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.

mark e: yes, they are my own creations - my night is called Peanut Butter, so...

ah ha .. that makes sense now.

nice to see you back on the board mark e

Sounds like a great night, boxedjoy!

I'm going to try Love Shack next time I play Enola Gay. I can't hear the match in my head right now, but it's good to have a way out of the Tainted Love / Enola Gay / Gold 12" / Dancing with Tears in My Eyes cycle I usually find myself in.

xxp - That is one fantastic mix, Mike. Flawless transitions, great picks and I love the way you blend in remixes of classic songs. You deserve a much bigger audience.

Wow, thanks so much AC, that's put a big smile on my face!

I can't hear Enola Gay > Love Shack in my head either, but I'm super-familiar with the opening drums of Love Shack, so something just clicked.

had my first gay happy hour night in a while last night, went very well i think. generally felt pretty confident in my selections and mixing. some ppl i know kinda peripherally here who i think of as very ~cool~ gays showed up and some of them said kind things about my set and a few asked for track IDs, which felt nice. i played bjork's "violently happy" without realizing one guy was literally wearing a (self-designed?) bjork shirt that said "violently happy" on it lol. also, fun transition i happened upon: saint etienne's 'hug my soul' into the 4am vocal edit of severed heads' 'big car'

you are a very ~cool~ gay ftr ;)

I have been asked to DJ a "Pink Pony Club" pop party tomorrow night with five days notice. It's the same venue as the Taylor Swift night and it's another generous fee so I've said yes but as the week has went on I've gotten more and more nervous. Swift night was easy because planning did not involve much effort. For this I need to play Chappell Roan but then also another 3 hrs of adjacent stuff. The promoter sent a playlist of suggested stuff but a lot of it seems like very niche stuff for people who are Very Online rather than actual pop hits - acts like MUNA and Rina Sawayama who I like but haven't had any proper hits here. The event has already sold 200 advance tickets. It has the potential to be a disaster for me but also I think I'm overthinking it? I can play Britney and Ariana to a room full of student-age women and gay men and it will be fine and fun, won't it?

if they have sold 200 already it sounds like it is going to be packed out and a great night so i'd say apart from the Chappell Roan component just do your thing, enjoy yourself and enjoy what you are playing and I bet it will work great. Maybe have a couple of things on the suggested playlist just to keep the promoter happy (but only if you feel they will work on the floor). It will be fine and fun!

^^seconding all this

I would def lean towards 'play what you're confident in' rather than 'force something'

or like, interpret the event through your own experiences with what that theme could mean

I edited down our most recent italo-disco (and other 80s) Flex night in Brighton down to fit into a 2 hour radio show which went out recently and it’s available to listen again here. Features about 40 minutes of me and 3 other resident DJs.

https://soundcloud.com/1btn/inter-mission-111024

needle droppin' lots of faves. you got a tracklist?

oooh Love on Video. My favorite. I just edited that to extend the intro bits.

https://s.disco.ac/mcbgbjuujgic

fab mix chewshabadoo! "shame (you were the big sensation)" is a big fave

thank you very much for the advice yesterday troops <3 "enjoy what you do" is generally good advice and a principle to live by but sometimes I need reminding of that, and now the day is here I actually feel quite happy and prepared and confident!

It's weird, I'm still not sure this kind of thing is what I should or want to be doing, but I think any gig that gets me confidence and experience is not to be turned down.

Looking forward to spending some time with this Italo mix as well!

weirdly i was listening to a few nts shows last night in the afternoon and then later while cooking dinner, on mixcloud, and i can genuinely say i was thinking 'this mix is really great' and when i checked it had moved on to a set by dan s who i see in this thread. from 'the lot'.

xp I’ll give some contradicting advice: use this as an opportunity to explore new music! It’s never too late to become a Fletcher fan.

oh cool, any idea which one? I think I have 10 Lot shows up on soundcloud/mixcloud. They're all posted by The Lot but I try to repost and playlist them.

Loving chewshabadoo and mike’s mixes upthread. Keep em coming please these are great!

Glad you enjoyed the show! It’s not just me, there’s 3 other DJs in there, but I’ll try to find time to write one up.

