Need help retaining my sanity, PART 2.

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Need help retaining my sanity, PART 2.

Okay well heres the original post but besides all there a new problem has arisen:

so basically im doing hardcore promotion for the club where im hosting my event next saturday, and im not only promoting my event but these club hosted events that are this sunday and next sunday too. the thing is that the club manager said that i was going to give a preview of my event this sunday by doing an hour long opening set. now this would be friggen dandy in my opinion except for these factors:
This is a 14-18 club, where they usually play top 40 and stuff, yet my event is electro themed, & i know my DJ etiquitte so i know as an opener i cant be be bringing down the house, but how am i supposed to preview my high energy/mini rave event while staying within the limits of the role of an opener?

Also, my computer just updated itself and now its fucking up badly, so i cant get any programs to run so i cant practice a new set for this sunday (i already know what im playing for next saturday as im closing so im gonna be bringing down the house) although i can practice on my friends laptop the most id have to learn a new set is 2 days

I feel odd that im not excited about this @ all, because this should be fun playing an opening set as a first gig @ a club, because it should be low pressure and good experience, but theres just so many factors that are taking the fun outta this that i feel like ive lost touch as to why i wanted to do this in the first place…

so please, any & all advice would be appreciated

2

Ignore that question, as it was answered in the post, hah

Uh… I’d say kick it with some of the mellow electro, but keep it energized. You’re not there to set a mood, you’re there to show what you’re going to do. Play the poppy stuff, but just don’t get too aggressive.

3

i would guess that as the club owner is aware of what you play, he has taken this into consideration. if not, he’s a damned fool imho. so just do your thing and show off the event, maybe play at slightly reduced pitch? but you still need to present what the night is/will be about. plus if the next guy is top 40 i wouldn’t worry too much about being too hardcore, he’ll just follow with basshunter

4

basshunter is top40?

Wow… I am REALLY out of touch

5

think i pulled the right name there… i’ll have a quick youtube…

er, yes. at least in the uk anyway…

6

You can’t cancel. That will just make you look bad. But, you can’t show up with a crappy routine either. You’ll have to wing it with a truly ‘live’ show.

7

Okay i get you, this is the list of songs i have so far that im considering playing, theyre in no particular order (im not using any of my next week’s closing set’s songs for this one):

Bring the noise pump-kin remix - benny benassi
Yeah - darren mase
Slip - Deadmau5
Not Exactly vs. Audio Link (personal mix, its on my soundcloud)
Space (andy tau’s remix) - craze c
Destination - Rundenko Project
Rainforest - DJ nash
Moar Doo Wop N Whatever (Lauryn Hill vs Deadmau5)
Hi Friend! vs. My Revolution (another personal mix)
Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff vs. What is Love (Uppermost Remix) (ANOTHER personal mix)
So much Booty - girls n boomboxes
Bounce - MSTRKRFT
Im in the house - steve aoki
Ayo - Hyper Crush
Bonkers - Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden
Awesome - Bloody beetroots ft. cool kids
Make you feel vs. some chords (last personal mix featuring deadmau5, i swear)
Whos afraid of detroit? (stuck between either the Stanton Warriors or Tanner Ross remix)
Trip like i do - Crystal Method
Taking Over - SpekrFreks
Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss - Bloodhound gang
Traffic - tiesto
Come Fly Away - benny benassi

If anybody has ANY suggestions on what to leave out or song suggestions for me to use, please do, especially concerning appropriate electro tracks (and make it quick i only have 2 days to prepare hahaha im freakin out mannnnnn)

the stuff in red is kinda hip hopish/hybrid house stuff so maybe that would be good to close out with to help transition to the main DJ & his top 40 and such?

8

I happen to know a quite famous club in berlin that recently proved the exact opposite, but hey :slight_smile:

@OP: just do your thing, but leave some headroom for the other guys. playing openers might seem lame, but it’s your job to get the people going and it’s a damn important one. take it seriously and do your best!

edit: I suggest you pick a number of tracks you’d consider playing during warmup, but avoid a fixed playlist - because crowds are unpredictable. unless you’re a bigshot who can get away with pretty much anything, you’ll have to improvise. the trick is to have a good preselection ready; you don’t want to be going through your entire track collection looking for proper tracks, that can get ugly real fast.

oh yeah, the fatboy slim quote you posted in the original thread is something I consider one of the most important things about DJing. keep your eyes on the crowd - always. you can’t focus on everyone at the same time, that’s impossible - but try to maintain eye contact with a couple of people, preferably girls - because the general rule for every crowd is: once you’ve got the chicks, you’ve automatically got the guys.

9

What’d I’d personally do is mix in lots of electro remixes of hip-hop/top 40 songs. It’ll be familiar to the crowd, but still keep near the genre you like to play. Don’t worry too much about song selection, bring a variety, who knows, they might like your electro. As for the energy level, I’d start slow, take it to about 80% of where you think the energy could be, and hand the next DJ a hyped-up, excited dancefloor.

One thing you should look at is your reliance on pre-programmed sets. You really can’t do that. Going in with a mental list: “I’m going to play this track, then this remix, then this…” I’d encourage you to stay as far away from that as possible. It’s hard to be a crowd-pleaser when you’ve already decided what the crowd likes, before you’ve even met them. Most of the time I’ll be in the middle of a great set and have no idea what the next song I’m going to play is. I let the dancefloor inspire my mixing and my song selection, and that, imho is the most effective way to do it.

10

agree to a point, however in the past i’ve always decided the first 3, then go from there, you want something that’ll grab attention, something familar (either remix or original) then something with a familiar sound but is new to the listener, i.e not on the radio, or not yet. judge from those 3 which is best direction to go.

