The Struggles of a Beginner DJ 😵‍💫

In this episode of The Get Down, Cream & Gary talk about:

• DJs are increasingly taking on the role of entertainment directors or bookers to navigate the crowded DJ market and find the right fit for venues.
• Collaboration and networking within the DJ community have become more prevalent, leading to more opportunities and growth for DJs.
• Beginner DJs should be prepared to start with smaller gigs and be open to playing various styles of music to gain experience and build their skills.
• Establishing realistic expectations, maintaining professionalism, and having written agreements can help protect DJs from potential issues with bookings and finances.
• It's important for DJs to approach challenges and setbacks with a positive and professional attitude, as this can impact their reputation and future opportunities. Dealing with difficult situations is a common experience for DJs, and it's important to handle them professionally and stay positive.
• House music is a genre that allows for the blending of different subgenres and the creation of new styles.
• Music trends are cyclical, and DJs have the freedom to experiment with different styles and incorporate elements from various genres.
• Kanye West's albums have been influential and diverse, with each album offering a unique sound and style.
• Beats Bartenders Brushes is a monthly networking event for DJs and industry professionals, providing an opportunity to connect and showcase their skills.

Transcript

0:01

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 147th episode of The Get Down, brought to you by Digital Music Pool. My name's Cream. Gary W here. How you doing, Gar? Good to see you. You know, it's good to be back. Good to be doing this. Had a long weekend, friends in town. I feel like it's constant down here. It's always somebody in town. It's exhausting. you're in a vacation area, right? So like every time people come down, they hit you up and it's... and just entertaining constantly. But it was fun, had a good time, played a lot of golf. How was the weekend of work? Was there work this weekend? I don't even remember what you did, where you played. You know, it all sort of runs together out here. I was local this week. Yep. Steve there on Saturday, which was awesome. Yeah, well, we got even Steve working a little bit out here now. He's, you know, here, which is cool. He's been popping out a lot and showing love to all the DJs, checking out all the spots. He popped up on me Friday at Ashford because he was playing there the next night. So he wanted to check out, like, the vibe of the room, which was cool. And yeah, like, Ashford was a real open format set, which was kind of refreshing. I, you know, I actually, I've been like subscribing to a bunch of Patreon. to like just DJs and artists that I like. And I've really been focusing on some of the like the more hip hop style guys, just to like get some new blends, remixes, stuff into my set, specifically for some of these open format sets that I'm still playing in, it like really reinvigorated me. I got a bunch of eccentric remixes and edits, Nick Bike, some conflict stuff. So like that for sure, yeah. gotta jump on conflicts. I guess I haven't I don't have I don't have anything of his I don't believe. That for sure helped me just give me a little like inspiration and some new music to get excited about playing and like even if a lot of it was for early in the night, it was, it was just it was just nice to have. So you guys use those Patreons man like five or 10 bucks a month and you get five, six, seven of those. It can really kind of add some new life to your sets number one. But also it's a lot of music that's not out on the record pool. So it gives you a way to set yourself apart a little bit. and I named a couple of the hip hop guys, but I know like Chumpin', Chunky Dip, and Jesse James have the Only Tunes, which is a dope one. Beatbreaker's got one. Shout to Beatbreaker. Been commenting on a lot of our stuff and shouting us out. So shout to Beatbreaker. We gotta get him back on the show for sure. He was like one of our first guests. I know that was middle of a pandemic. We definitely got to get him back because he's been rolling pretty hard, obviously since then. Him and Rick were two of our first guests. I feel like we need to have both of those guys back on here. Man, having together, that'd be entertaining. Alright, so let's jump in here. And this is a topic that I've heard Crooked bring up a couple of times on the Road Podcast. Like not, they didn't really have, they haven't really gone into it deeply, but they've brought it up where more recently, we last episode, we talked about how there's so many DJs and it's you have to like pick through the crowd and figure out who's good for your venue or for... for nightlife, for your market. I think we're seeing more and more DJs take on the role of entertainment director or booker. And, you know, DJs have had this role previously, but I feel like it's more and more and more we're seeing it. And partly, I think it's to fish through the crowd, right? Like how many DJs are hitting up the venues and how would an owner or manager really know who's a right fit, who's... had enough experience to play the room. Like, I think DJs can navigate that because they know the market and they know the DJs in the market better than most people. I agree with that. I think we're seeing, I mean, we're exposed to it. So firsthand. So like, obviously we, we know who's booking where and when. Um, but I think we're seeing it more and more because DJing has become so approachable and has become so, um, just available to more people. So you're having more and more DJs and you're right. Somebody has to kind of sift through the bullshit. Um, and when you're running a business, something such as a restaurant or bar, and you're dealing with a million other things, you don't have time at this point to do all of that legwork. That's a full-time job in itself. We do this for a living, and there's still a high percentage of DJs that I have no idea who they are, and they might just be from the North Jersey area, right? Because there are just so many. It's hard to keep up with. Sometimes, some state, and I know what it's like with talking with some of the ownership, they're saying like there's constantly DJs walking through the door giving their business cards or giving their Instagram handles. And we get forwarded all of that information, but that's why we do what we do is so that we can be that buffer in between, hey, am I just gonna randomly put this guy on or you guys can kind of vet this dude out or this girl out and. you know, make a decision on whether that's a smart relationship or not. Um, yeah. a lot of like fake it till you make it out there that sometimes people that aren't in this world might not necessarily know what's real and what's not kind of thing. Yeah, I'm thinking of one, so Drammos is a real funny story about how he got his start. He was one of those guys who just walked in and handed a, it was a CD at the time to the owner, Dave. Dave listened to it and Dave was a fan of music. He was an owner that was also a big fan of music. Um, and he actually got booked that way. That I think is becoming less and less likely for you to just cold walk into a place and get booked. I don't think that is really a thing anymore because there are processes in place to weed out the BS, like I said. So yeah, I mean, I think DJs, we know what's gonna work in that room. We know how to see through the fake followers and see through, are you really a working DJ, are you not? And then we all have relationships that we can then ask other DJs, hey, do you know this guy, how is he, or this girl, how is she? you know, should we use her here? Is this a good fit for this bar or nightclub? You know, and if not, like what is a good fit? And I feel like