Your help would be appreciated in suggesting songs to put onto a residency demo. I never plan any of my sets, instead playing to crowd reaction, so I'm totally blank unhtil I can find a good starter.

The residency will be for a club, but they don't have a music policy. I'm planning to select tracks for the 11 - 12 pm after pub slot when the venue really packs out. The current resident on the Friday night plays a lot of sparty anthems from 1990 to present.

I'm really looking for a start off point as I've never had to do a demo before getting my other residency at an SU. Once I've got the first couple of songs down hopefully the rest will flow, but I'm stuck as I'm starting the demo at what would be mid set.

Thanks in advance

Hi,

I never plan any of my sets either - I just go off the audience's reaction , so I'm not going to be of much help to you on this one.

If you've already visited the venue - how did the existing resident go down?, did he (in your opinion) work the dancefloor to its potential?, you can learn a lot from his success / mistakes.

Also are you replacing him, or working a different night?. The reason I ask, is that its possible for the same club to have different audiences on different nights. Say a cheesy crowd in on a Friday, and a Dance crowd in on a Saturday. Even if your club doesn't have a music policy for each night, it is possible to have an entirely different audience - as I found out once!.

The best way is to try what you will know will work, and if the current D.J made a success of the party anthems then try something similar, and then if you prefer, gradually introduce them to something new. If you are replacing an already quite successful D.J then it's pointless re-inventing the wheel, but it is possible to change the music style, but gradually!.

serious question here...... do places still ask for a demo? I know club managers/owners who ask the dj to go and play for them because so many have sent in demos...... of another dj playing!

I don't see the point of them, a demo is not gonna show how a dj reacts to an empty dance floor, and what he does to entice the punters back onto the floor. Any mug can stick a load of tracks onto a cd and call themselves a dj!

For precisely the same reason, I've never bothered making demo cd's for mobile use. Very occassionally a prospective client will request a demo cd, but usually after I've explained that receiving a demo cd from a dj is no guarantee that the demo wasn't recorded by a totally different dj! the clients seem to be less reliant on seeking demo's!

Chris P's point above regarding different nights in the same club is so true. I used to be resident in a local club in NW London. I did fridays and another guy did saturdays. The 2 nights were completely different in every way.
Fridays was a very young crowd, 18 to 22 mainly and the music they wanted was UK Garage, R&B and a little pop while saturdays crowd was mostly 25+ and the music was party/cheese/pop.

thats why i really don't see the point in demos i have known djs to pre work out the pitch of all there songs before hand and could not really mix live well at all. i always think a trial is the best way or if possible invite them to a night you all ready dj at.

Thanks all, as the current DJ gets a good crowd and response, I think I'll do a similar set, but as Chris says start to introduce something a bit different. Most of the club's clientele on either night is 25+. I'm going to have to rebuy some of my stuff on cd as I've only got it on vinyl and the club just decided to get rid of their decks in a refurb.

Kray, I knew this guy who did a dance set, but had his set list already planned because he had the pitch adjustments for a 1200/1210 already written down for the order he played them.

The Club I currently work is mainly 18 - 25 age group, although there is an increasing number of 30+ now appearing. Both me and Pete (The other D.J / Manager) have the same crowd so we basically play the same stuff.

This crowd changes depending on time - rather than day!, it is truely an "After the pubs kick out" venue in that it doesn't get going until between 11 and midnight, but we tend to have a mainly R'n'B crowd in from when the club opens at 9.30.

I Usually play R'n'B from 9.30 until it gets really busy, then I play Chart and Dance between 11 & 12. Then go into an hour of party / cheesy Stuff - this section used to only last for about 30 mins, however it is working really well, and with an increase in the 30+ crowd, I thought I'd diversify a bit this section includes 60's, 70's, 80's etc. Then I play a short old skool section then between 1 & 2 it's the real house & dance stuff. "Scouse House" tends to be really big up there at the mo

The problem with having people arriving a different times (and being a club that takes requests) is getting the same request asked for several times during one night (At the moment it's XTM - Fly on the wings of love) it does your head in!.

Also they are a fickle crowd, if I were to play a brand new track, then you risk killing the dancefloor - where, as in 2 weeks time it could be a club anthem, and asked for several times a night.

Every Club, Crowd and area has different tastes, but the above may be of some help to you.

QUOTE

"Scouse House" tends to be really big up there at the mo

Scouse House!? new one on me
what tracks are considered to be Scouse House?

will be called Mickey n Cat down ere though!



