just because something is raer doesnt mean its good. I remember going to a retro-moviehouse with a friend of mine and the movie they were showing was gawdawful and we were laughing at it. And, the guy next to use kept on shushing us like it was Citizen Kane, and Ill always remember my friend turning to him and saying "you know they made bad movies back then too."
No, cause if you take a wrong drink, you may puke on the vinyl. And I was assured by some of the best looking girls that they only need to listen to explicitly what they are asking for. May save it all if you just are prepared to put a simple request on. That's why I think it's just terrific people do play rare records anyway. Just be out there, will you...
my latest thing is playing out records that i won on ebay and then used a chargeback to get refunded. this works well for me, because i don't have to spend the money i make djing on records. i use it to buy turtlenecks and pungent cologne instead.
I agree with the others that a DJ's primary job is to throw a good party. in that context raerity is not that important. But I will say that one of the most enjoyable periods of my life was when we started Soul Stew at the Goodfoot here in Portland 5 years ago. For the first 18 months we had a strict no Prince, No Michael Jackson, nothing recorded after 1975 policy. Most nights we had 300 plus getting off to African Music Machine or Truman Thomas and the like. To see the joy that people were getting while dancing to records that I had only played for my wife up until then was very gratifying.
When the hipsters abandonned us after the squares starting horning in on the scene, we couldn't get away with as many unknown cuts. So we began playing hip hop that we liked, Prince and MJ came out of exile. Many regulars passed us notes that said things like, "You guys used to play the coolest music. Now you suck". While it was painful to her such criticism, we had to do what was going to work for the long run. We're still going strong after five years. Doing our best to throw a fun party for the people most friday nights.
We're have a big 5th anniversary party on 4/14 (the night before the Night Owl Record Show). If you're in town, come on down and maybe I'll play Third Guitar for you.
Something I've noticed is that headz like us are a rarified breed. Even the so called "little dudes" will know FAR more about funky records than anybody else they're in line with at Starbucks or whatever. A lot of times, since were all operating in this more in depth state-of-mind, its easy to forget that everyone else is likely starting off on square one. What may sound like a completely revolutionary, distinct, and amazingly put together track to you might sound strange and displeasing to someone who only knows the basics that you've long gotten past.
This is a good point. Reading this thread has brought back ALL of the frustration I had this Saturday. I was djing in a popular midtown manhattan club and got fucking baraged by bridge and tunnel morons. I was there from 9 till 4 am. By 10 pm the dance floor was full of long island hoochies who would take turns coming to the dj booth to complain about the music. The promoter had instructed me to open from 9-11 with disco, 80s, funk, etc... I was playing some disco rares and other shit, and did not expect the dance floor to fill that early.
When I saw it was full I started to segway by playing shit like skate roll bounce, good times, and james brown shit, but NOTHING. Here's the requests I got...FOR REAL:
"Do you have 50 Cent - In the Club?" "Could you play some Nelly? and this one really pissed me off: "Nobody likes the music you're playing, are you the dj?" So from like 10:15 to maybe 1 or 2 I played g-unit and black eyed peas and had some fun with a few drunk girls in the booth. P.S. I got paid good.
So I really envy you dudes who have established some nights where you can play music you like, raer or not.
Plenty of time i get the feeling that the only people who have the view that "it has to be rare" is either guys who can't afford to spend a lot on vinyl (or are cd-only guys) or guys that have started to buy records but don't know how to get good rares (and don't want to spend too much on records) and have to show their frustration in some way.... absolutely not always true i know..
A dj who play a record just because it's rare will be spotted miles away, people won't dance and plenty of people will bitch about it i can assure you, also if people started to play just dollar bin commons i can promise you that other people would bitch and say "man that music was so played out he just played these records i've heard a million times et.c." so there will always be complaints.
Although i can agree that people tend to be fixated with rarities and can come across like rare records would be more danceable or better than cheap ones but that is of course not the case, it's all about playing the right records for the right crowd regardless of format..
