First Thread: Starting a Local Scene

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

First Thread: Starting a Local Scene

Hey DJTT Community. First off I wanted to say thank you all for the great tips, tricks and conversations on this forum. I’ve been reading it for a solid year now and finally had a question of my own that I don’t think has been answered (I hope).

I live in the states and most specifically Maine which is practically Southern Canada. The club scene here focuses mostly in one or two main cities and primarily plays Top 40 although some Dubstep acts have been showing up in frequency around me (Skrillex, Knife Party) and we’ve also had a few Electro artists like Dada Life come to town which has made a solid secondary scene aside from just Rihanna and Guetta.

My personal style, love, desire to play, whatever you want to call it, has been focused around Disco House and House. I love Dubstep and Electro House but for me I just love the feel of certain House tracks, reminds me of clips from a Studio 54 documentary.

My questions are, have any of you had any experience starting a DJ night or breaking into the club scene in your area playing a style of music that wasn’t the norm? For example, if Dubstep was the style that everyone came out to hear and dance to, were you able to successfully start a Tech/Deep House night? If so, how did you manage to do it? Were you successful and why did you feel it did or didn’t pan out?

Again, much love to all you on this forum. Cheers!

Polski

2

Personally where Im from the tech-house, deep-house, techno scene is pretty strong but I still play at a Top 40ish night but I play my music and throw a little song or two people know. Now ive gotten cool with the manager and Im doing my own night…just my music no commercial BS

I would say use that strategy get a gig at a top 40 place considering top 40 is mostly dance related nowadays and easier to mix with tech than dubstep is but you should deff check out all spots around you within a 30 minute driving range and just check everything out..what style they’re playing, how packed it is, and start showing your face alot and network. But also see what places look good to play at. Talk to everyone introduce yourself but dont be annoying. If you liked the DJs set let him know and have a nice conversation doesnt all have to be about business.

3

If you don’t want to sneak in a ‘scene’ through the top40 back door then I’d suggest trying to hook up with DJs who like the same kind of music as you. So yeah, talk to a lot of DJs. They might be playing something completely different but love nu-disco/disco/house whatever. If you can get 3-4 DJs including yourself with a bit of a following all saying ‘I’m in’ then you can likely pull some strings and get a night at a small venue. Hey presto - instant scene.

4

lethal is absolutely right. heres my two cents:

I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like disco house, its just super soulful and danceable :stuck_out_tongue: if your playing in any commercial club you should be able to play a fair amount of it. if your playing at spots that focus on electro or dubstep though then it might be a little harder (just because it doesn’t contain heavy basslines). I’d say for now just try sneaking it into your sets and seeing how people react to it

5

Great replies guys. I like both ideas of throwing some into a Top 40s gig which may end up providing exposure because that may be an easier way into a club. I also like the idea of throwing a party with other like minded DJs. Would anyone recommend having different genres? I ask because there’s a local promoter in my area, but the roster of DJs are mainly Dubstep and Electro House.

Would it be wise to approach this promoter asking if they’re interested in adding a new style to their roster or teaming up with acts of different styles? I would assume that as a promoter you’d want to have your fingers in different pies, by having acts that reach different audiences.

6

From a purely aesthetic viewpoint I wouldn’t put disco/nu-disco next to anything remotely aggressive. House is fine but but the vibe is totally different to dubstep, for example. Consequently your night would seem unfocussed, disparate and random, which is fine if that’s how you want to present it.

7

lethal puts out a good point two Ive used that method too depends on what club and how cool you are with the locals DJs

8

Lethal has the right idea for sure, finding more like minded people is going to help you greatly. I’m in the same process of “building a scene” and so far people are my strongest resources, even people who aren’t into edm. I have a friend who isn’t into dance music, and runs a venue that would never play any dance music, but he likes what I’m doing. If I ever need powered 18s to borrow, he’s got my back. The bass player from my dads classic rock band hates techno, but if I ask nicely he would rent me his party lights for cheap. Connections are valuable, don’t have tunnel vision about making them either.

9

I host a night in Bath (uk) we play house and trance. In this part of the uk it is very dominated by hardcore and DnB. Me and my mates were moaning about the lack of music we like being played so we decided to set up our own night and we are still going a year and a half later!!! Try something new and see what happens. Whats the worse that can happen? Just make sure you plenty of advertising for the night and spam the s**t out of social networks.

10

All great suggestion. Culture, you’ve got a great point about not being tunnel visioned with getting connections. Something I hadn’t really thought of before. Al, great to hear about your night mate, glad it’s going well for you. Did you find any obstacles to setting up your night? What do you think made it successful going into it’s second year?