Mickey Mouse = Scouse
Cat n Mouse = House

ere esk...what happened to drum then!

QUOTE

Scouse House!? new one on me   what tracks are considered to be Scouse House

Lol - it was a learning curve for me as well. Finally found a cheap CD in Manchester called "The best of Scouse House", it's just mainly double trackers with two tracks mixed and playing together.

As i've mentioned before the more popular track which they are asking for off it at the moment is a white label by Paul Van Dyke called Darude is on fire and is basically just a mash up of Darude - Sandstorm and Uproar - the roof is on fire. Sounds weird but quite catchy!.

QUOTE (Chris_Pointon @ Aug 22 2003, 02:14 PM)

QUOTE Scouse House!? new one on me   what tracks are considered to be Scouse House Lol - it was a learning curve for me as well. Finally found a cheap CD in Manchester called "The best of Scouse House", it's just mainly double trackers with two tracks mixed and playing together. As i've mentioned before the more popular track which they are asking for off it at the moment is a white label by Paul Van Dyke called Darude is on fire and is basically just a mash up of Darude - Sandstorm and Uproar - the roof is on fire. Sounds weird but quite catchy!.

I just call them bootlegs chris things like soulwax. I have been doing a club in andover and the average age is prob 18 and they love trance which i thought was dead so im having to learn all the new stuff. It's all pretty bad though not my cup of tea

One way to guage the crowd quickly......

If the guests are 30 years old - knock of 5 - 10 years and pitch tunes from 1993-98.

If the guests are 25 years old - knock off 5 - 7 years and pitch from - 1996 - 1998.

If your guests were us lot on the forum - (who's in the crowd, eh?!) I'd make peace with whoever you religiously follow!!!

The three anthem-mix track rule system (american DJ idea I read about) is quite literally down to the attention span of an audience on a dance floor, however, as it is a 'club style' venue - people will expect a certain style of 'music' and entertainment because they've made the effort to go out, and will dance!!!!!

MOST IMPORTANT - JUST RELAX! BE YOURSELF - HAVE FUN! - WEAR A SMILE!

QUOTE

WEAR A SMILE!

Mine wore out a long time ago

QUOTE

they love trance which i thought was dead so im having to learn all the new stuff

Yes, it's getting harder to keep up with trends that change so fast amongst the young 'uns. I'm getting too old for all of this

QUOTE

As i've mentioned before the more popular track which they are asking for off it at the moment is a white label by Paul Van Dyke called Darude is on fire and is basically just a mash up of Darude - Sandstorm and Uproar - the roof is on fire. Sounds weird but quite catchy!.

Ah, Mash-ups/Bootlegs. There r a few good sites around for that stuff now such as
Go Home Productions
Get Your Bootleg On
Culture Deluxe
to name just a few.
I've found some truly wicked mixes on those sights.

Great - Thanks for the links

so it's links u want eh
ere u go
Bastard Pop
Being Nobodies
Boot 106
Mash-Ups
Ultra 396
that should keep u busy downloading
your punters won't know what's hit em

Hey Eskie! You da Man!!

LOL my crowd won't know what to think tonight!!


Best regards

Spin

So how'd it go Spin; were your crowd slightly bemused by the mash-ups, trying to work out which song(s) were actually playing

One tip for some of the links earlier.
The 'Being Nobodies' & 'Get Your Bootleg On' are both forums similar to this but dedicated to people who create mash-ups/bootlegs.
It can be very time consuming going through all the messages in order to find info on a good bootleg. I've found that the best way around this is to only look at messages that have had at least 8+ replies. If a bootleg isn't any good, there are very often few replies, whereas the good ones tend to get lots of replies.
You'll find many of the bootlegs are totally unsuitable for mobile use, although many are technically superb, and great to listen to, especially for DJ's as we tend to appreciate a wider range of music than your average punter.
From browsing through these sites over the past few months it seems that it's considered naff to mix 2 tracks from the same genre, which is why you'll often find a rock track mixed with R&B or Trance with The Who!
But every now and then you get a bootleg on there which is suitable for mobile use.
It can be time consuming trawling through the messages and listening to the different bootlegs but it's worth it when you find a breathtaking mix.
2 bootlegs that I've found which work really well are Bug-a-nots which is the music from Patrice Rushen-Forget Me Nots and the vocals from Destiny's Child-Bug-a-boo and also Crazy Love Affair which is the music from Sly & The Family Stone-Family Affair and the vocals from Beyonce-Crazy In Love. Both of these bootlegs are great when you want to go from an old soul set to some new R&B or vice-versa.

