feeling exhausted but yet happy [long, long story, video inside]

feeling exhausted but yet happy [long, long story, video inside]

So, i dont even know where to start my story. It all began almost exactly one year ago. I was supposed to be spinning with my partner in crime as a team in my hometown´s nr1 spot that my buddie rented for his Birthday. There where two other dj´s booked that didnt show up, same as my partner which left me alone for the whole period. I should mention that i normally spin hip-hop and top40 chart music and the club is normally known for his semi-skilled edm dj, who happened to be also there that night. I´m glad he was there as it was the first time i played in a club and had no clue about setup etc. To make things short he plugged my pc line-out direct into his mixer, resulting in the most crappy sound i ever got out of my laptop. He even refused to let me install the drivers for his audio8, so i felt kinda boycotted. I start to play rap, 5 minutes into my set he grabs one of his records -wickie-wickie- hardcore gabba. like in one minute chilled cypress hill -bum tschak-..next minute bumbumbumbumbumbum..WTF?

After all it went mostly well, except that 1/5th of the room had crappy sound which i tried to pretend but i couldnt save the sound all the time. I mean it really went well besides the sound issue, i had a packed dancefloor for 8 (!) hours, had a great bar rotation and made many contacts. i was even given the possibility to use cdj´s the first time. I went crazy for a short amount of time and used my nb, the 2 cdj´s and the 2 tt´s at the same time, oh what a joy…keeping 6 records allinged, jumping from the far left to the far right while nudging here and there. A bit like Paul Van Dyk lol

Sadly in the early morning hours our biker-gang-chapter showed up and things went futher down to the point that the owner tells me to play their rock request. so i played some AC/DC, wolfmother, nirvana… and as soon as i play z-trips ring of fire, hell breaks loose. Seriously, a bar brawl u normally see in theaters. Chairs beeing thrown, tables beeing broken. I´ve seen a 18y old kid jump on the back of the security, taking the tonfa and start beating the crap outta the sec. I stop music, turn on the lights as the owner told me to and got the fuck outta there, not even shutting down properly, just slamming my notebook in the bag, take my record crate and up i go.

Days later i checked the clubs homepage just to see a statement that went sth like " normally we serve great music from skilled djs that know what they do, our security keeps trouble away etc etc". Basically blaming me for the bad end of a great night. You just gotta love those rockers.

Footnotes 1. 4 dj´s booked, i showed up as the only one. I brought a following of around 100 people, played 8.5 hours straight for free. Took request. Rockers come by. massive beating. massive police show up. Clubs basically blaming me.

Beeing the fighter i am i said to myself “f” that, lets step things up a notch. since then i spend every penny i could afford into dvd´s and sound tech, i practised techniques like a mad man, i kinda locked myself away to train. A few month later i had to suffer from a kidney-illness, due to that i lost a lot of weight and had to cut my hair short. Before i looked kinda like Kurt Cobain people say, now its military lol

Anyways, a few weeks ago a fellow dj out my town pm´ed me if i was spinning this year again at my buddies birthday. Like 5 days before the party.
I found out my buddie already told everyone except me, which pissed me off. After arguing over basically everything we decided i wouldnt play for free, but get 50 cent out off everyones 2€ entry fee. I was ok with that, atleast i wouldnt be playing for free. I demanded on visiting the club prior to the event to check the equipment, talk to the owner etc. Luckily he seemed to either not recognise me due to my optical change or he just didnt remember, but i got him to let me use his projector. This way we agreed on me spinning videos the whole night, and i even got the chance to spin my video-set-routines i practiced to death over the past year.

Thats when things began to be strange. Preparing everything i suddenly lost my database.Which means no cues, bpms, playlists. I managed to get things back roughly, but i kept on having the strange feeling to forget some records. Im sure y´all know that feeling.

