Just Following Up 🙋🏽‍♂️

This week on The Get Down, Cream & Gary talk about:

• Despite the rain, Miami Music Week parties continued and provided ample networking opportunities.
• Networking with local industry professionals and making connections with artists and DJs is crucial.
• A variety of music styles were played during the week, including Speedhouse, Techno, and Drum and Bass.
• Follow-up with contacts made during the event is essential for building relationships and moving forward.
• Reach out to bookers and venues in your own market for summer gigs and position yourself as a potential performer. Utilize different methods of follow-up, such as email, DMs, and text messages, depending on the level of personal connection.
• Provide something of value to the person you're following up with, such as a remix or original music.
• Hospitality is crucial in the music industry and can greatly impact relationships and opportunities.
• Show appreciation and go above and beyond in providing a positive experience for venues and bookers.
• The Euphonia Alpha Theta/Pioneer mixer is gaining attention for its analog sound and warmth. Euphonia rotary mixer combines digital and analog components, offering both modern and warm sound qualities.
• The mixer is praised for its sound quality and is considered the best sounding mixer on the market.
• The onboard display and built-in effects are unique features of the Euphonia.
• The mixer is more suitable for DJs who prefer long mixing and play longer tracks

Transcript

0:01

What's up guys, welcome to the 149th episode of the Get Down brought to you by Digital Music Pool. My name is Kareem. Gary W here. Big shout to Digital Music, Paul. They, you know, withstood a lot down in Miami over the weekend and over the last week to really put on a great event and then the weather just shit on everything, literally. It was, so I went to the pre -party on Thursday. The setup was amazing. Had a lot of back -end work to do in the afternoon, so didn't get to go like earlier, but I caught the last maybe four or five acts. By that time all of our guys had come over. Angelo had a party across town that he was playing, so everybody had come over and met up, and the setup was just incredible. Like they had the lower area where the stage was, and then the VIP area was upstairs. and that was looking down on the stage area. And then like you could see the ocean in the background and it was just absolutely perfect. A perfect venue for an outdoor pool party type thing, but like on a bigger scale, obviously. And then Friday happened and it was just an app. It was a downpour. They I had I was watching one of the basketball games in the hotel and I was getting ready for dinner and the news came on and they were like, Oh, like be ready for really strong winds, flash flooding, lightning, possible tornadoes in the area. And I'm like, whoa, what? I was like, we're supposed to be outside tomorrow for this. And I'm, you know, so we spoke to Ligati. He's like, we got ponchos. So I just come ready to bear the elements, which I appreciated the levity he had with the amount of. pressure I'm sure that he had on him about, you know, this is a year long process, you know, in trying to put all of this stuff together and get all of these big names in place and just execute an excellent event like they do every year. And then out of nowhere, you get this freak storm and you have to make adjustments and, and they did. And we showed up on Friday and the press room was fantastic. Big shout to everybody we saw in there, because I felt like all of our connections and a lot of our friends and friends of the show, they were all doing something in the press room. Whether it was, exactly, like, I Heart Radio interview, two of the guys that were doing the I Heart Radio interview station knew them, and then Nikos was doing the... whatever, it's maybe the SiriusXM stuff. And it was just like everybody was doing something. There were so many personalities in the room and it was cool to see everybody and our guys showed out pretty well on Friday in support. And Ligati seemed to take it in stride on the outside. There's nothing you could do. just let's try to make this as good as possible. Let's try to make sure that we still get as many of the artists who are supposed to play, even if the times change, let's make sure that we can still get them in the building. You know, I saw some video and I text you and I was like, man, never did I think I'd see cascaded back to back dead mouse in like a wedding venue. In like a, in like a hotel, yeah, a hotel event center. The satellite bars, like the open bar at the wedding, that's exactly what it was like. But it really, it went well. The vibe was good in there, man. Everybody pushed up to the artists to watch each artist. Cashmere was amazing, and Deadmau5 was great. I was big. Big shout to Deadmau5 for actually going to play the show because I know how he gets sometimes, like where he's a little, I was like, he ain't showing up to this. There's no way. But now he came out, he played, they played a great set together and it was fun. And Armin opened the day, which was amazing to see Armin again and play the actual sound of music that I feel like is, he's made to play, which is more of that like trance -y style, you know, 138 -ish. Trancy style and he was so entertaining. I loved his set. It was a lot of fun, man. It was a lot of fun. It always is, you know, and when you get that many DJs and artists in a room, it's like, as long as the music's playing, like nobody cares if you're in some fancy outdoor setup, as long as the sound's good and the DJs are