Alright you sick twisted thieving fucks.
I realise you have 276GB of unforgivably lossy lossy (look that up I cba) mewsick on your hard drive, all of which you obtained in the most conniving and criminal of ways - illegal Internet download, but let's consider this fact:
87% of those cruddy mp3 files are shit.
That's not just my opinion (my opinion is actually in the high 90's tbh).
That's not just objective fact (probably same figure as mine).
That's YOUR fucking opinion you douche.
How do you expect to be able to separate the cream from the crud moron?
I has fowldors + I maintains em good.
I give a fuck.
Let's instead consider the bad old days.
The days when you'd sweat and bleed for four shillings and a ha'penny a week.
The highlight of that week would have been a Saturday afternoon trip down to Ron's Rekka Sto'.
You'd pop into Ron, red faced and beaming as Ron rubs his hands gleefully under the counter.
Ron knows you like the funkier shit and he's set aside some of the rarer imports he knows you will drool over and weigh up your cinema outing and decide to forgo the vague opportunity of a fondle with Francine for the sake of the latest rare motown 45 (because you my friend are a geek, and you shamefully choose trainspotter ornithologist collector ways over a good grope at the talkies).
Through the jigs and the reels and the chat and the listening you decide to definitely get the motown number and even though you hate the Rolling Stones, fuck it, you'll take Jumpin' Jack Flash because it's a damn stonking tune in fairness. Having your slacks let out will have to wait another week. Or perhaps Aunty Felicity might do it if you drop in for a spot of delightful teacakes and a natter later on.
After two years of toiling in this way you have built a sizeable collection.
You are the envy of your muso nerd mates and when they need someone to play some numbers after their weekly gig at Dandelion Garden (because dj's are all the rage these days) you're the man they call upon.
Now you haven't a clue about dj-ing. It's only one turntable so that will have to do.
But more to the point you can't read a crowd, and you can't program for shit.
First night you play all your funky shit up first, all in a row and then mellow the crowd out a little too much because you (quite rightly - with exception later when you get actually good at it) refuse to replay records.
It's not a great start, but you have one fucking solid gold weapon.
Will you ever play a bum track?
Fucking never.
Because you don't HAVE any bum tracks.
Every single single you eeked your hard earned cash out for is incredible because it had to be.
You couldn't click a mouse three times and download Ace of Bass' entire backcatalogue only to realise you do actually hate it all and would never ever play any of it in a set (idiot, a couple of their successful singles are fucking brilliant - listen PROPERLY!)
Back in the rough old times you had to actually listen when you made the choice to part with the moola.
You had to really consider which tunes gave you the biggest boners and which ones you sadly had to let go because they didn't make you cum a little right there and then in Ron's.
And hence, even after your first gig, with its faults and fuck ups, extended periods of dead air, playing album tracks at munchkin speed for a few seconds, its misread badly programmed come down iffyness, people think you are fucking amazing. Because they didn't even realise they fucking adored every single tune. Even the ones they'd never heard before.
And now they trust you and your taste and you just know when you get the sequencing down you will have them wailing and crying from the sheer exquisiteness of your set.
Get it?
Get it?
So here's your homework you spoilt techno-brats.
You're going to Ron's Rekka Sto'.
Take a virtual $50. Go on take it - it's only imaginary.
Go to discogs.com or ebay or wherever.
'Spend' it on VINYL releases (try to avoid reissues please) between 1967 and 1970.
Do not make a set list out of those tunes. Yet.
Do it again another three times at least a day apart and then make a set from the $150 worth.
(Strap on your virtual mask and striped pullover if you like and burglarise the Internets for the mp3s and make the playlist if you fancy. But I may call the cyber police on you.)
One bum track and you will never be a disco dj like you might have been if you worked the mines in those 'dark ages' we just fantasised about.
Tuesday 19 July 2011
Thursday 14 July 2011
Personal DJ History
My first proper gig I idiotically roped in a friend (who introduced me to the ways of the technoes) to warm up.
Had I done the gig alone (and possibly not pissed him off by telling him what not to play) and not ended a decent enough set on a fucking awful selection with shockingly bad production, I may have got the regular spot instead of him.
Use your brains.
My next stint was via a bouncer I knew at a trendy bar. Fucking disaster - the place was always empty except for the VIP room which was NEXT DOOR to the bar I was 'spinning' in. (Not my fault, but that set up just never fucking works - piped music is piped and if you can only 'read the crowd' by intermittently running back and forth to another room then, well, you can't read your fucking crowd can ya?)
