Resident DJ’s
Do you guys begin to treat every night like a job where it becomes mundane to the point that you’re playing the same dance floor destroyers at peak times like a formula or do you still get excited every night.
Depends on the residency and what’s expected of you. If you’re a resident at a more commercial top 40 club and are expected to play just that for 4 plus hours a night, then yeah, I would probably shoot myself after the first month.
But if you’re a resident opening DJ at a more underground spot where they expect you to dig and explore and introduce new stuff and build up the atmosphere for 4 hours until the main headliner appears, I couldn’t be more happier then.
After awhile it doesn’t matter what you play and where, you will have nights that you just don’t feel like going to work.
Then maybe you should really rethink why you want to DJ in the first place if that ever happens
I find that continually making and playing my own bootlegs and getting good reactions is nice and adds a level of interest.
I can tell you after djing every Friday for 3months it does get tiring. I was tired of what was expected every week. tired of the music i played. I felt i needed to stop so i could go back crate digging and develop a new flavour that i enjoy. otherwise i would never progress. And we do it for fun right first?
To the OP, I got a spot as an opener at a new club in town here, originally the intention was for it to be a pretty progressive club but that wasn’t paying off quick enough. They’ve since changed it over to pretty much a top 40, commercial club and the work has quickly become mundane. Definitely gotta be careful about where you choose to do a residency.
@ JasonBay, it doesn’t matter how much you love being a DJ, how much you love music, everyone has bad days, bad nights, don’t feel good that day, whatever, things happen in your life where you just don’t feel like going to work. Its called being a human. To think that a person is going to be absolutely, incredibly excited every single night is pretty unrealistic.
I know I still am, even after my laptop got stolen and I had to scramble around trying to figure out how I was going to play my next gig I was still happy to be there and know that I was getting paid good money to play other peoples music and was making a living off of it.
The only way I would consider DJing as “work” is if I got stuck in a commercial top 40 place playing music I don’t want to. If that was the case, then yeah, I can understand why people wouldn’t want to work some times. But if you’re playing a weekly gig where you actually get to play tunes you like (gasp! What a concept, playing tunes you actually like as a DJ!), PLUS get paid for it as well then I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t feel excited about it.
After doing this at almost all levels for the past 15+ years, I can tell you that the only real, true answer is both of the below quotes at the same time.
If I’ve had a bender the night before it’s always a big effort… especially at the one place where I usually start after 3am, once you get started though you quickly forget, it’s the time in between that kills me sometimes.
I used to have a regular top 40 residency and that was pain. 5 hours. The same shit every week, that definitely was a chore, but it always had 500+ people, they all loved to dance and it paid very very very very very well. So I just got through it, but thats probably the only time DJing has ever felt like a normal job.
Playing top40 rubbish makes any night a tiring one.
Not just the music but the people that love the music piss me off.
On a side note:
Holy crap you guys do long sets! 5 hours?? The longest set I’ve ever been expected to do is 3 hours.
The people are tolerable. I find Top 40 crowds tend to dance more and just want to have fun and get drunk. No musical snobbery at all and quite forgiving to mistakes (meaning you can try that little bit more, or try drop that accapella over the top of something you normally wouldn’t even try)
It’s the music which gets to me, it’s pretty much the same shit every week and it’s all very predictable eg. the same tracks work every week and it gets very boring, especially seeing every other venue I play Tech House/Minimal
Top 40 places are generally the only places I’m expected to play longer then 2 hours, I find bar/top 40 club sets tend to always only have 1 DJ leading to very long sets.
This may be a little controversial - but I was given some really good advice by Mr Scruff (an absolute legend who I have had the pleasure of hanging out with on a couple of occasions) who told me not to ever play music that I think people want to hear, or sell out and play top 40 gigs for the money, because then you won’t actually get booked for playing the music that you enjoy - and more importantly the music that you’re good at playing. “Take risks, and it’ll pay off.” he said..
At the end of the day, the theory is that you’re being booked for your taste in music, and you’re being paid good money for the hours and hours you’ve spent crate digging and crafting your ability put together a really good set, read the crowd etc etc. I’m not saying go out there when you’re playing the 10-11 warmup slot and bring out all the militant nailcore drum and bass which you enjoy listening to, that would be silly - but don’t just play mundane top 40 chart music because its the safe option and it’ll placate the crowd…
I spent a couple of years playing music which i thought people would want to hear at my residencies, and yeah got booked again - but it wasn’t really any different from the other residents at those nights, so i didn’t really stand out (and certainly cant be arsed with the whole ‘look at me, i’m such a cool guy because i’m a dj’ rubbish) plus i wasn’t really enjoying the nights that much..
but then i decided to take risks, playing some music that people won’t have heard, but might like (if they like the rest of the stuff i’ve been playing), and also throwing in some real classics (i’m talking ray charles..) - often completely genreless sets, playing stuff I enjoy and know well (across the whole of the spectrum of music). And funnily enough, the people who are used to and enjoy going out to see the usual top 40 stuff, have sort of become my cult followers because i’m doing something different to what they’re used to.
that’s my 3am ramblings…
so yeah - take risks, and they’ll pay off 
(and let the people who enjoy playing top 40 take those gigs..) and keep it interesting for yourself
that aside, you will inevitably have the odd night where you just don’t want to be there (perhaps after an insomniac substance fuelled night of partying the previous evening) - but they can sometimes end up being quite fun
I hear ya. But I’m being paid upward of $100 an hour to play that stuff… I’ll do exactly what the management ask for that sort of money… (I also use a different name for top 40 gigs)…
I still get booked regularly playing gigs with waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more musical freedom and creativity. They just don’t pay stupid money, that stupid money has come from me being good at doing these types of shows and it’s pretty much allowed me to only work 1-2 days a week and DJ on weekends and live quite well. I’d still find 8 hours of regular work infinitely more boring then 5 hours of DJing no matter what mood I was in or music I was playing.
Anyways we’re getting sidetracked.
Best post on DJTT, period. All new and aspiring DJ’s should read this.
aww shucks 
thank Mr Scruff for that advice - summed up in the video below from 9:05 (i’m the guy on the right btw)
also, if you’re struggling to find a residency which suit your kind of music - why don’t you (carefully) consider starting something yourself?
EDIT: sorry for going wildly off topic and plugging my own interview video!
+1
+1 at Belchman. I’ve been dj’ing in clubs not for long now… but I’ve always used the image of the house/electro kind of dj, refusing to play top 40’s. Simple as that. I might just play 30 minutes per night, but they will be 30 minutes I enjoy. And that’s what I’m currently aiming for, playing the music I like (choosing wisely according to the kind of audience, of course) and eventually getting booked by people who are actually looking for someone who shares my taste and actually wants that kind of music in his event, venue or whatever.
Right attitude you have there mate, don’t lose it!