Make The Most of Miami Music Week 🌴

This week on The Get Down Podcast, Cream & Gary discuss:

• Positive Weekend in the Nightlife Industry
• Challenges in the Nightlife Industry
• Getting the Most out of Miami Music Week
• Networking and Making Connections
• Importance of Mentorship
• Building Relationships and Finding Mentors
• The Importance of Networking
• Expanding Your Network
• Giving Back and Helping Others
• Announcement: Launching a Community and Course
• Understanding the Billboard and Spotify Charts
• Using Charts to Curate DJ Sets and Productions

Transcript

0:01

What's up guys, welcome to the 148th episode of the Get Down brought to you by Digital Music Pool. My name's Kareem. Gar, we're gonna start this podcast with some positivity. We've been murdering our industry and our market and the status of where we've been with nightlife. I think we could say this past weekend was probably one of our first good weekends in a while. I fully expected this to be the bounce back weekend. It usually is every year for us. St. Patty's Day usually turns the corner. The weather starts to get a little nicer in our market. So that kind of dictates kind of the nightlife space and people coming out. I played six gigs over the weekend and every single one of them was very good. Every one. gigs over the weekend just sounds like I'd be in a coma. Ha ha ha. No, I'm not. It's Tuesday and I'm not feeling great still. So, um, but yeah, like everything from my Thursday party, which really has nothing to do with St. Patty's weekend, right? Like I do a Latin night on Thursdays and that was excellent. Everybody was like in good spirits, a lot of dancing, a lot of, you know, just positive vibes. And then, and then heading into Friday was excellent again. Um, also nothing to do with St. Patty's day weekend. Um, And then Saturday and Sunday, I played two gigs both days. I, my afternoon gig was a parade day in New York city, Harry the dog, big shout to, to AJ for taking care of me all day. He kind of stood next to the DJ booth and you know, we had a good back and forth for a while and, uh, I have one of those driver issues that every DJ, you know, has a nightmare about. So that, that took me a minute to get going. Well, Luckily my set started early and the parade wasn't even over yet. So I had a little time to get through it There wasn't really weren't packed yet. And then I think we saw all of the places got packed around three o'clock So everybody came off the parade route and then made their way downtown and it's just slower trickle downtown In New York and then you know by four o'clock it was it was bumping everywhere and then Saturday night was excellent and Sunday was local St. Paddy, actual St. Paddy's Day, which was, I think it really worked out great for the bar industry this year because you had St. Paddy's Day on Sunday, but you had also people doing things on Saturday to get more people out. Yeah, I like that New York City did the parade on Saturday so that, you know, you could celebrate Saturday or Sunday and it worked out, or both. I read the reasoning for it, because I was like, why would they do this? And they said for religious observance reasons. That was their, I mean, I guess Irish Catholic, and you're going to go to church on Sunday and everything else, so they didn't want to interrupt that, the parade with that. like an economic reasoning, but that's fine. If this is what they put on their website, then you know, we'll go with it. Yeah. So yeah, we talked a lot about how this could be like the weekend to kind of project us into a better situation. And the next eight to 10 weeks are going to be really, really interesting and really important to all of our venues that have been hurting here in the colder markets over the last, you know, since January one, let's say, and I'm really hoping that the warm weather and people get excited to go back out into the world to kind of help. some of our venues and revenues and, because I was talking to RM this week about it. Is it 1% of bars that are year over year up in revenue? Maybe 5%? Is it, I don't know, but it's not a lot, that's for sure. It's not good, I mean, I think when you look at this too, though, we only have six weeks of real downtime. We're like, you know, football kind of ends, football always provides a jolt in the nightlife economy, right? And then as that ends, you have this five or six weeks where it like lulls out a bit, and then that's kind of what we're in, but it's always the same thing every year, but yes, you're right, and everybody really. ha ha. everybody freaks out. We all we all talk. Oh my God, what are we going to do? And then St. Patty's Day comes around and it's a jolt again. But like you're right, I think the year over year numbers are down. I think I don't think it's the Friday night, Saturday night that's really being affected, maybe the Friday night a little bit actually, because the numbers on Friday nights are definitely lower. Saturday nights aren't really effective. But I think it's trying to get people in the door from that like, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is really the is the hard part, you know? The Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then maybe even Sunday, trying to get people through the door to spend that extra money to really catapult and keep your business afloat. You can't make all of your money just on Friday night and Saturday night, right? And it's staying creative in those spaces, and sometimes you do have to spend money to make money on those days in order to generate new income. But yeah, you're right, across the board, it's tough. It's, it's, it's tough, but I hope that this weekend has provided a little, you know, comfort and solace to the, to the management and the ownership that have been kind of worried and freaking out here for a little bit. Yeah, I agree. And let's hope we keep some of this momentum here now through the rest of the month and into April and May. So it'll be interesting to see, but hopefully we get that bounce back we're all looking for. All right, so a lot of us are going to be down in Miami. I'm sure a lot of people already are in Miami. We're recording here on a Tuesday. Miami Music Week is this week. And I know a lot of our DJs are heading down or already down. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how to get the most out of your Miami Music Week trip. And I think this could be different for everybody depending on, you know, Gary and Kareem going down as the owners of Get Down or as a DJ who's producing music and going to network with labels and with other artists or whether you're just someone who is a beginner DJ or, you know, part-time DJ and just wants to go down there to like take in some of the DJs and sounds and... You get to hear a lot of music and a lot of DJs in a very short period of time in Miami. And I think that's always something that is really inspiring for me when I come back. So what are some ways, or what do you think are the ways that DJs should be looking at this Miami Music Week trip? I think you have to self-assess and understand why, like you said, why are you going down? Like what is the purpose of you going down? Am I going down as an artist who's trying to talk to labels and talk to, and get my music out there? Well if that's the case, then you're gonna wanna have your USB sticks filled up with music that you can pass out to people. business cards ready if that's something that you're interested in having or one of those QR code cards that somebody could tap and follow you and you could establish a dialogue via DM or email, whatever it might be. But coming prepared with that stuff that's easily accessible, that you can pull out of your pocket and give to somebody who is of some importance to you and making it as smooth of a... transaction, if you will, as possible, because these people that are the decision makers are talking to a million people this week, right? And you kind of have to make yourself stand out in some way, right? Don't be stumbling over your words. Be ready, be confident, and have kind of an idea of that 30-second elevator pitch, who you are, what you do, where you're from, and how can you be a... a positive impact on this person that you're trying to work with. Right, being able to express who you are and what you do in a very short period of time is extremely important. Because like you said, important people, decision makers, are gonna be meeting a million people. And how can you stand out and how can you look polished and speak clearly and to the point to get your point across? So, go ahead. I think having the look too, right? I think that's a huge part of it. You wanna look like an artist. If that's what you're trying to become, you need to portray that you're an artist, right? I think of people like a Cheezy, who I just worked with on Saturday. When he walks in the door in his fur cheetah coat, he looks like he's there to perform, you know what I mean? He's not just Joe Schmell coming off the street from the parade. He's there as an entertainer, as a performer. And I'm not saying that if that's not you, that's not you, right? But like, you want to stand out in your look as well. You don't wanna be showing up in like sandals and sweats. You know what I mean? Because you're not coming across professional, you're not coming across as somebody who is an entertainer. This is the entertainment business. That's what you're, you're selling your look, you're selling your sound. I think that's very important and sometimes overlooked. Yeah, dress as if you're going to a gig, not as if you're going to a pool party in Miami as a guest. For sure. I'm dressing like I'm going to the pool party because you wanna know what? I'm not an artist, but people can come talk to me if they're interested in getting gigs or something like that. You know what I mean? Or interested in what we do in our market, who we are, right? Right, you're not down there trying to expand your Gary W brand. You're down there trying to represent Get Down, expand what we do, meet with some of the people who we've talked with from different markets. And I think as an artist, that's how you have to think about it, right? You're not there for vacation. You're not there for fun. You're not there to get whacked, blacked out, drunk. You're there for work. This is a very important networking trip, you know? This is like the biggest producer trip of your year kind of thing. So all those artists who you've had made any connection with throughout the year, whether it's someone asking you for music or sending you music, or you met them at a gig, you open for them, you want to reach out to all these people and find out where they're going to be, how can you link up with them? I think that's step number one, right? Step number two would be like people like Krim and Gary and Parari and Madison and Chachi from 4AM and Sujit from Scam, if he's going to be in the building, like... Then you start reaching out to all the important people who you know are in the industry, like Eric from Trio. Like any of these ownership agency owner people, you wanna reach out to them and see where they're gonna be. And start to create this plan of, all right, on Wednesday when I get down there, I'm gonna check into my hotel, and I know that Cream and Gary are gonna be at this place. I wanna go there. I know that Chachi is gonna be at this place. I know that, oh, I linked with Cheyenne Childs this year. I know he's playing this party and his set is at four o'clock. I got to be there by like three and I got to make sure he knows that I'm coming. If he could get me on guest list, that would be amazing. And then your Wednesday's planned out. Right. And I think having those plans every day and not just waking up and be like, Oh, let me see what my DJ friends from my market are doing today. Like that's not the approach. This