Promote Your Content 📢

On this episode of The Get Down Cream and Gary discuss:

• Playing a set when ownership or decision makers are in the room. What should you be doing to ensure a great performance & make your set stand out.
• Dealing with requests in a manner that is positive for the venue, patron & your DJ career.
• The significance in promoting your content the right way. What's working right now.
• The state of music & how viral records are impacting what we do.

RSVP To Our Open Decks Event
Wednesday December 13 @ Mills Tavern, Hoboken, NJ

Transcript

0:01

Alright, what's up guys? Welcome to the 138th episode of the Get Down. Brought to you by Digital Music Pool. My name's Kareem. Gary W here. What are you smiling at? You know, happy to be doing it again. Happy to be doing it again. We both hosted Thanksgiving. How was your Thanksgiving hosting duties? quiet, very, very quiet. So anybody who doesn't know, I come from a pretty large family. There's five siblings, and obviously my mom and dad grew up with my grandparents under the same roof, and it was just like three of us this year. It was me, my sister, and her boyfriend. So that was weird, because my mom was up north, my dad got sick, so he stayed home. He didn't want to get anybody sick. And then Jackie didn't fly in until later, so she didn't get to the house like 8 p.m., I guess it was, 8.30, which was kind of funny because she's vegan, so we ate. We sat and we ate late. We played games early, then we ate at like 6 p.m., which, anybody that knows any Italian family in North Jersey, you eat at like two o'clock or one o'clock, whatever it might be. So we ate at like 6 p.m., 6.30. We got done. and then cooked a whole nother vegan Thanksgiving right after we got done. But we had so much fun doing it. And that was kind of like the fun part of the night. We poured a bunch of wine and cooked together everybody that was there. My buddy Dave was in too, I'm sorry. My buddy Dave was here as well. So we had a good time, it was fun. How was it by you? Yeah, we were pretty quiet too. Just immediate family, my girlfriend was working. Some of her family was sick, so it was just like, I was sick. I get sick every holiday, like it's ridiculous. I've been sick for two weeks, legit, like blowing my nose, coughing, not feeling good, no energy, it's been terrible. It's been a struggle. And I did, you know, I cooked and hosted Thanksgiving through all that and then worked and it just didn't really help my recovery situation at all. Yeah, you got down here a couple weeks ago for our year end and just sick the whole time. Standard. Yeah, not the most productive year end meeting, but we got some stuff done. It was, it was like a. It was part, we got part of what we need to get done done, but that's why we do it early. So we have time before the end of the year to really sit down and finalize the goals. And, you know, I think we did a really good job as far as reviewing this year and going over the numbers and kind of like, at least getting a good basis for where we need to focus our time and energy in the early part of 2024. So it was successful. We've learned from years past about what needs to be done. And we have an outline, which is nice now. You know, and it's a rough outline of what needs to be gone over. And that's really made it easy. end goal planning and reviewing your year and you know, we will get into that a little more, I'm sure as we kind of move closer to 2024. But it was something that Gary and I have spent some time on here recently. So it's worth bringing up. Something we'll talk about, but real quick, to just put on other people's radar, if you do your year end, start to plan to do a six month too. I feel like that helped us tremendously because so much had changed from November to June. So, something we'll talk about probably in like one of our normal year end wrap, you know, what you should be thinking about for the next year. But yeah, start to maybe plan for a six month to review because things can change rapidly. Yeah. So the first thing I want to talk about was something that I went through recently here. We just had Chris Kinzel, one of the managing partners of Downtown Social on the show. If you guys haven't checked out that episode, I think it was a unique perspective and a really, we got some good feedback on that one. So go check that one out, our last episode. But I was playing at Downtown Social and started my set and maybe 45 minutes in, Chris comes up to me and goes, the big owners are here. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, the big owners, like they own everything. They're managing, they're partners in every business in Best Bars, which is like, I don't know, probably 10 or 12 venues at this point in multiple states. And they were hanging out with me the whole night next to the DJ booth. It was two guys and their wives. And it made me think, you know, like. I was a little nervous. I was like, all right, well, I'm not just I have to think about what I want to do in this situation and how I want to present what happens at these people's venue, you know, on any given night. Chris introduced me as the owner of Get Down DJs, one of the guys that books all the DJs. So they knew that, you know, we're involved with all the entertainment that comes into the building, which, you know, put a little more pressure on me as well. But Additionally, just I'm gonna add this in before you go forward, additionally, we don't book the entertainment at all of the venues. Would we like to? Absolutely. So the pressure is a little more on because, you know what, we have two of the best bars venues, but we don't have the other 10. And, you know, like any business owner, you want all of them. So you have additional pressure representing the brand and then also putting on a good performance in order to possibly bring the brand into other bars that they own. Yeah, and I wanna kinda talk about this and frame it in a way that you guys who are listening as DJs, when the owner's not always gonna be in the building, how do you act when the owner's in the building, right? How do you play the room, if you do play it differently, when the owner's in the building? Or maybe the managing partner's there for the first time all month, or whatever the case may be. And I think it's important to put your best foot forward, right? I was really... focused on presenting myself well on the microphone, making sure that we were interacting with the customers for sure. Chris did a really good job because we made sure that we were syncing up an intro and we had the lights going and we had all the poppers. We had other DJs in the DJ booth and I was like, hey, this is the big owner. We need to be like extra on it tonight. They did really great. They were passing out like glow sticks and it was a really cool thing. From a DJ perspective, I