I don't know where in the world they come from, but at our monthly soul night at the Hideout, not only do we have non-collectors in their 20's and 30's dancing to our classic soul/funk (ca. 1965-75), but the requests are usually right in line with what we're doing. Sure, they're asking for hits, but if we have them, we'll play them. This is quite a change from 1994, when I DJed a few funk nights at a now-defunct Chicago club. At this point, 70's funk hadn't made a full-on 100% comeback yet (even though it was already starting to be reissued in twos and fews). Attendance was decent (but not overflowing), and it seemed like only the slicker, disco-ish electronic cuts like "Flash Light" would get everybody out on the floor simultaneously. This wouldn't happen with, say, "Funky Nassau" or the Meters. And more than once I got a request for...Luscious Jackson?!?
Over a decade later, there's this newer crowd that somehow Gets The Point. Even better, we get paid and we get the cute girls shaking ass! I mention this not to rub it in for the DJ's who are forced to play 50 Cent next to the JB's, but more out of sheer amazement. Maybe every now and then we're asked to play something incorrect ("No Diggity"???), but in general we're holding our own over here. And Dante's got his raer funk night where he and Courtland play considerably LESS hits than me and John would and still keep the floor crowded and sweaty, which is a damn good sign. So hopefully here in Chicago, there is an audience for this kind of stuff. Both hits AND rarities...
Something I've noticed is that headz like us are a rarified breed. Even the so called "little dudes" will know FAR more about funky records than anybody else they're in line with at Starbucks or whatever. A lot of times, since were all operating in this more in depth state-of-mind, its easy to forget that everyone else is likely starting off on square one. What may sound like a completely revolutionary, distinct, and amazingly put together track to you might sound strange and displeasing to someone who only knows the basics that you've long gotten past.
This is a good point. Reading this thread has brought back ALL of the frustration I had this Saturday. I was djing in a popular midtown manhattan club and got fucking baraged by bridge and tunnel morons. I was there from 9 till 4 am. By 10 pm the dance floor was full of long island hoochies who would take turns coming to the dj booth to complain about the music. The promoter had instructed me to open from 9-11 with disco, 80s, funk, etc... I was playing some disco rares and other shit, and did not expect the dance floor to fill that early.
When I saw it was full I started to segway by playing shit like skate roll bounce, good times, and james brown shit, but NOTHING. Here's the requests I got...FOR REAL:
"Do you have 50 Cent - In the Club?" "Could you play some Nelly? and this one really pissed me off: "Nobody likes the music you're playing, are you the dj?" So from like 10:15 to maybe 1 or 2 I played g-unit and black eyed peas and had some fun with a few drunk girls in the booth. P.S. I got paid good.
So I really envy you dudes who have established some nights where you can play music you like, raer or not.
HAHAHA! this is a common encounter in any club above 14th St. but you knew this, right? B&T fuckers have no manners at all. Especially those little rich girls.
Something I've noticed is that headz like us are a rarified breed. Even the so called "little dudes" will know FAR more about funky records than anybody else they're in line with at Starbucks or whatever. A lot of times, since were all operating in this more in depth state-of-mind, its easy to forget that everyone else is likely starting off on square one. What may sound like a completely revolutionary, distinct, and amazingly put together track to you might sound strange and displeasing to someone who only knows the basics that you've long gotten past.
This is a good point. Reading this thread has brought back ALL of the frustration I had this Saturday. I was djing in a popular midtown manhattan club and got fucking baraged by bridge and tunnel morons. I was there from 9 till 4 am. By 10 pm the dance floor was full of long island hoochies who would take turns coming to the dj booth to complain about the music. The promoter had instructed me to open from 9-11 with disco, 80s, funk, etc... I was playing some disco rares and other shit, and did not expect the dance floor to fill that early.
When I saw it was full I started to segway by playing shit like skate roll bounce, good times, and james brown shit, but NOTHING. Here's the requests I got...FOR REAL:
"Do you have 50 Cent - In the Club?" "Could you play some Nelly? and this one really pissed me off: "Nobody likes the music you're playing, are you the dj?" So from like 10:15 to maybe 1 or 2 I played g-unit and black eyed peas and had some fun with a few drunk girls in the booth. P.S. I got paid good.