is not a let's hang out with all the DJs from my market trip. This is a, what are the high level networking connections that I made this year? How can I go and meet those people and further that relationship in person trip? Yeah, yeah, if you're trying to get somewhere with your music and you're trying to grow your network as an artist, that is the most important thing. You can't just hang out with the people that you know. You have to put yourself in situations where you're going to be able to network with people outside of your market, right? Everybody from every market has a party going on somewhere, right? But I don't. You know, you have to be able to separate yourself from that, even though that's the comfortable thing to do, right? That's the comfortable thing to do is to go hang out with the people from your market, but like you really, you need to expand beyond that. it's cool if you could make that stuff happen, you know, like we do the EDMAs every year, amazing party, it's only getting better and better. DMP does an incredible job with that. And like, that's one you want to be at. And yeah, of course, there's gonna be a lot of people from your market there because it's one of the best parties of the whole week. So like that one you want to be at, that's when you get to see all your friends from your market. Like, sure, it's nice if you can get to some of that stuff. And if you could pop in, you show some love, of course, do it. I think another tactic would be link or stay with or connect with someone who's on a very similar level to where you are that's doing like the same style of stuff. Like if you're a producer and you're, you know, entry level, you're starting to make some traction, link with someone else that's doing that. And maybe you guys can hit parties together because that instantly doubles your network, right? Like maybe I have a connection with an artist that you don't have, but you have connections with a label, right? And then you could come to my parties and I can go to your parties and it doubles our reach and extends our networks instantly. So I think that's also really important. We've done that with Parari, I've done that with Castor in the past. We've done it with Kova in the past, Shout to Kova, Tweak Spin. So I think that's another strategy and another way that you can really maybe get into some parties and meet some people that you otherwise would not be able to, because you don't have a connection to those people. I think a great example that you brought Castro's name up and then just for people in our market, Castro's from our market originally now he's up in Boston, but also has more of a global outreach like that's a connection that you have. It might be two or three people away from you. You might not know him personally, right? Like if you're from our market, you don't really know Castro personally, but it might be really a good thing to go to his party this year because he's got a great lineup at his party. And then like, okay, it's like, hey, I know. you know, creaming Gary and you can introduce yourself to somebody like a cast. You can then introduce you to so many other people, right? So like you can use those people that are from your quote unquote market, but you but might be like a level up or two or three levels up. And maybe that's a good in to get introduced to more and more people. Yeah, for sure. When I first started going down there, I linked up with people that had way more connections than me. You know, they helped me a ton and made connections with labels and various people, promo, different people, by just hanging out with them and getting introduced. And you know, when you walk into those places, you have your little elevator pitch, who am I, what do I do, where am I from, you deliver that. Something really important that I learned early on was if you make a connection with someone, get their contact information. Don't give your contact information. And the reason why you do that is, again, these decision makers are meeting a million people, they're connecting with a million people. If you give your phone number, it's highly unlikely they're gonna reach out to you. But if you get their phone number or email, it's a lot easier for you to reach out, follow up, send your music, send your, whatever you need to send them, based on your conversation, and... Now you have that contact in your phone, right? And maybe they don't answer you immediately, but you follow up again, or you see them somewhere else, and you connect again that way. That's super important. If this isn't your first time going down there to do this, I think following up with other people that you've met down there in the past and reconnecting with those people and supporting maybe some of those people's parties and the things that they're doing in order to further a relationship. Yeah, maybe you haven't connected over the last year or maybe nothing's come of the introduction you had last year or the year before, but you know what, continue to show up and continue to support. You don't have to be annoying about it, but. you're still then a familiar face in a familiar place, right? Like, oh, I saw you last year down here. Like, maybe if I ran into you in New York, I wouldn't have remembered you, but hey, I'm seeing you here, and it's kind of, you know, all comes full circle, and then you can continue your relationship that way. I've seen it happen time and time again over the last several years, where you meet up with people that you met the year before, and the familiarity really helps build the relationship. You know? Yeah, for sure. It's cool. It's really cool to, it's a great couple days. Like it's a lot, it's fun, it's a lot of work. You know, you don't sleep a lot. But Miami Music Week is always, always a great time. And honestly, every time I leave there, I feel motivated, inspired. I come back with a little renewed energy, for sure. So if you haven't been, I