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.

haha ty nick!

better able to work 'in the moment'

yes

a sharpened sense of the kind of moment you're trying to create

YES

its the curation

also yes

I agree with and relate to much of what everyone is saying here, and particularly appreciate the aging DJ boosters.

great posts all around. dan, i honestly think about that same thing a lot and it’s nice to know i’m not alone. i started getting serious about DJing and building a record collection in my mid-twenties and then when i moved to CA i worked almost seven years at a job that paid me peanuts (followed by over a year of unemployment) so i pretty much stopped buying records and DJing entirely, only to take it up again shortly before COVID when i was in a better financial place. now i’m doing it again i feel like i’m constantly operating at a deficit or “catching up” to my peers who all have way more records/experience/knowledge than me. it makes putting myself out there harder because i get into my own head that i’m never gonna be on their level. but i also realize on some level this is just insecurity clouding my judgment and the important thing is to just keep digging and listening and making connections.

yep, you can have a limited collection/selection but as long as you are good at reading the room it will be cool

I should add that part of the beauty of DJing is still finding those things, and having your own taste. Some of those friends who own record stores, who have multiple copies of all these amazing rare records...I still have moments where I walk in and reach down into their dollar bin, pull up something they didn't notice (other than noting it was worthless on discogs), throwing on the b-side and being like "pretty good huh".

I have ILX top 63 album of 2024, Xylitol, playing records with me this Friday on the radio:

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10163367937072518

^^ Sorry to hear about your situation Map, my own experience is just to keep at it, do what you love and be involved with other poeople and things just might just happen.

xp yooooo this is very cool!

She’s also joined us as a resident at our montlty italo/euro/hi-nrg/80s night too after a couple of awesome guest appearances.

My monthly night, where we play "global club music" has been going from strength-to-strength and the last one completely sold out. At 1am there was a mob of about 50-80 people who had to be turned away due to us being at capacity. We've been running about 13-14 months and sometimes it was pretty dead, but the last few have been crazy busy. So I'm very pleased about that, and the amount of warmth, great feedback and general help I've had from attendees and the venue itself has been amazing.

So much so that a small group of friends have naturally congregated around the night. A close friend who's a DJ, producer and MC has been heavily involved in it, helping me to book guests and generally get the thing going. Then another friend who's a professional percussionist has been turning up with his drums and doing live stuff onstage, which gives the night a bit of a fun visual aspect and stops people from just staring at the DJs (which I don't like). More recently an acquaintance who's just come back to Bristol after some time away in London working as a documentary maker, has said he's felt super-inspired by the nights and would like to get involved and help out where he can. So this is lovely stuff.

I'm now in the process of negotiating a higher pay rate from the venue. When we started over a year ago, the idea was I was just going to DJ after the bands, and they would pay me £200. But now the night has grown more into its own thing, and people are paying to go to the club rather than the preceding gig, we're goign to figure out a better deal. I'm not in this game to get rich, but I do want to make sure I can pay people, especially guest DJs, a decent amount for their time. I'd also like to invite bigger names to the guest slots.

laurent garnier saying djing is more about what you don't play than what you do play

God yes, as you say this could be read as some jazzy pseudo-babble, but it's so true in many circumstances - I keep having to tell myself "I know you want to play EVERYTHING in this 100 track folder, but save something for another time. What is the vibe here? How can you skip a bunch of transitioanl tracks and get straight to the good stuff without fucking up the mix?" This is one of the biggest technical and mental challenges for me.

love reading this conversation

i've been going to dj school the past two months. idk i could've taught myself but the opportunity came up and my instructor ended up being really cool and good and now i've graduated from dj school??? i bought myself a cheap dj controller and i'm gonna practice and idk. it's all coming so naturally it feels like i should've been doing this for years. hope to immediately become an amazing 40+yo dj with an actual personality

as of next week I'll be an amazing 50+yo dj. Let's see if Harvey was maybe off by ten years. I've got a cool gig coming up in May, one of those awesome listening to dancing parties where DJs are expected to play stuff they don't normally get to and really stretch out and...I'm excited and curious but also know it's not the party that's gonna remind anybody that I can rock a dancefloor.

