On Djing...

haha, I heard back from the cheese shop asking about my rates for a 2 or 3 hour set. Guess we'll see how they feel about the totally arbitrary rates I pulled out of my ass.

"free cheese, lots of it, and two bottles of wine"

that would definitely be nice, and I'd probably play a lot of gigs for free right now, but this one sounds like they may need me to provide my own sound system, so I suggested actual cash money

my record store thing was a lot of fun! some friends came and a couple of random shoppers, just a very laid-back vibe. mixing vinyl is very hard if you’re a total novice but i managed to make it listenable. it was especially fun to play out these italian 7”s that i impulse-bought during the pandemic lol. my friend was a total pro and killed it with an amazing set of 50s/60s calypso tunes.

one guy who was browsing in the store for a spell came up to me on his way out and handed me a record, saying he thought i’d dig it based on what i was playing (i did end up buying it and, yep, he was right!). later he reached out on IG and told me he liked my set. i was really hoping i’d connect with someone and i guess i did! ended my set feeling like ok, i want to keep doing this.

nice! sounds like a great time

going on the lot radio tonight at 10pm for what it's worth. Not sure what I'm going to play. probably too many things

great to hear dr

the latest in the chronicles of manthony:

last two tea dances have been total busts - i hope i can just blame it on shitty weather and mother's day yesterday. also bar owner is being weird about paying me for yesterday, he's usually very prompt. next week will be sunny and 80 degrees so if that doesn't have a decent turnout idk what else to do to make it happen. one of my regulars wants to do his birthday at my party at the end of the month so i'll at least stick to it through that, hopefully it picks up some steam idk.

the local gay pride mafia org has been given my name to do their retro party on the sunday before memorial day, which begins pride week. i met them today to tour the space, it is very large and nice, there's a green room etc. i think that will be fun and i guess i'll be getting the whole reflex catalog (again) because i don't have the time or money to buy and rip vinyl for it, which makes me a little sad.

does anyone have thoughts on dj logos? i hate them and have been avoiding one like the plague, they look horrible on flyers, but most club djs here seem to have them. i think i might draft one that's just lower case in a typewriter font or something just to have on hand.

salt lake city is not a place where a culture of loving dance music and dancing to music exists - the kind of magic that inspires teenagers to drop out and devote their lives to it or whatever. there is not a dance club, by which i mean a club built around dance music. all of the clubs are social get-laid affairs blasting people with 1 minute and 30 seconds of something they recognize to keep them stimulated, OR the other end which is more "good taste" house and techno that's really just wallpaper for hip yuppies and "creatives" to look pretty to. you just never see the kind of enthusiasm of diehards anywhere, the ones that want to lose themselves in the music, who aren't afraid of it, who are open to it, it's dispiriting. anyway just a general gripe, i hate this fucking mormon shitsburg town lol.

i'm pretty sure i got caught in the crossfire of this bar owner's drama with the new gay bar and now he's been canceled and his clientele left and that's why he's not paying me, even though he said he was "just about to" via text twice. even if that's not exactly what happened, i don't deal with people who say they're going to do something and then don't do it.

so i'm already knocking on doors trying to find a new home for my little tea dance and getting no responses. all i want to do is play music and get a little $ for it. this city is not only conservative but more and more cutthroat. generally feel low about it all, $100 a week makes a big dent in my ability to make ends meet, and pay off the debt i accrued getting a new speaker and a controller in the first place. fml.

sorry bud :( hope you land somewhere that recognizes your value <3

thanks dr, i really appreciate the kind words. just going to keep on. it's not like i lost my main job. i can make it work.

something tracer hand said, on this thread i think, is always in the back of my mind - find the people you vibe with. i think i'm on the right track.

There's gotta be some ravers floating around SLC, right? Some kind of underground scene? Or is that just not a thing anymore?

sorry map, i totally relate to your frustration trying to get something going in a city that feels indifferent and out of touch, putting a round peg in a square hole. but you have good taste and you're sharing something positive with people, just keep at it. some of the best nights i've had over the past few years only happened because i plugged away at a mostly thankless bar gig until i made a new friend who loved what i played and wanted to throw parties. making real connections with people you vibe with is really all it is

hey, thanks karl!

i'm stopping by the other gay bar with a patio after work to see if i can talk to someone there 😅

making real connections with people you vibe with is really all it is

the more i get out there the more i realize this is true. it just takes time, consistency, not giving up, being open and social.