My part is from Koto up until Love on Video.

my Saturday night went really well! I mean, it's not rocket science - playing pop hits to people who want to hear pop hits isn't difficult - but I feel like I put my own personal stamp on it and played a set that was very crowd-pleasing without being too obvious. We had about 350 people in, and it was as busy at 11.30pm as it was when the lights came on at the end. A girl I used to work with came with her pals and was texting me from the dancefloor to say that the energy around them was great. Two of my best pals came down a bit later on in the night and couldn't believe how well it was going. It's a buzz. A few folk came out their way to tell me they thought it was excellent, and one girl told me she thought I was "really talented" which was lovely to hear, even though I'm aware that the skillset to do this well isn't exactly what I would consider good DJing. The "assignment" (if you think of it that way) was to give them what they wanted, and I did for four hours, and there's nothing more deep or substantial to it than that.

Lots of odd requests though. "Are you going to play Chappell Roan? - Yes, the event is literally named after her song, I think I might." The hardest bit for me is dealing with people who see a packed dancefloor and people jumping about with drinks in their hands and think this is the time to ask for a Lana Del Rey deep-cut ballad.

Got a Special Treatment prerecord playing live now on NTS 2 as part of the Optimo show :)

Nice!! Link?

Here it is :)

It was by far the longest I’ve spent on a radio show. We wanted to get it right and spent some time on it almost like it was a commercial CD mix in terms of really thrashing out what tunes we all wanted on it. The final 35 mnutes was a very pre-planned mix we did, and we made the first 25 mins a looser afair with more variation and personal choices.

Somehow despite all this planning when recording the very last tunes on to fill out the hour I managed to record the wrong side of a record, and we only realised after we had sent it over. Sorry Nick B!

https://www.nts.live/shows/optimo/episodes/optimo-1st-november-2024

^^this mix is currently preserving my sanity on the commute from hell, amazing job all

Thanks all :)

We also did our regular monthly show the same week: https://www.totallyradio.com/shows/special-treatment/episodes/special-treatment-29-oct-2024

Ooh, Angelo & Eighteen: Flight 2, that's a long-time favourite!

thinking about getting a new mixer. mine is a Gemini PS-540i, only has two channels which is fine for me, but I kinda want three (two turntables and an AUX) + buttons for customizable sound effects, does anything like this exist? I'm sure it does but when I look for it all I see is a bunch of podcasting equipment.

definitely, let me look around - I use a 4-channel GLI

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DX626--behringer-pro-mixer-dx626-3-channel-dj-mixer

no effects tho

wouldn't mind if that's just a separate component. surely there's something that's just a bunch of buttons that you can download sounds to that you could plug into whatever channel

also does that thing actually calculate BPM when playing vinyl? that would be pretty nice, I am kind of shit at beatmatching

apparently so!

I was back in the pub last night for a set. I had a suspicion it would either be really busy with Xmas Night Out season starting, or very quiet as people save their money for Xmas itself. I had done a bit of prep through the week, mostly because last week I managed to accidentally wipe half of my USB stick (I don't know how!). It's been OK - I managed to retrieve a mostly-complete list of what I had deleted so I set about replacing it through the week. I also thought, just to be safe, it would be a good idea to load some stuff I wouldn't normally play. I'm far more confident with dance music, disco, r&b and pop, but I thought it might be an idea to have some indie, punk, classic rock etc just in case. And obviously some Xmas music.

The pub was very quiet, even my pals weren't putting in appearances until a few hours later. I've been loaded with the cold all week as well so I don't blame them for not wanting to be out. It was about thirty folk when I arrived, all men over 50, so I played very traditional and conservatively - Motown, The Beatles and Elvis, that sort of thing - for an hour before starting to get a bit disco.

At 9.30pm-ish, about 20 Capital-L Lads came in. It turned out it was the local [REDACTED BUSINESS]'s Xmas night out. We had about 70 folk arrive in the space of ten minutes, pretty much all men 30-60, nearly no women and nearly no under 25s. The very opposite of the Chappell Roan/Taylor Swift theme night crowd, and actually very different from the pub's usual mix of ages and backgrounds. It went... well? I think? I played some guitar anthems for a bit, and quickly realised they didn't really care that much what was on, so I pivoted to high-energy 80s pop, 90s dance and 00s pop. A decent mumber of folk were dancing, nobody came up to moan or make requests, and it was busy until the very end. But it was very different. Last month I had folk up on chairs doing the "Hot To Go" dance routine and last night I might as well have played some acapella throat-singing for how recognised it was.