was definitely second guessing like, Should I even, should I hit this? Should I not hit this? And where I ended up was, if the wives have a good time, we're gonna have a good night. Just like if the girls in the room are having a good time, we're generally gonna have a good night. And that's how I approached the set. And a lot of the song decisions that I made, especially when we were hitting peak hour pretty hard, were very female focused. Like even like some older stuff, you know, mixed in, because they were, you know, in their 50s, or I don't know how old they were, but. Definitely in their 50s at least. So it was way different from a normal set in the fact that I wasn't just reacting. I was like really thinking about the journey that I wanted to go on. It's, that's a hard situation to be put into without any heads up, right? But you're a pro and you'll adapt and you did the, I'm sure you did the right thing. And it's kind of funny to hear that like even Chris was trying to like really be on it, right? Chris, we just had him on and we say, he does such a good job anyway. He doesn't really need to show out in any way, you know? He just needs to just keep doing what he does. But the same thing for you, but then like, it's like, all right, well how am I gonna? I'm going to really cater to these people, to make them know that like, okay, like the place is having a good time, but you kind of want to butter them up in a way where like they're having a good time as well. It's very difficult, that's not easy to do, especially when you have like, that's a very 21 to 26 year old forward place, and now you have these people that are possibly twice the median age of that place. And you're like, okay, well now I have to cater to a little bit of both and not do it in a way where it's gonna affect the night. It's hard. right. I don't think they expected me to cater to them whatsoever. I think they were in town and they wanted to come experience what's been going on at Downtown Social. They were there on a great night. Like it was slam from the moment I went on. So that worked out to our advantage for sure because the big drops and the, you know, three, two, one, hands up and like all that stuff was working really, really well because it was such a busy night. And honestly like, I was really happy with where my set was up to the point that they walked in. I had like really set up the crowd for success. They walked in right around like, it's go time. So they kind of witnessed the turn the volume up to a 10, turn the energy up to a 10 moment and then stayed through a good chunk of the night. But I think something to think about when an owner is in your building is number one, the customer experiences. How are you interacting with the customers? How you're interacting with the people that come up to you? How are you working with the managers that are working to make sure you have the best night? And then if there is a particular format that venue kind of likes to stick to, I think it's really important to stick to the format, right? The downtown social format is high energy, popular vocals with EDM. That's really what they do. Now, do I go play, you know, Mo Bamba? Do I go hit some hip hop? Do I maybe hit a Bad Bunny? When I'm there normally, yes. Do I do as much of that when the owners are in the building? Probably not. You play a little more to the vest. You play what your ace said, right? You play what you know works in the room. And you're not going super out on a limb. but you don't wanna play too safe. We've talked about this before, but I think there's also that important role of not playing it too safe and becoming boring. Because that can happen too, where you're really, then you start to second guess kinda everything you're doing and all of a sudden you're just kinda playing, what winds up being boring. I did it a couple years ago, I only played for this other, entertainment group a handful of times. And I think because of the set, I played this like really safe set. Instead of just playing the room, I played what they told me they wanted to hear. And what happened was just a flop of a set, you know? And probably the reason I didn't work for that group again after that because it was just, it was boring. I walked out of the set going, holy shit, that was boring. That was like, and because I just played it too safe. Instead of being myself and playing what I wanna, what I thought would work in the room and what the people were reacting to. I think that's a really important thing, especially when you get, when you're working for somebody and you get a format and they tell you what the format is, well, yeah, that's your loose format, but still play the room, still be a DJ, right? I think that's important in these situations too. Well, I think that goes for, you know, you and I are passing along format and genres and what's expected of our DJs all the time. You know, we're booking new DJs all the time. The formats sometimes an owner wants to update the format or it's changing a little bit or whatever the case may be. And like you said, you want to kind of do what's asked of you, but you also at the end of the day just have to be a DJ. And sometimes I think we all fall into that. range of, well, they told me this is what I need to play. So this is how I'm playing the set. Even if your eyes and your ears and your instincts are telling you what they told you isn't working right now. So I have to do something else to hook my crowd. Yeah, and then if you do go away from it a little bit and that really winds up working, well, just make sure you communicate that to the manager or whatever and be like, hey, I went here and this is what was working, so just a heads up, that's where we're at. I'll get out of it in like four or five songs and then we can, oh, but I might revisit that again later, kind of a thing. But in your specific situation, that's different. right, like the owners, as long as the energy stays high in the room and customers are staying and they're not walking out, I don't really think it matters necessarily what you're playing, right? I think you do you, to an extent, right? You wanna kinda stay within the boundaries. Maybe you go out of the lines a few times and see how it works, and then you go back to doing what is expected, sort of. Yeah, because that owner, all he cares about at the end of the day is how much money is coming in that register, you know? another situation that I just thought of, what if that owner is super hands-on and is like, well, do this and do this and play, this big spender wants this, where you're used to playing that room where the owner's never there and the management trusts you and you do your thing. How do you do that? Or if it's a new venue and the owner or manager's super hands-on. That's the balancing act, right? You have to do what that