sorry for sharing all my drama on this thread lately, but i'd be interested in hearing what other people would do in this situation.

the bar owner has basically ghosted me since sunday. he texted me "i'll venmo u" then didn't, i asked him the next day, he said "i'll send it as soon as i get to the bar," then never sent anything. i sent one more message about this coming sunday and he didn't respond.

give that:
this guy is not paying me, but more than that is being really fucking weird about it
one of my regulars sent me some beautiful flyers which i was in desperate need of, my graphic design skills are awful
this sunday it will FINALLY be warm and sunny and i MIGHT get some people there, maaaaaybe 10-20.

do i:
quietly cancel.
say something online and cancel.
promote on my accounts and show up one more time, see how it goes, see if i can talk to the bar owner.

i kind of want to do #3 but maybe i should let it go now.

i'd go for #3 and then if he doesn't pay / continues to ghost go for a very emphatic #2 next.

do #3 but let him know you will only be playing on the condition that he first pays you anything you are owed

I have an opportunity to do a DJ gig at a local biergarten in June or July, but I'm a bit hesitant to send the promoter a bunch of material and tax forms until I scope the place out. I have a fear with this type of gig that I'll show up and find I play totally the wrong type of music. I don't want to be difficult in this type of situation because I'm not in a position to be real choosy, but it isn't worth it to me if people are going to be annoyed by thumping rave music while they try to drink beer and eat sausages. Is this reasonable?

hey moodles, i might think about playing some of the stuff you have that's on the deeper / more colorful side, my quick take is that it wouldn't be out of place at a biergarten. does the promoter know generally what you play?

i'd try to have a face-to-face with both the promoter and the manager if they aren't the same person, and i'd definitely go there and check it out at least once, maybe even twice. you want to have initial conversations so you at least know who's who and then check out the booth, the equipment and the power situation.

and thanks for the input moodles and stirmonster.

and congrats moodles, that sounds like a good gig

thanks for the advice, I think you are right, I definitely need to scope out the whole situation before committing to anything. I can definitely do something a bit more on the melodic/house end of the spectrum, but I only want to go so far in that direction. As much as I want to be open to whatever gig I can get, I need to also make sure I can play music that fits with my overall approach.

do i: promote on my accounts and show up one more time...

...and show up with an empty briefcase and demand to be paid in cash before performing, a la Chuck Berry.

lol

i'd go for #3 and then if he doesn't pay / continues to ghost go for a very emphatic #2 next.

agree w/this fwiw

yeah i think confronting him in-person will make it harder for him to weasel out.

went to the new happy hour venue for a tech run-through last night - the bar has a real actual DJ setup, CDJs, DJM-900NXS2 mixer and turntables. excited to not have to lug a laptop and bulky stand to the venue, but i also don’t have much CDJ experience so will have to play around with it a bit before the night starts to get my bearing. also need to figure out the whole rekordbox/USB business lol. pretty jazzed about this tho! think it’ll be a fun night.

be extra careful if you have a lot of FLAC files as that is often not supported by CDJs

CDJ2000NXS2 & XDJ1000mk2 support FLAC, the older ones don’t.

these are CDJ-3000s which do support FLAC - was worried about that too since that’s a big chunk of my digital library

sounds awesome! do you have a laptop/pc? if so you can always do all your prepwork on that and export to a usb key, if you don't want to bring your laptop with you.

*cough* cdjs have a sync feature you just have to make sure your beat grids are all lined up *cough*

i can beatmatch on cdjs i promise, i just like having one less thing to worry about.

yeah map, gonna get everything prepped this week and bring a USB stick. the laptop i use for DJing is the same one i use for WFH and also everything else in my life, and is 10+ years old to boot, so i'm always nervous something's going to happen to it if i bring it out to a bar

ha, on my controller i usually will beatmatch but i'll hit sync if the pitch controls are being ornery or i'm just tired lol

excited to hear how it goes!

i hope it's not too forward to share here, but one of my favorite djs, ilxor boxedjoy, is going to be playing out with another one of my favorite djs, ilxor c0lin (i forget his dn), at the end of the month in glasgow, at c0lin's tea dance monthly. can we be tea dance sisters? i'm going to insist lol.