It was madness though. Lots of folk who only go out once a year and can't handle their booze. We had spilt drinks, broken glasses, near fist-fights that had to be de-escalated, people making very obvious regrettable choices. A man accused me of stealing his jacket and a person less diplomatic than me would have probably found themselves caught in a brawl trying to resolve it. It was quite stressful, it was very challenging both from a crowd-pleasing angle and a social angle, and it definitely took me out of my comfort zone. But I still enjoyed it, and for all the factors working against me I think it still went very well.

I'm playing next week, and I've been asked specifically because the manager has a friend who is celebrating a milestone birthday and she loves "old school dance and rave tunes" which means I'm going to get to indulge my own tastes a lot more than I usually do, I'm looking forward to that a lot.

I really enjoy your recaps boxedjoy

thank you! I'm aware I can be quite self-indulgent when I post after a gig but I also do take it seriously enough and want to do it well that I think it's good to share my experiences and take on people's suggestions/advice/thoughts. And when I try to talk to my pals about it they are all of the mindset of "well we had fun and we were all drunk so don't stress" which is great and I love them... but hopefully one day there will be a point where I'm not playing to pubs and clubs where I know I've got guaranteed supporters.

I went to an event last weekend in a venue that has a dancefloor downstairs, and the bar and toilets are upstairs, where the music is played through both floors but the upstairs is distinctly separate from downstairs and you cannot see what is happening in one space if you are in the other. The event was a washout. It was some of the city's biggest names in terms of local talent but they could not keep the dancefloor full. At one point there was only ten people dancing, and I thought everyone had went home but when I went to the loo I realised there was about 40 people sitting in the bar, not dancing. They just weren't winning people over and keeping them on the dancefloor. My personal barometer of success is not, was the venue busy, but did the venue stay busy with good atmosphere and people continuing to buy drinks and have fun. My barometer of failure is, was the venue massively empty between me starting and me finishing. Seeing people with bigger and better reputations than me struggle, it has made me feel a lot better about how it's all going for me just now.

I really enjoy your recaps boxedjoy

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Saturday, 7 December 2024 23:42 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

me too!

x3

same!

It was madness though. Lots of folk who only go out once a year and can't handle their booze.

It surprises me when people who regularly go out are willing to brave these circumstances. I feel like you become an ad hoc social counselor to the holiday drunks, if you’ve the patience and kindness

Not that I’m out that much myself, but y’know

x 4

A few folk from my office are planning to go out on the 20th aka Mad Friday but I am avoiding it. I don't need to be helping someone climb into an ambulance while a muffled "Mistletoe & Wine" plays in the background like a punchline scene from Booze Britain.

even this week i had a sense of things tipping into madness, in london. it's sort of amusing but nicer to stay suburban where possible.

also enjoy the updates btw.

she loves "old school dance and rave tunes"

seems a green light!

DJ achievement unlocked: a guy asked me if i knew the song that i was playing

y4ra asked me last minute to dj friday night at my gay club. i was nervous from all the bad juju with her but once i got there everyone else was so warm and welcoming. i missed these people. i wrote the following for my guys so fair warning, sappy post ahead:

Just writing a few things while I wind down. There were a few times when I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of these faces beaming at me with sheer joy, it brought me to tears. And the beauty of catching the eye of the furtive lookers. And the beauty of both women and men looking at me with flirtatious glances perfectly timed to the lyrics of a song. It felt like church! It moved me immensely to be moved with everyone along to these hymns, and I felt a bit like a preacher vamping along to the ones that felt particularly powerful to me. I missed it so much you guys. Just1n Holl1ster came up to the booth, said hi and complimented me! (He's a long time mainstay DJ at the gay bars. He told me they had asked him to play that night but that he needed a break lol.) A few people I really missed seeing in the crowd. My prayer practice has made me so much more tender to all of it. And the sound - they finally got their new sound system and it's absolutely amazing, the bass is just nuts, so beautiful. They've finally achieved the potential of that room. M4ry (the owner) was there tonight. She helped me get started with the new mixer. She told me that although Y4ra had the goth theme advertised, she said I should move into the popular singalong stuff after maybe playing a few of the gothier tracks first. I had a few amazing stretches and a few kinda dud tracks, but that's typical for a really good night. A and J, you were forefront in my mind during every love song, every song about hot boyfriends and good dick :) :).

