Hey everyone. I have been DJing Techno records since I was 16 and I used to never except gigs doing general bar/club/top40. I’m 30 now and a few years back I got offered a Top40 gig. Times were tough, needed the money, and found that I could DJ club music in my sleep(especially since most music now is House speed, which I was very familiar with already) I took the gig, downloaded some club music and within that year had 4 gigs a week which I still maintain. So now I have two personas. Chris Macom as my techno stuff and Les Hawk as my Top 40 stuff. So technically I have one persona LOL. When I get a techno gig I just get someone to cover for me at the bar and I never have scheduling conflicts. I am wondering if anybody thinks that this can hurt me in some way. Luckily no one has seen me DJing a Robert Hood track in Detroit and been like, “Hey, didn’t I see you playing Justin Beiber at Club X last night”. Not that I care personally but everyone knows how people in the scene can be. Also, I have been thinking of dropping the two names and just DJing as my real name Chris Macom at all gigs. Has anybody been in a similar position, and did you run into problems with booking or have conflicts in general? If anyone has any insight I would appreciate it.
When it comes to “branding” and names there’s no right or wrong. There’s guidelines but I can give you dozens of examples of companies that failed to meet those guidelines and are still the most successful companies out there.
Lot’s of DJ’s/Producer’s operate under multiple pseudonyms and many have been successful with all of them.
Just off the top of my head, Jacques Lu Cont, also uses the name Thin White Duke (among many others), and plays in a band called Zoot Woman.
Everyone knows where the money is. There’s no shame in taking top 40 gigs if you don’t mind it and you have the skills; every big name DJ had to start somewhere. The fact that you can play top 40 sets well should not detract from whatever skills you have as an underground DJ, so what’s the big deal? Anyone who wants to bitch about something like that has too much free time on their hands and is just looking for reasons to bitch.
I agree. I DJ’d at a friends wedding last week and near the end of the night some of her guests said they remembered me from the after hours club that I used to spin progressive at 8-14 years ago.
I’ve been doing this for a few years now myself. I don’t think it hurts. Well it hasn’t hurt me. That said I keep pretty quiet about my top 40 gigs when I’m playing techno shows, but that’s more because I’d get shit from the other guys. I doubt it’d stop me getting booked.
It’s a great way to actually make decent money from DJing. I can play a few techno shows for 60-90 mins each where the cash just covers taxis etc… Or I get 6 hours paid for a very easy nights work which nearly pays my rent for the month.
I wouldn’t mix business and pleasure, the underground club goer’s are a fickle bunch.. Look at oliver klitzing/reloop/kaylab/twisters silence/analog system/chromeoxide/about 5 other names. Multiple monikers never hurt him and he was huge in the underground a few years back LOL
No. It hurts you if you have one persona and produce different genres. If Wolgang Gartner released a disco house track he would use an alternate moniker.
Thanks everyone for the replies. What I’m gathering is that playing the different genres won’t hurt me but could be possibly damaging if I used the same moniker. For now, I will stick with the two.
i really think Eric Prydz is the best example. he has been successfully producing under 3 names for years. Alot of people dont even know its the same person. Each moniker makes quite different music though. Its pretty cool, BTW im going to see him on Saturday night, that has been on my bucket list for years.