so my drama has been resolved, bar owner paid me for last week and this week (he said their venmo account was locked for 4 days), and things were a little busier yesterday than they have been. i had this cool thing happen where a group of twenty somethings from out of town passed by the bar, heard the music, and came in to listen and hang for an hour or two. this really beautiful woman (i'm not creeping, i promise, she was just really beautiful) was very enthusiastic about house music with me for a minute. it was great.

an idle gear thought lately, after using this pioneer controller for a year, i miss the traktor ecosystem tbh, it was more reliable and generally just always sounded "good" no matter what you were playing.

map, glad your bar drama resolved in your favor! also that you’re getting more of a crowd. i love when random ppl get really into it with you. one of my favorite recent DJ moments was when a woman came up to me as i was playing “where is my man?” by eartha kitt, she knew every word and the two of us just sang along to the whole thing

boxedjoy/c0l1n double bill sounds dreamy tbh!

so tonight i went in cold on those CDJs and omg it was so nerve-wracking at first - i actually had to ask the house chef (who also DJs there occasionally) to help me out with some very basic shit, luckily he was very kind about it. played it low and slow at first but built my way up eventually and mostly felt comfortable with it by the end of the night. def need to spend some time w/ that equipment though. i actually booked some studio space the night before in order to practice mixing on pioneer CDJs but i brought a wrongly formatted USB stick so it turned out to be a bust, lol

i was playing “where is my man?” by eartha kitt, she knew every word and the two of us just sang along to the whole thing

hahaa purrfect

i was very nervous my first few times on cdjs and butchered a few transitions, but no one really cares that much ime (except other djs lol) unless you're doing like 30 seconds of trainwreck mixing between each track. a quick fade is totally respectable imo. i can hear your excitement about the new situation, glad to hear you're enjoying it :)

Aww map! If it falls out just hard cut and don't sweat it. Most of the great DJs I know can be a little wobbly on the blends sometimes, it's totally normal. If you've been going for two hours especially, be patient with yourself!

So great to hear too donna, but glad to hear too that it inspired you to want to learn. Hope it goes well!!

this thread is great and inspiring <3

It's always such a weird dilemma for the digital DJ starting out...CDJs are expensive and you don't get the chance to practice on them at home, but it's not cool to use a laptop/controller in a club with CDJs. Not that it's rocket science, but the little things can trip you up in a high pressure situation.

I might actually have the possibility of a couple gigs in the fall, and already that's the part that's stressing me out (pretty much just that).

one of the first times i used the nicer cdjs i took out the wrong usb stick to put mine in and cut the music entirely (no emergency loop function at the time.) the music resumed quickly and it was early warm up hours so no one really noticed but i still found it mortifying

Re clunky mixing/beatmatching fails - I saw Hieroglyphic Being play once and I have never heard a DJ clang so many mixes but because his selection was so good it didn't matter at all

I was at a wee night a couple of months ago and Fergus Clark of 12th Isle (fairly well known DJ in Glasgow) was playing b2b with another guy. As far as I remember they weren't actually mixing, just playing records from start to finish, including dance tunes that would normally be mixed. Worked out fine for them

Does Hieroglyphic Being still play out on iPads? I remember hearing about his iPad dj setup (or maybe it was live/dj hybrid) years ago and it sounded kinda genius.

Dunno about that but he'd do a thing where he'd play acid tunes and then play them backwards on the CDJs (I think). It was wild!

not saying it's any less cool now, but ron hardy was doing that in the 80s, but with vinyl :D

Yeah, hen I saw Jamal Moss was DJing quite a bit a decade ago he talked a lot about channeling Rob Hardy’s style of DJing and purposfully NOT beatmatching and instead trying to hit a mood.

*(w)hen

I never saw Moss do a DJ set, but christ I saw him do a live hardware set in 2013 and it was unfuckingbelievable, my husband and I were losing our minds.

Dam-Funk I’ve seen DJ several times, about a decade or so ago, and I swear that guy just doesn’t know how to best match because it’s clear that he’s trying but every set was trainwreck after trainwreck

I’ve only had the pleasure of seeing Moss live once, perhaps about 5 years ago, and he had the dual-iPad set up then – it was absolutely incredible, raw, acidy, and also upbeat with catchy italo-esque hooks going through the mangler.

not saying it's any less cool now, but ron hardy was doing that in the 80s, but with vinyl :D

― RYMsnitch, Sunday, 22 May 2022 10:16 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Crikey. How would that work? Do you get turntables that play backwards or would he just do it by hand?