On Djing...

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.

I didn't mean you should take any free drinks, just that you shouldn't get too drunk, if you want avoid errors. But if it's just a bar night I guess it doesn't really matter that much.

I think it's always good to know the general age of your audience, because people usually tend to love the music of their youth the most, so you'll know what songs will be guaranteed floorfillers. For example, I usually DJ in student parties where people are in their early twenties, and I've noticed I shouldn't play too many eighties and early nineties tunes, because those youngsters might not be familiar with them at all. One time I was playing "Informer" by Snow, and two girls actually came to ask me what song it is, they'd never heard it before.

x-post haha i'd like fuck you if you played informer.

nah it really does since i won't be familiar with the setup. but you know, i know my alcohol limit for basic motor/mental control etc. this is all riding on future knowledge at this point though so.....

thanks everyone for yore knowledge and responses. i really needed the feedback, if only to get my own juices going for the whole thing. do you ever have something stewing in the back of yr mind for way too long but you just don't have the guts to bring it into a frontal lobe until you mention it to other people? that's me on this thread. thanks bye

I had weekly DJ gig at a Irish pub in Sunnyvale for a couple of months but ended up quitting over some (admittedly) mild drama. The owner wanted Thursday to become a "Rockin' College Party Night" but we ran into a few problems:

1. The bar was totally dead almost every Thursday, not very rockin'
2. When remotely college-aged people showed up they wanted to hear hip-hop
3. Barflys would bitch and moan when I went off the classic rock playbook and tried to play something edgy like The Clash or Talking Heads.

All of this would have been much more tolerable if they ever gave me A DRINK TICKET OR TWO. I stuck it out for a couple months because the pay was decent, which is never a good reason to keep do something you otherwise love. But after some drama with being replaced without notice for a couple weeks by Ronnie the Karaoke DJ I decided to quit.

I've gone back to mobile DJing and private parties and am much, much happier.

anyway.. strongo break a legski!

haha that's not strongo.

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.

this is great advice.

strgn u know u better announce ur first gig we'll be there. i don't know shit about djing so carry on.

if you ever want to play vinyl, needles are essential, as not all clubs even have a house pair and you're expected to bring your own...and if they do have a house pair they're usually crap.

Depending on the quality of the dual CD players, you'll likely find it much easier to use than mixing with your ipod, though having the ipod as back-up won't hurt.

If you're going to burn a set of CDs, make 2 copies of each, that way you can mix from one song two another on the same comp.

Use a short fade or do a quick fade on the first song and fade in or even just start the second song from zero. For instance, when you're cueing the second CD you'll start getting used to finding the beat and even when not beatmixing, you can still make for a smoother transaction by starting on beat. You'll also find yourself getting really bored back there and you'll play around with beatmatching in your headphones because there's nothing else to do. That's how I learned to DJ at least.

ok that makes more sense now that i've finally checked out the two-cd deck. the guy who drops it there monday evening (6-9) is gonna school me on the decks next week (hopefully). and in any case i think i've got a night, or something. thanks everyone for the info and encouragement.

p.s. what sounds as good as "inspiration information" by shuggie otis?

eddie kendricks - 'date with the rain' y/n

definitely practice a bit beforehand. it's actually quite scary, even in a bar or something, suddenly being in control of the music that's playing. stuff like volume levels is actually really important too especially if you're using music that's come from bought cds and mp3s etc, just make sure you stay with the lights at the same level on the individual channels and use the gains to help you with this.

it can be sort of embarassing if you are not beatmatching and the track you mix in is way too loud (or way too quiet)

I wouldn't bother using the crossfader, just volumes up and down, it's more logical when you start off.

if you can practice on the soundsystem even for 45 mins or an hour beforehand that's pretty good too. I know it's a bar but some records sound much more manic and loud when you play them on a bigger system: you may have stuff you planned to play early on that is like this and you'll think "oops" when you play it.

if nobody is dancing, don't be afraid to make things more mellow rather than more intense.

i had a recurring and cliched dream where the track is about to finish and for some reason you haven't and can't get the next one going.

there's an italian-american social club across the street from my apartment, the building's been there since the sixties but the society itself has existed since the mid-to-late 19th century. the club has a giant wooden dancefloor illuminated by many chandeliers and a disco ball, a stage, a wood-paneled bar that looks like it hasn't been touched at all since the 1960s, and an indoor bocce court behind the stage. every month they host large pasta dinners that are open to the public, and they have a bunch of events that are open only to members of the club and their guests. the bocce court is typically open for members a couple days during the week, it's mainly older retirees who play and they occasionally host tournaments there with other bocce leagues in the city.