owner says, it's his place. As much as that might frustrate you in the moment, you have to put a smile on and say, absolutely, let's do it, let's see what happens. That's always my big one to the owner that comes up. Like, all right, yeah, let's do it, see what happens. You throw it on and like, all right, well, it worked, or hey, it didn't work, and if they come back around in 15 minutes and. you see that it doesn't work. So you play like two or three of those songs in whatever they wanted to hear, and then you get the hell out of it, right? And then when they come back and say, hey, what happened? What happened in that Jackson five track I told you to play? Well, it didn't really work, and that genre is not really working right now here. Let's try this out, and then maybe we'll revisit it later on. I think that's the best way to speak to, you don't wanna say, hey, that shit sucked, it was terrible. You know, there's a way to just communicate it where, You know what? It didn't work yet, but maybe it'll work later. Like, so let's revisit it later. That's always the best thing to do. And then you can because maybe it does work later on because that person's giving you that feedback because of something that historically happened in that venue. They had that music played. What owners? This is a huge thing that I haven't expressed to our group and probably should shoot a loom for the for them if they don't listen to this. You have to understand that they're requesting music that had worked once in the room. at some point, what the owner doesn't understand is that not every crowd's the same. And not every and not every night's a carbon copy of the last. You're going to have different nights, and especially in our market, you're going to have different genres that need to be played. Just because Jackson five into Mo Bamba went off last week doesn't mean that's going to work this week or ever again. You know what I mean? Like, and I the ownership, it's us not educating the ownership on like, hey guys, like this isn't all the same. It's not always the same night over and over and over again. So like, what was working and you guys had like the 400 people in the room and they're singing along to Sweet Caroline, but when there's 50 people in the room, that's not going to work. And I think that's what gets lost on some ownership and some management, you know? So when they come at you and say, it's like, hey, we want the sing along bar stuff. Well, sing-along bar stuff doesn't work when there's 60 people in the room, you know, but you're going to have to appease that owner or manager and tell them, all right, let's try it out. Then you could play like a re-drum of it, right? And like something that's better for a down tempo time. And you play a couple down tempo sing-alongs and then boom, you go back into or whatever it might be, you know, whatever they're asking for. You could just manipulate it in a way that works for you. Right, it's like any other request, right? Except this particular request, you have to take and you have to figure out a way to play. Right, like you take the request and whether it's good or bad, you say, all right, I'll make it happen because it's the owner and you have to make it happen. And you figure out a way to get there and sometimes you're gonna spin out of a record, get on the mic and hit play. Sometimes you're gonna take them on a normal journey of going playing two or three or four songs to get to that point. Only you really know how that owner may or may not react. But I would say you want to try and play that song as soon as possible. And like you said, be open-minded about it. Always be positive because those are the type of people that owners want to work with. They want to work with people that are willing to take, just take direction from management or ownership and people that are there to help the cause in the night. So you're gonna play it. And if it flops, you play one more. If it still flops, you get the hell out of there. And you go back to doing what you're doing, like you said. We are in the business of dealing with people, right? Body language, facial expressions, the way you, the tone of your voice, the inflection of your voice, this can all be read very easily, you know? And you have no idea, guys, how many managers and owners will call us and be like, well, you know, this person did a great job, but like, they just didn't really wanna be there. They didn't seem like they wanted to be there. They're just reading your body language. They're reading the way you're speaking to the patrons in the room. And those owners that stood there with you that night, I'm sure they were reading all of that stuff. You know, this is what these people do and have been doing for a very long time. That's why they own these places. You know, and the minute you come off in this negative light, whether it's just a shoulder shrug or you know, you rolled your eyes at a Cotteney Joe request. or like whatever it might be, like that, all of that stuff is being read by the people that hire you. And whether you think they see you or not, whether you think they see you or not, they see you. They know, because somebody's reporting back, whether that's a Yelp review, whether that somebody's complaining to a manager, whether that's somebody else that works in the room that's like, hey, that DJ's, you know, not being as receptive as he should be, or she should be. It's. also will, we get such a longer leash and we can say to an owner like, that ain't gonna work, like, you know, I feel more comfortable doing that and I know you feel more comfortable doing that in our particular situation because we have such closer relationships with these owners and they trust us because we're booking all their DJs, you know, so like, it's a little different. I would say this works better like, let's say you're booked at a brand new place, you or I. and we go there and we're dealing with an owner. Because that's more like what the average DJ is gonna go into a place and deal with, I would say. Yeah. Yeah, and you, but. You're right though, man. These owners remember everything, they read everything, and the slightest poor body language or attitude that you give them could potentially have you never book there ever again. It's all it takes, it's like a little thing. A little, little thing. you. And they're like, who the fuck is this person that's gonna give me an attitude? I own the place, I'm asking them to do something, they're gonna give me a hard time? It's my fucking building, I'm writing the check. If you think these owners are keeping up with how big each local DJ is they don't give a fuck You could be they don't know they don't know they don't know right? So they don't really care like they don't they don't care if you think that you're the next you know the next big thing Or just do the