Horrible DJing/album selection mistakes you have made

Once I was playing DJ at a party and put on "3 Is the Magic Number" by De La, and actually every single person at the party was like "YEAH AWESOME!" except this one fucker who was in my face all like "dude, nobody wants to hear this shit man, sure it's cool cuz it's 'old school' [the strange inflection he put on this made it sound as though he meant it as a pejorative], but man these people don't want to hear this!", and he was literally in my face, on the verge of pushing me! Meanwhile people around us were getting the fuck down and singing along and shit...WTF?

However, then there was another time I made the mistake of thinking I could just smoothly ease some Soul Coughing (it was "Super Bon Bon") onto the stereo amid the god-awful mix of Dave Matthews and Phish and Jimmy Buffet. Forty drunken frat boys turning towards you in complete silence, well, it can be kinda scary.

Well to my defense I can say I wasn't actually there, but a friend of mine played my 2002 yearmix at a party of his, and he assured me that the short 3 minute hardcore/gabber section in the middle cleared the dancefloor quicker than the fire alarm would have.

Incidentally this thread was inspired by me coming home and thinking that what I wanted to listen to was "So" by PG himself, and being horribly, horribly wrong. It's almost over and I'm beginning to question why I ever thought I needed to own it in the first place (Sledgehammer obv), it's totally ruining my mood. WTF.

(all posts to this thread should end with WTF, I think).

I DJ'd a friend's wedding, and had cleared most of the stuff with him ahead of time. He and his wife are both Church of Christ, so even dancing at the reception (which was, of course, dry) was a little risque. But my friend likes dancing, so we cooked up a nice safe playlist: "Play That Funky Music," "Mysterious Ways," "YMCA" (I asked him if he was sure; he just looked at me funny and said, "Yeah, we always play that at church parties" -- I didn't have the heart to tell him what the song's about), etc.

So anyway, things were going well, the dancefloor was crowded, and my friend wanders over to see what I'm going to put in next. He spots a disc in my hand and gets a horrified look on his face. "Is that Madonna?" he asks. "Yeah," I say -- it was slow-dance time, and I figured "Crazy for You" was right on the money. He continues to look horrified and hisses, "No Madonna!" Oops. So it wasn't a disaster, because he headed it off, but it just shows you can't be too safe with a Church of Christ crowd.

Oh, and WTF.

I played "Love Spreads" by The Stone Roses the week it came out back in late '94 during the peak of the night at a university pub/club in Saskatchewan. I had that tune cranked as loud as that system could handle, and boy was there ever no one dancing. WTF!

I dj'ed my eight grade spring dance ('def dance '89' labeled - controversially, some admin thought 'def' was mocking the hearing impaired - thus on the fliers adorned with headshots of john tower and flava flav and a shot of dominique mid-air). I remember I let my english teacher take over for one song, gnr - patience, cuz I wanted to slowdance with amy andr*ws, and getting really angry, storming back on stage when he switched to the next song too early - pre-coda, he's was all I don't know that song and I called him incompetent. I opened with theme from the love boat which went over well, considering, and the only really dead moment on the dance floor was when I finally succumbed to my metalhead friends and played 'something good': metallica - blackened, rendering - prof. x style! - everyone in the auditorium just standing around bored and a bunch of goons in jean jackets standing in front of the stage banging head a la b&b.

but James you made those guys' NITE!! "man they'll never play any good heavy music here, man" "wait a minute, WTF???!!" * bangs head *

"Situation" by Yazoo gets everyone goin nutz - so, thinks i, ppl r shakin it loose, feelin the "gay dance party" vibe - "Beat the Clock" by Sparks, perfect right? - cue eerie Sergio Leone whistling, tumbleweeds, wtf

I played Situation last night!

Last year I was guesting at an indie pop/disco/what have you night here in DC and doing a great set - everybody was dancing to "Metal Disco" by Hong Kong Counterfeit and I dropped in a heavily EQ'd "21 Seconds" by So Solid over the top. It was fantastic, the vocals of the first couple verses were sitting perfectly with the bangin' synth-disco and floor was all sweaty moving bodies. At the second chorus I cut from the mix to the straight So Solid track, taking care to perfectly bump the levels to keep the volume steady. By the time I looked up it was all over. Empty floor. I don't remember what I put on after that, probably New Order or something.

decided to play NO's "temptation" at a party. as soon as people realized it wasn't the typical turgid undie-rap sludge that always gets played at parties here, the CD player was re-hijacked and people continued to keep it real. i also have a funny memory of two cool dudez coming into my radio show to chill and seeming baffled by "pa ubu dance party"

i played Dj Shadow's 'Un Autre Introduction' as a segway between a Chris Morris sketch (?!) and er, Vitalic...woo high concept, look out etc.

in 1st yr i was at a law student party and they were listening to rem, jeff buckley,radiohead and fucking tom waits, so i thought i'd gently ease in some rammstein. oh wait that wasnt a mistake

Sounds more like someone should have gently eased some Rammstein up their WTF.

