[Rant] I am a DJ; not a f***ing iPod

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

[Rant] I am a DJ; not a fing iPod*

You guys probably already know where I’m gonna go with this, but for my own sake, I’m gonna run with it here for a minute.

I just got back from an absolutely terrible gig tonight. After I was told there was an outdoor party for one of my friends, I lugged my entire PA system, subwoofers and all, out to this house along with CDJs, mixer, Audio 6, and laptop. My brother, also a DJ, decided to come and help me out and brought his S2 and laptop so we could switch back and forth throughout the night. We get there and realize that the DJ table is a couple of 2x4s placed on a swingset. Right there should’ve been my cue to turn tail, but no no; people will love it…it will be good for exposure…

We get set up and have music going by 9:30. There’s a few people hanging around a bonfire drinking beer, and me and my brother are playing some light electro. More people show up around 10. The crowd appears to be your average college frat clientele, mostly douches who want to see what all the noise and lights are about, so of course we’re being bothered throughout the night with people slurring trying to talk to us. At 11, we turn up the volume and begin banging it out with some dirty electro. Nothing. Not a soul dancing.

Alright, alright, maybe everyone’s not drunk enough, or doesn’t like electro. No problem. It was around 11:15 that the chick in charge of the house came up to us and began some slurred jargon about how we have to have it shut down by midnight. Best news I heard all night, because that means I can leave this shit-show early. So at 11:15 I begin switching to Top-40, the go-to for a trashy clientele. Again, nothing. We lost power at least 3 times during the night (we were connected to a non-grounded outlet in the house that someone ran an extension cord to from outside), and someone dumped a bunch of Bacardi 151 into the fire and made a fireball, so I slowly began seeing that I was, at this point, a $2000 iPod. This was also at the point where some dude came up and asked if we had an extra outlet so he could charge his phone. It took all my strength not to jump over the table and slap the shit out of him.

The one semi-good point of the night was at the end. Some old high-school friends big into the psy-trance and hardstyle scene showed up to say hey, so at this point I said fuck it and switched to dubstep and from there moved to drumstep, because let’s face it, if nobody is gonna give a shit, I’m playing for the people who do. I played my goodnight song (Juicy by Notorious B.I.G.), and then powered it down. As soon as the volume died, people were like “wtf where’d the music go bro!?” I made up some BS about noise ordinances and packed my shit up and me and my brother dipped.

So this was my lesson that it is high-time I started charging for my services. I am not trying to get on my high horse about my skills, but they are skills nonetheless and I have invested both a lot of time and a lot of money into sounding the best that I can. If you are serious about your party and want a DJ, invest in a DJ. If you can scrape together $100 for a keg, you can scrape together some money to pay the dude whose job it is to provide the music. If you can’t, save both of us some time and just plug your iPod in to your home stereo. But don’t ask me to drag out my entire rig to some lame-ass party and expect me to do this because I’m just that nice of a guy.

As the old saying goes: I am a DJ. Not a fucking iPod.

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I totally understand you, but the opposite of this problem exists too. Since i became a DJ i am not able to enjoy party’s with bad DJ’s anymore, it helps a little when i stand with my back turned towards the DJ but when i hear those people that are DJ’ing at those party’s (local club) i almost start crying. I’m not talking about BAD mixing techniques but NONE mixing techniques. The songs are not beatmatched, sometimes a silent moment between the songs and just trowing the song in at a random moment. And then i’m not even talking about his choise of music, lot’s of 80’s and bob marley in a club with 17 jear old people!

At this kind of moments i like to shout: You’re an DJ not an ipod! (seriously, itunes would have done a better job)

sorry for any gramitical mistakes that i may made

3

I was in a bar a month or two ago and the dj was literally playing a NOW ?? cd, and his mixes were slamming the crossfader into the next track, words cannot describe how horrendous the thing was. That wouldn’t usually bother me though, it’s a bar you can’t expect much, the thing that done me was that he was playing on CDJ 1000s :smiley:

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People are fucking retarded.

Just how it goes.

Went to a house party myself. Kid had good selection, COULD NOT BEATMATCH TO SAVE WILLY OFF THE FUCKING BEACH.

Hurt my soul. A lot of good friends and people in the scene as well.

Some kid hooked up his iPod and started playing latin stuff. Got the latina ladies dancing, and everyone else went elsewhere.

Actually, the crew we all went out to support last night (yeah I’m still up >.>) ended up showing up to the party. One of em had laptop in tow and ended up hooking it up and rocking out.

Honestly a good party.