right thing right just be positive. You know, we had somebody kind of not We had somebody this weekend that was getting nasty requests by the people in the room and you know it just like it went a little awry and it didn't really work out and like had to talk to them and it's like you don't you just smile and nod and if it's getting really bad you've got to go to a bouncer you got to go to the ownership or you got to go to management whoever's in that room that's that next level up if the if like there's a little off base but like If the requests are getting really bad, not saying from the owner, from like patrons and stuff, you gotta let somebody know. It's just talking about requests in general. So. rooms where I've had no issue saying to a bouncer like, hey, can you just make sure nobody comes up here anymore? Because I can't do my job because it's become too much, you know? Too many birthday shout outs, too many requests, too like, if it's peak hour, and I got people coming up to me every other song, it's like really, really hard to get into a flow. So don't have an issue texting a manager and saying, hey, can we have a bouncer up here or can... where if there is a bouncer standing near you like, hey, can you help me out? I can't do my job when all these people are coming up. I think that's more than reasonable from a DJ to ask of a manager and or a bouncer. So, I wouldn't feel any type of way asking for that. 100%. Definitely. Since we were talking about requests, I wanted to talk about that. because most of my venues now have some sort of like barricade or stage or most places people aren't getting close to me unless like it's okay by me kind of thing. But most rooms, the average room, it's like anybody can walk up to you at any point. Yeah, 95% of rooms you're in the crowd, essentially. And people have access to you. So if it gets out of hand, because we know it does, especially when alcohol is involved, it gets tough. Anything else on this? I mean, I think we've kind of hit all angles, and actually more angles than what I thought we were gonna hit when we were prepping for this episode. No, I think that kind of covers it all. I don't want to exhaust the request thing, but making sure that the owners are happy and doing it in a strategic way is definitely important. You know what, Gar, before we end, one final comment, and the only thing I'll say is because we work with so many DJs and we book a lot of the DJs and there's a lot of situations where another DJ is booking you or I, if you're not the person that's booking the DJs or booking the room, you have to go like the extra mile to kill people with kindness and especially, you know, do what that owner or manager is asking for because it's not your account kind of thing, you know? Like it's one thing if you don't ever wanna play there again, you still have to finish out the night and do what's being asked of you, and then you just tell the person who's booking, like, I don't think it's a good fit, or I had a really bad experience, or this owner did this, and this is why I don't wanna be there. But if it's not your account, your negative attitude, or you not reacting correctly, can cost get down, or any other booker, that as an account potentially. And then you're taking thousands and thousands of dollars. away from other DJs. And I just think you also have to think about that when you're in situations like that. Yeah, yeah, if you're being booked by somebody else and there's a group involved, that's for sure, because you have to think large scale. You have to think outside of just you as the person. And yeah, like you said, you could be unhappy that night, but it's just suck it up and be a pro and finish the night out, and then air your grievances out with the bookers or the management. So. All right, so the next thing I wanna kinda cover here, I just released my creaming friends edit pack a couple weeks ago. You know, we're constantly putting out various content, mixes, edits, the podcast, pretty much anything that we do and we're creating, we're coming up with some sort of a checklist or plan of every single task that needs to be completed in order for this particular piece of content to come out. And then not only that, We're creating a whole plan around what are the things we need to do to now promote this particular piece of content. And I think you guys who are listening don't do this enough, and I don't think you promote what you're doing enough. Whatever you're creating, whether it's originals, whether it's mixes, whether it's edit packs, a podcast, you can't expect one single post or one single, you know, one video or one... One thing is not gonna do it. And where people are really seeing success, they're like hammering their audience over the head with one piece of content, but they're doing it in a different way every single time. And I think we all need to think more about not just like spending all this time in creating this piece of content, but figuring out a way of how to extend it out beyond one day of promo, or like one week of promo even, you know? I saw this for the first time a couple weeks ago, and I'm sure it's been going on for like a year, but you know how marketing trends for social media content, they go in ebbs and flows, and there's different things, we all try different things to see what's gonna hit. And it wasn't a couple weeks ago, it was probably a couple months ago now, and it was Nego and Sway, and it was there, everybody wants to rule the world, and before it got picked up, it was like, every post for like, it felt like weeks. And they would have that in the background of every post that they had for a long time. I think they knew they had a heater, obviously. And it was just they were just nailing it down people's throats with every post. And I'm like, is this a little overboard? But then I think about like, when we sit down with our marketing guy, Brandon, who's absolute genius with it. He's always down to try something new and like a different approach and say, okay, let's see if this works, right? And I'm sure that was kind of what their strategy was. It's like, well, let's feed it to them. And then I noticed like a couple other artists kind of doing the same thing where they put out a new track and then it was like for two weeks, every post had it in it. Like whatever that content was, whatever that song was that they were trying to put out. To Nico and Swayze, to their, whatever, like to their positivity would be, to their credit, thank you, to their credit, it got picked up. by Tiesto and obviously there's that Tears for Fear shouted them out on socials and stuff like that and they did a great job with it. Yeah, I mean, that's a great example. Nico and Sway have been rising here in the last couple years and their music and their shows are getting bigger and starting to play