that's all that legwork. It's all that stuff that I just talked about that owners don't wanna do. Right, but we can also like go on a SoundCloud and see what kind of music they're creating or mixes that they're putting out. If they have live sets up, you listen to parts of the live set to see how the mixing is. And there's just some due diligence that I think we can do that many, like in-house people wouldn't know how to do. You know what I mean? yeah You know, we at least, and then us as DJs also have a network, like in case something happens or, you know, there's always a fallback. What if this person doesn't show up, you know? There's just a million different things that go along with it that makes more sense for DJs to do this job than to leave it upon a manager. Or... Yeah, I mean, I've taken on this role and you look at like Pigpen in Detroit and RM in Boston and Will Grayley in DC and like there's so many DJs that have this role now and I don't know. I like it. I think it's I just think that we can create a better lineup than a non DJ can create I agree with that. I agree with that because we understand the, do musical styles go, do DJ styles go together? It wouldn't be really cool to have different styles back to back, whereas like I said, management and ownership, you're worried about, you're worried about everything else. You're worried about tables, you're worried, your bottle service, you're worrying about food costs, you're worrying about all types of other things that don't have to do with entertainment. And having an entertainment director in place that is a DJ that knows all of this stuff, like the back of their hand, it's a work smarter, not harder for the ownership. Yeah, I think where there's a real advantage would be really like a DJ is able to kind of spot who's that next wave, right? Who are the next couple DJs that we need to be working with because they're gonna probably level up and move to the next stage of their career. It's like targeting that talent and starting to create that relationship and get those people in your room early so that as they grow, you know, this place at home is a place that they want to be at. I think that's a really important thing. And I think also being able to target DJs from outside of this general area. For example, we bring some DJs up from Philly. We're bringing DJs in from New York City. We have brought some DJs from outside the market, but like very specific on who those people are. And I've DJed with all of them and heard them play and know that they can play our room kind of thing. I think this is also a testament of the positivity that has started to go around in the DJ community within the last five to eight years. Whereas it's not as cutthroat as it once was. It's now, let's work together so everybody gets a piece and everybody can eat, you can maybe travel a little bit and maybe go DJ on vacation and cut the cost a little bit or whatever it might be. Something that, obviously with the advent of social media being such a huge part of our industry, it makes it easier to do all of these things and communicate with people that are not from your market. But I feel like that positivity shift in the DJ culture really has helped elevate having more and more people, more and more DJs involved with each other. Yeah, the community has definitely shrunk a little bit. And I think as far as, you know, using social media and be able to connect with people outside of your local area, and it's just easier to connect with people, right? And it's easier to have conversations and ask people to come on podcasts and ask people to jump on edit packs and remixes and all these different things. It's really been nice to see the collaboration. And, you know, we started our business based on collaboration. using collaboration as a way to grow together instead of individually. And it's been really successful for us and I hope more DJs are taking that mind state for sure. I know our younger guys are definitely, you know, they're there. We have like five to eight guys that go and support each other like weekly, which is like really awesome to see. And they're all around the same age. So it just works out and they love to go do their Sunday, fun day thing and you know, they're just, and they're even going to support. Markey Wednesday is another one. Um, and they're even going out to support friends, you know, friends of hours such as Rick and I, I know that we're at somewhere nowhere over the weekend and Rick was playing. It looked like a lot of fun. I was super jealous. But like, yeah, like, so it's nice to see our guys do it and hopefully the, you know, it stays contagious and kind of grows even just outside of our group, right? And like we said, we've seen it a bit because of the social media thing and the community drinking, so. Yeah, I would say one other thing that if you are a DJ that is trying to take on more of a role as a booker or you already have, something that I think you really have to be conscious of is you're not booking DJs that are gonna help you the most. You're booking DJs that are gonna be a best fit for the venue. If you wanna keep your job, that's how you have to look at it, right? And sure, there are ways where you can bring certain DJs in that maybe help. create a relationship with another DJ that could potentially help you down the line. But if you're not doing what's best for the venue, you're gonna lose that job pretty quickly. Because if you're putting the wrong DJs into the venue, then the venue is not making money, customers are complaining or leaving, bartenders aren't making the money they're normally making and they're complaining to management, and then you're kind of out the door. So there's a very fine line of... you know, using your booking power to further relationships compared to just booking the right DJs for the right rooms, you know? It's a hard balance because you do selfishly want to use those DJs that can also help you, right? Like that's your initial thought, but like the, you have to look long game, you have to look big picture. And big picture in long game is, well, you wanna have longevity with having that booking power in order to bring more and more DJs in. If you screw yourself early on, you're not going to have that booking power and then you're not going to be able to grow more and more relationships, right? So you wanna have to. be hurting your own DJ career as well if you lose your opportunity in the venue that you are booking, you know? Yeah, so it's a fine balance. You have to think about things from a ownership and management perspective as well. And then maybe you think about it in ways that, okay, maybe this DJ that is gonna benefit my DJ career, maybe he fits better on a Friday night at this venue or a Saturday night. And you have to figure out like where. You could use those people usually, because the Thursdays, the Fridays, the Saturdays, and Sunday parties could all be very, very different, depending on where you're playing. Maybe you use those people that are, maybe this guy on a Thursday would be amazing, because this style just works better. You just have to be smart about how you're going about booking. Yeah, the other part of it would be just communicating with ownership and management about why this person is a good fit and how they can help the venue. Maybe it's bringing new customers in maybe it's bringing a new perspective, or maybe it's just, hey, this is an amazing DJ, and they're going to do a really good job in our room kind of thing. So I think that's also an important part of it where maybe if you are trying something new or bringing someone in from another market or adjacent market, it's just like Hey, this DJ plays XYZ venues. I've heard them play. I've DJed with them. They're gonna do a great job, you know? Do you think that do you? do. We do that every day, right? In our booking agency, we're putting the right DJ in the right venue. And that's the core of what we do and how we can be successful. Right, it's not always the quote unquote best DJ, it's the best DJ for the venue. 