think you're in for a good treat. I just want to get into, if you're not there for the networking or getting your music out, if you're not there for that portion of Miami Music Week, and you are there just for, you want to go see dope DJs, because hey, listen, we all work every weekend, and maybe sometimes you don't get a chance to go do that. So it's a great opportunity to like, yeah, maybe this is like a little vacation, and you can go see DJs that might be similar to your style or somebody that you like to emulate, and maybe you can get inspired by going to see. different DJ sets. I mean, I think on Saturday, I was going to leave pretty early Saturday, but I think I'm going to go to the Green Velvet and Bonsan party because that's just something personally that I want to do. You know what I mean? Right, how often do we actually get to go and see a bunch of artists that we enjoy their music, look up to, whatever the case may be. And like, Miami gives you that opportunity because there's so many parties and so many artists in town. You can really pick and choose and like, if you're gigging a lot, you have no opportunity to go see most of these artists when they come to your city. So yeah, if you wanna take a day or a couple days to do that or if that's what you're there for, that's cool too because you're gonna meet a ton of people. in just being in those parties anyway. You're gonna see people you know, you're going to meet other DJs and other artists from all over the place, all over the world, to be quite honest. So there's been so many times where I've been at a party in Miami and turned to my left and like, laid back Luke's standing there, or like David Guetta is there, and it's like, oh, they're just hanging out doing the same thing we're doing, you know? It's cool to see and it's cool to kind of mingle with artists of all levels, so. Yeah, I've seen some video already come out of parties that started earlier in the week, Oscar's party, I think he had something somewhere, but it looked super dope, so I'm looking forward to it. like tomorrow, I feel like will be the first day where you start seeing a bunch of parties. There's probably a trickle of stuff going on Monday, Tuesday, and then Wednesday a little more and Thursday a little more and then Friday's full swing. So Looking forward to it. I'm beat and I'm tired, but hopefully it's, like you said, motivating. Yeah, unfortunately I am not going this year. I booked a show on Friday at Trio in Charlotte. It's my first show down there. And yeah, I mean, I wanna really focus on that and make sure I'm in the right head space and not on three different flights in two days. And I just made the executive decision this year that was kind of more important for me. It's gonna, FOMO's already kicking in, man. Just talking about it. But I think it's a, Trio's a great opportunity for you, and we've talked about this on the podcast, and the cream growth for 2024 as an artist is important, and sometimes you have to make those tough decisions in your career, right? And sure, it'd be nice to be in Miami, but I think as a, as cream the artist, it's better to be playing at a place like Trio and Charlotte. Yeah, this is sort of my, this is always my like conundrum, right? Like I'm still trying to push forward as Cream the Artist, but at the same time, you know, Cream and Gary as Get Down agency owners, like there's certain responsibilities that are important for our business as well. And sometimes it's like, I have to choose one. And unfortunately, this is one of those where I'm choosing the Cream, the Cream focus for this one, but I know you'll hold it down there and I'm excited to hear. what comes out of it and who you meet and talk to and what's happening down there. Really pissed on missing EDMAs. And that's honestly why I chose to go to just do the Charlotte thing because I wouldn't really be able to go to EDMAs on Friday, no matter what, so. Right, and that's kind of our big event. Obviously, Big Shot Digital Music Pool, always involved with everything we do, especially this podcast, so, you know, definitely have to be there to support them. It's gonna be awesome. I mean, they told us some of that lineup, and it's gonna be ridiculous. The lineup just gets better every year. And I think what they're doing with the awards has been really cool. They've expanded it now to a lot more awards and there's a ton of really dope DJs and artists and mix show hosts and all kinds of people that are gonna be in the building there. All right, cool. Let's move on. One of our DJs, Torso, Shout to Torso, had asked us to maybe talk a little bit about this next topic. And he wanted to really us to focus on mentorship. And if you're a young DJ right now, why is having a mentor important? And maybe like how to find a mentor? I think we could start there. So what are your thoughts on those two things? It's not something that I was really brought up, I never really had a mentor, I kind of like flew by the seat of my path for a long time and tried to like balance everything that I had going on and yeah sure I looked up to like, I looked up to certain DJs but I feel like we didn't have the accessibility that people have, that younger DJs would have now in order to reach out to some of those old, maybe the older DJs, more experienced DJs, doesn't even have to be older. So I think it is important. I think really like when you and I connected, I think that became more of a bouncing back and forth of knowledge. I think that now we have such accessibility to people and whoever we really want to reach out to, we can, especially the people we look up to. I think that it never hurts to ask questions, right? if you have questions about something that has to do with your DJ career and there is someone that you look up to just reach out and ask, you know, they, yes, they might be busy. Um, I, we get that all the time. Like the people reach out to us, even our DJs reach out to