playing, like people will make a party out of it, so. and that's what they did, you know, and the Step and Repeat was on fire all day and there's so much action going on down there with press and interviews and they just, they have it set up so well. They've done this now, obviously, many years and big shout to the entire team that executed that party because it was, I mean, Ligati was wheeling speakers in himself at one point into the venue. So like, everybody, pulled their part and did their thing and they executed a great event. As they always do. It's cool, man. The EDMAs are like, I feel like one of the go -to parties now during, you know, leading up to ultra starting. Whereas when we first started, it was like, yeah, there was a lot of cool artists coming through there, but it was like a small event. It was a bunch of, you know, New York City and New Jersey artists and DJs. And then, you know, some of the bigger artists would come through. Whereas now it's like, they got everybody. You name them, they're there, you know? Yeah. winning an award and popping in and doing an interview or whatever the case may be. So, shout to DMP, shout to Lugotti and the crew. What were some other takeaways as far as, you know, people you met, the networking, maybe some of the, like the sound of music that was getting played, was there a certain style that was more popular than others? Because I heard from some of our guys what was kind of going down with what people were playing, but. I want to start with the guys who had never been to Miami Music Week, some of our younger DJs, and you go down there and you look to network with maybe more national people. That's kind of the intent. I think when you go into it, being that there are going to be so many different people from so many different places there, but what I did learn is that, Our younger guys really did a good job at networking with the people that are from our market that they didn't know. And why that's important there is because, well, sometimes within our market, not all the big wigs show up to all the events, all the networking events. And oftentimes, you know, maybe you're DJing and you can't go out and support that person, or you can't meet them because they're DJing, or whatever it might be. you're taking this opportunity here that you have, and even though you have access to that person within your market, you are pretty much, not always, but you are an arm's length away from them for long periods of time. So I was able to introduce a lot of our younger guys to some of the New York City and surrounding area bigwigs, decision makers. And they were like super thankful for it, like the, you know, to be able to get that introduction and share some music and pass a USB along and things like that. All the things that we talked about last week on the podcast, our guys really executed well. And I think sometimes that gets overlooked. I think sometimes it's always like, well, go find the A &R for spin in and go find, you know, the head guy for revealed or whatever it might be. And it's like, yeah, that all of that stuff is important too, but it's just as important to really. put a name, put a face to the name for the people that make decisions in your market as well. You know what I mean? So I, I, hopefully can open up some opportunities locally. And then I also talked to some of the guys who were like, oh, I passed the USB to Max Styler and I passed the USB to laid back Luke. And so that's awesome too, where you could just be in a party and have a five minute conversation with one of those guys and connect and be able to give them your music, you know. I was talking to a couple other like first timers and they're like, Oh, I feel really weird just going up and like starting a conversation. Like, well, that's what this is for. You know what I mean? Just like have that, but have your 32nd elevator pitch ready or figure out like, what's like maybe a relationship that you might have, or maybe you've done some music or a remix of somebody's song, like that person's song over there that you want to go talk to him. Be like, Hey, I did an edit of your song. Wait, that actually happened in one of the scenarios. one of our guys was like a little bashful about going over and talking to this singer. And I was like, just go tell her that like you're, you know, you did an edit of her track and you're really proud of it. You want to, you know, pass it along, see what she thought about it. You know, maybe she wants to collab down the road or something like that. You know, it was like, just like, that's why we're here. You're not annoying anybody. It's not like this, you saw this person at a diner and they're sitting down to eat and you're going to bother them, you know? they're there to meet and greet and talk to people too. I feel like the best way to go up to any of those people is try to, like you said, either make a connection with someone they know or just be like, hey, I loved this X track that you just put out. I played them all my sets. Or I grew up listening to you as an artist when I was whatever. Just like showing that you're a fan of the music is an easy way to open the door to having a conversation. Like you inspired me to become a DJ kind of thing. artists and anyone loves to hear that stuff. If you can, if you're motivating other people to get into a certain industry or to create a certain style of music, like, if you're, if they're a normal human being, they're gonna talk to you about it. Like, if they don't want to talk, like they're not going to be at that event because that's what that event is. You know, even though it's