On Djing...

that's great news. anything is better than nothing. best of luck.

really enjoying these updates

Yeah same. It's been really fun hearing ppl share their experiences.

I just took my first gig since prepanedmic spinning after some bands at a small club in a couple weeks. In normal times this is one of my favorite kinds of gigs bc its low-pressure (ppl arent there to see you) but still a nice crowd, and people are lubed up from drinking during the show, plus I can get a sense of the crowd over the course of the evening and guess at what they might be into, if they'll want to keep partying or wind down, etc. Over the last 9 months I've been extremely careful, other than going to the (mostly empty) movies a few times I dont think I've done any kind of open-to-the-public indoor activity whatsoever, so I've definitely got some anxiety about that aspect of it, but it seems like a good chance to experiment with stepping out of my comfort zone and see how it goes (gig will be vaxxed-only and fully masked, so I'm sure it'll be fine.) Despite the mild covid-worry, I'm looking forward to it, I think it'll be really good for my soul & mental health to get out & share some records with people again.

that sounds ideal. glad to hear you're going to try it.

finally DJ'd a small party a couple weeks ago at a friend's house and had so much fun. several people mixed, including a guy who i didn't even know could mix who played a really fun freestyle set for an hour. then a couple of my buds went b2b playing acid, one of whom i always encouraged b/c i knew he could but he was always cagey about actually putting together some music and playing it out, but he sounded great! then we had a deepish house set, then some 90's house and techno, and then i went on from 3am and closed it out in a nice foggy living room full of friends. it was so cool having a bunch of people play a variety of music, just a lovely night all around

Sounds perfect

whew, things heating up a little bit in small lake city. i got asked to do the same slopeside gig i did in 2020 right before shit hit the fan, this saturday. complicated setup but i've done it before so should be easier this time and they're paying me a decent amount.

i staked a claim for pride friday in june at the bar we are doing my parties at. lo and behold i get a message saying the local kings of the mountain want that friday and saturday at the bar. so i talked to them and was like that's fine if i can dj and they said i could have a decent slot and i don't have to do the setup work myself. i will be eye rolly if they drop me into a warmup. they make me uneasy, lots of ego at their functions, not ideal for my dj-ing where i'd rather be relaxed and kind of running the show even if it's more low-key. but i guess i'll try it again and see how it goes.

after the above happened i rescheduled our party for early may.

and now i've got to start working on this tea dance weekly starting in late march.

feeling a little tired tbh, but satisfied that things are happening.

Nice work map!

after almost a 2 year hiatus I will be returning to my monthly restaurant/bar gig on Sunday March 6th, I am psyched

$1 oysters y'all

Yessss

This thread makes me want to spin again. The last time I played, a gallery opening way pre-Covid, ended with dancers stripping to their skivvies (in a gallery!) so you can see where I might want to return.

I have now built up a healthy collection of dance 12"s in the 125-140bpm range and I'm keen to mix them together at some point. Being more of a digital DJ, I know the theory but I have very little practice of spinning vinyl. Can't really get my head around accounting for that split second of speed-up/slow-down when you let the platter go. I'm going to practice on my housemate's decks soon though

do u know how to slip-cue? that takes care of a lot of that

(just enough pressure on the record to keep it stationary, while the turntable still revolves under it)

not really. i don't have much experience of vinyl decks at all really. I've done sets on them before, but it tends to be more ecelctic stuff that doesn't really involve much beatmatching

just practice a bit! it's pretty easy to figure out and the record starts instantly with no speedup intro

(I learned it in radio but it comes in really handy for me if I need to cue up a track where there's no gap beforehand, I don't beat match)

just make sure you have a slipmat!

oh yes, lol, good point

I think that with all half-decent decks the turntable should still revolve while the record stays still, you just have to press down gently on the record. It takes practise to learn how to give the record a little push when you let go so that it starts at the speed you want it to, but it doesn't take that long to learn

$1 oysters y'all

did my first gig in 2.5 years last weekend, spinning after bands at a club. was extremely strange being back in a room full of sweaty unmasked people hearing loud music, but it felt almost normal, and i didnt get covid, so yay. set was a bit disappointing in that i expected to be spinning for an hour or more of afterparty, but the club announced last call after about 15 minutes - people (& venue staff) in my town still arent used to staying out as late as they used to. i'm curious about how that will evolve.

an interesting thing though: i noticed one dude was conspicuously loving everything i played, & he eventually introduced himself to me as a big collector of the very-specific niche of records that i was playing. he was from europe & had been stranded stateside for the last 3 months due to omicron, and was flying back the following night. i tried to quickly clock whether he was a weirdo or creep, guessed he seemed legit, and took a chance inviting him over to my place for coffee the next day. he only had an hour to spare, but he brought a bunch of records and we had a great time gabbing and frantically trading records like two kids trading baseball cards. i ended up with some amazing & obscure european stuff that i never would have discovered on my own and hope to keep in touch. so that was really cool.

after missing gigs for so long, I had kind of forgotten that stuff like that can happen, and it was really pleasant to rediscover how, aside from the gig going good or bad, so much of the pleasure & fun of DJing just comes from the social connections you can make when you share what you love out in public. so, a good time overall.

what is the very specific niche?

yeah, forced social activity is such a great part of it. it pulls you in deeper.

xp yes I am curious about that as well! great story.