My monthly night, where we play "global club music" has been going from strength-to-strength and the last one completely sold out. At 1am there was a mob of about 50-80 people who had to be turned away due to us being at capacity. We've been running about 13-14 months and sometimes it was pretty dead, but the last few have been crazy busy. So I'm very pleased about that, and the amount of warmth, great feedback and general help I've had from attendees and the venue itself has been amazing.

this is awesome to hear, congrats DL!!

it's all coming so naturally it feels like i should've been doing this for years. hope to immediately become an amazing 40+yo dj with an actual personality

ivy that's great! good luck with it <3

that's so sick that your night is gaining momentum organically like that DL, that's the dream

nice one ivy! welcome to the club!

I’m turning 37 soon and really looking forward to settling into older guy DJ mode. Last week I randomly ended up talking to a guy, roughly early 20s, who was getting his DJ and promoter career off the ground. I noticed 1) it felt really nice to share stories about the parties I’d been to since the mid-00s to someone that was interested in hearing them, 2) I felt none of the envy/insecurity/melancholy I used to feel about having never broken into DJing or producing publicly or being involved in events. It felt like a real coming to peace with getting older, unburdening myself of attachments, and remaining content to be the at-home DJ I’ve always been, but with a record collection and set up to be a monument to that. When I think about that 40 y/o DJ image, I feel like that’s what I want to move toward.

On March 3rd I did an "all New Orleans" set for my local place, it was fun to have a really narrow challenge. I was able to go for close to 5 hours with no repetition, I felt like that was pretty good. Stuck with traditional 50s-70s material except for a wild Quintron track at the very end.

setlist here if anyone is curious: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/a730ops5ckgmbhig57dmi/PARTY-NOLA-3-3-25-copy.rtf?rlkey=fhhj5pwnmu3u554k92zkb6l4n&dl=0

I would kill to have a local that played a setlist like that, sleeve. Morgus!

Absolutely loving the era of being a DJ with a 4 in front of my age. Cosign everything thats been said about it already. Its like a magical confluence of knowing myself & my tastes better, mixed with losing the insecurity, competitiveness, self-consciousness, and other hangups. Having more fun spinning out in my 40s than i have in years

<3

Are older DJs playing to younger audiences not a thing in the US, then? 'Cos in the UK, you get that a lot and it's seen as totally "cool" (which, as a DJ in his 60s, I find quite reassuring). Anyhow, commiserations map: she's done this to you before, as I recall.

haha yeah. this time it came from the manager though. line still open for "special events". i was very nice and professional in response (and asked for a potential reference) so haven't burned the bridge or anything. i may hear from them again some day. one of the biggest things i'm doing differently than i was even just a year ago is treating people with kindness more consistently, not at 100 percent yet but much better than i was. i agree with everyone about getting out there etc. working on what that looks like for me. i really appreciate all the kind words. not to get too saccharine but this thread has filled a community need for me when i haven't had any. a real bright spot for a few years now. i don't imagine i'll be totally giving up or anything but definitely taking a break. looking forward to reading all about everyone's adventures, good nights, bad nights, etc. as the thread rolls on. peace.

OK, here's my account of last Friday night. Unbeknownst to me, the bar had hired a guy to film my entire set, to be edited down for promotional purposes. On any other night, this might have worked fine. But on this particular night, a) we were a week beyond payday weekend, with which my monthly night usually coincides and b) the bar had done zero promo for it (I have my own FB group, but their reach is much greater).

"Don't worry", the bar staff said to the camera guy, "it always gets busier later". But ten minutes before the start of my set, there were just two people sitting in the main room. Luckily, I had seven friends in the courtyard, who I asked to come inside. Two of them said no, as they were waiting for a taxi. Two said "yeah, sure", then didn't. The other three did.

I'd been asked to start my set by getting on the mike and welcoming everyone - which I don't normally do, but whatever. "Should we pretend to dance?" asked one of the three who came inside. "Well, I will actually be playing music that you can dance to", I replied. "I'm not sure how you could 'pretend' to dance to that."