the club started getting a lot of attention last year because of their social media presence - about a year ago only a couple dozen people at most came to the pasta dinners, now they routinely sell out a couple hundred tickets within 24 hours. i started following them on IG and they posted a story asking if anyone who follows them happened to know any italo disco DJs, and i obviously jumped at the chance lol. i ended up getting a tour of the building from the president, and we talked about the idea of me playing music there sometime. i started regularly attending their dinners and eventually applied for membership, i became inducted as a member in december of last year. i've gone to a lot of the member events since then and i've also volunteered to help at their events too, it's been really sweet and great to be a part of this community for lots of personal reasons i won't go into here.

anyway, one of the member events they're doing now is a first friday deal where the bar and the bocce court are open to members and guests, and they asked me if i'd be interested in setting up in the bocce court to play some tunes while people played games of bocce. they set all this mood lighting and had glow-in-the-dark bocce balls and it looked really fabulous. my playlist was all italian music from the 70s and 80s - italo of the robots n' synths 83-and-after era but also lots of '76-82 italian disco, your raffaellas and minas and ornellas and whatnot. not super easy to mix those eras together but i think i managed to get a good flow going. one guy was stoked that i played moroder's "the chase" lol. it was one of the best gigs i've ever played - i got such a warm reception from everybody and several people were like "we gotta get you on the dance floor at some point!" seeing one of the older members, a guy who's very easily in his 70s and was born in italy, bopping along to "a far l'amore comincia tu" made my heart swell. i am a little headache-y from the negronis i had but all in all, a wonderful night :)

I love this! 83-84 Italo has a special place in my heart.

so cool

wow dr i'm so happy for you

tremendous

What a dream

that sounds amaaaaaazing i wanna go to the next one so bad

same

that sounds amazing. bocce! italo! glow in the dark!

do post a tracklist when you do it

:) :) :)

i didn't keep a tracklist, but off the top of my head and in addition to what i already mentioned i played:

- lots of the "big" italo tracks ("hypnotic tango", "take a chance", "dirty talk")
- some deeper cuts (helicon - "you...see", angie care - "your mind", laura angel - "if you want")
- "magic fly" (duh)
- a couple petrus/malavasi joints ("the glow of love", peter jacques band - "going dancin' down the street")
- the 1978 version of mina - "città vuota"
- honorary italian amanda lear - "fabulous lover, love me"
- closed out w/ this v sensual ballad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AMpZGNx5EE

maybe i'm still riding on the high of last week's bocce gig but i had my regular happy hour gig last night and i feel like i played a really confident, technically smooth and fun set. i'm self-critical about my abilities to a fault but after my set i was like...idk maybe i'm halfway decent at this thing after all?

also re: this from my post about the italian club:

several people were like "we gotta get you on the dance floor at some point!"

this may actually be happening next month :)

same

I spent the night recording a two hour mix in my new spare room. I'm so excited to share it with you guys

I avoided this thread for years because I was always afraid it would turbocharge all the bad feelings I’ve felt about my dashed amateur dj aspirations, which never went beyond my bedroom. Having come to terms with that, I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread. It’s fun and inspiring to see people embracing meaningful opportunities to dj out and I appreciate everyone sharing these stories. Way to go ilx dj massive!

Same

lol I was the same as you but just stumbled into an opportunity

I do this thing at a local bar where it's me and a couple of turntables, I bring a variety of stuff and encourage others to bring in their own records, then we make a DJ set out of it. it's all over the place but evey time I think I get a little better. it's something I've always kind of dreamed about but didn't think anyone would really be interested in. but I think there are lots of people who are really into an idea like that, you just need to find the place to make it happen.

The manager of the pub I've been playing at monthly has gone on maternity leave and a new guy has come in to replace her.
Suddenly I find my slot has disappeared from their promo calendar, so I emailed in.
"Ah yeah, sorry we forgot to say we're itemising the entertainment at the Bell, so we'll be concentrating strictly on garage and drum machines bass going forward. Big apologies".

Well needless to say, I wasn't too pleased at the unceremoniously ghosting. Naturally, I understand they want to go for a more student-based market and it's not as though I was bringing hordes of people in every Thursday, but still, it would have been nice to have been told.

