Stand ins?

ED E

Hey lads,

Was at a function on wednesday night and TBH I was quite unimpressed. We arrived and the DJ promptly started. Before I start I understand the need to play mainstream muck, but he didnt even make a reasonable pass at that. For the first 30-40 mins he played light RnB/Dance muck[Ridin F'n Solo] and for the whole time there were never more than two lads on the floor and maybe a dozen girls if he was lucky. During this time I went over and had a look, making the comment "you got some nice gear there" or something along those lines. His response was "yeah" and to nod like an idiot. He had a DJM 800(€1.3K it seems) sitting in front of him. With that was a Toshiba laptop and a PA system that from a glance was severe overkill[I've played the same room with my system(700W,15"s) and had no problems]. To top it off he had 2x moving heads, a roof laser and one aimed across the room and a smoke machine.

He spent the whole night clicking at virtual DJ. Didnt touch the DJM once. No headphones at all. I thought he might actually be checking his email the whole time but then I watched the reflection on the wall and he was always plodding through VDJ.

Another thing he did was disappear regularly. I took one of these opportunities to add 20% to the master[Wouldnt normally dare touch anothers kit]. From what I can tell he didnt notice.

Unsuprisingly he couldnt/wouldnt mix. He simply let a song end, then about 2.5s later dropped the next one right in. An ipod on a playlist woulda been faster.

I asked for Killing in the name of(Went down well at 1PM that same day) and he responded that somebody had asked him about it earlier and he didnt think he had it. I'm sorry but its not an obscure track, if you have it you'll know it. He did and search and found his guess correct. We later asked for Kickstarts by Example which is bound to be requested right now, never heard of it.

As one last piece of stupidity he completely ignored the crowd. At the end of sexy bitch(I think) everyone was wrecked, obviously so. He jumps right into house of pain(no pun intended). Needless to say that cleared the floor.

Needed to get that off my chest.

Is this kind of sh1te common? I got 10x the reaction 6 hours before using my ipod touch as a wireless MIDI device:rolleyes:

/Rant

On a positive note, Ricky/Richard(IIRC) who plays the back of Tripod on a Wed and Button of a Thurs made up to a large extent for the above idiot. Very good work on those CDJs and I hope to get a chance to hear him again. If anyone knows him please pass along my compliments.

Lethal.

Jev/N

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

On a positive note, Ricky/Richard(IIRC) who plays the back of Tripod on a Wed and Button of a Thurs made up to a large extent for the above idiot. Very good work on those CDJs and I hope to get a chance to hear him again. If anyone knows him please pass along my compliments.

Lethal.

Nice one, Richie's only starting out in the last 6 months or so afaik, so it's good to hear feedback like this!

RMD

A lot of pretty ****e DJs like that from what I've seen. Was up in a bar a mate works in last weekend, some lad was DJing for the bar with the CDJ-400 / DJM-400 package which costs a fair bit, a Vestax VCI-300 and Traktor Pro on the MacBook Pro going.

Pretty sure from the amount of time he sat there doing nothing he had the music going through shuffle on his Itunes. Made no attempt to mix music together at all. Really a shame to see such nice gear wasted.

ianuss

excuse my ignorance, but how do these people get gigs in the first place?

eeloe

they are willing to play music "the people" want......i.e. ****e!

general rule of thumb for bar/disco bar traveling DJs, is the better your gear looks, the more professional you look, and the more chance you'll get of getting the gig!

also, they are probably hauling all that gear around for 50euro!

RMD

ianuss wrote: »

excuse my ignorance, but how do these people get gigs in the first place?

My guess is they approach their local pub, find the manager and tell them their willing to sell their soul and push a side their musical principals for a double digit figure.

ED E

Thats the thing, this guy seemed not to even know the software. I forgot to properly mention in the OP that my guess would be a mate asked him to cover for him.

BigDaddyCan

i have come accross these DJs in my time alrite, on the note of "the better your gear looks the more gigs you get" is kinda true but in Cork 85% of the full time mobile DJs are using rack mounted gear e.g. DJ in a box, the problem as I see it is alot of these lads get into DJing ONLY for the money, play what "the people" want and don't have musical morals like most other DJs :rolleyes:

plenty of bars & clubs are more than happy to hire these DJs as they play exactly what they are told, a couple of years back a mate of mine told me one nite he went to work (he worked in a fairly commercial club catering to mostly students) the manager handed him a set list for the night and told him not to play any thing that wasn't on that list, personally if that was me I would have walked but this guy was a full time DJ and couldn't afford to loose the work!

honestly I don't blaim alot of these DJs, they don't know any better, they do what they are told and often times are very good at what they are playin - muck! i think the only way to see change is through promoters and bar owners looking for it!

personally I try and support the more underground nites rather than going to the place where you expect to hear all this muck, there are some really great DJs all over the country that aren't playing in these places so find out where the music you wanna hear is at and head there

ironclaw

Yeah, this type of crack is fairly common. I've also noticed the high end gear but no idea syndrome.

However, to be fair, there are some DJ's that can play to a well mixed crowd, play the charts, some back catalogue and do it well. Just because someone plays or has to play the charts doesn't make them a sell out.

ED E

ironclaw wrote: »

Yeah, this type of crack is fairly common. I've also noticed the high end gear but no idea syndrome.

However, to be fair, there are some DJ's that can play to a well mixed crowd, play the charts, some back catalogue and do it well. Just because someone plays or has to play the charts doesn't make them a sell out.

I dont think anyone is denying that:) But there is still a balance to be gained within the weeks top40. And mixing well can help lots[I've heard a version of a Gaga song that was almost tolerable:eek:].

RMD

ironclaw wrote: »

Yeah, this type of crack is fairly common. I've also noticed the high end gear but no idea syndrome.

However, to be fair, there are some DJ's that can play to a well mixed crowd, play the charts, some back catalogue and do it well. Just because someone plays or has to play the charts doesn't make them a sell out.

I'd consider it an pretty good skill being able to mix a list of chart songs together well considering how varied they often are. Playing to a mixed crowd you do have to play chart music essentially, but at least you can put some effort into it rather than throwing on shuffle on the Itunes and then just trying to piss away time until your done.

ironclaw

RMD wrote: »

I'd consider it an pretty good skill being able to mix a list of chart songs together well considering how varied they often are. Playing to a mixed crowd you do have to play chart music essentially, but at least you can put some effort into it rather than throwing on shuffle on the Itunes and then just trying to piss away time until your done.

Agreed. I was at a function once, years ago, went up and was having the usual Dj-Dj chat.

"So what program do you use? VDJ? Traktor?"
"Nah, iTunes. Its waayyy better"

Hypertic

You've pretty much 3 choices in this country:

1)Play the chart music you listed above and get paid for it.

2)Play underground music and don't get paid for it

3)Get some tracks signed to labels to give you the opportunity to get paid for playing underground music.

I've seen lots of these guys and to be honest if they cant get work anywhere else and want to be their own boss can you blame them doing it?

Also the dj in commercial clubs and 21st/50th will never really be remembered the next day so I doubt they're really bothered if they leave a 2 second gap between tracks because everyone is drunk and doesnt care.

If you can get paid for doing a handy number and keeping getting booked power to them. Beats being on the scratcher. Though they're prob getting that aswell.

ED E

It in a way I think its great, I'm gonna undercut these chaps to hell over the summer:p Also knowing loads of people with 18ths and 19ths coming up should help.