some festivals and getting a release with Tiesto is now gonna catapult them into being 10X bigger artists. And there's so much work that went into that song getting picked up, right? It's like... One song, one original track, like there's so many ways that you can put it out into the world. It can just be in the background of everything you post. It could be show the Ableton screen of the track. It could be this is how I created the melody for this song. It could be this was the inspiration. We love 80s music and this is why we created it. There's like 20 different things that you can create about your one original song. And there's other artists who do like, Matillo on TikTok, he constantly does the same thing. He puts out a song in every post for the next month, has his music on that post. And it's like, if you heard that song one time, you're probably unlikely gonna ever seek out Matillo or download that song. If you hear it 20 times and it keeps coming up across your screen, you're way more likely to then wanna go and download it or put it on your Spotify playlist or play it in a set. I think this goes for anything that you're creating, right? It's really easy to talk about it as far as a song, but maybe it's an event that you're putting on, right? I'm not gonna send one MailChimp email. I'm gonna send one MailChimp email every week for eight weeks leading up to the event. Because you get eight emails, maybe you open and read one of them, or maybe you open two of them, and then the second one you click RSVP. So like, we have to think about... It's not annoying guys, it's just doing your due diligence on the things that you're creating and the things that you're promoting. It's not one and done, it's a long journey of making something happen. Talk about, we could touch on conversion rates too. What's your conversion rate on email sent to your point? And all of that stuff, it takes sometimes a couple of times to see something and then be like, okay, I'm gonna click into that. Whether that's an email, whether that's a text or a DM, like a mass DM, or whatever it might be, whatever you're doing to reach people, you have to do it consistently and... almost religiously several times a week, especially when you're putting out something brand new. Whether that's a party, whether that's a song, whether that's a mix, whether it's a pack, no matter what it is. I think the pack is the best example because that's the content that does the best for me always. You know, it's gonna get the most clicks, it's gonna get the most listens. You know, my edit packs will do three X the number of plays than an original track that I put out. It just is what it is, you know? More people are gonna be into checking out edit packs for whatever reason. And like, I'm gonna send three emails of pretty much the same email. maybe just a little bit different for each one, but like, you get clicks on all three, and the same people aren't clicking for each three, you know, like, if I only sent one email and 100 people click on it to download it, and that was the only email I got, that's only 100 downloads, but if I send three emails and it's 180 and 50, you know, that's 230 downloads instead of 100, just because I sent three emails instead of one. And guys, like don't think that you're being annoying. You're just doing your due diligence and you're doing what's best for you and for your content and for whatever you're promoting. just spit balling here. What do you think about like in an email, like in your title, highlighting like where you want the person to go check out the download pack or check out whatever it might be, like highlighting like Spotify or highlighting like SoundCloud because it's like maybe that intrigues me to click into that. It's like, okay, like I've been messing around on my Spotify today, like I'll click into that cream, just set me something that says, check out my mix on Spotify or whatever it might be. Yeah, I mean, that's why you send more than one, right? Because you could test out three different subjects for the same content, and maybe one of those gets 3x more clicks. And then the next time you put out a similar content, you're like, oh, well, I'm gonna go with the subject line that did the best from the last time I did this. And then you use that, and maybe it sparks off, you know, better results for that particular piece of content. I think with doing this, there's no really black and white. I mean, there's like a black and white way to set up, set yourself up for success, but then when you're going to send the emails and things like that, try out different things to see what does the best. Yeah, it doesn't just have to be emails. It can be whatever you're doing. I think the overarching point is, when you're putting something out, you can't just put something into the world one time. It has to be a repeated process, different outlets, different ways of doing it. You gotta see what works, and you have to give people the opportunity to actually listen or actually click or actually read what you're sending them. And many times, one post or one email's not gonna get that done. This is a really important point that I wanted to get across because, you know, in doing some of the things that we do, it's a lot of work, man. It's a lot, a lot of work to put out an edit pack. It's a lot, a lot of work to do our Open Decks party once a month. There are like 50 things in the checklist that need to happen for that party to be successful, or for my edit pack to be successful. So I just wanted to put that out into the world because I think it goes kind of untalked about sometimes. It's definitely overlooked. Because it's honestly 138 episodes in and we've never talked about how to be consistent with one piece of content. We've talked about being consistent in your content and being consistent in your social media and being consistent in making a mix or putting out bootlegs or putting out whatever it might be, but not how to follow through in the promotions out of it. It's just definitely interesting. we're all learning on the fly, right? Like, I'm still trying to figure out a way to promote my Spotify playlist successfully. Like, and I don't know if I have the answer to that, but I'm gonna still keep trying different things and going on TikTok and seeing like, what other artists are doing to promote their playlist and maybe trying something in that style to see if it works for me. That's all we can do. right? Jake Schor said, it doesn't always have to be an original idea, you can always steal somebody else's idea and make it your own, right? And that's, it's just a good way to go, it's just an easier way to work, it's a smarter way to work at the end of the day. Because it's not all, it's not, there is no, right. Yeah. just going and seeing what other artists are doing to promote their content. I