One night, no word of a lie, I dropped a tune off a U2 album that wasn't actually U2. As coincidence would have it, after I packed up and was waiting downstairs fucking Bo-no swans in for a late-night tipple.
Maybe if I'd had an audience to bounce off I mightn't have been so bored after playing four hours of music to a solitary barman and still been playing tunes for the arrival of His Highness and consequently not been dropped like a hot snot.
Play until you're told to stop.
In film school I made a short documentary about DJ-ing. Used a local pro to to demonstrate the 'ins and outs' in a 'day in the life' kind of thing.
After wrapping he invited me to dj at a house party.
I wanted to cater for the drunk guests as well as the ecstasy riddled hosts. Bad idea.
Much like men will follow women to the floor no matter what, drunks will dance to anything as long as ANYONE is dancing.
I was playing out the boom boom and decided to switch it up and throw in some Prince and shite. The wrecked buzz was palpable. That decision brought everyone (except the three drunk fuckers) down 10 notches and the messy drunks finished off the buzz-wreck as I tried to get the techno-train rolling again. But it was too late. That 5% again. Never be 'clever'.
Next up was the 'party scene' proper. I just about had the stamina, and did get away with playing sets for the drunks and then for the rockers and then pillheads, but as dawn rolled in through the windows and bathed the place in a peachy glow, I denied the druggies their banging tunes and played out 'Les Fluers'. It was fucking beautiful but only one other person (also a dj) really appreciated it.
Then, in disgust I popped a Joey Beltram banger on the table and played it over and over. They ate it up. I sneered down my nose and forgot to play the reserve techno mix-CD I'd had, just grabbed all my shit and stormed off.
I was not invited back to play. You are not 'better' than your crowd.
I did a number of after-party sets for a very popular '80's cover band. They'd pull about a thousand proper fans in a few times a year. They paired me up with another cunt. (The only time that has ever worked for me was at my own party one time - playing one-for-one with a good buddy. Great fun, but a once off).
First few nights were successful enough, particularly because he'd fuck off and leave me to play Madonna 'Like a Prayer' and New Order 'Blue Monday' and rock the fucking place by the end.
But then he ditched the cd's and brought in a laptop.
I'd peer over his shoulder at the playlist and ask him not to play certain tracks I'd hauled all the way across town.
Not cool. Either way.
He ended up playing very lukewarm New Jack bullshit and emptying the room.
I'd pick it back up but the energy would drop again on his next set.
No consistency and I no doubt ticked him off considerably. That last night I ended up playing pure rubbish to a room a third full of disinterested piss heads.
Don't be a dick.
If possible I will only ever play out solo again. Only trouble is smoke breaks.
And my last stint (in a '70's styled bar) was killed by a badly chosen smoke-break record.
I didn't even really need that smoke, but I threw on an extended spiraling funk record with ridiculous sprawling sax solos going nowhere.
When I got in from the cig, maybe four minutes into the worst of the tune I realised I'd have to pull it.
As I flicked the fader to a Doobie Brothers track, the head barman was at my shoulder already complaining.
"Yeah, I realise that tune was rubbish, that's why I flicked to this one" didn't save me. Neither did "I don't tell you how shit a barman you are you cunt" oddly enough.
And they cancelled my NYE gig without notice. Nice.
Don't be a lazy selfish cunt.
Perhaps one day I will play a successful gig or six.
Or perhaps you shall, if we all bear in mind these failures.
Had I done the gig alone (and possibly not pissed him off by telling him what not to play) and not ended a decent enough set on a fucking awful selection with shockingly bad production, I may have got the regular spot instead of him.
Use your brains.
My next stint was via a bouncer I knew at a trendy bar. Fucking disaster - the place was always empty except for the VIP room which was NEXT DOOR to the bar I was 'spinning' in. (Not my fault, but that set up just never fucking works - piped music is piped and if you can only 'read the crowd' by intermittently running back and forth to another room then, well, you can't read your fucking crowd can ya?)
One night, no word of a lie, I dropped a tune off a U2 album that wasn't actually U2. As coincidence would have it, after I packed up and was waiting downstairs fucking Bo-no swans in for a late-night tipple.
Maybe if I'd had an audience to bounce off I mightn't have been so bored after playing four hours of music to a solitary barman and still been playing tunes for the arrival of His Highness and consequently not been dropped like a hot snot.
Play until you're told to stop.
In film school I made a short documentary about DJ-ing. Used a local pro to to demonstrate the 'ins and outs' in a 'day in the life' kind of thing.