I went to the club with my huge desktop, enough power, great sound, great graphics. I brought my bcd3000 and my nanopad. Plugged everything in. Prayed. Gently touched every control while praying. Im serious. I felt like high-noon, now or never, dead or alive. Please, my holy eqiupment, dont let me down…I pressed play.

Thats where my memory gets blurry. I remember the owner coming up to me asking if the speakers are broke…“TURN IT UP MAN!”. i sure did. After my first set i had finally enough balls to really analyse the situation. The place was nuts. At first there where several people sitting and staring at the videos, 2 hours later i had a packed dancefloor, about 400 people and still new entrys every minute. I knew i may not fuck up in any way, my name is on the line as it was steadily displayed under the video, oh, and the djtt-press play logo. felt good to not just represent myself.

4 Hours into playing request ( i had every single one. You got the new guetta- sure, since months :slight_smile: ) the owner comes up to me asking for my contact data. He made sure i understand how blazed he is, he never saw a such amazing mixshow consistent of so much different genres. remember the edm dj that plays there usually? seems like he doesnt like request, or anything thats not electric. Thats why he liked my set so much, i am absolutely able to spin anything in a cool way. Really, i played the musical can can. That speaks for itself. I made a AV-show for sure, Movie skits on top, dope scratches ( yes, bcd baby) and most importantly, i was sooo uber focused, i did not mess up once. All my cue routines. Flawless. Not even at home have i been that good.

3 in the morning he came up to me again, smiling like a honey-pie-horse. He said that this was one of the nicest evenings he had in a long time and handed me a few bucks extra. Well not a few. It was enough to make me stare blank. Damn, that was the first time in a while i had no financial worries.

I had a blast, i felt like the king of the world, just without the reling. I met a reaally nice girl, earned enough to date her for months, got very good reputation, people know me and talk about my show.Everythings cool.

But what is driving me mad is the fact that the owner nevr got in contact with me. The next day i had to pick up a few cables i left there, where he assured me again we would hear from another, this wasnt the last time i played there if i want. We even came to the point that it could be regulary. But he never called. No e-mail. Not even a letter.

To understand better, i really like the location. Its in my hometown, where i know almost everyone, i know the vibe here. And i got the offer to play in Berlin in a major club with 2 x 1000 guests. This would mean a serious step forward once again for me. And honestly i dont know if i am really ready.

But i have to earn money. So i am asking for a advice here. In case i dont find a regular dayjob. Should i wait for the owner to call me ( 2 months now)?Should i take the big step and play in Berlin? Should i contact the owner in case he lost my data? I feel like i am stuck. the first time in years. I feel exhausted. But yet happy.

Footnotes 2 Gig in same Location. Went as best as it could. Owner told me he would stay in contact with me. Till now he did not. Possible club-gigs in huge club in Berlin. Dont know what to do…

And now ladys ( i know they have to be here somewhere too :smiley: ) and Gentleman, a small glimpse at what i did that faithfull Evening. Are you prepared to witness what happens, when madness and technology combine their forces to create a innovative travel through time and space? Be ready to whitness a mind changing audio visual next level sh*t.

So here it is, Ladys and Gentleman, Boys and Girls, i bring to you:

DJ_special_K, the teenage tryouts

a 48 min mash up set. Combines several parts from my live show. More will follow the next days, pictures from the gig, a video, and maybe another mash-up set or two. i played so much good routines that night that i want to share them all with you.

I thank everyone that reads this load of words, and i hope you will like my video as much is i enjoyed planning and creating it over the last year.

peace.1 love. K

damn nice mix video.

thanks corporation. spread the link if you like :slight_smile: I´m starting to learn video editing, so i can make my own edits and i plan to make liveshows like that.

hahaha!! I LOVE the Asian product demo into the RUSH groove. Good shit man!

HOLY SHIT.

You sir, have impressed me :slight_smile:

But, let me get one thing straight, you need to talk to the club owner who hasn’t contacted you in 6 months to get to the big time in berlin? or what? lol

no. i like the club where the owner doesnt stay in contact.Thats the one i played at.