I did essentially my first live radio show in 2 years last Monday, it felt pretty good! I am back live for the foreseeable future.

i was spinning like 50s/early 60s mambo & rhumba-influenced r&b on 45, doo wop groups doing 'exotica' riffs, stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNwdtirJUIo

(its not my main thing but its what i brought that night, figuring (correctly) that people weren't going to be looking for a big sweaty northern soul dance party. and apparently i met the one person in my town that night who absolutely lives & breathes that stuff.)

fuckin' rad

<3 <3 <3 !!!

I would totally come to this DJ night!

aw thanks sleeve & Dan. yeah i like the way that stuff sounds for certain spaces & crowds where like, theyre either done with dancing or havent gotten loose enough for it yet, but they still want to vibe

do you have any mixes of this stuff online at all?

apparently i used that track on this mix here, although the whole mix kind of oscillates between stuff with that sound & more traditional 60s latin jazz & boogaloo kinda stuff

thank you.

SO the sunday tea dance party i'm starting...

the bar has guaranteed i can use one active 12" speaker, maybe two. no subwoofer. i think this will be ok for the first few weeks as i doubt we will have more than 20 people out there at a time. if it's a runaway success we will obviously need more sound.

i am looking at purchasing a turbosound speaker on credit, the kind with a small sub and vertical tower line array. around a grand. BUT my plan is, see how this goes for a few weeks and make sure the income stream starts to flow ($100 for four hours every week, which is ridiculously low but i've got to start somewhere).

it is unclear if the bar speakers will be in use by the indoor drag brunch performers when we start at 4 pm. so i will be arriving before the drag show on 4/3 and moving at least one speaker out to the patio.

said patio is pretty cool! it is fairly small but comfortable and has pleasant seating and a nice view of the city. best of all, no concrete walls turning the sound into soupy garbage.

last of all, i need a name for this. i thought of 69th Ward Tea Dance (the ward thing is a play on mormon ward dances, the 69 refers to you know what (69, a sexual act)). is this too abstruse? the only other option i can think of is simply Sunday Tea Dance. your feedback on this matter is appreciated.

69th Ward ftw imo

it's so wild how quickly crowd noise can overtake a sound system when you start in a quiet space at what seems like a decent volume

$30-40 per hour seems like going rate so yeah I would also take $100 for 4 hrs

oops, meant to add - as a "foot in the door" starting wage kinda thing

cool, thanks for the feedback!

it really is crazy how fast the sound can get drowned out by people.

i started the tea dance gig yesterday. i really thought no one would show up, but that was not the case :). i caught this bug to dj unicorn club music at a gay bar almost four years ago and i am FINALLY back to it. it's going to be a fun spring and summer.

Congrats!

ty

2nd sunday in the bucket. another cold day but people turned up again. bar owner said afterwards he liked what i was playing and asked if i could play a night next weekend in addition to sunday. someone from local pride org wants me to do their retro party next month. i am happy and getting a little extra $. badly need a case for my controller and more hd space.

getting lots of compliments and smiles so yeah. lately feel like this is my calling tbh.

That’s awesome, map!

Love it. No djing on the horizon for me, but the Bl3ss3d M@donna played my new single at a big festival in Brazil and it "obliterated", so that's all I need. Much easier than going places and staying up late. :)

A week on Friday, after a gap of 25 months, I get my weekly vintage disco/funk/soul residency back at the bar up the road. Having sold off my vinyl during lockdown, I’ve gone digital - which, given the state of the floorboards, will significantly reduce my stress levels - and I’ll be swapping the much loved £12.99 Lidl disco ball for a proper lighting rig with strobes and lasers and shit. I’m now spending every available waking hour punching bar markers into Serato and wishing that click tracks had been invented a decade earlier.

(actually, punching bar markers into Rodgers/Edwards comp/prods kinda feels like desecration)

(and I have become all the more fondly disposed towards Dave Lee ZR remixes and Reflex revisions, even if they still kinda feel like cheating)

congrats Mike + Jordan!

Oh and map too! :)