exhausting, even though sometimes it's awkward, even, even though you can be a little off put by like being in this scenario and it's sometimes daunting, especially if you're a first timer, like it can be a little overwhelming. It could be, um, you know, it's just, it's overwhelming. It's a lot. It's a lot to take in and you kind of feel like you have very small fish in a, in a, you know, big pond kind of a situation, but like, you just have to be confident and have ready what you want to say and, you know, execute that way in preparation. conversations were always really motivating for me when I was down there in previous years, mainly because it's like, these guys are just like us, you know? They just happen to be further along in their journey than some of us are or have been. And when you connect as humans, you're like, they're just a normal, they're just a DJ who was a local DJ and made some music and started, you know, making moves and now playing bigger shows. And it makes you realize that, like, you could also get there, you know? the path is laid out and like we always say, everyone's path is a little different, but it is doable. It's doable. And I think going down there always made me feel like it was more doable than other times. Yeah. Let's like, obviously the weather was the big, this is going to be the Miami Music Week that was just an absolute washout kind of a thing. But a lot of the parties, the show went on as it does. As it does, people adjusted, it wasn't just the EDMAs that got messed with, it was a lot of different, every event on the beach, and off the beach. all the clubs that had all these artists playing indoors. That's who won. But like... I'm sure, super oversold, extra tiers of tickets sold. People were saying that they were in a lot of these places like sardines. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to it. I was I wanted to I wanted to go to to space and I wanted to go to factory and factory town I think it's called and I and I just did it. I was like it's just it's too like I like the day stuff. You know, I like the day stuff. I like the networking. I like the hanging out seeing the DJs play during the day and then you know, hopefully line up for what we do line up a dinner at night and talk to the people that. Yeah. we need to talk to. I find that more effective. I have a hard time at night doing the networking thing because it's just too loud. I don't, you know. Yeah, I feel like the nighttime thing is more so like, let's go see the DJs that we want to just see and hear play, you know, that's kind of more of what a lot of our guys were doing. And, you know, we could still still going and popping into some of the parties where we know people are DJing or, you know, hosting or whatever the case may be. The music at the 4B event was excellent. Excellent. I liked it better this year than years past. I hesitated on this one because I think last one that we went to, it was solid. Like the music was pretty good, but I felt like I knew a lot of the edits that were played that year. No offense to any of our guys. Big shout to all of our guys that year, there was a ton of our guys' edits played that night. But I was like, oh, I kind of want to go hear some different music. And then the DJs that he had with him were amazing. And the production was good. And it was not it was outdoors, which was even better. Really enjoyed the fact that it was outside. And it was just a lot of fun, a lot of fun, a lot of different music. And I feel like what I heard a lot there was your 72 BPM. And it. a lot of speed house tech notes style. Some of that stuff you had like I think I feel like like the dubstep kind of sounds I saw GTA, Shipwreck. Yeah, they're great. GTA was awesome. My favorite of the night, and I know Ferrari and Solano are sick of hearing this, but my favorite was Say My Name. Say My Name was awesome. And he played more of a DJ set. And once again, here we are, me saying that I liked the artist that decided to play more of a DJ set. my name, what, used to be one half of Flosperdamas, is that right or is that wrong? Am I making that up? know. So let me explain. So he started in a very dubstep, he comes out big, and then it was like he almost adjusted a little bit and he reengaged the crowd and he had everybody going. And then by the end of it, he brought it back to that more trappy, dubby sound and it was great. really, really, really, really enjoyed that set. Might have been my favorite. And then Luke came out at the end and he played a couple of classics, which was awesome. I felt like it was 2014 again, you know, 2015. He's playing all of his absolute classics and bangers. And it was nice to see that. And 4B was obviously entertaining as well. I mean, that's not, don't even have to say that. It's always excellent. Yeah. But. me ask you this. How was, what's, a lot of the takeaways for me when I come back from Miami is like, man, I heard a lot of this style of music. And so in Miami, you're hearing a ton of unreleased music that's gonna now release over the course of the rest of this year. And you sort of get a taste for, you know, what's coming, what styles of music are coming. I think it's staying in that 70 to 140 to 150 range, right? With playing those dubstep records that you can also mix into those 140 BPM tracks. So like healthy amount of the Speedhouse, the Techno, like drum and bass, I heard there was a bunch of like artists at Ultra, the big stage playing drum and bass, like Joel Corey and people you wouldn't expect. I saw that. I was a little, little shocked by that. Tiesto's set was heavy in like the heavier sounds. Um, that's where