Echo Kinetic
Music, Happenings, Awesomeness
Hard Work
“Where do you DJ?”
I would get asked this question at least a couple of times per week. Working in the job I’m in, that is to be expected. I sell DJ equipment, of course customers are going to ask. Funnily enough, i’m not employed because I DJ, I’m employed because I’m organised, can speak to people, and can sell things. So you can imagine the “Where do you DJ?” can get a little bit awkward.
When asked, i usually reel off a few gigs that are coming up, that i help run a night called Substance, or if it’s quiet, just say that I’m busy with uni and can’t do many gigs right now.
With my DJ workload increasing, I’ve been mentioning that I’ve been doing a few bar gigs (nothing massive, but it’s extra cash) and most people kind of brush that off as not real DJ work. If you’re not playing in front of thousands at a festival or a packed club, you’re not doing anything right?
Even I originally brushed off bar work as “easy”. You just turn up, play commercial cheese right, people love it right? The mixing is like 15-30 seconds, not massively long transitions, that’s easy.
I could never have been more wrong. Bar work is the hardest gig you will ever play. Period. You try and work with a crowd who are sitting down, and for them, music is only part of the atmosphere. They aren’t there to see a DJ play, they just don’t care about you. When playing a “club” gig, if you play a track people don’t dig, the dance floor empties, but you’ll find everyone getting a beer rather than rocking out.
You play a poor track at a bar and everyone just fucking leaves. Fuck Me.
This week was a steep learning curve.
Honestly, it felt like a cleared the place. I played similar tracks to last time, tried to cater to the crowd, but nothing worked. I don’t know if it was just that night, but no one was into it.
Closing time came, and had I ended up playing to a few peeps who had basically come down to see me. (Cheers @jpoh and @techydude). The whole night was a total eye opener, it takes much more than just great tunes and good skill to gel with a crowd.
Next time you’re at a bar and there’s a DJ who is rocking the place, buy him/her a drink, it’s a fucking hard gig.
November 13, 2009 - 1:51 am
ey richo,
to be honest i wasn’t paying all that much attention to what you were playing initially, because what you played seemed to fit well with the mood of the room. it wasn’t until you started hunting, shifting styles trying to ‘get the crowd back’, that i started to take notice.
thing is, that venue is tiny – only room for a half-dozen or so groups of people. think of it statistically. only a few groups of people need to decide to move on to whatever else they might’ve had planned (or just go home, or whatever) to give you the impression that they left because of you, when perhaps it had nothing at all to do with you (esp. given your reception a fortnight earlier, which unlike a large club venue, was probably an entirely different set of people).
but then, when you go shifting styles in an attempt to stop what you think is an exodus, those who were happy there become restless, & move on.
as you say, a venue like that is entirely different to a larger gig where people will go away for a breather or a drink if they don’t like what you play & give you a chance to adjust. but that doesn’t necessarily mean that in a small venue like little peninsula that if they leave it’s because they don’t like what you’re playing. maybe they were just leaving. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
anyways, i’m lookin forward to another gig some time