don't think that's stealing, I think that's just doing your due diligence and figuring out like what's successful and what's not and figuring out a way to make it work for you. Definitely. All right, let's get into a little music confo. It's been a while since you and I just did a pod solo. So, you know, we had no guests for a while and now we've had a ton of guests. And it's like, we gotta find a happy medium out here. But let's talk music for a little bit. So I haven't really been DJing that much. I've taken some time off here. What has been working for your set? Anything in the last month that you're seeing like trending, whether it be BPM, whether it be genre, what are you, are people getting sick of anything right now? Like what do you got going on in your sets currently? Yeah, so I've definitely noticed some changes for sure in kind of what people are into and, you know, this is a time of year where things are slowing a little bit with all the holidays and people getting sick and, you know, the economy and everything else. So like, you know, the first time things start slowing down, it's like, what, the DJ is not playing the right music or like, we always get blamed, right? So we're gonna get blamed. So we've had a lot, I've had a lot of conversations with managers and owners and staff and just kind of like touching base, right? Like what's working? What do we want to change up? Things like that. And then just stuff in my own set. So number one, BPM's speeding up a thousand percent. We've been talking about it for a while. There's been more and more like this big room techno style that's been kind of coming out and it's sort of works in a crossover. You know, you can play it. it's just gotta have a vocal that, you know, your everyday club goer is gonna know. So, that stuff's working, you know, the house-ier, tech house stuff that's popular, all the Summit and Dom Dala and all that stuff's been working, even like Eli Brown stuff, which is a faster BPM, has been working in some of my more mainstream sets that I've been trying, I've been really trying to push that style, because it is what's become really popular right now the festival world and outside of the US. And I just think that we're a little behind on that particular trend. So that's one thing. How do you feel about pop music in general? Is that fading? Are you getting away with playing stuff that's non-pop? Or do you still have to always have that kind of pop vocal that people know? I think what's pop is really different right now. Like, what's pop isn't necessarily always new music. And I think, this is a larger discussion, but like, because of viral trending sounds and songs and stuff that's happening on TikTok, yes, there are new tracks that are going viral and that like, I think it's really important of playing the stuff that's popular on TikTok, but in a club environment, right? I was saying to you offline, like that, track that's all over TikTok. Like I found a tech house version that I like that fits in my sets and it goes off. The Makaba track has been going off in my sets. Like it just works. I think we as DJs have to take what's trending and make it into something that's club friendly. If you're making edits, go look at what's trending on TikTok and make edits in, make those edits. That's what I would say. I think for a long time, a lot of this like 2000s pop vocal stuff over house music was really working, I'm sick of it. And if I'm sick of it, I know staff is sick of it. I know customers are sick of it. And that's sort of been working for years. And it's like, I hope that it's kind of coming to an end because it's boring to me. Like the Black Eyed Peas and all that stuff that's just getting hammered on the record pools and hammered on the dance floors, it's like, I think people are getting tired of it. We've been saying it for about a year now. It's like, it's the same. We've been saying this forever. This has been a repetitive thing that we've said since episode one. It's the same vocals getting used over and over and over again on all of these mashups and all these record pools. And it becomes, we all wind up playing the same vocals all the time. And that is boring, you know? And that's why we say, like, try to find your sound and try to play a little differently and pepper in those tracks that that you personally like, they might not be dance floor breakers, but they at least set you apart to be a little different. And you've got to know when to do that too. You're not going to do that at peak hour. You know, you could do that a little bit at the end of the night, a little bit at the beginning of the night, and really set yourself apart in that way. So it's hard, man. It's hard when we're getting hit with a lot of the same, everybody's playing kind of the same style of set. You're a little different because you play, you have your sound, you have your bass house, you know, kind of persona, and you can probably mix that in a little more to your mainstream sets when you come back home to play, right? Right, and then also creating my own edits allows me to be a little more unique than some other people too, and that's something that I've always done and it's always helped me be successful, and that'll never change until the day I retire, you know? Like, that's gonna always be part of me, and I think it's important for you guys that are making edits to play your edits and like make edits that you're gonna use in your sets, you know? Because it sets you apart, for sure. Are you actively picking out vocals that are not being overused? Do you find yourself being like, oh, that's overused, I'm not gonna use that. I, unless there's a gap in my sets where it's like, all right, this is something that's been popular and it's been working for other people, but I don't like any of the edits that are out there, I'll choose something that's less popular. Gary, really, the viral trending stuff to me is like where we all need to be spending time with edits because that's where people are finding music and that's where music is becoming popular like, The number one trending sound on TikTok right now is like a slowed down, aimery one thing. Like just to put it in perspective, like just because it's old doesn't mean that it can't be something that's trending, right? Like that jid track that we were talking about that's super popular, it's a trend where everyone's taping their phone to the ceiling, right? Like that's a, it's a most deaf, Miss Fat Booty sample. Like an underground backpack wrap. beat that they turn into a pop track that's trending on socials. And like, if you're going to your set and you're not playing that, it's an L to me. You have to play that song. yeah, agreed. think it's like, it's just different. Things are different. When that stuff, when older music is being sampled and becoming trendy, it's a