But moral is? I wish my buddy had brought his laptop and SCS3. While I love a good house party, I’ve gotten to the point where bad music can ruin a night for me. And it’s less about just plain selection, but execution of this.

I wish my tt setup was more mobile for times like these.

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I have had a similar problem a lot of the time with club owners, one of particular note actually gave me a playlist which i recognized as the top 40 radio 1 playlist, with all the non danceable tracks included, I said to the club owner that the playlist wouldnt necessarily work as the age of the people in the club warranted older music. He was insistent and basically told me that if i didnt stick to the playlist he would find someone who would.

Needless to say I have left the club and now play at other nights where i am able to show more creativity and the DJ who plays there now, follows the playlist and the club empties by midnight.. A win for me i think

6

Being asked to hook up ones iPod is probably the most insulting thing you can be asked as a DJ in my opinion, more so if the person claims they have better songs than the ones you play. Claiming they have it on spotify won’t make it sound nicer, honestly, you simply just want to slap the b*stard!

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WOW I am so glad I read this. I been debating dropping the house parties I normally do. At first I loved it because I love dj’ing I love keeping a party going. Also its great to get the practice.

But I dunno if it’s because I’m polite or what. But people have been asking more and more to hear wack azz top 40 etc. I’m just going to quit bringing my gear over, and let people listen to whatever the hosts ipod is playing. They’ll get the point the hard way :slight_smile:

I understand this stuff just comes with the territory. But I guess if I’m not getting payed to DJ, and I’m not enjoying myself, then why bother?

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9:30 - 11:15 : electro

Maybe try switching up the genres a bit sooner to test the waters?

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I wish there was an easy way to stay caught up with Top40, like it seems for house parties you always need to have it on hand, but seriously fuck having to keep up with that haha.

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When I did use to care to play it, I would just go off of the top 10 lists for itunes.

Just pisses me off cause if you wanna hear that shit just turn on the radio. You’ll hear your song played every 30 minutes LOL.

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It’s a house party, not a night club, people generally don’t wanna hear club tunes at house parties, at least not at 9:30-11pm

I mean it sucks but is it really a surprise?

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Considering you didn’t get paid for the gig, I would have played whatever I wanted. Especially if you tried alot of genre’s and nobody is dancing. Some party’s are lame like that…

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I always do the best to make as many people as possible dance while playing only the tracks that I like. With this approach, though, I have never failed to make at least one little peak-time moment during my DJ performance with a crowd of a considerable size. I think the crowd likes it better when the DJ is having fun for starters.

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Unless you are playing your OWN music, all DJ’s are glorified iPods. :slight_smile:

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NewManSoon… Controversial statement there! lol, My main reason for Djing has always been to make people dance, and i think if you are getting paid for it the club owner has some right to say at least what genre you can play, I mean nobody wants to hear hard house at an RnB club, or tbh any club for that matter lol.

If you are playing at a party where you have made the effort to turn up with all your gear and not had any form of payment, beer, women or otherwise then nobody can demand what you play. On Friday I played at a tech/deep house night and got asked for Rihanna, then she complained at me because i wouldnt play it. Some people have no idea… A fellow DJ said to me once that the general public are morons. Sometimes i am inclined to agree!

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Totally agree. If this rant was taken from a club, who booked him to play club music, then I’d see it.

Otherwise your just someone who played some music at a party and they didn’t like it, so what?

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Billboard Top 10, followed by a search of Beatport, iTunes, Soundcloud, etc to find a remix of the song that is tolerable.

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Yeah, would have been way better if you knew you were getting paid. That sucks.

Sometimes when I know nobody’s paying attention I improvise and try to do something I’ve never done before. I have more fun that way.

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+1
Not necessarily aimed at the OP, but it seems a lot of people on this board treat house parties as debuts as the cities hottest new club. A house party is just a house party… nothing more, nothing less. If you play one, just go into it expecting nothing more than getting to play tunes a little louder than normal (if you can’t get too loud at your own place), not quite as loud as at a club, and just having a fun time mingling with whoever is into the same shit. Everyone else in the place? probably not gonna give two shits about you, your skills, your tune selection, or what your “doing” as a DJ/Producer. If people get into it, great… bonus. If not? Par for the course.

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Again, it’s a house party. If they are the one that lives there, they can ask anything the want. If you go to play for someone you know is into what you do, that’s even better. Sounds to me like you made a mistake of not knowing who you were playing for. Nothing wrong in doing that, but understand that it was just a mistake on your part since your not into what they want.