Saturday.

I had a very busy week so I didn't do a lot of prep, and truthfully I'm feeling more confident in playing at the pub now. I got an idea of how I was going to plan out my night - Xmas stuff at the start, then some current pop music, some 80s disco, some millennial r&b and then two hours of 90s dance music going into "Clubland" and trance territory for the ravers (Scotland has a bottomless appetite for that stuff) and ending on the big Xmas hits.

The girl whose birthday it was. Firstly, it wasn't her birthday, it was her leaving night before she leaves to travel the world. And secondly, she's a good fifteen years younger than I had thought which meant the cheesy hits of her youth were now suddenly Old People Music. She sent me a playlist at 3pm on Saturday with some stuff she liked and I was due to start at 8pm. It was a scramble to find stuff from her playlist because a lot of it I just didn't know, and a lot of it was terrible. Really brash commercial house from the Capital FM axis of Joel Corry/David Guetta/Tiesto axis. I threw together a folder and planned a "power hour" of this stuff to pivot to, so that if they were up dancing then it would be fine. But equally I didn't really want to play it and - crucially - I don't think this stuff is right for the pub.

I really lucked out in a way. Her group were all nice but they weren't really dancing. They were drinking, they were singing along, and some of them were clearly "on the bag" but I think the parents and aunties and grans who were out were a bit of a kibosh on them going wild. I would have liked to have seen more dancing. But I didn't get any complaints or grumbles about what I was playing, and only one request.* As my own pals pointed out, they asked for a vibe and I delivered it. Nobody left, we ended up staying open til 1am and we didn't clear out til nearly 1.45am. Which I think is really good considering they could all have left at 11pm to go Proper Clubbing. And yes, we have space to dance but it's not primarily a dancing space. When I spoke to the girl she said that the playlist was just some stuff she liked but she wasn't expecting to hear all of it - she just wanted to give me an idea of her taste but she specifically said "play what you think will work in here" which really was a gift. The 80s pop and the Xmas tunes went down really well. It was 11.45pm when it was decided we were opening til 1am and at first I was panicked because I had played the big Xmas tunes as my "closing." But it worked out really well because in the last half hour I was able to play Big Scottish Anthems and songs about leaving, and they definitely had a lovely emotional send-off. Not my first choice of material but sometimes you have to recognize when it's not about you, eh?

There is still one moany older guy who drinks in the pub who winds me up. I can tell he's not meaning to be cruel but he does point out when people aren't dancing. But if he had his way I'd be playing Irish rebels songs all night and that's how you get yourself stabbed in corners of Glasgow. So on Saturday I just laughed it off and kept doing my thing and eventually did a wee drink with him.

A guy was in chatting to the pub manager. He asked her about booking a table for this Friday for his work night out. She said there's no DJ booked for Friday (the other guy who does the pub more often is having surgery, he's gonna be out of action for a bit sadly). He asked her if I would do it. So I couldn't have been doing too badly? He could have left it and decided to go somewhere else. So now I am playing in the pub on (Mad) Friday. I think there's also about 30 folk from my own work coming on Friday as my office is round the corner from the pub, none of them have seen me play before. This will be... interesting.

*My one request was really interesting. It was a guy and a girl who came over and said, weirdly: we want to ask for something but we don't know what we want to ask for, we just want to ask for something and chat to you for a bit. So I was like... You don't have an actual song request? It was a bit odd. But then she said, can you play the Operator song. Which really surprised me - they meant DJ Koze's remix of "Operator" which I love but I would never have expected to go down with this room. I played it, I got some odd looks from the rest of the room, and they sang a bit but didn't dance so I mixed out of it very quickly.

I've also been chatting to a guy I know who used to put on Proper Dance Nights on but has given up for a bit. We are hopefully going to get together at some point for a chat about putting together an event that's much more in line with the house/garage axis I really love and not just the crowdpleasers and the hits. It's very exciting but he is a very skilled, technical DJ and I hope he would rather go 2 hrs each than "back to back" because he will put me to shame.

Also map this sounds like a total victory. Y4ra seems to be learning a lot on the job from the sounds of things!

yeah i think that's the case. your night sounds like a win and that you're doing great work. excited for you!