So I really envy you dudes who have established some nights where you can play music you like, raer or not.
HAHAHA! this is a common encounter in any club above 14th St. but you knew this, right? B&T fuckers have no manners at all. Especially those little rich girls.
Yeah I know, every time I just have to deal with it. However, some nights are better than others. These rich bitches were some of the worst though. Once in a while you get a cool crowd but usually not.
There is a kid I play with who doesn't buy records, he just swaps files.
I'm not that familiar with neither serato or finalscratch or whatever. But isn't the sound quality just shit if you only play mp3s? Can't imagine that it can compete with vinyl..
Most bar and club systems are not good enough to tell the difference, and when you rip quality files from vinyl it sounds pretty good. I go back and forth all the time, not that big a deal, not so different from mixing from 12 to LP or LP to 45.
I'd say that most clubs over here are used to delivering sub-bass strong enough to forcibly cure constipation; punters expect it, and I think the deficiencies of mp3 will always be shown up in a club. At the moment, DJing has been such a trendy thing to do that clubs are besieged by people wanting to play vinyl, or at least cds (cd decks are now meant to be pretty good for mixing), and the ipod DJ has been limited to small gigs and house-parties... but records are on the decline. I was shocked to hear that Massive Records in Oxford has shut-down; it's success was in-step with the dance music revolution that saw it's shelves stock house, rave, jungle, d'n'b, garage, broken-beat and grime, but now I guess the cult of becoming a DJ is either slowing-down (things got so bad that I stopped refering to myself as a DJ because every one else seemed to be one too), or it's all going mp3. Soundsystems will probably adapt somehow to give digital-only audio added boom[/b], but hey, it leaves more vinyl for us
Is playing rare & exclusive records actually important in djing?
so is playing third guitar 'baby don't cry' instead of James Brown just down to the snobbery & vanity of the DJ?
curious to hear what others might think...
---
could be, but it depends on the audience it got dropped too, and the skill of the dj at mixing/blending/cutting/scratching
if I heard baby don't cry just dropped, I would have a good time, even though for party goers breakestra's version has a better mix with a fatter sound.....
what would impress me would be that if the dj was cutting up doubles of "lookin at the front door" 12", then flipped it to the instrumental, cut, in "baby don't cry" and scratched the blasted '45 on beat, then I would think, "real headz know the deal" and I think crowds of hip hop and funk would certainly be feeling it.
i was gonna say something similar, but i figured i'd just avoid confrontation. seems like this message board could use a little more of this kind of attitude abstainance.
I DJ'd my wife's 10 year class reunion a few months a go and it was a catastrophe. All the hours I spent hand picking 1990's hip hop tunes, BPMing them, and coming up with cool blends got thrown out the window. Nobody gave a shit. As my luck would have it... I rented a battery powered PA system with a faulty battery that would crap out. I quit the DJ blend shit and just faded in and out (while I got my drink on at the bar running back and forth to the set up.) There were even blasphemous 30 second long pauses. The crowd was drunk and cared less... shook their ass like I was Paul Oakenfold.
That's because you have bedroom DJs who play out to crowds of hipsters that consist of OTHER bedroom DJs talking to 'commercial' club DJs who are talking to Promoter/Producer/DJs who DJ strictly hip hop who are talking to boutique DJs who DJ specific monthly residencies that cater to specific genres who are talking to Marco who are talking to DJs who have mixed crowds in metropolitan areas who are talking to DJs who have homogeneous crowds in rural areas who are talking to people who wish they were DJs who are talking to House DJs who are touring the Far East who are talking to Detroit techno DJs who are talking to old record collector dudes who play out some old records at their local bar and bowling alley for their buddies birthday party once a year. And they all claim to know how to 'rock the party', and to some extent, they all probably do.