us. Oh, we know you guys are slammed, but it's like, no, like this is why we're here. We're here to coach you along and mentor along and answer any questions that you might have. You'd be shocked how many people are willing to help you out. Right? It takes them nothing to be nice to you. DJs are willing to help you out if you ask. Absolutely. The change in attitude within our industry has been immense over the last 10 years. The positivity and the willingness to help each other out has become more and more prevalent. It's not like it used to be where it was so cutthroat that I'm not telling you my tips and secrets or I'm not sharing records with you. That was always a huge thing when we were younger. Nobody would share their records with you, ever. Maybe like go find it yourself or whatever. to play in AM, blackout mode, with an AM mode on Serato so that the opener DJ or whoever was in the booth couldn't see the songs they were playing in Serato. Remember that? I think you could still do it now, right? Yeah, AM mode was something else because everybody would sit behind AM and take pictures of his computer screen while he was DJing. So it was kinda necessary for him, but it was that cutthroat where I'm not even giving you a song, one song. Like, now it's completely different. People share crates, people will share tips. even sharing what they make, how much money they make, is become regular, right? Like that stuff wasn't around. So like, I think reaching out to those people that you respect and you wanna kinda get to where they're at possibly and you have questions about how they got there, don't hesitate to reach out. I think that's the number one thing. Yeah, I think if you're a young DJ and you're looking for a mentor or you're trying to figure out how to, you know, how to kind of link with people, I would say, like you said, like who do you look up to in the industry? Who do you most want to try to emulate as a DJ or artist? And then I would try to connect with those people or that person, whether it's through DM, definitely going to their shows, and you start to build a relationship, right? And as you continue to grow the relationship, it could potentially just happen organically where something pops up and you're like, hey, I have a question, a venue asked me to do this gig, this is the price, I'm not sure if I should do it. Or, you know, two competing venues asked me to DJ, but I could only play at one, I don't really know what to do. Those are always the situations that are tough, right? It's usually relationships with venues and money, and those are like the two big ones as a young DJ, and even now that we all struggle with sometimes and try to navigate. So... Look at the people in your market who you want, who you think are doing a great job or who you respect or who you wanna be like, and try to create those relationships. And as those relationships grow, many times organically, you'll just go to that person to ask them these questions and they just kind of become your mentor, you know? You're never like, hey dude, can you mentor me? Like that's not really a thing. It kind of has to happen more organically. So... In growing your network and meeting more and more people, you can kind of start to say like, oh, I really connected with this person. They were really helpful. They were really open to answering my questions. Like they could just kind of become your mentor. And it's okay to have more than one mentor, you know? You could have multiple. You could have a DJ mentor, a producer mentor, a marketing mentor, like that's cool. It's funny you said that, because I was just going to bring it up. The relationships that I forged early on were all club and nightlife owners, right? And like those were my closest people that I would go back and forth with, were the people I was working for, right? Because we were usually pretty similar in age, like the management turned ownership over years, you know? And I was always somebody who's gigging super hard. So I wasn't out. and like networking with a ton of other DJs because I was always working Thursday, Friday, Saturday, nights in high school. So that's where I think like the business background of what we do now, that's where my hat always kind of leans in the business side of it, in the business side of nightlife because of that. But it has helped me in my DJ career and will be post DJ career in learning. the business and whatnot. So you're right. You can have people that aren't just DJ mentors. You can have business mentors and you can have marketing and branding mentors. Don't pigeonhole yourself into one thing, right? You want to be able to do a lot of different things. A lot of the mentors who I looked up to or who I asked questions to initially were DJs that I was opening for, you know? And like, that was how I made my first connection. We would be like hanging out in the booth and talking about music and taking shots together and like hanging out after the gig. And you create these personal relationships that can then turn into more of a mentorship role. And for me coming up, I mean, Ammo was someone who put me on in the city first initially, and he was someone who I always bounced ideas off of, and especially all the crazy shit that happened in the city as a young DJ. Then he was the first person I would reach out to. And then I built a relationship with Carlos Balanj, and Carlos was someone who I always looked up to and was sort of more in my lane of what I was trying to be as a DJ and an artist. So yeah, he was always someone who helped me out a lot growing. as a DJ. And now it's like, we've we're lucky enough to be able to have these connections with all these different people. Like I look at Ferrari as a mentor for me as a production for production and music and just as a business owner. Honestly, like, who else? Chachi is another one who's a relationship we've grown in the last year or two. And, you know, I've gone to