his production is going. Obviously his mixer shuts off in the middle of his set, which was kind of wild, um, because of the rain. I can't even believe that he was DJing with that much rain on his, on the equipment. I don't know if you've seen any video from it. It was pretty crazy, but he got away with it for a long ass time. I don't know what Ultra was thinking, not having something over that. over his immediate area. The rain was coming from every direction, don't get me wrong, and it was coming down quick. I was going to dinner the one night, and it was like a flash flood, literally up over the tires of the cars. That's how much rain we got in such a short period of time. So I get it, but we knew it was coming Thursday, so how they didn't build something in that period of time, blows my mind. But he was playing a hell of a set. That old man still got it. That old man still got it. Yeah, his production is leaning right exactly where, I mean, he still leads what the sound is and what it's going to be. He's still a pioneer no matter what. He's still a taste maker. He does a great job. So yeah, I mean, that style is really what, that's... That's the full takeaway is like, it's just a little harder. It's a little faster. You know, it's not so commercially. And I enjoyed that. Like I didn't hear many vocals that I knew. And that was awesome. It felt like a Miami music week of many years ago, many years ago. And I thought that's what it was going to be like because of how these styles have evolved over the last year. I knew I was like, all right, great. Like we're going to get, we're going to have some real trance again. We're going to hear. you know, hard trance and we're going to hear just a hard style, everything. Actually, somebody played happy hardcore, which I, which I turned to a few people around me. They didn't know what that was. They played like somebody was playing like 15 minutes of a happy hardcore set, which is like candy, rave music, like don't don't don't don't like one 70. I was like, what is this like one 85 one? I was like, this is so quick. I was like, I gotta, I gotta walk away. This is too quick. Um, So it got like up into that stratosphere, which was like warehouse rave music from the early nineties, which I haven't heard since forever, especially out. I don't know if I've ever heard it out, like in a club setting, maybe in a way, like I said, in a warehouse. Crazy, crazy. I was like, that's a lot, dude. Um, but it was great. It was great to hear all the different styles again. And. It makes you miss kind of going out, but I would never want to deal with that festival scene. It's too much for me at this point. Yeah, our guys were all out there. They had a good time. Big shout to Olive Oil and Silvertone, who had their Rhythm Machine remix played by Dom Dalla and Green Velvet, which is super dope. Yeah. So shout to those guys. I saw some video coming out of there from that. I saw that they're like, of course we decided not to go this year and this happens. Which is gonna happen. I mean, you're not gonna be able to be at every party anyway. But if that's something that's on your radar and you would have been at, I would be completely disappointed by that. At least they have some video, some content coming out of it. I saw a couple angles of video of Dom playing it, so that's cool. I mean, that's awesome. That's like what it's all about, right? That's, as producers, when we get to hear some of the bigger artists play our stuff, it's like the best feeling ever, you know? Especially a remix of one of those tracks and the artist supports it. I mean, that's a huge deal, so. I know Olive Oil has been really working really hard in the studio and they have a ton of music and you know, a lot of music coming out. So hopefully we'll see, you know, we'll see those guys make a little step forward here with their production and hopefully start booking some out of town bigger shows. I have one last takeaway from Miami Music Week before we move on. And it's something that we're gonna touch on later on here in the show. But my other takeaway was that I saw a lot of the older, old school house, like true house DJs playing on the new rotary mixer from Pioneer slash Alpha Theta. So it was nice to see. Little throwback to kind of the... the heart of when house music was big in the early 90s. And those guys have broke that back out. And we're going to talk about that later on, because there's a lot of different features on that that are really cool. man, rotary mixers. I'll have some stories for that conversation too. hear your... And part of the reason, really, why I wanted to talk about it, and I'm glad I saw it a few times down there, is because I know that you and Rotary Mixers, it really stirs the pot a little bit, so I'm hoping to get a couple of great rants or something. This should be a... I'm hoping to get a rant out of this. see. I'm feeling pretty chill today. So we'll see if we can get me fired up. All right, so I know like last week we talked about Miami and then we talked about making all those connections and a little bit about the follow up. But I want to dig into now that Miami's over or now that any networking event is over, some of the things that we need to be doing and then how we can kind of take that strategy and those, the way that you attack those connections. and kind of put them towards making new connections in your own market, right? Like the summer's coming. So, you know, the vacation spots are going to start picking up. Now's the time that we all want to be reaching out to those bookers and venues to try and position ourselves as someone that's