Thirty seconds after the music started, the two people already sitting in the main room upped and left. Five minutes later, my three friends left (to be fair, they'd already been out for four hours). It usually gets busier after the first half hour. Except, this time, it didn't.

Eventually, two other friends showed up, and literally danced non-stop for the whole of the second hour. They were joined by a very strange regular whose presence is normally not welcome - I've actually asked for him to be barred before now - but this time, I was pathetically grateful to see him. My two friends took him under their wing, and one of them made sure he got safely home at the end of the night.

Throughout the whole two hours, I never had more than three dancers at any one time. There was a table of four people in their twenties who were massively vibing off my tunes, but not to the extent of dancing to them. Which is fine. No, honestly, it is FINE!

I've had quiet nights before, but this was the quietest since I don't know when - pre-pandemic, for sure, probably a January. The camera guy left before the end.

I had prepared, and pre-publicised, an extended house-style tribute to Gwen McCrae, Angie Stone, Roberta Flack and Roy Ayers. This was my favourite part of the set. If you're playing music which you love, even quiet nights can be fun.

Here's a recording of the set. The tribute section starts at 58 minutes.

https://www.mixcloud.com/miketd/peanut-butter-0325-live-recording/

Glad it sounds like it didnt get you down, mike. Nights like that are worth it for the story. Reminds me of the time I DJ'd to one person, a friendly acquaintance from the record collecting/DJ scene who showed up alone and drank for a couple hours chatting with me and the bartender, vibing off the tunes, asking me about records, talking about music, etc. When he was leaving I said "hey thanks for coming out" and he said "Well I didn't come out to hear you, I was coming here anyway" and I was like "man... if this ever happens again could you just throw me a bone and nod and said 'sure man, no problem'??"

played at the gay happy hour last night and it was largely dead-ish except for one moment when a group of about a dozen middle-aged and older women came in. i had them going on the dance floor for a hot minute! when they left the energy dissipated a little.

my set was about an hour of my usual warm-up stuff and then the rest was mostly '90s/'00s house, which i haven't really done in a hot minute. i tend to get bored with only playing one style of music in a set but i think i locked it in pretty well, and it's a good challenge for me to try and stay in one lane. also tried out not drinking any booze during my set and i think my mixing/focus was a lot tighter as a result, i should probably do this more often.

The show I recently did with DJ Bunnyhausen (Xylitol) went quite well and is up to listen to. It’s the first time we’d done a b2b together and I felt it flowed quite nicely so we are going to try and find somewhere in Brighton do do the same in front of some people at some point, maybe. Listen at: https://soundcloud.com/1btn/inter-mission-w-guest-dj-bunnyhausen-aka-xylitol-140325

The night before it was also the montly Special Treatment show I do with Nick B and non-ILX Celia which I think came out fine too: https://www.totallyradio.com/shows/special-treatment/episodes/special-treatment-13-mar-2025

I have A DJ set tonight and a radio show tomorrow, and it's looking pretty likely that both of them will be 100% Michael Hurley, maaybe I will branch out a bit tonight but doing 5 straight hours of Hurley is tempting, I have literally days worth of his music available.

idk I've been really digging this Herbie Hancock comp, might do a side or two of that

Thought I was out of the game but got asked to record a set for Baihui radio (China), that'll be fun

i played my dj graduation last night and i fucking nailed it. 20 minute set, all my friends were there dancing and it was the best night of my life

yone-ko: strip down to e
metro area: miura
emma-jean thackray: movementt
the juan maclean: can you ever really know somebody
brett johnson: sigh of relief
sade: by your side (ben watt lazy dog remix)
oliver heldens & throttle: waiting
basement jaxx: plug it in
white night (mashup of "in white rooms" and "the rhythm of the night" i found here years ago)
kelly lee owens: higher

i hope i get to do this a million more times before i die

Great stuff! Best feeling for sure.

amazing, congrats!

Brilliant ivy! Excellent work

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!