him and be like, Hey, I need help. I don't know what to do these this opportunity arose. Like, what do you think? Yeah. Even Conflict, we just met Conflict and I don't have a really tight relationship with him, but you know, RM's really close with him and I've been able to reach out to Conflict to ask him some questions. And that's been really great for me as a DJ who's been in the game a while, you know, like you could always have new mentors, you could always have mentors, you could always have someone to reach out to bounce ideas off of. And then, of course, you and I are every day we're bouncing ideas off of each other. So like, it doesn't... just, I was thinking of some of mine and they, like I said, there were like they're random, like, you know, Dave Giselle from Sona 13 is a big one for me. He's very business, very well business minded man. And he really was very good at hospitality. Um, and that's where I learned kind of good hospitality from was, was from him. Then Ron from rated R, obviously we grew up together. I've known him since the second grade and you know, him just building a company kind of from scratch, a non-DJ, having a DJ company and then going into bar ownership. He's another one that, you know, probably at a younger age, at a much younger age, we would always go back and forth about like how businesses were run and how parties went, how to promote a party and how to market a party and things like that. So I've had some just like really, which would seem like strange ones over the years, but they've definitely helped long run. Yeah, like it doesn't have to be someone in our industry even, you know, it could be, it could be another business owner, it could be another creative, it could be a photographer, it could be, you know, someone that just does something similar to what we do as gig workers and business owners, who maybe has a little more experience or who can bring some ideas from another industry that maybe will work in this industry and vice versa and you can help each other out, you know. So My mic's on, by the way, Kareem. I just checked. after, but it looks like from my end it's not on, but all good. Something else that I've talked to a lot of our DJs about is it doesn't matter how long you've been in the game. You could also give back to other DJs, right? There's always someone who has less experience than you or who is younger than you. So we talked to our guys about it, like, yeah, all right, you're a... a DJ who's been with us for three, four, five years, like we want you to take one of the newer guys or girls under your wing and start helping them. And like, what can you teach them that you've learned from working with Get Down and learning the industry and understanding our market and understanding marketing? And like, I think we should all not only look for mentors to help us no matter what point we are, but also find people to help. And that's like the tree or the, I can't even, what am I looking for? What's the saying? Continue to, can continue to give back to this, to this DJ community. I think that's really important in, in continuing a healthy and successful community, right? Like pass on some of the knowledge that you have. I think one person that I can think of offhand, like especially with the female DJs, if you're a female DJ and you're looking to get into DJing and maybe you're a little afraid of it, reach out to other female DJs, because there are things that you're going to deal with that we don't deal with, right? And I think finding those people that are dealing with similar struggles to you or have dealt with struggles that you're going to deal with, reach out to those people. They're gonna be the most helpful to you. So yeah. This is an important subject, right? Like a lot of what we, a lot of what Get Down does and what we started with was more along this mentorship and coaching and helping DJs and like what this podcast is all about, right? Like Gary and I are here for anyone listening. If you guys need help with something, you need, you have a situation, you wanna run something by us, like just reach out. We'll help you, like we'll give our best advice that we can give. So that's number one. Number two. I know, Gary, we said we weren't going to talk about this, but I think it's important because we're talking about this mentorship and coaching thing. Gary and I are launching a community, a Discord community, which also will be a course for some of you guys listening or been around us for a long time. During COVID, we started Get Down University, which was a course to help DJs grow their DJ business and book more gigs and make more money and really focus on the business side of things. A lot of the topics we talk about here. Right? Like not this is how you mix two songs, but this is how you create a really strong network in your market to help you book more gigs. Like that's a big part of it. Right. Social media. Like there's a million different things that we're going to talk about. But we are we're not opening it up to everybody just yet. But I wanted to put it out there into the world and just let you guys know that it's coming. The Discord community is coming along with the course. That's all I'm going to say about it right now. We'll talk more on future episodes in the next week or two, for sure. But. That'll be another outlet, another option for you guys listening and girls listening that we would love to have you be a part of our Discord and help you grow there. So more to come on that. Yeah, I think that's going to be a great tool and a great asset for younger DJs and other DJs that just are looking to, like you said, grow their network. And there's going to be a great group of people in there. There's no doubt about that. So. for sure. All the people that went through our GDU initially are like killing it, you know, working with us and beyond. Yeah, yeah, definitely So, all right, the last thing I wanna talk about, we