going to get booked in these vacation spots, whether it's, you know, Jersey Shore, the Hamptons on Long Island, or whatever the, you know, the lake or wherever your your your market, the people go during the summer. And maybe that's just your own market that stays busy. And if that's the case, like that's dope. But I don't know, I think it's really important. We talked about last week that whoever you were meeting to get their contact information, right? So get their email, get their cell phone number. And now this week, you know, it's now Tuesday. So in the next day or two, you want to be following up with these people. Hey, DJ, whoever. Great meeting you at the blank party. You know, I really enjoy talking about XYZ. I wanted to follow up and send you some of the tracks that I made that we talked about. Or I wanted to follow up to see if you wanted to start work on that remix. Here's a couple ideas I have. You want to send those emails, send those texts, pretend like they have no idea who you are just in case they don't remember you. Maybe they were blackout drunk. Like, who knows? Maybe they talked to a thousand people and you were just another one of those people. But if you do this follow up, you're gonna be one. 5 % of the people that actually follow up. And this is how you grow relationships and this is how you move things forward with the follow up. If they don't answer you, wait a week or two weeks, send another message. Hey man, hate to bother you, just wanted to follow up again. You know, didn't hear from you, here's whatever. You know, persistent but not annoying. As we always say, right? And there's a few different ways that you can follow up, right? There's the DM, there's the email, there's the text message if you were lucky enough to exchange phone numbers for whatever reason, depending on how personal the relationship is. And I think you want to utilize these different ways, maybe depending upon what the situation was, right? So I think if it's a, like a, very disconnected relationship where it was a really like one -off. You don't really know anybody in that person's stratosphere, right? And you're just kind of cold -met them. I almost feel like an email is probably like the first way I'd go about it. And have it structured a little more professionally. And I could be wrong about this. You can correct me if you would go about this differently. But I would do this in more of an email format. and saying all the things that you said and then linking, you know, whatever you want to share with that person. I feel like if there's a little bit more of a personal connection, then you have the DM slash, you know, text message that you could share, whatever you need to share with that person. I would say that makes sense. But really, it's however you left the conversation. If you just connected on Instagram, then message on Instagram. If you grabbed a phone number, then shoot him a text or even a call, depending on what the conversation might entail. If you grabbed an email address, do it that way. But yeah, I would agree with you. If you don't really know the person, the email is probably the best way, especially if you got that email address. Honestly, like, email was a big thing for me, and it's always gonna be a big thing for me, but... A lot of my conversations have been through DM. It's just like the quickest way to kind of get a response. I find that I'm more likely to get a response on IG than I am on an email. Would you follow up? So like if you emailed, let's say, and you didn't hear anything, would you follow up via DM? Maybe a couple days later? Is that probably a good way strategy to go about it? not be a bad way to send the same message in both places. That could be another strategy. Yeah, it could be another strategy. Hey, I sent you an email, but I also wanted to send you the link to my Dropbox here. You know, I think that's a really good strategy as well. The other thing I would say, for anyone making music, even if you're just making edits, if you met any artist and you connected with them on a personal level, you had more than a one minute conversation with them, I would probably make some music from that particular artist and send like as soon as possible. And that could be your follow up. Like you're showing some sort of a value, right? Hey, it was great talking to you for five minutes at the EDMA is I told you I really love this track. I made an edit. I hope you like it, you know, or I made a remix. Let me know what you think. Anything like that, I think is another way to just. Take the extra step to show that the connection was important to you. And doing those little things, I think, makes a big difference. Something that you've always been good at is the smaller intangibles and thinking about the things that maybe the average person wouldn't think of, like to remix that person that you met's song or whatever it might be, or artist's song. Yeah, the last time I played with Nervo, they were like, what edit is this? And it happened to be one of my edits. So after I connected with them and afterwards I sent them a folder of like three tracks, the one that they liked and then two others in that same style that I thought maybe they would play. And that's just, I think that's just, you know, doing your full due diligence and being thorough and really trying to show value to these people that you meet. Yeah. We always talk about that. How can you show value? It's not what can they do for you, it's what can you do for them. If you think about all these relationships in that way, you're gonna get further, for sure. It's hard sometimes because like we stated