On Djing...

happy hour tonight was holiday-themed so i made a playlist of all Xmas/winter-y songs. tried to avoid the more obvious stuff you hear everywhere.

Love this playlist! Some of my favourite Christmas tunes and some that I don't know and will have to check out.

Claudine Longet - I Don’t Intend to Spend Christmas Without You

Have you heard the version by Margo Guryan? It doesn't have quite the same swinging arrangement (and accent) but I love it a lot.

Sandy Marton - Merry Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

Once in my extremely brief DJ career I did a Christmas set and played this - after about a minute a woman came up and screamed at me "This is shit!". Is it the only Italo Christmas record?

another christmas offering for ye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mom7usa42rs

I only have two other Italo Christmas songs:
David Walker - Lucky Christmas
Key Band - Christmas Time

And there's Sally Shapiro - Anorak Christmas

I'm just discovering this Spanish gem from 1986: The Christmas Rap

Italo but not Disco: Christmas Is Now Here

Yello did a version of Jingle Bells but it's super cheesy and possibly the worst thing they ever did?

Sandy Marton - Merry Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

Once in my extremely brief DJ career I did a Christmas set and played this - after about a minute a woman came up and screamed at me "This is shit!"

what a disgusting savage, never heard it before but that’s a great track!! thanks for sharing, hope you screamed back “YOU are shit!”

yeah margo's version of "i don't intend..." is tops, too.

i also played that david walker track, it's so good! one of my favorite discoveries while i was putting the set together.

the sandy marton track is hilarious and great - a xmas-themed rewrite of his biggest hit single that i'm not even sure he sings on?

I have been deeply immersed in a collection of ~3000 records that I got from a dead friend (technically the group of his friends that administer his estate gave them to me for indefinite storage), we will probably give most of them away in the future but it's been fascinating to alphabetize/organize them and realize they are basically a snapshot of 70s/80s DJ history. At the same time, I've been reading this (great) book of interviews, and the crossover % between records mentioned in the book and stuff that's in the collection is high

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/10763917-the-record-players

e.g., call me a noob but I never realize that Cerrone totally rules

also wild to see the crossover between the (recently bumped) italo poll and this collection, hey Fun Fun is fun!

cerrone is fantastic

i played disco edits, funk rock and house music at a brewery tonight. as soon as i started playing house music there was a fight. mission accomplished!

yall for real i'm so sad that house DOES NOT translate in this whitetopia. the groove does not compute here. the kids only want sick drops and sugary synth rushes. i'm trying my best. it's only ever people from out of town who stumble into my bar that get it.

Always been like that, even in the heydays of house, the kids liked 2 Unlimited more than Frankie Knuckles.

dudes who started scrapping when i put on honey dijon record less into frankie knuckles more about bare knuckles iykwim

so i was out in public doing normal human being things as i sometimes do, and this guy came up to me and was like HEY YOU WERE THE GUY THAT WAS DJ’ing AT SUCH AND SUCH LOCATION ON THIS DATE A COUPLE MONTHS AGO?!?

and i was like oh yeah bro, that was me! and he goes DID YOU LISTEN TO THAT BAND I TOLD YOU ABOUT?!?

in my mind the actual title of this thread is “On (the pathos of) Djing”

lmao

DID YOU LISTEN TO THAT BAND I TOLD YOU ABOUT?!?

haha i had a dude come up to me mid set to tell me about a band

it's so refreshing when someone knows how to talk to a dj. this guy last week came up and was like "i really love your playlist" and then "can you play some house?" (i was playing house) and then "my girlfriend thinks you're really hot and wants you to take your shirt off" (thanks but no thanks, it's fucking cold!)

"playlist" argh

(aside from the rest)

"my girlfriend thinks you're really hot and wants you to take your shirt off"

i thought i had heard it all but that is next level.

i tried my best to be nice about it, i think i succeeded even though i had to admit i hadn’t listened to the band.

speaking of shirts, there had been no pencil or paper available at the time so the guy had talked me into taking a photo of his tshirt (he had been wearing the band’s tshirt) and i somewhat lamely told him “i still have the photo of you in the tshirt on my phone). i realized as i said it this might seem weird to his (maybe?) girlfriend who was with him, until i noticed she was wearing the same tshirt (not in his size so must be her own tshirt). is it actually his band???

in any case, i guess it’s actually cool that someone wanted to tell me about some band they thought i would like! i guess it is no worse (and maybe slightly better than?) everyone ignoring me while i dutifully sweat over a mixer.

not that i am looking for praise, but maybe at least some sort of connection over the music i love? but i suppose it makes sense that if that’s what you want have to meet people halfway. i guess i should listen to that band.

maybe while i’m at it i’ll invent a serato extension + mobile app designed to play music off stranger’s phones, everyone could download the app and scan a qr code as they come in the door of the club and i’d just mix everyone else’s playlists all night. probably be the biggest dj in town after a week, plus a billionaire!