really great opportunity for the DJ to kind of educate crowds on where the original was, what's the original sound like. Like that. I love those, I love creating those edits or finding those edits and taking the OG version that I grew up with, let's say, or maybe I played years ago and mixing it into the new version that everyone on the dance floor is gonna know. that most depth track is a sample of a track from like the 70s. So like it's, you know what, you could even, but that's the fun in it, that's what I'm saying. Like you can like start with the 70s one, come into the 90s one, and then, you know, play whatever the trending one is, and that's a fun way to educate the crowd, it's a fun way to sound a little different. Yeah, maybe everybody's doing it, but everybody always picks out different. portions of that sample to start with or scratch with or whatever it might be, we can all do the same thing. It's going to sound completely different, right? So those are really great opportunities to make yourself sound unique. It's so much fun. I mean, I got to do that a little bit, do a little research and do that for the open decks. And like, it's the most fun 20 minutes I've had DJing in years. You know, and it's like that's that stuff. will not only live in your setup for the crowd, it'll live in your setup for you. You know, it'll make you feel a little refreshed. I don't even know if we ever talked about our back to back set. I can't remember if we did or we didn't. But I think something that my advice to you is if that was something that you were really excited about and that style of DJing is something that got you excited, you know, maybe it's not the particular track selection that you had from that night, but like you need to figure out a way to do that in your current sets. Like for sure. Maybe you should make the Miss Fat Booty transition edit or something. Or just do it live, right? That's that's what I mean. Like everybody should be doing this live, like to do it. Like it always reminds me of what to say. We're fucking doing it live. I forget the one news anchor had a viral moment anyway. But do it live. Like it's so much more fun to do it live, man. Like it's just I always growing up. Yeah, we could have I could have recorded it and just played it. Right. But what's the fun in that? What's the challenge in that? There's a fun in fucking up a little bit. You know, like during our event, like the fader was leaking and it didn't sound great, but like the thought process of what was trying to be done at least got across, you know? There's fun in messing it up. Like that's the whole part of it. That's the art of DJing, right? It's not to sound super duper, super clean when you're trying to. juggle three different tracks, you know, of different BPMs of different genres. I think sometimes we do, we all, we do get lost, we're a little off topic here, but sometimes we do get lost in trying to be really clean and be, you know, sound really a certain way. And it's like, it's not always the fun of it. So like, yeah, have fun with, like have fun with that stuff. too. And then it reaches a point where I've done it live so many times, like I'm just gonna make the edit version because I've proved to myself that I can do this now cleanly for a little while. And it's like, I like to have it in the archives, like the recorded edit version of whatever transition or wordplay or toneplay. When you get really good at it, it sounds like it's recorded anyway, because it gets so clean after a while. I have a question around this like new music. I think there has been a lot of new music that's come out that I really am enjoying. I'm feeling like what's coming out is sort of in a better place than it's been in a while. Not just my personal preference and taste, I think like a lot of the popular hip hop that's been coming out has been in the 80 BPMs. The new Jack Harlow track's 100 BPM party track, which I love that track and it's worked pretty well on the dance floors. And then all the house stuff, I'm a big fan of what's been happening in the techno, tech house, EDM world. But do you think artists and producers, when they're sitting down, do you think they're going in saying, how do I make a viral hit? Or do you think they're just making the music that they wanna make and then figure out a way to promote it and get it out into the world and create this viral hit? Or a combination of the two. think it's the second part. I don't think people sit down and think, oh, well, how am I gonna make a viral hit? Because anything can go quote unquote viral, right? It's the weirdest thing can go viral. Who would have thought that track that we were just talking about with the most deaf sample, like who would have, do you think they sat there and were like, oh, this is gonna go viral? It sounds the furthest thing from a viral track ever. What happens is, that I find with a lot of the viral stuff, and we all know this, and I'm gonna state something and everybody's gonna be like, duh, yeah, no shit, idiot. But it's just getting that little portion of that song. Like the rest of the song usually sucks. 95% of the time I go and download the song, I'm like, what the fuck? Like it was all just for that one little, little bit, but that's all you need, right? And I think it's the. It's how whoever's taking that little piece and getting it out there into the world, that's the genius in the whole situation, is that guy or that girl who can find that little thing. Because that's not easy either. Okay, well we're gonna take this four second, not even sometimes, right? This little two second, three second piece and put that out. And that's how we're gonna promote this track and try to make it viral. That's very, very difficult. I don't think somebody sitting down. And they're like, okay, well, we're going to write this whole track and write the music and the lyrics. And it's just this little fourth second thing that that's getting pulled out of it. Like it's kind of hard to, to dictate or, you know, um, predict. major label situation, there are dollars and time and energy and marketing dollars going into, well, how do we get this track trending, right? Whether that's Spotify trending, whether that's a dance that's created around it and then promoting it in the music video, whether it's reaching out to TikTok influencers and getting the song in their hands early to try and do something that creates a viral moment, right? I think that's sort of where the industry is thinking about making a viral record. But I think you're right when it comes to the artists and how they're sitting down and creating. I would hope, and I would tend to think, based on how I sit down and make music, it's that producers are making songs and artists are making songs that they think are dope, you know? And then that hopefully will translate to the