earlier when you're at the networking event, you feel so small fish that it's hard to think that, hey, what do I have that I can really give to this higher end person, right? And I think sometimes it's hard for you to, you feel a little stunted, you feel a little intimidated by trying to come up with something like. like, okay, I can do this for them. This is something that will be of value to that person. It's hard to kind of think outside the box in that way. And that's why I think having somebody to bounce ideas off of and have a conversation around, okay, what's the best strategy to go forth about following up maybe with this person? And what am I good at that I can provide to this person? Sometimes it's hard to see yourself. So having that conversation with somebody else would be helpful. I mean good music is good music, right? If you send, it doesn't matter how big you are, if the music's good, usually, and if the artist connects to it, they might play it, there's a better chance of playing it, or they'll listen to it, you know? I think another tactic, especially if you're making remixes or original music and you're trying to share that, if you create private SoundCloud links and share those with any of these people, it'll show you, if they listen, if they download, many times, who it is or at least the location of where they are and you could kind of have a better idea like, hey, I only sent this track to five people. One person's from the Netherlands, one person's from the UK, one person's from Miami, and you see like, oh, Miami, there's one listen from that city, like you kind of know who it is, you know? Even if they have burner accounts or, you know, accounts that don't have their name on it. So I think that's another pretty smart strategy. Yeah. this not only goes for Miami, this goes for, again, like I said, any networking event, anywhere where you're going to meet artists, DJs, bookers, producers. But I think how I'd like to talk about this now is just how can we use some of these tactics in our current markets to help us book more gigs or book higher profile gigs? And I think part of this is you create this strategy for like leaving Miami Music Week, and just take a very similar strategy and just tailor it towards the venues or the bookers and always consistently think, how can I bring value to this venue? How can I bring value to this booker? Make sure you let them know those things. Hey, I just released a track that had a hundred thousand plays on SoundCloud, wherever, on SoundCloud. Like that's something that a booker might take into consideration when booking, you know? It is so underutilized when it comes to local DJing. I feel like... TikTok just hit 250 ,000 views. Here's a link. right. I feel like that it gets overlooked by DJs. They're like, okay, we share it all with each other. We're all sharing links and whatnot with each other and on our social medias, but a lot of times these venue owners and venue managers are sometimes very disconnected from social media. So being able to share, like you said, giving the links to the management and the ownership and saying that like, hey, this... this track has went semi viral or has gone viral. Like I think you should check it out. I think you like it, you know, you, you know what styles of music that your management and your ownership likes, right? They're all fans of music. That's why they all have so many goddamn opinions on who the DJ is, but it's, but you should be sharing music with them. I feel like the, I, shows, anything that shows your skill and shows what value you could bring or just how interested people are in actually consuming your content, whatever it is, that stuff is valuable to share with bookers. And we sometimes forget about that, right? And like you were saying, I think DJs many times think like, oh, I'm putting out my monthly rundown and I just put a video out of me traveling to wherever and playing a show, but like, You're thinking very self -centered in that case and we all should be attacking our market or if you're trying to leave your market outside your market, the places that you'd like to play or you think you're a fit to play. but you're going to utilize the same tactics outside your market than you are inside your market, right? I mean, so why not really hone in on what works in your market and then go utilize those strategies outside the market? Yeah, you know, I, even Steve is here in New York and it's been really motivating to me to watch him come here and watch him put in all the work to try and meet all the right people here and to start getting bookings and just seeing the amount of effort that someone who's very successful, who's been very successful in other markets and nationally to come here and put more work in than... most of the local DJs that are in our market and still trying to get booked in some of these, these places in New York and New Jersey. So it doesn't matter how big you are. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the game. It doesn't matter what venues you're playing right now. If you want to still continue growing, you have to attack the people and the places that you want to grow into. And if you're not doing that, how can you possibly expect to get booked or to get signed or for an artist to play your music? we have to remember that not everybody is consuming DJ culture like we are. So not all of the decision makers know who even Steve might be, even though he's big in many different markets and nationally, he comes here and it's like, well, you're pretty much, nobody knows you in this market that is maybe not a DJ. I think that's the way you gotta look at it, right? Nobody kind of cares what you've done unless you've done something within the market. Yeah, most owners and venue bookers, they have no idea. They often rely on other people, whether it's an entertainment director or staff or another DJ that they trust on what other DJs to bring in, you know. So you need to put that extra work in. Like even though you have an established name somewhere else, doesn't mean that it carries weight in the next place that you go. So you have to work twice as hard, even though you are already an established act. Yeah, I mean, I still have a strategy to actively attack the venues that I want to get into. There's a small amount of venues that are booking national acts at a decent rate. And like, you got to figure out who those people are, what venues are they? Does it fit your style? And who are the bookers? And then start hitting those people up. And a lot of times those bookers are DJs. And if it's a DJ, it'll be way easier to connect with them than if it's a random you know, if it's a tau group that there's a, you know, someone in charge of entertainment, you know? Yeah, I mean. Come up with a strategy. Come up with a strategy and be consistent in reaching out to these people. Whether it's a sheet or a document, whether it's a notebook that you write in. Come up with a plan, come up with a strategy, and then execute. And it's not just spend one day, one time hitting these people up. It's, all right, I hit this person up in March, I'm gonna wait six weeks and I'm gonna hit them up again. I hit this person up last year. for the summer, I'm gonna hit him up again before this summer. He told me to follow up for next season. And like, you have to have a place or a way of tracking those conversations and sort of where you left off so that you could always continue to move that conversation forward. Sometimes it's gonna be a no. Many times it's gonna be a no. Sometimes it's gonna be a hit me up like later kind of thing, which is sort of a no also, right? It's just a different way of saying no. It's no for right now. It's not no forever. Right. Yeah, I mean, you have different parts of the year that you should be regularly doing this and you can just write it in your calendar. And the first of the, you know, the first of, you know, in January, maybe you're thinking about what's going to go on in March because there's three St. Patty's days in our market in a row. So you want to maximize the amount of times you get booked for that. And then maybe in March, you're thinking about the summertime because that's what everybody's starting to think about. And then in the middle of the summer, you're thinking fall and then you know, so you reach back out then and then Miami Musically comes back around, you know what mean? So like you have different points in the year where there's different things happening all the time. And those are great times to reach out. But get ahead of it and have a plan and reuse that plan over and over again. It's a lot of work. It is, it really is. And you have to be organized and you have to spend the time to like do the homework. There's hours of homework that go into this before you could even start reaching out to people. It's not like just randomly blasting a DM to the venue and be like, hey, I'm a great DJ from New Jersey and I make bass house and book me. It's a, you know, hey, here's my EPK. Can you let me know who is the person that books the DJs at this venue? Can you put me in touch with them? What's their Instagram? Can I reach out to them, to that person? It's a lot, but. lot. But if you want to grow and you want to be a successful DJ, these are the things that you need to do. for sure. So let's talk about Charlotte a little bit. You had probably one of your biggest shows ever, I would say. And you played a trio down in Charlotte. I wanna hear about the room. I wanna hear just everything. What were your big takeaways and how did you like the city? I know you were there a very short period of time. dope, man. It's a new club, you know, same owner as Trio in Charleston. And to me, it's the perfectly set up nightclub where you have a raised stage, you have incredible lighting and sound. They have like an LED wall that goes up behind the stage, but then kind of curves into the crowd, which creates really dope visuals. Yeah. I mean, and the Trio is, the Trio brand and the people that work there care about hospitality more than anyone I've ever worked with. And it continues at Trio and they do an amazing job. And I look forward to, I look forward to working with those people every time because they just do such a great job. And everybody that works for them, I feel like loves the music and loves the scene and like goes to shows and goes to festivals and. that creates this environment of people who want to be there and are excited to hear DJs and see artists and you could feel that when you meet the staff and you talk to the staff like before the set and after. So. That's what Eric's built his company on for his love of music, right? That's why he got into this business. And he worked in hospitality and he was very good at it. And they're really amazing at making your experience not feel transactional. Which I feel like when you deal with certain ownership and certain management, things can feel very transactional. Like what are you doing for me? And then if you're doing this and this for me, then I'll do this for you. They make it like, and we've gone down there and we didn't even play. The last time you and I visited Charleston, we didn't even play and they still took care of us like kings. So