11

Your first post on the forums and already giving some great lessons :slight_smile:
Thanks dude

and welcome to the forums!

12

Do a lot of DJ’s pre plan there sets so? I mean I personally have never played out so I don’t have a metric to go by. But I mean say I was to have a show next week open or close I personally would have a ballpark of what I wanted to play maybe a few choice records that I knew would get put in there but from everything I have ever read or anyone I have ever talked to it was my understanding that it was always better to just play what you think is right where you think the party needs to go. Maybe at a slower tempo for an opener but to practice an exact setlist while it may sound great to you it also may sound rehearsed to everyone else. Nothing is worse than when I go see a band and/or a DJ play out and it’s like listening to there CD if I wanted to do that I could do it at home you need that spark that live i dunno how to say it really. Now I could be talking out my ass like I said I have yet to experience the thrill of playing in front of anyone but me and sometimes my little girl dances in the other room but that’s it so just my 2 cents for better or worse.

13

All sound advice, keep it coming guys haha i really appreciate it

okay concerning “reading the crowd”…how exactly do you learn that language lol are there cues i should look out for and such? (besides keeping an eye on the ladies?) i mean im only warming up the room so im gonna try and keep in mind that for at least the first 1/2 hour there shouldnt be much dancing at all but after that it should be packed so i need pretty much every trick there is to know lol

14

there is no trick… it’s simple, if you look at someone’s face you’ll see if they’re having fun or not. if you focus on a couple of small groups and manage to get them going, they’ll hype the shit out of you in return… remember to smile and convey a good mood generally, you’ll probably be concentrating - but try your best to look like you’re letting loose. it’s a party :slight_smile:

15

I would suggest maybe leaving out bonkers, because I think it’s still quite a ‘big’ tune for the 14-18 crowd… maybe a bit too big for an opening DJ?

16

Reading the Crowd

I have a uber-top secret method for you: Pick ONE person (usually the hot girl that’s dancing a lot, or a hyper b-boy) and play what you think that ONE person likes. If you put on a song, and your target isn’t feeling it, mix out and go somewhere else. I DJ in a smaller venue, so this works well. I can see body language and facial expressions and know when someone’s really feeling a song. A variation of this is when you’re just starting and nobody’s dancing (a tough crowd maybe) pick one person (Like that pretty girl 5 guys are staring at who’s nodding her head to the music…) and make it your mission to make that person dance. This might sound weird, and you’ll worry about alienating the crowd, but in my experience, this works well.

17

Okay seriously guys much thanks for all the advice. its about T-minus 3 hours 10 minutes until i have to be over @ the club for sound check, so i dont have much else time to prepare but ive modified the set list, added a few more slightly energetic songs, added some new cue points, and frantically uninstalled a virus that me and my friend got on his laptop last night so we’re good to go lol. i will inform you guys of how it goes & give some feedback after!

18

Let us know how it went.

19

Dude, throw away that set list. Please, please, do not DJ like that.

Really wanting to hear how it turns out!

20

Well guys, last night was, more or less, a fucking disaster lol
basically when i got there for soundcheck, another DJ was already there, i introduced myself to the guy saying it would be a pleasure opening for him and he gave me this confused look and was like “dude, im opening” so i took my concern to the club manager to straighten things out and he said “wait i thought you were closing?” and one of the promoters who was with us last time we met said “you said he was gonna open” and LOLed a bit.

So it turns out i would now be going 2 hours later (at 9:30, aka prime time) and at this point i was so unexcitied that i wasnt even nervous. i got back into the booth 20 mins early to turn on my equipment and make some last minute cue points, but whenever i pressed the play buttons, moved the platters, none of it would work! i turned off the computer and tried it again, still nothing working, and tried that all AGAIN, still nada. at this point the performing DJ had moved out of the 110 bpm that i had improvised for me to start at (i had a couple hip hop/electronica tracks that would bridge up to around 130 bpm) and he was at 130 bpm now, and i had no idea what to start playing so i completely winged it (not like i had much of a gameplan before but now i was reallllllly fucked)

so i started playing songs and first thing i notice is that it doesnt sound right at all, because i was tucked in the way back of the DJ booth (we had 4 laptops, the club setup, and my equipment there) and the acoustics make the songs sound different (bass sounded contorted, everything sounded way more high pitched) Also, within 20 minutes i get 14 different requests to play hip hop (from all the ghetto kids, of course, 4 of which specifically to play that song “toot it and boot it”), and i tried to be nice about it explaining we were previewing for an electro event but they just kept bugging me to a point where it was cutting into my mixing time and i started missing cues and such, so i started playing real accessable tracks (warped 1.9, ghosts n stuff, bring the noise pump-kin remix) and about a 1/2 hour in i was like “fuck it” and let the last dj of the night play and i spent the remaining hour of the night feeling like absolute shit

I waited till after the club cleared out to talk to the manager (he was busy talking to the police because someone got stabbed lol) so after the manager was like “i didnt want to have that set” (he was the one who suggested it) and was like "make sure the people who come to your event are people who actually like electro (our flyer says "an electro themed event, so im pretty sure we got the message across lol)

I still got a couple compliments at the end of the night, but i felt pretty bad becuse in hindsight now i realize if i hadnt cut those songs i had highlighted in red (in one of my previous posts) they would have worked out PERFECTLY for the night as hybrid tracks.

So the lessons i learned from tonight:
NEVER play techno @ a top 40 nightclub
always be prepared for time sched. changes
managers are borderline retarded
i hate the 14-18 age group

im gonna do my event next week and disassociate myself with that club, its not my type of musical crowd. ill have to start going to either san jose or SF nightclubs more often and establish a presence there