Its in the suburbs.

I have another offer from a huge club in Berlin, for which i dont know if i am really ready.
I could attent this spot, but would rather like the small club.

I would much rather like to play the suburb club. But the owner doesnt call me as promised. I felt quite positive about him beeing honest and for real.

Shall call him? i dont want to come around as desperate for a job… but well, i am :smiley:

Awesome video!!! great work it’s now a fav! by the way, besides virtual vinyl what else you used in making the video?

That’s is the bomb - really liking this! :stuck_out_tongue:

BCD3K, tt200, Nanopad for additional cue-triggering and fx.

I also used Sony Vegas to edit the whole thing afterwards. Adding the text etc. and rendering it down to a webready size.

It was bad ass..and I knew I saw some Vegas effects in there. I have a friend that does live video at some of the events I go to. He has a pretty stout computer and puts it in preview on second monitor to the projector and pretty much just mixes the video live by dropping clips in

congrats on your video and performance. i cant imagine the amount of work behind all this to get the video in sync with the mixing.
impressive

my advice is to not sit and wait for him to call. show him that you remember what he told you and try and get in contact with him.

let me just say it took some effort. I did spend quite a few nights for a few months working on it. from selecting tracks to finish-editing. and thx :slight_smile:

@ djhipnotikk,

i think i will do so. Aint got nothing to loose really, and in the end of the day if he says no i might take the other, bigger gig.

That was really sweet man. This reminds me a lot of what Peanut Butter Wolf did this year at Coachella. Right on man, really excellent work.

That was really awesome. Haven’t watched it all yet. But from what i did watch you’ve obviously put in alot of work!

Gold star for you :stuck_out_tongue:

Your story was a good read too. That bar fight sounded mental.

On another note you might need to work out how to churn out video stuff for your mixes quicker than 3 months though. If you could do this then I wouldnt be suprised if you made it pretty big. People love a good show when they go out :wink:

IMHO, i think you should go for the job in berlin, yea your nervous and its a huge leap, but who knows when youll get another shot like it, confidence is 90% of the game.

great mix! it rocks. so many different elements blended together. i would do both gigs if they’re not on the same night, but im a workaholic.
something i don’t understand. from work at that level, why would you think that you are not ready for a large club? its amazing!
also, what percent of it was live, and what percent of it was pre-edited? I use Pioneer DVJ-X1’s at the club to do a standard top40 house mix set. its 7 hrs unplanned using 4 minute music videos, but all standard house tempo beatmix around 126-132 bpm range. Id love to add even a pinch of the creative elements you used, but I dont know how to set up the workflow.

Allright. Im totally honest on this one. There have been 2 pre-edited tracks, for one the Ninja tune juggle which i tried twice and chose the better version. the boston scrubs part, cause i used a different audio stream and made the video in sync.

The workflow has been as follows:

First i recorded my Set beginning to end. I then imported it in Vegas to add Video effects and blend in some Videos snippets. Export and done.

You need to know i worked on the playlist for the longest time, finding the right tracks and so on. Originally the set would have been like 3 hours, i stripped it down to what it is now.

As for my worries of the bigger gig. I am a DJ for about a decade, mostly in my Bedroom but only in the last 1-2 years have i been able to play to public 3 times. I dont consider myself beeing able to read a crowd really well. I kinda run my own movie, if you know what i mean.

As for you adding a notch of this to your performance. Preperation is key. Get a few skit like videos and add them over the introbars or the outro rather than blending in the next track. Like what i did with worf/star trek. Or you play it during the breakdowns, before beyonce starts singing again :wink: Again, preparation is key.

For example, i have the possibility to choose between several rock tunes to play after the chinese commercial. On the set i used Rush, at the live gig i used AC/DC with cue juggles.

As promised , a video from that faithfull night.

the early hours:

the late hours prior to shutdown

bunp