my new "residency"

[cjs]

I have been doing live (band) sound at a bar with an installed system for a few years. I have been responsible for the music when the bands take breaks. I originally was using an ipod. It was very frustrating trying to get people to dance to other than the biggest crunk hits.....

I started playing around with a dual cd deck mixer all in one. (very cheap solution to see if I was going to stick with it). But eventually decided to go digital because my dance music collection was all mp3's and I didn't really want to deal with burning and the other hassles of physical media..

I got traktor and a google search led me to Ean's beat griding tutorial. Which led me here I have been lurking and absorbing ever since. After about 2 weeks of beat griding and practicing mixing for 4 + hrs a night I decided that even if I mess up it will still be better than the ipod. So I started taking my laptop and controller with me. Wow what a difference. I totally rocked it the first night!

Am I a microwave dj or does my year + of learning to read a crowd with the ipod count for something?

Well after about 4 months of 2 30 min sets every Friday and Saturday I got offered the whole night every Thursday to DJ! Starting i a couple of weeks. The 30 min sets were getting frustrating not enough time to really get going. Not enough time to play all the music that I bought in the last week let alone mix in plenty that the crowd already knows etc. Also many of the bands draw crowds that do not like anything other than rock.

700+ capacity venue. The guy I'm replacing is just a "meat jukebox" that does not draw anyone in and only gets a few of the small crowd dancing. (20 to 40 people in the venue) So I am pretty much starting from scratch. I will probably loose half of the people that come in already because when people request cupid shuffle, booty call, cha cha slide etc. I tell them "I don't roll like that"

I'm looking forward to getting some experience warming up the crowd pacing the night etc.. The things I can't work on with only 2 30 minute band break sets. I'm a little concerned about building a crowd getting the word out Hoping I'm right that for every person that wants to hear the cha cha slide etc. there are 10 or 20 in this town that avoid all the other dj's in town because they hate that shit and are looking for a place to go.
A lot of the waitresses there like what I play and think people will come out.

My goal is to get 300 + people in that room every thursday.

I imagine this is a very different kind of start from most professional dj's

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

[Be-Ne-Dek]

sounds to me like you aren't doing to bad so far, what sort of music are you playing right now instead of the stuff you were talking about?

[cjs]

It's a very mainstream bar, a sports bar actually...

besides the hip hop stuff and some pop stuff

reggae ragga dancehall
a little bit of reggaeton
working in a bit of booty stuff--- ghetto tech, bass, b-more
some latin rap stuff like Mr Shadow lil Rob.
starting to work in some of the popish end of electro

for the most part I need to avoid instrumental stuff.

With the real mainstream radio stuff it's not so much what I play but what I don't play and how I play the stuff I do.

[Be-Ne-Dek]

how are the people reacting to the stuff your playing so far? i mean, unless they are booing and flipping you off and such, time is really the only thing that will tell...

I mean, unless the crowd progressively gets worse from night to night, just keep throwing down beats, when you mix at home...EXPIRIMENT! throw in samples, loops, crazy shit!, thats what djing is all about, mixing, and making the music sound the way you want it to! and

all in all it sounds to me like youve got the crowd reading part down right...

theres not much else i can tell you... you just gotta wait it out