100% of the time, right? Like it's, that's when we pitch to a new venue, that's how we pitch it, right? We're gonna work with you to find the best people for your venue, right? You're not gonna get, you're not always gonna get Gary W., DJ Cream, because maybe we don't fit the venue, right? I know for a fact there's a venue that we booked that I don't fit at all. we've had those conversations a lot with venues where it's like, Gary's style doesn't fit this room, but it does fit this other room, or Kareem's style doesn't fit this room, and that's why I'm not here, not because I don't wanna be here. It just doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense for you, it doesn't make sense for me. I would never put myself in that situation. You know, even if I had to take a night off, I would still not put myself, like if it was take a night off or go forcefully play this venue, I would take the night off because nobody wants to be in that position. We've all been in a position where we've been DJing a room that is, that is uncomfortable, it doesn't fit. Don't put somebody else in that position, right? Like you don't want to set up, you don't want to burn a relationship because you set this person up for failure because you're trying to, you're trying to, you know, create a, create a relationship. You know, you have to think about it from all angles. Yeah, and we've talked about this in the past, but if you're a DJ and you're trying to grow and you're reaching out to certain venues, like, don't reach out. If you're an EDM DJ, don't reach out to the hip hop venue to get booked. Or if you're a Latin artist, and that's your lane, don't reach out to the tech house venue. If it doesn't necessarily make sense, if your resume is all purely one style of venues, it's going to be a lot harder to break into another style of venue, you know? I've had multiple DJs come up to me at one of our venues and give their card and they were like straight up hip hop DJs and I'm like, do you understand the room that you're trying to come here and play? Then they're asking to come play a venue that just doesn't fit, it doesn't make sense. Nothing makes me turn away and be like, I don't want to ever book this person because they're trying to get into a venue that doesn't fit their DJ style, right? So you have, just because the place is the best, place it maybe it might be the best place in that city or the top three places in that city to go play. Well, if it doesn't fit your style, you shouldn't want to, you shouldn't want to go play, play there. You understand I'm saying? So like, like I said, like I've had like five guys and girls in their cards, I'm like, you're never going to fit this room. This doesn't make sense. Like how, how am I going to hire somebody that doesn't, they can't look at themselves and be like, well, I'm not going to fit there. You know, it's mind boggling. to me. I think a really good exercise for everybody listening would be if you're looking to level up or if you're looking to break into a market or break out of your market, create a list, go do your homework, you know, like sit down and research the market that you're trying to break into. Write down all the venues, see if you could find out who the bookers are for each of those venues. Go watch the videos, go see what other DJs are getting booked there, and see if it's a fit for you before you're blindly reaching out to try and get a booking at that place, or you're going there to hand a card to somebody, you know? Do your homework. When you do your homework and you're prepared, you're putting yourself in a better place to actually get the booking or create the networking relationship, you know? So do your homework. Don't just blindly shoot your shots at every place that's out there. Like I said, just because it's the spot doesn't mean you need to go play there. Right? you're a DJ that's further along and you're looking to break into another market, or you're looking to position yourself as one of the better DJs in your own market, you have to be really strategic about which places you go after, right? Because a lot of times, if you play one place, you might not be able to play the other place. So what's the place that is maybe the best in the market that I'm the best fit for? And that's the place that you go after first, you know? And then if you run into a dead end or you can't get in there or, you know, whatever, there's no opportunity, then you go to the next place. And this is the second best place that fits my style and where I'm trying to be. And I think that's how you need to think about it and kind of attack your market. I agree 100%. Not everybody is getting booked out fully by just being a DJ and getting people to hit you up. There are some months where even I have to go and actively hit people up to fill my calendar. Normally it's stuff that's out of market. I'm trying to continue to grow, but you can't just rely on people coming to you to fill your calendar or to book the places that you wanna play at. You kinda have to go on the attack sometimes. I think all the time, you have to stay, to stay on the attack. You have to stay on the attack and do it in a way that you're not being annoying, but be persistent. Because once you get lazy and you get complacent and you get stuck, you know, and you stop growing, and you and I both know that more than anything. And you have to kind of, you have to have a long game, you have to have an idea of where do I want to be in a year, where do I want to be in three years? And if you're content with like, you know, if you're getting older and you're content with just playing the local places and you're content with where you're at, then that's fine. You don't, you don't have to be so crazy and on the attack, but like, if you're a growing DJ and you're coming up and you still want to play better and better places, like you have to be dipping your toes in the water everywhere. Right, and like, to bring the conversation kind of full circle, right? Doing that homework and being prepared when you step into those places to have conversations with the booker is going to set yourself up to actually get booked there, you know? Like, the bookers are going to look at you and be like, oh, this person actually like did their homework and maybe this is someone I want to work with because they're not just blindly coming in here, you know? They know who the booker is. They know the vibe of the place. They know... You know, they know something beyond like, that's a really dope room and I need to be in there because everybody wants to be in there kind of thing. right, right. Yeah. So. All right, let's sort of transition. Something that, you know, the core of what we do and who we work with a lot are young DJs, right? Beginner DJs or couple years in DJs. And, you know, when we started our course during COVID Get Down University, it was all new DJs, right? And I think... we've had some people reach out and be like, hey, can you talk more about like, I'm a brand new beginner DJ and like, what are some things that I can do to like break into the market, right? And I know we just talked about some of this stuff, but as a beginner DJ, like, what are some things that they should be thinking about and they should be doing to set themselves up for success? I think establishing realistic expectation from day one is the most important thing. I think you just need to know that you are at the beginning, probably gonna have to eat shit a little bit and play some really bad, what are gonna look like bad gigs. They're gonna be very local, very, you know. just very, what would be considered a bad gig, unfortunately. You just gotta be happy to be there in