Putting aside my Mr. Scruff beef (joke, but his sound tech did seriously f**k up the amps at the venue where i have my residency) that is really sound advice , I think the experience of playing out at all , even if you have to play a bit of commercial stuff is well worth it though, but if your doing that it should always be a means to the end point you want to get to, i had to tone down the dubstep stuff last year, and play some electro , not really commercial but not exactly what i was into , but it lead me to getting the Dubstep residency i now have at a really top club so I’m not going to complain.
When you start to play a little more internationally, to bigger crowds at bigger events, you’ll understand what he means.
Although your answers are massively feel-good and what your ‘meant’ to say as an artist, it doesn’t work like that - things come up, circumstances arise which make playing that night a pain.
I did five hours four nights a week for a long time. Even though I could play some of what I liked I got burned out. I didn’t even listen to music for a long time after that. I did meet my wife of 18 years on one of those four nights though.
If i have to be honest yeah my current residency is a bit like that.
My current residency is the original home of Chris Lake, and originally started off as a hard dance nightclub back in '99 - '03 then eventually got involved in trance until around '06 and the head resident Dex la Funk turned everything around and made it into a club that was packed with 500 people every Saturday (that’s capacity).
I have been a resident for 2 years and over that time i can do what the heck i want to on the warm up so i really enjoy the warm up. But the main set even though it changes quite a bit, quite some of it has to stay the same and can only be changed every so often. It’s quite irritating.
But I’m the warm up DJ so it doesn’t effect me.
Jesus christ, I would never even dare to complain about having to do that for such a salary 
Yeah at one of my residencies I have to play top 40 for the last hour. Its actually ok with me cause I usually play the first hour with really proggy house, chicago house, or nu-disco then go into top 40 once a larger crowd comes in.
Eventually though I got burnt out on playing top 40, even for an hour. Its just not enjoyable, its just not fun for me. But I’m ending the residency soon since I’m moving to SF so I’m ok with just holding on until I leave.
One of the best sets I’ve ever played was a set where I played exactly what I wanted and the crowd knew that and came for it. It was a mix of trance and prog and man it went off the chains.
i think in general it definitely depends what you’re playing and where..
but mainly i’m getting confused by the distinction between top 40 and commercial music.. do other people think there’s a difference here? because i definitely don’t ever just play top 40, but obviously i might go a bit more commercial if the dancefloor aint filling and that seems to be the way to go..
for me, to spend the time scouring the internet for tunes that are in the charts, then listen to them, and god forbid even pay for them - definitely wouldn’t justify playing pure top 40 sets.. even though the money might be good and you can go under a different moniker or wear a mask or whatever so you don’t lose face, that would detract from the hours i spend scouring record stores, promo lists and the internet for good music. and to be an effective dj, you have to know your music pretty well.. i leave that to the professionals (i.e. wedding djs)
no?
I’ve always played porter robinson kind of electro/complextro stuff so i found that by making my favourite tracks the kind of “template” for my set really helped because no matter what i will always play the tracks i love. Also i saw someone mention bootlegs before as well these are really helpful but be careful not to ruin the track you once loved.
Im currently a resident at some shitty top40 club which rarely gets above 100 people in on a sat night (this place could easily hold 500-600). And it sucking the life and fun out of me, i only play every saturday but its still a major chore. I havnt been djing long only 6 months and this was my first gig and im not sure it was a right move. Ive been playing here for 3 months now and im trying desperately to get slots at other places where i can play music i actually enjoy but its difficult. since ive started djing ive only played one set with music i actually enjoy. do i quit and focus again on the fun of djing or do i stay here for the money which is shit btw £40 quid for 4 hours) while looking for something else ?
I was invited to play at a club a while ago after dropping my mix around. I have no idea why a top40 club actually asked me to play, considering it was a prog/electro house mix, so that was what I played while opening for their main resident. And my god, that guy fit every bad DJ stereotype there is. I opened with what I was used to, and despite the crowd enjoying my music, the guy was bugging me for the two hours or so of my set, asking why I wasn’t playing mainstream stuff, questioning my mixing technique, criticizing me for using a controller.
One of the worst gigs I’ve ever played.
On a positive note, I learnt that making friends with the sound tech is the best thing you can do. Ask him about the system and its limits. He is the most underrated guy in the club, and one of the most important. Probably the only reason I’ve been invited back to that place when they host nights with more alternative EDM.
Well just because you love it, it makes going to “work” easier but in essence it is still a job, a job you love but still a job. Back in 1999 I had all of my music, 300+ cds, and all my equipment stolen from my car. The equipment belonged to the company so I didn’t really care about that and they made me pay for half of it but the music was all mine and needless to say I was devastated. I didn’t let that stop me and I vowed to get every cd back that was stolen and I pretty much did with a few exceptions. It did suck the first time going to a record store and dropping $300 on music I already had but got stolen. It was also hard in the beginning DJing parties because someone would ask me for something and I would be like yea I have that, and then I would remember that no I don’t have that anymore, that really sucked. Never did I ever consider not DJing.
My point is that everyone gets tired especially when you play consistently every week no matter how much you love DJing, no matter how much you love making a crowd scream and dance you will have nights that you just don’t feel like it. Obviously if you don’t like the music or the event and you have to do it week in and week out you are not going to be happy. I worked for a company for 13 years, when I started I was doing all different types of events, sweet 16s, bars, birthdays, house parties, whatever and I liked that stuff. When the company decided to market more towards weddings and the other events were few and far in between I was like, time to go because DJing weddings became boring and not fun and I didn’t want to do it anymore so I left the company. Now I do what I want. Will I DJ a wedding again? I have 1 next week, buts its my first wedding as the DJ and MC in like 6 years.
I started out playing really open format rock/metal bars, where i was expected to play everything from Billy Idol to Prodigy; i used to earn shit money (sometimes just beer) but always had a great night and fantastic response from the crowd.
Then on the flip side of that i began djing purely as a profession, doing a lot of weddings/anniversarys etc (Usually Fri/Sat/Sun every week) for extremely good money, but i actually began to despise that side of the job - to this day i come close to having a stroke every time i hear Summer Of '69…the 18th/21st birthdays were always fun though, as i could drop more dnb/dubstep/garage, but even then it had to be popular (hence overplayed) songs.
To make a slightly shakey comparison; i currently work as a chef de partie in a really good gastro pub, i love cooking and always have, i don’t even mind the shitty parts of my job (cleaning >.>) because i take pleasure from learning new dishes and skills and literally get a buzz when i plate a dish that is amazing; but there is no way in hell i could work somewhere that all i was cooking would be burgers, fish and chips etc.
Now i’ve moved to London, and i’m sure i could get a residency at a top 40 bar/club in about a day of searching, but i won’t, because i’ve been down that road and i found it a passion killer, so i am waiting, biding my time and developing my own sound so when i do get to play i will love every second of it.
All comes down to why you are doing this, i know some guys that do wedding/karaoke stuff and make a brilliant living and they sincerely enjoy every minute of it, every repeated Rhianna song, every idiot request.
I know other guys who have never earned a penny from Djing (some who even lose money throwing their own events) but have a great following and are truly loving what they do, even if they have to have a normal job.
I’d rather be the second.
I do exactly that, use a different name and the booth is kinda hidden away…
I have other residencies with absolute musical freedom (I play techno/house) but like I said I make more from 1 night playing commercial shit then I would in 3-4 days of full time work. I know which one I’d rather do, especially seeing the crowds are stupidly big at this Top 40 place…
That said I prefer my sets when I get to play what I want, I’d just have to get a real job if I gave up the top 40 stuff.
Everyone has a price. 