I DJ'd my wife's 10 year class reunion a few months a go and it was a catastrophe. All the hours I spent hand picking 1990's hip hop tunes, BPMing them, and coming up with cool blends got thrown out the window. Nobody gave a shit. As my luck would have it... I rented a battery powered PA system with a faulty battery that would crap out. I quit the DJ blend shit and just faded in and out (while I got my drink on at the bar running back and forth to the set up.) There were even blasphemous 30 second long pauses. The crowd was drunk and cared less... shook their ass like I was Paul Oakenfold.
I feel you i did a new years gig for a friend that was organizing a party and i wasnt even charging anything. It was a 'hiphop club crowd' and i loaded all the tunes that i would not normally play out. But still had the whole setup and tranfers thought out. BPM chanell blocks..the whole deal. I started with some tribe and stuff (right away..dont you have anything more known..) i didnt give fuck i wasnt even getting paid. Skip ahead to my go crazy rmx, diplomats... (still not feeling it. The chick had these ludacris/50 cds i showed her how to fade in and left to another party
But what about that is trying too hard? Trying to hard to do what? Wouldn't most anybody playing out hip hop in 2006 have some Ludacris that works? Some 50 that they enjoy or that at the very least they concedes gets a crowd moving within the context of other joints?
I guess when I think of crazy requests and annoying people and situations it's always the girls looking for Van Halen's Panama or Come on Eileen when for an hour staright you have been playing hip hop or funk. If I was playing Tribe and someone requests 50, I don't really see that as being terribly incongruous or left field.
If you don't try hard you will be wack no matter what you spin. You can get creative and drop unknown joints even in a mainstream hip-hop set.
One of the more recent records I consider rare (no commercial press, I've only ever seen the copy I own) is Exhibit "Choke Me Spank Me" and it's not well known at all but kills every time I play it. People just assume it's the new ying yang or something! (file under: pre-"wait" intimate club)
If you don't try hard you will be wack no matter what you spin. You can get creative and drop unknown joints even in a mainstream hip-hop set.
The vice-versa of this applies as well, and would probably apply to a lot of DJs reading this thread.
Not sure I understand - the less creative the better? I don't know of any setting where that would really be the case. And I've seen a lot of DJs in a lot of settings.
If you don't try hard you will be wack no matter what you spin. You can get creative and drop unknown joints even in a mainstream hip-hop set.
The vice-versa of this applies as well, and would probably apply to a lot of DJs reading this thread.
Not sure I understand - the less creative the better? I don't know of any setting where that would really be the case. And I've seen a lot of DJs in a lot of settings.
No, no...meaning you can drop some KNOWN joints into a set of underground or raer hip hop as long as you are creative with it!
This is a good point. Reading this thread has brought back ALL of the frustration I had this Saturday. I was djing in a popular midtown manhattan club and got fucking baraged by bridge and tunnel morons. I was there from 9 till 4 am. By 10 pm the dance floor was full of long island hoochies who would take turns coming to the dj booth to complain about the music. The promoter had instructed me to open from 9-11 with disco, 80s, funk, etc... I was playing some disco rares and other shit, and did not expect the dance floor to fill that early.
When I saw it was full I started to segway by playing shit like skate roll bounce, good times, and james brown shit, but NOTHING. Here's the requests I got...FOR REAL:
"Do you have 50 Cent - In the Club?" "Could you play some Nelly? and this one really pissed me off: "Nobody likes the music you're playing, are you the dj?" So from like 10:15 to maybe 1 or 2 I played g-unit and black eyed peas and had some fun with a few drunk girls in the booth. P.S. I got paid good.
So I really envy you dudes who have established some nights where you can play music you like, raer or not.
HAHAHA! this is a common encounter in any club above 14th St. but you knew this, right? B&T fuckers have no manners at all. Especially those little rich girls. Go to the LES on a Friday or Saturday, and that Mason-Dixon line moves down to Canal and over to Ave C.