were looking at the Billboard Top 100 today, and then also the Spotify Top 50 Global Charts. And I think there was a couple things. Number one, the charts are very, very different. Like, super, super different. And like, why? Why is that? And how can DJs use the charts to their advantage? Well, I think that when you look at the Spotify charts, I think this is something that we spoke about before we started here, is that the Spotify is on plays, correct? Let's kind of clarify what the two charts are first, right? So like the Top 50 Global on Spotify goes off plays solely, just plays in Spotify, and that's how that Top 50 is made. And then you have the Hot 100. Which I think, and this is just speculation here, but I think that's more label-based. I think that's what tracks are labels and radio stations pushing right now in order to be popularized. Yeah, I mean, Billboard, the Billboard Top 100 was always like the biggest radio jams, like what's getting the most play around the country. And that's sort of what that was. But, you know, terrestrial traditional radio is sort of, it still exists and it's still happening, but it's not at the forefront that it once was, right. So it's just a weird time, I think, where there's like this TikTok music, and then there's stuff that's happening on Spotify, and then there's stuff that the record labels are pushing and that are getting plays on radio, which many times are like your pop artists, right? Like from every genre. I think a great distinction between the two would be like one, one song that I had brought up to you before was a Lord Huron song that's been on this top 50 global for a long time. And I was a big Lord Huron fan when they were, they were never really popular, right? They were like, they're like this little indie band that used to come through Webster hall and they used to come through Bowery ballroom and I'd make sure to go see them every time. And you know, they would have like 3000 people, 4000 people at one of their bigger shows in the area, right? Well, you go to the track that's been on this top 50 global Spotify and it's got what did I say? Two billion, two billion listens, two billion plays, which is crazy for a band of that size, right? Another band that you brought up was Arctic Monkeys, which Arctic Monkeys, another indie band from the late 2000s that you don't know who that is. Yeah, no clue. They were big in like the indie scene and like they are, they're charting on the top 50 and then you go over to, to billboards, hot 100 and well, they're nowhere to be found because they're not new records. Those records are like 15 years old and then the hot 100 it's like everything that has come out recently. So, you know, the Kanye West's and the Justin Timberlake's an hour round of grande things like, things like that. Um, it's, I'm wondering if the hot 100 are people consuming what are people consuming more that hot 100 list or the or the Spotify top 50 global Here's how I look at it. The Billboard Hot 100 list is like, I'm playing a mainstream club, and these are the songs and remixes that I need to be playing. Whereas the Spotify chart is like, I'm playing in the Lower East Side where anything goes, and I can kinda play whatever I want, and do whatever I want, and play all these different genres. And it's just a bunch of shit from all different eras, and different genres, and it's a bunch of artists I've never heard of, to be quite honest. Right. Like it could be anywhere from Kanye carnival to like Earth, Wind and Fire. It's like so random. Though Taylor Swift cruel summers on both of those, but she's an outlier. We can't really talk Taylor Swift because she just, that's just different. gonna be a Drake song, there's gonna be a Taylor Swift song, there's gonna be a Bad Bunny song on every one of those charts, no matter what, you know? like Cruel Summer might never leave that chart for like the next two years, you know? You know what I used to, you and I used to use the Billboard chart to go and find songs to use for edits. And I think that's, you know, that these charts are a tool for producers for sure, where you can go and see like, well, what's popular right now? What's popular on the Billboard? But then you can also go look at like, what's popular on TikTok? What's popular on Spotify, and sort of pick and choose your remixes or edits based on some of those charts. Yeah, we I'm like thinking of cheerleader off the top of my head right now. And I'm like, that's something that we would have never touched. We would have never picked that to do. and Dance was another one we did off of the charts and off of people requesting the song to you. And those two edits were probably our best, like most successful of all time. they were and we were like, well, we would have never touched either of those songs if it wasn't for that stuff. So it's a great tool to kind of broaden your horizons in the stuff that maybe you're not interested in, but things that other people are interested in. At the end... make another LMFAO party rock anthem edit and like go to one of these lists and find a song maybe you never heard of but is popular at the moment. Because you never know, like you could, you can put your spin on it. Maybe that song is not your style. Maybe it's something that, that you wouldn't normally listen and listen to. Like think, think Teddy will think Teddy swims, right? Like huge record, great record, but like you can never play it as a DJ, but like, okay, let me go in and do something that's more my style with that in order to put my spin on. you could play it as a DJ. Maybe that could be like a cool, I don't know, maybe like a cool intro edit where you take the hook and it builds up into something. I don't know. It could be. You don't know unless you really mess around and play with it. But I think that's the beauty of this, of going to look at these different charts. And another one, like obviously Beatport, the Beatport