Well I liked them, I did'nt overdo it too much, but I did have one sweet young person come up and ask "Why are you playing two songs at the same time"? LOL Bloody stoopid kids!!!!

Spin

Hi i was just wondering if anybody knows of a good site to get accappelas as i have just started to get into making my own bootlegs bet there seems to only be a few good ones knocking around in the usual place's any help will be great

QUOTE (Dj_Kray @ Aug 23 2003, 07:19 PM)

Hi i was just wondering if anybody knows of a good site to get accappelas as i have just started to get into making my own bootlegs bet there seems to only be a few good ones knocking around in the usual place's any help will be great

more "pellas"

your best bet is to go to

http://www.acapella-heaven.tk/

and have a look at what they have on-line them join their forum and many people will "streamload" their whole collection to you.

I'm not sure if the bloke who runs AH still does it but he used to sell a 4 CD mp3 accapella set (800 odd mp3s) for £15


but the best place of all is via p2p - many to be had on there


-PP

btw hi everybody

Thanks purple pete that was very helpful!

Thanks for the bootleg links, they were interesting to say the least.

In the end I've decided to start with:

Praise You - Fatboy Slim
Brimful Of Asher - Cornershop
Can't Get You Out Of My Head - Kylie

I'll post up the full track listing once I've recorded.

DJ Kay, (ohhh this is going to get confusing --- we now have DJ Kay, and DJ Kray...).

You have respect from me already, simply from the point that you adjust your club set (of tunes) to cater for the audiences reaction to the preceding tune(s). Whilst this is a logical thing to do (and commonly benefited from by the DJ's on this forum), some "hardened" club DJ's dont do this.

The alternative - of learning a 2 hour set over, and over and over again at home, and then duplicating that 2 hour set in a club, two weeks later, blind and oblivious to what its doing (or not doing) for the dancefloor, gets respect from me for its technical ability (smooth mixing, nice timing, music phrasing etc), but leaves me cold in terms of actually how apt that set was for any given audience. Such DJ's could just have recorded their whole set in the bedroom and brought the CD/Tape with them to the club for the night - and stood there miming their mixes. I've heard that some "pro" DJ's do that already, if they get to a gig and find something not to their liking eg: Poor monitor speakers, or noisy DJ booth, unfamiliar equipment etc.

To me, part of DJ'ing IS the ability to adapt, adjust and be as flexible as possible to cater exactly to what the dancefloor/audience REALLY needs, not what I thought they "might" need, when thinking it over days before the gig.

How many times have DJ's on here, had their next tune, all ready, loaded, cued up, gains adjusted etc etc...and then with less than a minute (or less) left of the current playing tune, glanced at the dancefloor and thought "No....they'll like xxxxxxxxx track, a lot better than what I WAS planning to play next", and then with just seconds to go, cued up the new track instead...

Good grief, I hope its not just me....

Reading that message about changing track with seconds left has just made me really happy. I always just thought it was me who did that.
Have you ever changed to a track that then emptied the dancefloor then you play the tune you was going to play and it fills again.
DJ Life is fun!!!!!!!!

The longer you DJ the longer 2 seconds seem to last, and how many of us have changed our minds a little too late and had to talk whilst changing the CD for another one ?

BTW Welcome Whiskey In A Vase

Cheers ADS. Although been a member for while computer problems mean I haven't been able to enter any messages for some reason. Anyway all that is hopefully behind me and hopefully I can now be an active mmeber of this forum.

We all know about compouter problems. just ask Karen and Gary. Welcome again and enjoy !!

I had a phase where I just didn't know what to play next so only started looking for tunes with about a minute left. The seconds do seem to stretch after you've been doing this for a while, so I always made it (even if it was only by a couple of seconds).

[edit] Ooh, double figure post count [/edit]

chris, not being funny mate, but "scouse house" as you have quoted, is not bootlegs and mashups of other records as such, Scouse house as a genre can not really be defined as a perticular style of music becuase it is in fact quite varied. Being from liverpool myself, and a full time professional DJ hopefully i can shed some light on this.
Scouse house as we know it today comes from artists such as the Klubbheads, Ultrabeat, Alex K, Dinky and older stuff like Lock N Load Blow ya mind & Dj Cerla. the music is not in fact liverpool originated from various places in europe, its the repetative bassline and bouncy sound that defines scouse house to me.
hope this has helped anyone who is confused