This like having that little bobbing head Jesus on your dashboard. Traffic? Road rage? Pot holes? Hot coffee on my crotch? Whatever. There's a balm in Gilead.
random side story, ive only properly DJ'd once, like 15 years ago, and i had no idea what i was doing but it was fun. just had to do 15 min sets inbetween bands at a club that was doing a marathon show of like 12 or 15 bands. i was playing a fukt up mix of sabbath, pretenders, leroy hutson, superman records, EWF, whatever, just having fun, the crowd was cool, not dancing, just drinking, smoking, talking.
anyway, after a country rock band called "boys named sue" (complete with cowboy hats) finished their set i was inspired, and i dropped "im a little bit country" by donny and marie and they were PISSED. they came up and slapped the needle off making a big "VVVIP" sound that turned heads. then: "dont EVER play that again! asshole!" totally getting in my face! hahahaha
Comments
Is "awesomest" a word?
When the hipsters abandonned us after the squares starting horning in on the scene, we couldn't get away with as many unknown cuts. So we began playing hip hop that we liked, Prince and MJ came out of exile. Many regulars passed us notes that said things like, "You guys used to play the coolest music. Now you suck". While it was painful to her such criticism, we had to do what was going to work for the long run. We're still going strong after five years. Doing our best to throw a fun party for the people most friday nights.
We're have a big 5th anniversary party on 4/14 (the night before the Night Owl Record Show). If you're in town, come on down and maybe I'll play Third Guitar for you.
This is a good point. Reading this thread has brought back ALL of the frustration I had this Saturday. I was djing in a popular midtown manhattan club and got fucking baraged by bridge and tunnel morons. I was there from 9 till 4 am. By 10 pm the dance floor was full of long island hoochies who would take turns coming to the dj booth to complain about the music. The promoter had instructed me to open from 9-11 with disco, 80s, funk, etc... I was playing some disco rares and other shit, and did not expect the dance floor to fill that early.
When I saw it was full I started to segway by playing shit like skate roll bounce, good times, and james brown shit, but NOTHING. Here's the requests I got...FOR REAL:
"Do you have 50 Cent - In the Club?"
"Could you play some Nelly?
and this one really pissed me off:
"Nobody likes the music you're playing, are you the dj?"
So from like 10:15 to maybe 1 or 2 I played g-unit and black eyed peas and had some fun with a few drunk girls in the booth. P.S. I got paid good.
So I really envy you dudes who have established some nights where you can play music you like, raer or not.
Plenty of time i get the feeling that the only people who have the view that "it has to be rare" is either guys who can't afford to spend a lot on vinyl (or are cd-only guys) or guys that have started to buy records but don't know how to get good rares (and don't want to spend too much on records) and have to show their frustration in some way.... absolutely not always true i know..
A dj who play a record just because it's rare will be spotted miles away, people won't dance and plenty of people will bitch about it i can assure you, also if people started to play just dollar bin commons i can promise you that other people would bitch and say "man that music was so played out he just played these records i've heard a million times et.c." so there will always be complaints.
Although i can agree that people tend to be fixated with rarities and can come across like rare records would be more danceable or better than cheap ones but that is of course not the case, it's all about playing the right records for the right crowd regardless of format..
Music is #1
peas owt
Leo
Over a decade later, there's this newer crowd that somehow Gets The Point. Even better, we get paid and we get the cute girls shaking ass!
Yeah I know, every time I just have to deal with it. However, some nights are better than others. These rich bitches were some of the worst though. Once in a while you get a cool crowd but usually not.
"Established"???
b/w
copout!
I'd say that most clubs over here are used to delivering sub-bass strong enough to forcibly cure constipation; punters expect it, and I think the deficiencies of mp3 will always be shown up in a club. At the moment, DJing has been such a trendy thing to do that clubs are besieged by people wanting to play vinyl, or at least cds (cd decks are now meant to be pretty good for mixing), and the ipod DJ has been limited to small gigs and house-parties... but records are on the decline. I was shocked to hear that Massive Records in Oxford has shut-down; it's success was in-step with the dance music revolution that saw it's shelves stock house, rave, jungle, d'n'b, garage, broken-beat and grime, but now I guess the cult of becoming a DJ is either slowing-down (things got so bad that I stopped refering to myself as a DJ because every one else seemed to be one too), or it's all going mp3. Soundsystems will probably adapt somehow to give digital-only audio added boom[/b], but hey, it leaves more vinyl for us
could be, but it depends on the audience it got dropped too, and the skill of the dj at mixing/blending/cutting/scratching
if I heard baby don't cry just dropped, I would have a good time, even though for party goers breakestra's version has a better mix with a fatter sound.....
what would impress me would be that if the dj was cutting up doubles of "lookin at the front door" 12", then flipped it to the instrumental, cut, in "baby don't cry" and scratched the blasted '45 on beat, then I would think, "real headz know the deal" and I think crowds of hip hop and funk would certainly be feeling it.