masses in some way. whenever you sit down and you try, you try to make a hit, quote unquote, it doesn't work. I don't feel, and you could feel like you have something, but like sometimes it falls flat, right? And then sometimes you create a, you could create a mashup or a record and put it out, and like you're like, well, that wasn't my best effort, and that's the thing that goes off. You just don't know. It's like content, it's like when we put out reels for this podcast, it's like, you know, that was okay, like. Brandon always does a great job cutting the reels and finding the content, but like it's like, all right, well, you just put it out. Well, I think this, I think this guest is going to go, that's going to go viral. That's going to be amazing. And then it doesn't. And that's you, me and you like talking about like Beyonce or some shit. Like that's, that's the thing that goes off. Like, so you just don't know the standards. You just don't know. You just got to keep putting it out. Just keep doing it. Keep putting it out. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, to go back to stuff that I've created, generally, now there's some times where I'll create something like, this is good, and DJs are gonna love this. And I know it's gonna get a lot of downloads, like an edit or something, right. But then there's other times where I'll send DMP my two or three edits for the week. And like the one that I was like, I don't really like this one, but I did it. And I'm gonna send it to him like, that's the one that goes number one for the month, you know, like, it's weird sometimes where You don't know what the general population is gonna like and what they're not gonna like. And just because you like something doesn't mean that everyone else isn't gonna hate it or everyone else isn't gonna love it more than you. It's really hard to dictate now. It's really hard to predict now because we are all consuming so many different genres, so many different types of music and moods are just completely all over the place. There's no like when Michael Jackson's Thriller came out, like, you know, that was a banger because, you know, everybody was listening to the same, you know, 50 records at the time. Now we have such a broad scope of what to consume musically. It's hard to... put a hand on the pulse of what is working right now, what everybody wants to hear because everybody's hearing different things. Yeah, like so much stuff, so much content's coming out, so much music is coming out, it makes it hard, right? It makes it hard to sort through all the crap to find the gems. Makes it hard as DJs to figure out like, is it new music that's gonna work? Is it old music that's gonna work? It's like, it's a different era for us as curators and DJs where we're not necessarily curating brand new music all the time, we're curating what's popular in the moment. And... And right now, it's not always the new stuff. And many times, it's the old stuff that's either been reused, resampled, changed in some way. So it's a tough time for us as DJs to be those curators when everyone has access to so much so quickly so easily. Find what fits your style, find what fits your brand, find what fits what you like to play. And I think that's the best way to go about it. And the more, we talked about this a lot with Jake, but the more that you're yourself during your DJ performance, the better. The better off you're gonna be. The happier you're gonna be too. you're gonna stand out more and people are gonna remember you more if you play you know you have to give you have to give people a piece of what you're into and what you like and what you like to create because if you're just chasing what everyone else likes You're just kind of going with the crowd here. You're not doing anything new. You're not introducing people to new sounds and music and styles. Yeah, you get lost in the crowd is what happens because there's a billion DJs out there. You know, set yourself apart. what do we say to all our DJs every time? It's like, you know, good feedback from owners and managers and venues is the fastest way to grow with us. And I think the only way you're gonna do that is to stand out from everyone else, right? Doing something different, doing something better than other people. Yeah. Yep. Alright, cool. I think this is a good place to stop. Yeah, definitely. I want to promo our B3, our Open Dex event. So two weeks from tonight, if you're local Tri-State New York City, New Jersey, we do our Open Dex party. It's from seven to 11 in Hoboken, New Jersey at Mills Tavern. We're doing things a little differently this time. We're gonna do an Eventbrite, which we're gonna link up here in the show notes, but there's gonna be two different tickets. One ticket is just to come and attend free. a second ticket if you actually want to DJ. Also free, everything's free for this event. It's been a struggle, you know? I was there kind of running who got to play next and it was hard, man. It's hard to pick from 20 DJs that all wanna play. Why should I pick this one person over the other person? So we're gonna do the ticket thing and I think we're gonna announce the lineup, probably the day of, so you'll know if you're playing or not going into the event. I just think it's gonna go a little smoother if we do it this way, so. That's the hope is that it goes more smooth. And if you don't get a chance to play and you don't get picked for this one, still come out, still hang out. Because I think we like to still meet everybody and the likelihood of if you show up and then we meet you, we get to know you a little bit, the likelihood of you maybe getting to play the next one is greater than if you just stayed home and you didn't come out and hang out for a little while. And you know what, I'll echo, we get asked like, how do I get more involved with Get Down? How can I work with you guys? And honestly, like the best way to get involved is to come to this event. And even if you don't DJ, it's a great way to just get to know me and Gary, get to know our DJs. We always say, right, we like to work with people that we like, that fit with our team, that have a similar mindset to our team. It's really important when we have all these DJs working together that We all are kind of on the same page and we want the same things and we work in a similar way. So, you know, obviously your DJ skills are important and if you get a chance to DJ even better, because then we get to hear you play. But just popping up to these events and getting to know our team is the best way to get involved, so. I'll be at this one. I'll be at the next two. Looking forward to it. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah, man, I really enjoy the event. So, all right, guys, thank you for listening to this episode. We'll catch up with you guys soon. Peace. Peace, guys.