"my girlfriend thinks you're really hot and wants you to take your shirt off"

i thought i had heard it all but that is next level

also yes, my god. more often than not when i play in a retail or happy hour setting i get some variation of “this is the first time i’ve ever heard house music i like”, almost always followed by “well aside from daft punk or course”, but i’d trade a lifetime of that feedback for a single request to take my shirt off

it's a gay club and i'm a muscle queen, so not that shocking, sorry to be body humblebragging itt lol. but why not do more? it's my goal to do a logo, business card and photos by march. i had the idea of recreating al green's greatest hits for my photo. need to find white embroidered 70s pants and some jewelry. and that brown/purple background. maybe it's in spectacularly bad taste, idk, but i feel like it could be amazing if i did it well. the other photo i want to do in one of those crown wicker chairs. shirtless again, maybe wearing boxing shorts. i would be lying if i didn't admit i kind of want to be a gay bear circuit dj - but man the cookie cutter tribal house those guys play is truly awful lol.

it could be amazing! something something miss all the shots you don't take etc

I was low key a gay bear kinda dj for awhile and yeah, the music was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. I just played what I play and I guess that made me different but yeah the tribal/minimal tech house thing I'm very over.

“Any vinyls man?”
I mean, LOOK. Just LOOK at my little table. Do you SEE a record player?

haha

i see a trend where the "cool bro" house / techno djs here are describing themselves like "pressing buttons at (club x) tonight" or "i play two songs at the same time" and i'm like, ok, not only are you not putting on a show of technical skill but you're also purposefully whiffing the ball on what you do? like, you're presenting music, the most magical thing on the world, for people who want to dance, the other most magical thing in the world. show some goddamn respect for art and yourself lol.

Oh God, that feels like the humblebrag DJ version of the personality columnist’s deathless “I did a thing”.

i feel like the cliched offhand casualness and precious vagueness of "i did a thing" is a little different. 'i'm pressing buttons tonight' reminds me of a 90s thing of saying that you're a lazy poser ironically in order signal in-grouping. so much more tired imo.

i'm probably yelling at a cloud to a large degree though! haha

I did an extended Specials section tonight, about 20 minutes and seven tunes, and OH MY GOD it was so fucking fantastic. One of the younger guys asked me “how do you dance to this music”, so I got on the floor and got my skank on to “Monkey Man”. Never actually played “Ghost Town” to dancers before, but it worked wonderfully.

:)

love it

sounds wonderful Mike!

Never actually played “Ghost Town” to dancers before, but it worked wonderfully.

it always works, at least in the UK. so much love for The Specials here. A Message to You, Rudy is perhaps thee one for causing a total commotion, in my experience.

as an aside, i only recently realised John collins produced Ghost Town. Jerry Dammers apparently asked him after being blown away by this UK DIY early drum machine propelled Reggae gem he made -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMxI3usc8BA

Yelling at clouds is valid tbh. Sometimes you gotta.

Fist bumps to anyone else who's doing a NYE set tonight. After careful deliberation, I'm going with "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)" in the all-important pre-bongs slot. It gives people a mission.

Excelsior!

nice choice

love it!

happy new year's, DJ pals - hope the coming year is full of fun gigs, meaningful dance floor connections, and people keeping a respectful distance from the DJ booth ;P

here here!

Fucking hell, that was intense, but in the best possible way. Definitely the best gig I’ve done in that bar. Hope everyone else has had / will have an excellent night!

how's it going for yall in 2023?

i posted this story on the "boundaries" thread but thought i would share here

so at the gay bar where i dj there is a resident queen, let's call her mia. she works at the bar on weekends but also comes in on my dj night (thursday) to hang out with her friends after she does a drag queen bingo gig. i was unguardedly friendly to mia at first, and then over a period of a few months realized that she is manipulative and controlling under a guise of being "nice" and "cute". last week things came to a bit of a head. she came up into the booth and made a demand to change what i was playing, then when i demurred she watched over my shoulder for two minutes and said "that was good" when i mixed into the next track (n.b. her "compliments" are disingenuous and part of her game.) i turned to her and said "i don't give a shit what you think" and then "i need some space up here, would you please leave?" later on she tried to engage me by dancing to some songs. she stayed to the end with a few of her hangers-on and was pretty much right at the exit when i finally left the bar at the end of my gig. i didn't say another word to her. one of her little friends laughed at the tension.

so this week, i knew she was going to make an appearance and announce herself to me in the booth as always. my plan was to say "hey, do you have a song request?" and after dealing with either answer move quickly to "ok then, need to get back to work." treat her as just another customer at the bar. that is exactly how it went down. i couldn't help but add a little spice to it by playing a song after that called "let a bitch know." nothing as ice cold and satisfying as setting an effective boundary! removes the personal heat of someone who likes to play head games by treating them like a stranger that you exchange civilities with. anyway she and her friends left a few songs later and the night was a good one, i could focus on other energy.

she didn't show up last night, and it's one of the best nights i've had in a few months.

i couldn't help but add a little spice to it by playing a song after that called "let a bitch know."

I need your help in several areas of my life

lol :)

ha, saw that post before but it def belongs here

And since we’ve no place to go…

Let a bitch know
Let a bitch know
Let a bitch knoooooowwww