening to (i think?) but i want to hear from her what kind of thing she's envisioning and hopefully get a playlist from her. obviously i have my strengths and my own ear and all that, but i'm also flexible and would welcome the input. to be back there under new, excellent ownership? the place has such a good, storied feel even though it's seen a lot of shit and has been treated like shit by past owners. i'm really excited and heartened. it's been a tough few months without djing for a bunch of reasons. i thought i was ready to give it up. so glad i sent that first message when i saw they were reopening.

best of luck!!

sounds promising <3

strike while that iron’s hot!! <3

well i'm booked for 6/29 (a saturday, and their saturday crowd is nuts). it sounds like they want to have two or so djs that they book at least monthly and then leave room for up-and-comers, which is really good to hear. so if all goes well it's looking like a possible regular monthly gig. which is great because weekly was a grind. now i just gotta beef up the playlist and start listening to dance music again lmao. i spoke to the woman doing marketing today, i'd never heard kim petras, arca, cobrah, etc. called "gay noise" haha. but i like that kind of thing generally, trans artists doing cool cutting edge stuff, and i have and have played a fair amount of it, easy to lean back into it a bit. i'm gonna have to do some searching for a lana del rey club mix lol. time to bump the "club vocal mix" thread again.

serious question, where does one get decent-quality files of contemporary dance tracks like the ones you mention? I have no idea how that works, is this stuff on e.g. Bleep?

most of that stuff i'm able to find on beatport

for major label artist remixes i've used us.7digital.com before. but beatport has gotten better about licensing more of that kind of thing ime.

i've thought about joining one of the digital dj 'record' pools which i'm sure have a lot more of that kind of thing too but none of them are hi-res last time i checked. idk i might just cave in and do it, it could make my 'getting tracks' life easier.

The Cedric Gervais remix of Summertime Sadness should do wonders for your young crowd, map.

hey yeah thanks! that one's in my library already, i was just checking it out the other day. ldr, still not a huge fan, but i'm excited to see how she works with my crowd.

really happy that the person doing the bar's events has a through line on what the bi and queer young women there are listening to - she gave me an inspo playlist and there was some good stuff on there. a lorde deep cut ('ribs') that i think would work really well at the right moment.

anyway i'm there this saturday, with a possible friday night too depending on need. i've been grabbing a lot of new tracks (thx slsk, look i'm broke at the moment, please no one sue me). especially 70-90 bpm 'trap' type things. i couldn't find my usb stick on saturday night and after panicking briefly i realized it was a good excuse to get my laptop set up with the controller.

feeling really grateful for the chance to come back to it with more supportive bar ownership.

i think my first track is going to be 'got til it's gone'