After wrapping he invited me to dj at a house party.
I wanted to cater for the drunk guests as well as the ecstasy riddled hosts. Bad idea.
Much like men will follow women to the floor no matter what, drunks will dance to anything as long as ANYONE is dancing.
I was playing out the boom boom and decided to switch it up and throw in some Prince and shite. The wrecked buzz was palpable. That decision brought everyone (except the three drunk fuckers) down 10 notches and the messy drunks finished off the buzz-wreck as I tried to get the techno-train rolling again. But it was too late. That 5% again. Never be 'clever'.
Next up was the 'party scene' proper. I just about had the stamina, and did get away with playing sets for the drunks and then for the rockers and then pillheads, but as dawn rolled in through the windows and bathed the place in a peachy glow, I denied the druggies their banging tunes and played out 'Les Fluers'. It was fucking beautiful but only one other person (also a dj) really appreciated it.
Then, in disgust I popped a Joey Beltram banger on the table and played it over and over. They ate it up. I sneered down my nose and forgot to play the reserve techno mix-CD I'd had, just grabbed all my shit and stormed off.
I was not invited back to play. You are not 'better' than your crowd.
I did a number of after-party sets for a very popular '80's cover band. They'd pull about a thousand proper fans in a few times a year. They paired me up with another cunt. (The only time that has ever worked for me was at my own party one time - playing one-for-one with a good buddy. Great fun, but a once off).
First few nights were successful enough, particularly because he'd fuck off and leave me to play Madonna 'Like a Prayer' and New Order 'Blue Monday' and rock the fucking place by the end.
But then he ditched the cd's and brought in a laptop.
I'd peer over his shoulder at the playlist and ask him not to play certain tracks I'd hauled all the way across town.
Not cool. Either way.
He ended up playing very lukewarm New Jack bullshit and emptying the room.
I'd pick it back up but the energy would drop again on his next set.
No consistency and I no doubt ticked him off considerably. That last night I ended up playing pure rubbish to a room a third full of disinterested piss heads.
Don't be a dick.
If possible I will only ever play out solo again. Only trouble is smoke breaks.
And my last stint (in a '70's styled bar) was killed by a badly chosen smoke-break record.
I didn't even really need that smoke, but I threw on an extended spiraling funk record with ridiculous sprawling sax solos going nowhere.
When I got in from the cig, maybe four minutes into the worst of the tune I realised I'd have to pull it.
As I flicked the fader to a Doobie Brothers track, the head barman was at my shoulder already complaining.
"Yeah, I realise that tune was rubbish, that's why I flicked to this one" didn't save me. Neither did "I don't tell you how shit a barman you are you cunt" oddly enough.
And they cancelled my NYE gig without notice. Nice.
Don't be a lazy selfish cunt.
Perhaps one day I will play a successful gig or six.
Or perhaps you shall, if we all bear in mind these failures.
Friday 8 July 2011
DJ Guide disclaimer
Right, I'm not the worst DJ in the world.
95% of the time I am completely fucking amazing.
My track selection is mind blowing; mixing skills are pretty damn spot on and my programming is fucking brilliant.... but for that 5%
That 5% - that one misplaced tune eclipses the sheer wonder and brilliance of my dj-ing skills. Every time.
I have always managed to completely fuck up every start to any dj 'career' with one stupidly placed track.
This is why you should listen carefully to every word of the guide which will smack you in the face over the coming weeks, and then most importantly, disregard it all, because the essence of dj-ing is knowing what track to put on next. Something to suit the atmosphere and the mood of your crowd.
Yeah, try risks now and then, but never be uncertain and never panic. And NEVER EVER think you know better than your crowd.
True enough, much like a woman in bed, they don't know what the fuck they want but when you hit the spot they will love you for it and want to grind your body all night long.
Anyway, most of this guide will be ripped from 'How to DJ [Properly]: The Art and Science of Playing Records' by Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster (from memory of flicking through it in a music shop one time).
And by the way I don't give a fuck what kind of music you prefer.
DJ sets with Velvet Underground, Tupac, Britney and Deadmau5 which WORK fucking WORK. Straight up jacking Chicago House sets which WORK, just fucking work. It makes no fucking odds what you play or are into: if your audience don't dig it it doesn't work.
Also, if you think I am going to get in any way stylistically technical any time soon, forget it.
Beatmatching is not to be encouraged until you know what the fuck you're doing. Your mates don't fucking like Detroit techno, why do you think they are at all impressed with your perfectly mixed sets at their party?