chart, and then the track 1001 tracklist charts, or like the dance music and EDM and what's going on in house music, super important as well. But guys, we all need to be using these charts to our advantage, whether it's for curating DJ sets or for production. And it's, sometimes I even forget about it. I'm like, oh, let me go back to the basics of what I used to do and how I, you know, how it was successful for me in the past, it can be successful again. I think having, you have accessibility to all of this stuff for free, right? In front of, right? At your fingertips, right? And the top, the global top 50 on Spotify, that's a great way to understand what people are listening to, and then the other, and then you go to billboard and it's like, all right, well, this is what the labels are pushing. So, you know, one of these records might break through at some point and just, you can kind of like test out, like you said, all different genres and all different ideas in order to. Make yourself sound different. I think this is most important for older DJs. And I think because older DJs are not as in tune with the younger generation and what's popular. They're not in college frats right now. They're not in the college bars right now. They don't necessarily know what's poppin' among that, you know, early club going generation at the moment. So using these charts, your advantage is one way to help you become more familiar, you know? We talked about it, I talked to Timo about shit like, yo Timo, what's like a weapon right now that I might not know about? And he'll throw like a couple songs because he's just played like frat parties at Rutgers for football and was like, yo these two tracks are crushing. I hung out for two hours with my nephew last week, he's a sophomore in college, and he put on a playlist that he and his friends listen to. I can't tell you how much it helped me this weekend in playing hair of the dog set and in playing some afternoon sets that have a little bit of a younger audience. Because it just opened my eyes, I'm like, oh my, you guys still listen to all of this stuff that was big? And you know, you and I can have the conversation, so we'll blue in the face. Oh, the stuff from 2010 is really working right now. The stuff from 2012 is really working and it resonates with the younger audience right now. It's like, okay, well, maybe to an extent, but maybe not all of the younger audience. And then I hung out, like I said, with my nephew and I'm like, oh no, that's legit. Like, this is what they're listening to in their dorm rooms. It's kind of wild. you know, and more. I think the ability to go on Spotify and find music from any era at the tip of your fingers allows Natasha Bedingfield, unwritten, to be on both of those charts right now. Allows Earth, Wind and Fire to be on those charts. Allows ABBA, allow, like, all these older songs that become popular, like, they're a fucking 20, 30, 40 years old, some of them. you know what I'm thinking of, and it's hilarious how fast we forget, when we were in college, what was big, maybe not to you, because I know, not just to you, but a weird genre that was huge was 80s rock. 80s rock was huge at that time, huge. And like, none of us, well, because I was DJing a lot of college parties. I did every formal at Ramapo, and then I did every formal like at Montclair and all these different colleges. I was running the formal circuit for a long time, the college bar circuit for a minute and like, come on, feel the noise and like, don't stop believing. And all of those tracks were huge tracks still. And none of us, you know, we're all 20 years old listening to stuff that, you know, our parents listened to 25 years prior to that or 20 years prior to that. So it's not really any different. We're just shocked because now we're the old people. But you know what I mean? We're of the age where our parents would have been then. So it's like, it shouldn't be shocking, but you forget, you tend to forget that is just how music goes. No, I think it's sort of refreshing to be able to like go into a DJ set and think like, I could play music from multiple generations and it could work or it could not work. But I think right now, like you could take a chance on some of those older tracks and just see what happens. And even if you're playing, you know, like an EDM style set, you can find remixes of some of those songs that might pop off. And then it kind of expands what you're playing in your sets and it's not just the same newer. or like the same vocals or the same 2010 vocals, because that's sort of been what's popular here in the last few years. Amongst like all those, all the remixes and edits and the same, you know, 20 vocals. I had my best DJ weekend in a long time. And it's because I was comfortable in dipping into so many different genres and so many different time periods. I think I was probably as far back as 1970 and as new as things that came out last Friday. And being able to kind of manipulate that and have a nice flow to it, it worked. Yeah, it's awesome. It's a nice, it's refreshing to know that people are willing to listen to. different from even a few years ago. So as we always say, like, you gotta adapt as a DJ and a producer and figure out, like, what's gonna work now, you know? It doesn't matter what was working, it's what's gonna work now. So take some chances, try some stuff, see what works, see what doesn't, and, you know, move forward. Yeah. All right, we ready to wrap here? All right, guys, we wanted to get a quick pod out to you. For those of you that are in Miami or going to Miami, look for Gary, he'll be at the EDMAs on Friday, and then he'll be bouncing around various parties over the couple days that he's down there. I'm in Charlotte this weekend on Friday, and I'm back, I think I'm back in Jersey or New York City on Saturday, but thank you guys for listening to this episode. and we'll talk to you soon. Peace out. guys, peace guys.