the beginning. You got to play anything and everything when you're first starting out. You gotta go play a communion, guess what? You're gonna learn something about yourself while you're playing there, you know what I mean? You gotta go play an old man, local bar. It's predominantly like 50 to 60 year old guys getting drunk at the bar and you gotta play a bunch of zeppelin and stuff. Go and do that because you're gonna learn new tactics and new ways to play music. Most of the time, those are the types of parties that you're gonna book when you first start, right? It's gonna be the private events, like the backyard parties. You're not booking $5,000 weddings at that point. So you're gonna be doing the low end private events and you're gonna be doing like those super local bars that just wanna have a DJ kind of thing. And you're playing to all ages, all styles of music. And that's great because you get that experience of having to deal with all that stuff and eat some shit a little bit, you know? We've seen the young DJs that we've worked with who've been the most successful, started DJing when they were 16, and they started doing private events with family or friends or whatever. Because like, you learn how to read a room and you learn how to play all music, not just what's popular right now. And you deal with those shitty rooms and like, you earn respect for the people. How do I say this? You kind of appreciate the fact of like, when I do make the next step up, like, wow, I had to do some stuff that really sucked and now I'm in this better place. Angela the Kid is jumping off the top of my head right now because I'm thinking about where he started with us and kind of what he does now on a weekly basis, right? And he was playing Pilsner House on top of a wine barrel, DJing a couple times a month for us doing that, and now he's the resident at Trio in Charlotte and he's grown exponentially. But there's... I know that's like a few and far between, but everybody starts somewhere, right? And you have to just, you have to go to those gigs and you grin and bear it. And like I said, you use them as learning, you use them as a learning process. You use it as, okay, let me see what the bartender's like and maybe you get exposed to new music and that's how you grow your library and just grow your DJ skills as a whole. And... When you're first starting out, things are gonna happen. Like, you're going to get canceled last minute. Maybe you're only gonna play, you're gonna set up everything, and you're gonna play for an hour, and you're gonna get canceled because it's slow in the room. Your check's not gonna come for a month, or six weeks, or two months, you know? to tell you you're getting one rate and you get a different rate, or you don't get paid at all, or... Right. All of those things has happened to me 100%. You know, and it was I you take it in stride as a learning as a learning experience. You know, hopefully you're in a in a space where like maybe you have another job and that's not your main source of income. Yes, would it suck to lose a night's gig? Absolutely. Right, but not everybody has representation like a get down DJ group or another DJ group to help combat that. A lot of times when you're starting out, you're starting out alone. And you do have to take the precaution in ensuring that things are in place that you don't get screwed over, right? I think now more than ever, you know, with emails and text messages and things like that, try to get verbal agreements, but always try to get everything written down, okay? Like so. Let's get into like finances real quick. I think this is a good place to get into like financial stuff as a young DJ. Yeah, I'm cool with that. I wanna come back and kinda go through some of the stuff that I dealt with when I started. So I wrote down a list of all the various things that have happened to me, especially when I first started, that I'm sure young DJs are dealing with still right now as they're trying to like navigate the environment. So yeah, go ahead. Let's talk financials a little bit. because this is a big one, because I feel like this is really where young DJs get taken advantage of, right? You get told it's one rate, and then they're like, oh, well, the bar didn't do well, this is the rate you're gonna get, right? Hey, you're gonna get 300 bucks, and all of a sudden now you're getting 200. Well, make sure you have that initial rate written down somewhere. Is it an email? Is it a text message? You know, generally nobody's using a contract, right? You're not writing a contract up for a bar or a nightclub space. So you want to have some kind of written agreement. You can fall back. So if you have a phone conversation or an in-person conversation with someone and they offer you a gig, what you do is you take notes on it, right? As soon as you finish that conversation, you text it out to the person or you email it out to the person like, hey, great talking to you. I just wanted to confirm, here's the date, here's the venue, here's the time, here's the money, right? So now you have a receipt, so to speak, right? You have an invoice, you have something that when You do the gig and they're like, Oh, well, I thought we said it was only 200 hours. You're like, no, we had this conversation on this date. I sent you a text with all the information and you confirmed kind of thing. You have to cover your ass in that way. All right. Because the, he said, you have to, because he said, she said, doesn't work because these people just right. Just like our first conversation, these people are dealing with a lot more than just booking a DJ, right? Not all the time it comes from a bad place too. You know, like people who are booking sometimes, like I'm thinking about in New York and here, there's certain people that book a ton of shit. So like maybe they just made a mistake or they forgot or whatever, you know? So having, it doesn't always come from a bad place. It's happened with us, right? Like we'll tell a DJ something and maybe we screwed up and we pay them the wrong amount. And they could just be like, yo, I thought it was supposed to be this. And we look back and we're like, oh shit, we did mess up. So. things happen, it's not always out of from a negative place too. I just want to say that. that definitely does happen, right? Where one thing's discussed and if you don't have, you need that written fallback. Always, always, always. That written fallback will also cover you in getting canceled. Like, hey, the guy hitting you up and be like, oh, I double booked and now it's Friday night and they're canceling you for Saturday. You know, it's like, well, we, you know, we had a discussion. This is the, this is kinda on you and like, you know, how can you make it right? You know, I think I've always followed up with getting canceled or having somebody being quote unquote double booked, having a venue double book me. I would add I would then ask, hey, can you book me again to make up for that lost the lost finances? Right. Would you agree with that? would and it's very important how you as the DJ respond in these situations because you can very quickly destroy a relationship and never get booked again based on how you react in these situations. Yeah, we know that especially things like getting canceled and losing money, it could be a very emotional thing, right? I think it's take a deep breath, step back, and think about how you're going to respond in a way that's respectful, but you wanna get your point across that you're disappointed. And I think a good way is to open a door, like I said, and say, Maybe we can, let's make this right down the road. Maybe I can get another booking, you know, sooner than later. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the best way to do it, right? Is ask, hey, I understand, this sucks. I had a bunch of people coming out. I really wanted to play this show. I was excited. It's super last minute. I get it, shit happens. Is there a way, can we lock in something for next month? Do you have an opening for two months down the road? Like try to lock in that follow-up date immediately. And if they don't respond to you, or if they're like, yeah, we could do it, blah, but they sort of blow you off. then you have to follow up and you have to follow up like with after the weekend, not on Monday, because DJs are not trying to deal with that shit on Monday. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, not on Friday, when DJs are all preparing for their weekends and bookers are worrying about 250 bookings they have, you have a small window of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, handle your business and do your follow ups. I do the same. I'm not bothering DJs or bookers on a Friday or a Monday usually, maybe a Monday afternoon, but not a Friday. Or Saturday or Sunday. I think it's important to remember, it's a good point, Monday's a tough day for a lot of DJs because you know what, that's technically DJs Saturdays. You know what I mean? It's like their day off. It's like everybody else has Saturday and Sunday off, DJs will usually take off Monday. Yeah, like venue managers and bookers sometimes are working Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday's their first day off in five days kind of thing. Right, so you have to be careful with how much you load up on the Booker on Monday, like how much you ask of them on a Monday. Yeah, and guys, I really can't hammer the point home of how you approach these situations is so incredibly important. There's been so many DJs where maybe we made a mistake or something happened or I asked them to do something and their reaction was out of like anger and like not being flexible and those people are immediately removed from any consideration to ever get booked again. Like ever. don't, yeah, you don't wanna make the booker's life any harder than it already is. It's hard to, balancing talent and balancing egos and dealing with ownership and dealing with management and you're dealing with a lot of people that are, just have different personalities realistically at the end of the day, the one thing that you could do is be easy to work with. Right. It doesn't take any skill, energy, it's just something very simple that you can do. you can text all nice and be like, okay, let's line something up and then turn around and vent off to the person that you vent to, that's fine. Don't do it on a public or a social media space. Do not do it there, because that is a great way to get blackballed, not only by the person and venue that you're dealing with, but also other people in your space, they take note of that. Like, You know, if I see a DJ venting off about a venue that, you know, might have cut him early and he was pissed off about it or it didn't handle something the right way or what he felt like would have been the right way, and then vent off on social media, I don't want to book that person. That just looks like a headache. Right. Like what happens if I have to cancel them? They're gonna blow up my venue kind of thing or my booking agency or whatever? Right. That's a fast way to get blackballed, just to get blackballed, period. Yeah, and you know, Gary, a lot of times this stuff where there's changes or whatever, and the booker's reaching out to ask you to be flexible, a lot of times, like, we're talking about openers slash closers, and at the end of the day, like, the headliner is what all of these places, venues care about, you know? Like, yeah, they might like you, and they want you in their building, but at the end of the day, like, they're worried about the headliner, not the opener kind of thing, too. So you have to think about it like that. Especially when you're talking about the bigger venues or when you're playing with artists, and you're worried about getting your name on the flyer, they really don't care. They're spending $50,000 on an artist. That's what they care about. That's where their time and energy is going, not to the $400 opener or whatever. Right, right. But I think on the lowest scale, guys that are just starting out, you're gonna constantly be challenged. There's gonna be a lot of things that go along with the industry, that's a lot of BS. And I want you to go through now some of the things that you've dealt with. So as a beginner DJ, you know, I did, I like we talked about backyard parties, shitty bars, I was lucky because I did get an opportunity to play in a nightclub very early on. And I knew like, this is where I want to be. And that's where I focus my time and energy, right. So I was trying to grow into the nightclub spaces. And I did a lot of shit for free for no money. Super last minute people would call me like cream, can you open for me in the city at VIP room or whatever. One of the really dope clubs that I, yeah, absolutely, I'll be there. Or, Kareem, can you open for $150 or $200 or whatever the number was that wasn't good. But when you're doing that, I dealt with set time change where I thought I was the opener, and I was actually the closer and I didn't find out till I got there at 930 and there was another DJ there. Or... Kream, it's your birthday and your set time is from 11 to 1 and then you get there and there's three DJs there that are supposed to play from 11 to 1 and you have to figure it out and all your friends are there to see you from 11 to 1. I've had situations where I show up to a venue and they're like, Kream, we really need you to go to this other venue because the DJ didn't show and I need you to run downtown or I need you to run uptown or whatever. funny money for sure where I never got paid or I was told I was going to get paid a certain amount and I was paid $100 less and never saw the difference. Millions of times, my friends can't get in, hey, Kareem, you have a guest list, your friends could get in before this time. They get there and I'm DJing and they can't get in. Or they get there and they have a bar minimum per person of $150. Or they have to buy a table for $1,000. So... This is all stuff that you're gonna deal with at some point. And it sucks. And it's just part of being a young beginning DJ that sort of has to take some of these knocks. Hopefully you don't have to, but I'm sure one of these things that I just mentioned is gonna happen to you. And take it in stride, deal with it the best way possible, stay positive, like Gary said, don't blast the people anywhere publicly. It's the worst thing you could do. And just show these people that you're flexible, you're a good DJ, you're willing to work hard, and if you don't wanna work with them anymore, that's on you, kind of thing. But we've all been through it, you know? You're gonna go through it. What? My last DJ set, I walked into the building, started to put my bag down, the manager looks at me and goes, we have a DJ today? DJ equipment wasn't out, nothing. I just got canceled because I think that they didn't want, they didn't want to bring the DJ equipment out, in all honesty. And I just sat there and I was like, this happens. Like this is going to happen. And it's happened a million times before and it's not the last time it's going to happen again. You know, so it's, it still happens. Like, you know, this many years in, it's still happening. Um, and it's usually those, those off gigs too, right? Like if you're booked in an afternoon or if you're booked on like a Sunday evening or you're booked on a happy hour, Friday or whatever it might be, like the likelihood of those sometimes getting manipulated in some capacities is more likely. than a Friday night, Saturday night gig. Right, and I think you need to kind of go into some of those gigs where, you know, you're not expecting those to get canceled, but if they do, it's more like, okay, we take those in stride a little bit better. Because