Just play some Parliament Funkadelic and Stevie Wonder for the fuckers so they can have a half decent night already. And stop trying to beatmatch that shit and all ffs - just play it out.
Oh and I also don't give a fuck about your equipment. Use a pair of cassette players for all I care. The principles are the same for all formats (although technical sound quality should almost ALWAYS be a serious consideration).
We'll pretend you're playing on vinyl in the guide btw. Get over it.
*Contains curse words and shit - avoid this guide if easily offended dickface.
I feel like I've written enough and you fuckers won't bother reading any more (if you've even got this far, but fuck it, I drunkenly monologued this crap last night so it's now or never). I'll (yeah right) try to keep it brief.
[edit: a bunch of text removed]
Nope... I will post my personal tragedy of a DJ 'career' next post I reckon.
95% of the time I am completely fucking amazing.
My track selection is mind blowing; mixing skills are pretty damn spot on and my programming is fucking brilliant.... but for that 5%
That 5% - that one misplaced tune eclipses the sheer wonder and brilliance of my dj-ing skills. Every time.
I have always managed to completely fuck up every start to any dj 'career' with one stupidly placed track.
This is why you should listen carefully to every word of the guide which will smack you in the face over the coming weeks, and then most importantly, disregard it all, because the essence of dj-ing is knowing what track to put on next. Something to suit the atmosphere and the mood of your crowd.
Yeah, try risks now and then, but never be uncertain and never panic. And NEVER EVER think you know better than your crowd.
True enough, much like a woman in bed, they don't know what the fuck they want but when you hit the spot they will love you for it and want to grind your body all night long.
Anyway, most of this guide will be ripped from 'How to DJ [Properly]: The Art and Science of Playing Records' by Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster (from memory of flicking through it in a music shop one time).
And by the way I don't give a fuck what kind of music you prefer.
DJ sets with Velvet Underground, Tupac, Britney and Deadmau5 which WORK fucking WORK. Straight up jacking Chicago House sets which WORK, just fucking work. It makes no fucking odds what you play or are into: if your audience don't dig it it doesn't work.
Also, if you think I am going to get in any way stylistically technical any time soon, forget it.
Beatmatching is not to be encouraged until you know what the fuck you're doing. Your mates don't fucking like Detroit techno, why do you think they are at all impressed with your perfectly mixed sets at their party?
Just play some Parliament Funkadelic and Stevie Wonder for the fuckers so they can have a half decent night already. And stop trying to beatmatch that shit and all ffs - just play it out.
Oh and I also don't give a fuck about your equipment. Use a pair of cassette players for all I care. The principles are the same for all formats (although technical sound quality should almost ALWAYS be a serious consideration).
We'll pretend you're playing on vinyl in the guide btw. Get over it.
*Contains curse words and shit - avoid this guide if easily offended dickface.
I feel like I've written enough and you fuckers won't bother reading any more (if you've even got this far, but fuck it, I drunkenly monologued this crap last night so it's now or never). I'll (yeah right) try to keep it brief.
[edit: a bunch of text removed]
Nope... I will post my personal tragedy of a DJ 'career' next post I reckon.
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Wupp.
K. So. And everything.
I know I've been absent and practically living in the 'sad corner' and avoiding all of this and no offense, but Erika just posted and suddenly I have energy again.
Whatever we've been through and all. And all everything else.
But huzzah motherfuckers.
brbgoinginsane.com/2011/07/update-711.html?showComment=1309992614362#c4119929852336418828
If that's a link I will kill myself.
No matter I've said I'd kill myself over various innocuous events many times over the past week or two but never meant it.
Just wanted to let y'all know and hopefully I'm na get myself out of my funk.
That first guide and everything that went with it rocked my world.
Maybe too much and I guess I needed the break.
Stoked now but, so DJ guide on the way?
Mmmm.... let's hope ffs DJ guide on the way.
I know I've been absent and practically living in the 'sad corner' and avoiding all of this and no offense, but Erika just posted and suddenly I have energy again.
Whatever we've been through and all. And all everything else.
But huzzah motherfuckers.
brbgoinginsane.com/2011/07/update-711.html?showComment=1309992614362#c4119929852336418828
If that's a link I will kill myself.
No matter I've said I'd kill myself over various innocuous events many times over the past week or two but never meant it.
Just wanted to let y'all know and hopefully I'm na get myself out of my funk.
That first guide and everything that went with it rocked my world.
Maybe too much and I guess I needed the break.
Stoked now but, so DJ guide on the way?
Mmmm.... let's hope ffs DJ guide on the way.
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