Portishead "Glory Box" at a garage-punk night

I've only DJ'd a handful of times, and it's gone over pretty well every time, except for three notable floor-clearing exceptions:

Gold Chains "Rock The Parti" (which broke my heart!)
that Destiny's Child Vs. Nirvana "Teen Spirit" bootleg
some Chicks On Speed song, can't remember the name

i can't believe gc cleared the floor, that's a winner if ever I heard one.

think i cleared the floor with the prodigy last year at a wedding. fair enough, really.

and also strangely, "blue monday" at a disco at a university years ago.

One of my mates was DJ'ing a student indie night, and I requested Play It Cool by the Super Furries. What had been a full dance floor cleared to leave me and one other bloke handclapping at each other. My mate decides to try and continue the trend, so he puts on The Riverboat Song. The floor fills instantly.

I've always said if I ever got the chance to e-mail our local indie night, I'd just play "Volare" 13 times in a row.

I had a funny night about a year ago... came back to london on a bit of a high after hanging out and djing in san francisco for a couple of weeks... all had gone really well... had to play a regular night i've been djing at for about 3 years the same day, didn't even consider not doing it, went home had a shower, picked up my records again and headed out, thinking the night would be the usual cakewalk. however it went to hell right from the start... can't really remember precisely what record did it, but will never forget this particular direct quote from one of the punters there, halfway through my set: "what the fuck is this shit, you cunt - fuck off!" not our usual crowd that night, obv!

Too many to mention - I kind of make a habit of it. The top few times were:

Dropping Nashville Pussy in the middle of a new funk (e.g. soul destroyers) set. The owner of the bar actually asked me to leave that time.

End of the night at a really good party - been playing loads of good disco records and segued into tearing ram records style d&b which went down fantastically. What didn't go down so well was mixing in Hixxy and Sharkey's "Toytown" for the next track. People were grooving to the breakbeat intro, but as soon as the kiddie synths dropped they were all off.

Then the worst of all - was playing at a roller disco, and had laid down what I thought was a really nice set of mid-90s hip hop. Chose to mix Method Man's "Release yo 'delf" into "Super sharp shooter" (because it samples it). People rollerskated up to the booth en masse and made throat cutting motions at me. It was kind of Stepford Wives...

Everyone can come in awe of my crap djing skillz in August when I dj death disco. Details to follow...

I@m thinking of starting the set with choice number from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds and then maybe Jeffrey Lewis.

lenny cohen suzanne over daft punk's burnin
gets screams then into donovan's wear your love
like heaven. people seemed happy but i thought, how
long can this happiness keep on and where to i go
from here. so i creep in one of those baltimore breaks
records with the claps and filter out the kick and
it goes 'let me see you, bang that pussy'.

this girl with an oriols hat on stops her dance after 4 bars and she comes over
to me and screams what the hell. you ruined it. and you're not
even from baltimore.

at a graduation party at a friend of mine's house 2 years ago, i tried to slip in some pixies amidst the weezer, metallica, and radiohead, and it totally got shot down halfway through alec eiffel. I spent the rest of party trying to at least one song off of trompe le monde played and theyd always get vetoed in the first 30 seconds. I dont know WTF was up with those people.

Well, this kinda works in reverse, but it's the summer of '91 and I'm talking with two young women -- one of whom I'm talking to -- and the other gal suddenly wants to hear R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People," which was hot on the radio at the time, but not fitting with the hip-hop/urban set at the time. I made the mistake of telling her that nobody wanted to hear it, and her eyes got wide and she stormed off.

Cut to five minutes later, when she storms back up to shout at me, saying that she's been in the crowd and everybody wants to hear it and I suck for not playing it and blah blah blah. Of course, to prove what a dumb-ass she is, I cue it up -- I also cue up "It Takes Two" so I can save the dancefloor when R.E.M. crashes -- but of course, when I play "Shiny Happy People" the dancefloor swells and everybody loves it.

The gal who told me to play it then proceeds to yell "ASSHOLE! I TOLD YOU! ASSHOLE!" over and over in my face for about twenty seconds until one of the bouncers moves her away.

Sure, this story doesn't quite fit the "dancefloor clearing" theme, but it stands out in my decade of dj'ing as one of those moments to remember.