in what we do, those are the ones that we, those are the gigs that we see go and get changed and get manipulated more than not. Nobody wants to lose their Friday or Saturday night gigs ever. But the other stuff, you know, it sucks just the same, but at least it's not a Friday or Saturday. Right, right. So. Yeah, man, like younger DJs, you're gonna eat shit in some situations and you just have to think long term and you have to think is this someone or a venue that I really want to work with or is it more of a headache than it's worth? And if it's more of a headache than it's worth and you walk away, you don't have to deal with it and you find a place that treats you better, you know? Or you find a booker or promoter or whoever that treats you better. it takes a little while to establish that, that knack for having an understanding if this is a place that I wanna work with or not. Like sometimes, you young DJs, you'll learn, like you'll learn that when you walk into a place, like something will feel off, you know? You know who does business the right way, and then once you kinda see people being a little shady and doing something, that doesn't feel right, you'll know immediately. You'll start to know immediately. Like I think you and I are gonna walk into a space and be like, oh yeah, no, this is not a place that we wanna. Yeah, but it took us a long time to get to that point. long time, a long time. That's what I'm saying. Like you'll start to over time understand what, you'll get that feel of what feels right and what doesn't. Right, and I know especially when you're starting out, the drive and the hunger to get bookings and grow and grow quickly, like, you're willing to put up with more than if you're a more seasoned DJ, for sure. And like you said, maybe you just don't know because you haven't gone through it yet, you know? And you kind of have to live through some of that stuff to realize, well, like, that wasn't really a good situation looking back. Or... That is a person I really wanna work with because they really took care of me in these weird situations that we had to go through together kind of thing. Yeah. It's hard, guys. It's really hard. Believe me. You know, Gary and I still deal with situations where it's like, I don't know what to do. So thinking back to when we were first starting, I understand how hard it is. And, you know, trying to break in and play the better venues. It's hard. It's hard work. It's it's you deal with a lot. Can I tell a quick story before we move on? So we, our first, one of our first places that we booked, and this is how kind of naive that you can be as a young, as a young booker or as a young DJ. One of the first places we booked, we were booking there for a while, and our DJ equipment that we used to store there went missing, remember this? Our DJ equipment went missing. We were like, F this place. Somebody took it. It never got returned. We, you know, we took it as an L and we still continue to book there. Now, like, would we do that now in the, in the space that we're at? No, we would probably walk away below the place, you know, tell them, tell them what was what, but like back then we were so hungry to grow and we were trying to be patient and we still wanted to continue to book DJs just in any capacity. And we kind of let it slide. And should we have, in retrospect? Absolutely not. Was that a learning experience? Yes, absolutely it was. So that's kind of how naive that you can be like on the come up. And you have to kind of be aware of yourself being naive or not, right? So. Oh my God, of course they did. Of course they did. Now that I think about it. Of course they did, because you know what? That was the red flag, and we chose to ignore the red flag. Right? And then we continued to book, and then we got screwed again. And then stupidly, years later, we entertained working with them again. Entertained it like idiots. Right guys, so we're still making mistakes and we still are making decisions based on wanting to grow, right? And we all do it. We still do it. Gary and I still do it. And you're gonna do it. And you're gonna make mistakes. But like Gary just said, it's really important to know when to like pull the ejection button and get the fuck out of there. And this is where it's important if you're just kind of riding solo, just to have that person we talk, we say this all the time, but have that person that you talk to that you trust that kind of knows the industry that you could bounce. Hey, this is what happens. Where do you think we go in the, you know, in this situation and kind of talk it out? That's what cream. And I talk out all of these things when they happen. And cause you, you like to get a couple of different perspectives into how to deal with something. Don't leave the venue and jump on your social media and kill the place. Don't do that, please. Stop doing that. I've seen a couple people do that. Stop doing that. terrible. Ha ha! Alright, let's, actually before, let's put a bow on this. So, DJs, young DJs, DJs that are looking to level up, if you guys have questions or you're dealing with these certain situations, hit us up. Like, we can help you out. If you have a question or you don't know how to handle a situation, if you don't have somebody to go to, hit up Gary or myself, and we can help you out, or if you have a question, we can kind of help you go through it. DM us, whatever. I think that's an easy way. And actually, one other thing that I'd like to do, because There is someone in New York City right now taking advantage of young DJs. And they have created this scam where they're DMing DJs, not even just from Tri-State New York City. They're DMing DJs from all over the place. Pigpen from Detroit hit me up and was like, Kareem, do you know this person? Is this like legit? And basically the scam is this person is hitting people up and saying, hey, Do you want to open at this amazing New York City venue like Nebula or somewhere nowhere or Marquee or all the best places in New York for this amazing DJ like Steve Aoki or Bass Jackers or Dom Dalla or all these huge names. And the scam is, well, I will give you a slot, but you have to buy 20 tickets for$500 in order to get your slot. They have a contract. They have this whole thing. And it's this guy that poses, I guess he was a DJ slash promoter, and now he's on drugs or gambling or doing something that he is desperate to scam people for money. And he's sending contracts, the whole nine, it's like an intricate scam. And people are sending this person money and then he's blocking them, blocking their phone number, blocking their Instagram, disappearing and taking the$500 and the DJs have no gigs to show for it. So. I just want to make you guys aware of this. It could be any DJ in any market. If someone's asking you to pay money upfront for a DJ booking or to buy tickets or any of that crap, absolutely do not do it. Do not do it. It's a scam. At no point should anyone ever ask you to pay to play anywhere. And that's it. Good PSA. Yeah, there's, I'm pretty sure there's like a lawsuit happening and a bunch of DJs here in New York and New Jersey that are trying to bring a lawsuit. So if you've been scammed by this person, you could also reach out and we can connect you with the people that are organizing this lawsuit or whatever is happening. But just want to throw that out there, guys. All right, let's talk music. Let's do it. We've been talking a lot about this 140 BPM techno trend, but we were talking about it the other day, and like, it's sort of a lot of trance music that's being sort of labeled techno, right? It's a feel, so I'm like an old trance junkie, like early 2000s trance junkie, I love it, like it's what I listen to when I go on my runs. And as my playlist, as my trance Spotify playlist is playing, I'm like, this sounds like a lot of the music that's out now that's labeled