top 100 cleverclever DJ tricks//hooks//shocks!!

DJ Mello C doing this while handling the crossfader with nose for a crowd of 8 in Portland, Oregon.

i said m-a-s, t-e-r, a g with a double e
i said i go by the unforgettable name
of the man they call the EVIL DEEEEEEE

ix,,

on an old Optimo mix cd, it opens with a sample from 20th Century Steel Band's 'Heaven & Hell Is On Earth'. I only knew the sample from the J-Lo song ('Jenny From The Block'?) and I expected it to end at the same spot. Sounded so great when the sample ran on and on and on.

12. the time I saw him he opened with that "what you waiting for" remix, so you had the tick-tock then the "soft" version of the beat. he then triggered this synth noise over the top - if you've got that fabric live mix, you'll know it, he uses it at the start of track four or so, it's a buzzy note that gets pitched up, up, up again - which crested just as the "real" beat kicked in. I swear everyone in the club jumped about three feet in the air.

13. winding the levels off so the song - in this case, "just can't get enough" - then whacking it back up to full volume every fourth beat. unexpectedly physical!

here's a few - i stopped playing it as playing the song became overly ubiquitous but this chopped up intro to 'teenage kicks' used to cause commotion if i was playing in a big room. i've done that human league one too. getting crowds to sing along is generally classic in a cheesy kind of way. cutting the volume during the chorus of the beatle's 'come together' and then letting the crowd sing it usually works everywhere. on the last chorus, don't bring it back in, let the crowd sing it and when they are expecting it to come back bring in a house / disco / techno classic. kaboom!

i think my favourite one was doing an instrumental edit of 'pump up the jam' and having the room mic'ed up, recording the crowd singing it and playing it back to them.

but the one that really causes people to scream until they are delirious is ending a set with the track going through an endlessly feedbacking space echo. the downside is that it probably causes hearing damage and can blow the soundsystem. when optimo had to temporarily move after our original venue burnt down, i blew out the tweeter arrays in the club two weeks running doing this. you could actually see them glowing! fun times!!

i used to do most of this stuff live on a hardware sampler but now ableton live makes doing shit like this almost too easy so i try to resist the temptation to go ott on the making the crowd go nuts all the time. a little actually goes a longer way.

To open a set or something: Play the end of Thriller and just blast out the whole Vincent Price monologue untill he starts his evil laugh. About halfway through turn off the power to the turntable to the ha ha ha's slow down to nothing and when it comes to a stop slam on the next track.

Well, it's loads of fun to do sometimes.

End of set/end of night favorite: Brian Eno's "The Great Pretender," with those rhythmic cricket chirps that fade out forever.

Hip hop acappellas, judiciously used.

haha. best laugh of today so far.
i mean it's early yet and all, but even so.

but then i could actually mix

.......good times................

Actually mr twitch did a super duper mix of a seemingly quantized version of ESG's Dance into Los Super Elegantes's cover of the same? Also DJ Klever's set from the 2001 DMC's is one of my favourites, there is a mindblowing double time juggle with Ludacris's Whats Your Fantasy. One of my favourite mixes is actually a guy called DJ Trouble who did an hour or so long mix which he planned to release of a cut-up of Madlib/Quasimoto tracks alongside the rather obscure funk/jazz tracks that they sampled. Absolutely seamlessly done. Funny thing is Stones Throw caught on and just posted the mix on their website for a free download thus foiling his plans to release an anauthorised mix CD.

Another one that I end up doing more often than I should is Things That Dreams Are Made of from the Unlimited Orchestra LP with RocMaster Scott's 'The Roof Is One Fire' over the top. The drums are sparse enough for it to fit nicely....

-- Dan Selzer (danselze...), March 3rd, 2006.

not much went right on monday night (fuck you, young professionals who don't want to dance), but this worked like a charm.