"oh shit! I'm gonna mix three six mafia & willie hutch together!!! NO ONE HAS EVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE!!!"
you're not a real DJ
Hello guys.
That's because you have bedroom DJs who play out to crowds of hipsters that consist of OTHER bedroom DJs talking to 'commercial' club DJs who are talking to Promoter/Producer/DJs who DJ strictly hip hop who are talking to boutique DJs who DJ specific monthly residencies that cater to specific genres who are talking to Marco who are talking to DJs who have mixed crowds in metropolitan areas who are talking to DJs who have homogeneous crowds in rural areas who are talking to people who wish they were DJs who are talking to House DJs who are touring the Far East who are talking to Detroit techno DJs who are talking to old record collector dudes who play out some old records at their local bar and bowling alley for their buddies birthday party once a year. And they all claim to know how to 'rock the party', and to some extent, they all probably do.
I feel you i did a new years gig for a friend that was organizing a party and i wasnt even charging anything. It was a 'hiphop club crowd' and i loaded all the tunes that i would not normally play out. But still had the whole setup and tranfers thought out. BPM chanell blocks..the whole deal.
I started with some tribe and stuff (right away..dont you have anything more known..) i didnt give fuck i wasnt even getting paid. Skip ahead to my go crazy rmx, diplomats... (still not feeling it. The chick had these ludacris/50 cds i showed her how to fade in and left to another party
sometimes we try too hard...
But what about that is trying too hard? Trying to hard to do what? Wouldn't most anybody playing out hip hop in 2006 have some Ludacris that works? Some 50 that they enjoy or that at the very least they concedes gets a crowd moving within the context of other joints?
I guess when I think of crazy requests and annoying people and situations it's always the girls looking for Van Halen's Panama or Come on Eileen when for an hour staright you have been playing hip hop or funk. If I was playing Tribe and someone requests 50, I don't really see that as being terribly incongruous or left field.
One of the more recent records I consider rare (no commercial press, I've only ever seen the copy I own) is Exhibit "Choke Me Spank Me" and it's not well known at all but kills every time I play it. People just assume it's the new ying yang or something! (file under: pre-"wait" intimate club)
The vice-versa of this applies as well, and would probably apply to a lot of DJs reading this thread.
Not sure I understand - the less creative the better? I don't know of any setting where that would really be the case. And I've seen a lot of DJs in a lot of settings.
No, no...meaning you can drop some KNOWN joints into a set of underground or raer hip hop as long as you are creative with it!
Go to the LES on a Friday or Saturday, and that Mason-Dixon line moves down to Canal and over to Ave C.
This like having that little bobbing head Jesus on your dashboard. Traffic? Road rage? Pot holes? Hot coffee on my crotch? Whatever. There's a balm in Gilead.
ive only properly DJ'd once, like 15 years ago, and i had no idea what i was doing but it was fun. just had to do 15 min sets inbetween bands at a club that was doing a marathon show of like 12 or 15 bands. i was playing a fukt up mix of sabbath, pretenders, leroy hutson, superman records, EWF, whatever, just having fun, the crowd was cool, not dancing, just drinking, smoking, talking.
anyway, after a country rock band called "boys named sue" (complete with cowboy hats) finished their set i was inspired, and i dropped "im a little bit country" by donny and marie and they were PISSED. they came up and slapped the needle off making a big "VVVIP" sound that turned heads. then: "dont EVER play that again! asshole!" totally getting in my face! hahahaha