techno, right? It's so hard, like, get labeling sub genres of all this music. So I have now been following this guy. I don't know if you've seen him on Instagram. He kind of like throws old records on, like in his robe, the bald guy from the UK. Oh my God, he dances really funny, but he plays really great music. And it's a lot of vinyl that he's playing. It's a lot of classic vinyl. He gives you like a little backstory of like the samples and whatnot. He gives like a little history of it. And it's kind of got me thinking, and he kind of got me thinking that like, a lot of this stuff is really like the techno movement of right now is what trans was. But I guess we keep seeing this, I don't want to call it mislabeling, this relabeling of house styles. But I think it also, in doing a little bit of research over the past couple days, is that this has happened since... the early 90s and probably even before that, right? Where they were calling certain things like Liquid House that was also labeled something before it was Liquid House and now Liquid House doesn't even exist anymore and it's probably called something else. And we started with 2006, seven and eight Electro, which is probably labeled something completely different at this point. So it's kind of funky how in the house music genre as a whole, as an umbrella. things these micro labels start to kind of maneuver about. But one thing that I said to you is that like, because it sounds so early 2000s trance, I would love to see Tiesto get back in the game and do a couple tracks in this style. Because he was like the king of the king of this stuff. What's taking him so long? I don't know. I think I've been seeing some video of him playing more in that style at some of the festivals. I mean, I know it's just become more popular in general, but like Tiesto playing some of his classics in his current festival sets, which is pretty cool, you know? But music is cyclical, right? Like, trends... sub-genres come and go, things get relabeled. We're constantly seeing things come into style and then go out of style. And maybe we've been around long enough to see now this style come back, right? Like it's interesting to see for sure. never ever count a genre out because I counted this genre out three, four years ago. Even within that small period of time, because I would always listen to 140 Trends. Right, like it didn't sound weird to me, but it did start to sound a little too, too fast for a while there. I'm like, we will never be able to play this again. I literally thought that, not long ago, three years ago probably. Yeah. And all of a sudden now it's like just about the norm. But there's so much you can do within, just there's so much you can do within house music in general, right? Like you could take elements of all of these different styles and make new styles and then you have to come up with these labels of like, you know, what are we gonna call it? Right. Well, that's what's great about music, right? Because something can be popular and someone can be producing in a certain style, but then take some ideas from another subgenre or another style and incorporate that into whatever's popular right now. And it starts to create this new thing, right? Like, I'm sort of thinking about, like, the future house that sort of then started transitioning more into, like, a bass house of, like, a Cheyenne Giles Solano style, almost, you know, Yeah. Tech House that was 126 is now being produced faster, right? 136, 140, and it's bringing back some elements of techno and some elements of trance, but still keeping some of this Tech House vibes at the same time. And it's like creating this new thing. I think that's what's amazing about like house music. And that's one of the reasons why I love it because there's no rules. Like you could kind of do whatever you want, you know? There's not a set, there's not a set. There's not a set way to do things or be successful. And I love that about music in general. Yeah, I think that is where the real house heads, I think that's where the love lies, right? In the amount of different ways you can go with it. I wish I could remember this guy's page, because he's like no holds barred, like he'll play anything. Like he is playing like 91 Liquid House, and then he's also playing 2006 trance music, and then he's playing like hard style and drum and bass and like a little bit of everything. And it's like, it's refreshing to hear someone not pigeon-holed themselves into liking one's style and putting that out into the world. Not to say he's not like a DJ, he might be a DJ, I don't know. He's more of an online personality to me. It's nice to see just somebody absolutely just opening it all up, man, and opening up other people's eyes to so many different genres. I gotta check him out. You gotta find him. Once you find him, we'll... We'll shout him out on the next pod or something. I feel like that's something that is very hard to do as a DJ, right? Is to try to show people so many different genres because you kind of do want to be specific into growing a brand and a sound, right? But that's why I think I find this guy so refreshing where it's like he's not pitching home himself as a DJ of some sort. Here it is. He was doing like 12 posts a day at one point. Oh yeah, Fish56Octagon. Older like British dude, 190,000 followers. Yeah, he's a DJ Bookings. Check him out. Anybody that's like into, if you're like a little, if you're a house junkie and a history house junkie, get into it, it's cool stuff. Yeah, we'll link to his page in the show notes. I'm gonna definitely check him out when we get done here. I think the one thing too, where, you know, we talk a lot about hip hop and party hip hop and whatever else. One of the reasons why some DJs and people who are into hip hop complain about the music because the sound hasn't changed for so, so long. It's very repetitive as far as what's popular, you know? Whereas in house music, in the last 10 years, we've seen how many different... styles of music come and go or get popular. And it just doesn't happen in hip hop, you know? Like, it just doesn't. We've been in this 70 BPM, you know, hi-hats 808 thing for a long time. And it's just kind of, not that all the music that's coming out in hip hop is in that style, but a lot of it is, you know? Yeah, and it's... We... a little bit something to do with like the I think producers becoming cheaper in the hip hop realm where like the producer used to be part of the highlight package if you will you know what I mean like you were gonna listen to a song for the producer where I feel like that's become less and less the norm It depends, man. In party hip hop, maybe but like there's still a ton of artists that are doing unique music and good hip hop music. It's just not club music that we're playing in sets, you know, I listened to a lot of hip hop in my car in the gym. I just don't play any of it. Like none of it. Yeah, it's hard to play unless you're in a room, in a hip hop room, you know. Um, did you get a chance to listen to the Kanye album? I've I kind of breezed through it. I don't know. I'm sure there's some gems on there that I'm going to like. Well, a few things, right? There's the Carnival track that's viral on social right now that is hitting in clubs. Original, techno, Jersey Club, I have a bunch of different versions, they all work. Every one of them has worked for me so far in the last couple of weeks. From a listener standpoint, there's like classic Kanye sounds on this album. Some of the tracks, there's a handful. Um, you know, it's a little West Coast influence with the Thai dollar sign thing. Like he's, he's an LA guy. I'm pretty sure. Right. That's a good question. Go ahead. like Kanye's still bat shit crazy and you could hear it in his lyrics for sure. Like he's shot. But you still get those glimpses of like his genius, you know, as just a creator and as a