Last night I decided to commiserate, drink a few beers in my new little home studio room and put together a mix based on the kind of house/disco grooves we often used to play out there

https://on.soundcloud.com/DG3SY

frogbs, that's lovely. Very similar to the thing I was doing. I'd often get a friend or a fellow dj to guest with me, so it was a great way to improve and keep me on my toes

yeah it's fun when my friends show up, especially the music dorks who you know have always wanted to do something like this. you can just bring 'em behind the decks and tell them to pick something out. i love making it interactive like that, it's cool when people show up with obscure records because they always wind up being really cool. like obviously it's a risk telling people to bring their own jams but the people who do put more thought into this than I do

I can relate dog latin. My thursday ghosted me too, in January. (The bar is currently closed lol.) After just taking a break from it all I’m currently knocking on new doors. A few vague possibilities. It was nice going back through old posts recently and remembering I’m a good dj. I don’t know if you need to hear this or not, but you are too.

Local coffee shop hired me to do a Saturday afternoon mellow set — looking forward to having a chance to play tracks that don’t sit well in the more upbeat sets I’ve been doing — like Wings’ “Arrow Through Me,” Air’s “Femme d’Argent,” Sun Araw’s cover of “December” by Teenage Fanclub, etc.

I would go to that

i'm playing at the italian club tomorrow, on the big dancefloor. there's a sit-down dinner that's happening first so the evening will basically be a social hour, followed by dinner, followed by dancing, and the whole evening is a charity fundraiser for an animal rights org. i'm pretty excited about it all, buuuuut...

the host of the party gave me some ideas of things he'd like me to play that i'm feeling a bit stymied by, tbh - like a lot of things he suggested i'm happy to play (madonna, gaga, blondie, etc) but he also mentioned this one current-day italian rock band, i listened to some of their songs and i think they're awful. he also mentioned neil diamond and asked if i could play "murder on the dance floor" as the last song of the night (tbh i'm at a point now where i just never need to hear that song ever again, and i like the damn thing). idk, just feeling vaguely annoyed by his requests - but also maybe i'm just being a brat, and it'll probably all be fine.

had my usual happy hour gig a couple days ago, not as well-attended as the last few i did but still fun. had a few ppl ask for song IDs, and the guy who runs the bar's kitchen (who also occasionally DJs) proposed we play out together sometime, which was cool - don't know him super well but he always says really kind things about my sets. maybe i'll take him up on it! feeling very "seize the day" about things in my life lately.

you're not a brat, i'd be more than vaguely annoyed

yeah I am done with Murder On The Dancefloor as well. Can you play all the Neil Diamond/Italian rock stuff at the start of the night so it's out of the way? Or save it til the end, and tell him you're leaving it until everyone is drunk and ready to sing and dance along? That way you don't have to think about this stuff as part of your set in the same way

there's always Neil's synthpop phase:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b9bWNA1dKs

ok glad it's not just me lol

yeah i'm def gonna start out the night on the more rock end of things, and the dinner may start out as quieter ballad-y stuff that slowly builds into a groove by dessert time or so, leading into the disco bombs portion of the evening

i believe i have found a way to breach the neil diamond impasse at the very least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msWuL-g_KA4

(i would rather eat glass than ever, ever play "sweet caroline" in any of my sets, for the record)

oh there's an italo disco version of that one too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUA2rVQ-feE

ha! nice find

so my bar closed in march and forfeited their liquor license (weird utah alcohol laws).

i've tried two other gay bars. one basically shooed me away. the other expressed some interest but now they're ghosting me.

i'm tired of dead ends. fuck this city into the ground. can't wait to ghost this place after it's ghosted me so many times. i don't vibe with anyone here at all. such a lame scene, juvenile and not for me anymore, i never fit in with those douchebags anyway. ready to hang up my hat for a while. i've been mostly listening to metal and rock lately anyway. time to drop all the frustration and move on with my life.

xp to NickB - I thought you meant an italo cover of 'Sweet Caroline'. That would have made my day!

Ewww lol no! There is a Fun Fun version of I'm A Believer though. It's... not great

sorry things are so dispiriting map <3

tho tbh your post flashed through my mind at my gig yesterday after a woman not once, but TWICE, requested that i "play music that people know"

and someone did, in fact, request "sweet caroline." i told him i didn't have it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

DJ Ötzi version is the only one you need:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFq2v5MC4YA

SO GOOD
SO GOOD
SO GOOD

haha ty dr. i'm ok with it tbh. sort of just want to be a fan and not feel like i have to 'keep up on electronic music' all the time. i'm thinking seriously about a pretty radical career change too. if i ever want to dance i'll probably try to find an amateur modern dance troupe or something. no pressure no social scene bs just move around emotionally to music some time before 9 pm lol.

and hmm yeah i can see that gig resulting in some dispiriting requester situations. good luck and godspeed.