11

Biggest problem we had was finding a venue that would accomodate us, but eventually we found a nice little place and after the management seen their takings for our first night they were very pleased and offered us a resident night. I think 1 of the main reasons we have survived and are on our way into our 2nd year is the fact we have a passion for what we do. Many promoters worry about making profit, We run a night out of passion for the music and try and push our passion on to our punters. Something is working and every night we do (monthly) more and more people are turning up :slight_smile: Also I think it helps that we run a 24 hour party on new year and have a bit of a reputation now for being complete nutters.

12

Umm. I was honestly a bit surprised when I checked this thread, and you’re just a touch north of me.

Yeah, there are crews in Maine trying to get stuff done. Mostly around the Portland area for sure, but… you aren’t going to easily have an event in the middle of the woods of Maine. It’s the same with New Hampshire and Vermont. You need people to come to parties, and while there are people everywhere that want to support, you need reliable amounts of them. The backwoods are a great spot to live, but there is a reason the scene lives in cities.

The big scene in New England has mainly focused on Boston, Providence, and the Hartford/Springfield areas. There’s more going on in New Haven, CT now. And there’s actually a lot going on in New Hampshire (Nashua and Manchester, with a few other oddball spot events). In MA, there’s been an explosion of other stuff going on as well.

I know some of the Portland crew, and while I’ve not made it up there, I know they do have some open decks nights. A lot of them come down to the Boston scene for shows, and so I run into them a lot there.

Part of it as well, is the ability to get people to drive. Either to your show, or you to their show. There is a lot of people who play various shows and deal with different crews, and it’s not something entirely easy to break into without knowing the roots of the scene in the area.

Check these guys out sometime when you get a chance, and network with the people running the events and DJs playing them. That’s my best advice. If you start supporting the local scene and eventually want to start throwing your own parties, or getting booked at theirs, that’s going to be the best way of going about it.

It’s all about the connections you make. Seriously. Just doing your own thing without knowing the people who’ve been throwing parties for years, or the guys behind the scene. You’ll get some people, but it’s a tough thing to make last.

There are people in the area doing stuff. Hook up with them :slight_smile:

13

@big traktor al I’m just south of you in Plymouth and the deep house scene is starting to build up now with a couple of nights bringing good things to the area, however it seems difficult to take the people from their regular bars, people just seem to want to stay at the same places then moan that there is no different music out there!

14

+1. I love to meet other djs and other people, but hate when it’s one of those really drunk obnoxious dj’s that comes up in the booth and starts name dropping all the places he’s played and asks if you have this, this, and that. The best way to leave a good impression is a simple hey how’s it going, my name’s ____, like what your playing, have a good set and just let them do their thing.

P.S. local shout out to Izn.

15

Thats the problem with people, they tend to stick with what they know. Totally agree with you when you say they moan about no decent nights but wont open their eyes and see what is there

16

haha hey dude!!

@digitalrebeluk
you make a good point about people being stuck to particular bars. The way I’ve approached it is that I try to hire people who are regulars at other nights as promoters for my parties. If you get different people from different scenes to help you put on a party (they have to feel like they are a part of it) you can really get a great variety of people at your events.

17

+1 /\

18

Cheers to all the comments to my New England folks. Glad to see some local DJs on the forum. Great comments too, this gives me an idea on what’s going on around the area. To Baslline - mad props on the link, I’ll have to check them out. I remember a House and Dubstep/DnB crew from Boston came up to Portland for all night rager, it was amazing. Wasn’t able to network too much due to a few things I swallowed for the show, but will most definitely look into this.

As much as I’d love to run my own Back Woods festival I also understand scenes mostly come from the cities. Fortunately I’m about 20 minutes from Portland and 2 hours from Boston. Glad to hear that NH is showing some love with EDM too as my other musical outfit (Top 40s Cover Band) plays out in Manchester and occasionally Portsmouth too.

I also have to agree with comment about people becoming lazy when it comes to looking for new music or venues. The common downfall of most Mainers is they’re resistant to change whether it comes to music or their lawn mowah.

19

Are you talking about that place at the bus depot? Two of my fellow Magic Hatstand residents played there the other weekend, said it was a great night. You ever out for Hatstand in Exeter mate?

Hatstand is a pretty good case study in building a scene tbh, the couple who run it have taken it from a free night in a bar to doing two sell out gigs a month in real clubs over 5 years, and there wasn’t really an existing deep house scene when they started, certainly not amongst the clubbing kids who make up a high percentage of our punters.

20

@IznremiX good idea, there is a night down here that does similar, getting people to sell tickets for them and earn commission from them, seems to work