musician and an artist and a producer. I don't think you, that'll always shine through, no matter what. Him as a producer, he's an incredible producer, became a good rapper and a great entertainer. Kanye West's one of the greatest shows I ever been to. Hands down, I've been to a lot of shows, a lot. you see? What album era? I saw him that infamous Bonnaroo set where he was supposed to come on at 1am, he wound up not coming out until 4am. And it got so bad that people were pissing in bottles and throwing it at him on stage because it took him so long. There was rumors that he was out at a party in Western Tennessee and he was getting flown in. Then something else happened to where his staging wasn't set the way he wanted it. So he waited until it was fixed. I think he purposely didn't come out until the sun was starting to come up. And he opened the set with Good Morning and was absolutely sick. What a track. Like as the sun's coming up over the stage and he's playing Good Morning was sick. And I think he purposely did that. But it was like all weekend long was Fakanyay. Like you'd go and see like whatever the main act was the next night and there'd be chants Fakanyay. It was written all over every, all over every Porto Potti on the festival site. Spray painted, drawn, Fakanyay was the big thing. There was like a. It was just like a whole it was a whole thing and it was an incredible but it was incredible show at the end of the day. I've ever seen Kanye. I don't know how I wish I did. I wouldn't go see him now but So many people had left that we got to get pretty decently close to the stage. It was dope. Is like the Kanye, like you're not allowed to play Kanye thing now officially over? Can we go back to playing like, Can't Tell Me Nothing and like some of the classic stuff? I never stop playing them because in the rooms that I play, they don't care. Man, what's your favorite Kanye album? I'm like looking on Spotify right now and it's so hard to. I was saying this when I was saying Kanye is one of my favorite all time a couple episodes ago that every album is so different. Like the first two have similarities, right? College dropout and late registration. They have very, very similar sounds. And then after that I think it goes kind of off the wheels. The wheels fall off and you didn't know what you were going to get. I actually think Graduation might be my favorite Kanye album. And that might be a little controversial, but like... There's just so many, like, Good Morning, Champion, Stronger, I Wonder, Good Life, Can't Tell Me Nothing, that's the first six songs. That was the, I think that was the tour that I saw. flashing lights, everything I am, homecoming, Barry Bonds, Drunken Hot Girls, The Glory, Big Brother, good night. And then I like 808s too. I just thought 808s was like a super cool, different, new vibe that I just loved. 808s really was great for that time period where I feel like Black Eyed Peas were kind of big at that point and like really, really big, you know, that's when they were massive. And I feel like they kind of shared a similar kind of vibe and sound is like this, it's like dancey kind of a thing happening. And it was good for the time period. Like, yeah, you would have to live through that time period to really appreciate that album. I think in retrospect, it's good. But It was definitely influential to music at that time. Yeah, like I had a really... When 808s came out, I don't think I liked it as much. And then like, months later I went back to it and like, I guess because it was so different from what he was doing, it was like, I had to kind of, I had to like think, vibe it out and think about it. And then like going back and listening, you're like, all right, this is, I can mess with this. I think as a DJ at that time, I was able to play a bunch of records on there. I would have to see the track listing in front of me. I loved that, everything that led up to that album, I loved. Remember Good Fridays? He would put out a track or two every Friday. No, he'd put out a track. He'd put out one or two tracks. And it didn't have to be a Kanye track. It could have been anybody from his camp, right? and they called it Good Fridays. And it would come out once a week and I'd look forward to it every week. Yeah, it was good, yeah, right. And the songs that came out on those Fridays were so sick and some of them made the album, some of them didn't, but I still go back and listen to a lot of those tracks. I remember just being so excited about those coming out weekly. His first album for me I think is my favorite. Is that like the most critically acclaimed his first? Probably, right? As far as like sales or? No, just like what do people say is the best Kanye album? Is it is it college dropout? I think the first two, I think when everybody references the quote unquote old Kanye, that's what you're referencing, right? You're referencing the, the those like classic samples that he would, that he would use in his production. And, you know, all of that stuff that came before that album to all the, all the work that he did with Jay Z and, and Beanie Siegel and dilated peoples and all of them, like all of those great, that was all in that style. That was pre his first album. Can we just talk about the greatness real quick? So college dropout 2004, late registration 2005, graduation 2007, 808s and heartbreak 2008, my beautiful dark twisted fantasy 2010, watch the throne 2011, Yeezus, which I don't really remember. I like bound to black skinhead, new slaves, blood on the leaves. Okay. I really liked life of Pablo. Did you? Father Stretched My Hands. What else? I Love Kanye, Real Friends. It wasn't, again, it wasn't like a DJ album, but it was like, I like listening to this album. And then after that, it was sort of, I had no interest in a lot of the stuff after that. Yay, Kid C Ghost with Cudi. Jesus is King, which I don't remember. Oh, that was like his like gospel thing that he did. Right. And then Donda and now Vultures 1. I would assume we're going to see a Vultures 2 at some point. Probably in the near future, like very near future. I feel like that's kinda how that rolls. I don't know. I'm gonna give it a listen and see what I think, but I know the last few albums, I haven't really been feeling, that's why I didn't jump at it. You know, tracks, definitely have liked tracks, but not full albums for sure. you this a full run today. I'm gonna listen to Vulture's one straight through in the gym and that's, I'll be able to give you guys a better, better review. Eh. All right, let's wrap here. Anything we want to... Oh, let's promo Beats Bartenders brushes. Our monthly networking Open Decks event is back. So you guys are going to... It's what? Next Tuesday. So Tuesday, March 12th at Wicked Wolf, Hoboken, New Jersey, 7 p.m. to 11. We'll put the ticket link in the show notes. It's free to attend or to sign up for the Open Decks. Guys, we have a lot of people signing up for the Open Deck. So, you know, it's, we're doing a randomizer and not everybody's gonna get to play, but we're gonna try to fit as many DJs as possible on the lineup. Please don't give us a hard time the night of the event. It's really hard. There's so many guys that want and girls that want to play. So we do our best. UFOso does his best. Timmy Vu does his best. Chubbs does his best. So like, bear with us. Be easy to work with. Reference the beginning of this podcast. Yeah, but definitely if you guys are able to come out, show some love, introduce yourself to some of the Get Down crew. And yeah man, that's all I got. Right? All right, guys, thanks for listening to this episode. I'm on vacation starting tomorrow, so I'm gone for a week. Hopefully I'm not this pale when I come back, catch a little tan, let's go. Yeah, you gotta look a little bit more like me here. Let's go. I know. Alright guys, we'll talk to you soon. Peace. Alright guys, peace.