like they, I think that they are just, they're there for the music, they're there for the hospitality, they really deeply care about what they do and it makes it feel very welcoming. They care about the relationships a lot. And that's something that I think is rare in what we do where many times, like, I feel used. Like, this venue is using me, this Booker is using me for something, right? It feels that way a lot of times. Not always, but all the people at Trio, it's the complete opposite. They make it feel like they really care, they're really happy to be working with you, and they're gonna create the best experience. for you so that you, the artist, can create the best experience for their customers. And it's just a great way to do business, you know? It's like a boutique hospitality company. That's like, that's kind of how it feels. It feels very tailor made to you, right? They make the performer and the artist feel very at home and that you're, you're what matters tonight, right? Like it's not dead mouse who's playing tomorrow or it's not cascade who's playing tomorrow. It's you, they treat you the same way. It's, it's you matter today. And when tomorrow comes, we'll deal with tomorrow, you know, and that's exactly how we should be. town the day after me. So that was a huge booking for them, a huge show for them. And, you know, the ARs there were like talking about it. And we were just kind of talking about other DJs that have come through. And it was like, they're happy to be there. And like you said, they're sort of, they're treating me as they would treat Gorgon City the next night kind of thing. funny I met them on Thursday at the EDMAs. Yeah, briefly just like, you know, introduction and out. But yeah. like same thing that we just talked about in communicating and creating the network and building that relationship and moving it forward. Like I left, I finished my set, right? Went home the next day, two days later, like Eric, AAR, Trio, Booker, all the people that I need that were connected with before and during the set were like, thank you guys, amazing job, appreciate the hospitality. This person did an amazing job taking care of me. Like one love who was, you know, playing before me, played a great set. I wanted to show him some love, like he played a great set, good dude, we went to dinner. So yeah, like just that continuing that conversation and moving the relationship forward, thanking them. Following up. the follow up, right? Even as a DJ and same thing like if you get booked for a new venue or a big set in your own city, like you should be doing the same thing. Thanking the booker, shouting out the people that helped you or did a great job, any of the staff members, you know, like people value that. So, Angela wasn't in town, which sucked. He was in New York. I think I spent like 12 hours in the city or 14 hours in the city. So we went to dinner at some spot that was really good. But besides that, like airport, hotel, venue, soundcheck, dinner, airport, or airport. I was saying, I was watching the NCAA games with my dad and I'm like, how does Cream not stay in Charlotte Saturday to go see the games? I forgot you had Pig Pet in town. even know that Charlotte was a host city until I was in my hotel lobby and I'm like, why are all, there's a lot of people in the lobby like really caring about college basketball right now. played somebody I forgot who it was there were some good games. I don't know if JMU is playing there. I think you would have known that. They take it's. But yeah, I was like, why didn't you stay? But we had that in town. Yeah. supposed to be with him Friday and Saturday. But when I got the trio booking, I was like, dude, I gotta go like I'll see you Saturday. And it's funny, like I tried to give the same hospitality that not only like Pig Pen took care of me a ton when I was out there, he did an amazing job, but like taking the cues from what trio does and like how can we do something similar? for the artists that come through and the DJs that come through our city, right? Like how can we get them to leave here saying, wow, like Kareem and Gary like really took care of me. They went above and beyond anything they needed to do in order to make us feel welcome and like take us to dinner or pick us up from the airport. Like some of that stuff I didn't get to do with Pink Pen unfortunately, cause I was out of town, but I know Casper took care of him on Friday when I was out of town and then I was with. with him in the city and kind of showed him around. We took him to Joe and Pat's, my go to pizza spot in the Lower East Side. I see that coming up on the expense report. I know I know it was cream out there real good. But yeah, man, it was like a really strong hospitality weekend and made me realize like that stuff is still matters and it should drive what we do, you know? That's what we do. We work in hospitality. It should be of the utmost importance, right? is though, Gary. It never is. know. I know. And I think that's part of the reason why, you know, we see the struggles of some places. Not all of the reason, but part of the reason. It's important not to get jaded when things aren't going that way. Still extend the same courtesies to the places that maybe aren't so hospitable to you. It's easy to start to pick apart things that are wrong with their business or that nightclub or their equipment. You see it all the time, it happens all the time. It's like, well, that place shouldn't say anything, because X, Y, and Z, and it's like. But still, follow up the next day and say, thank you for having me. We had a great time. Maybe we played during this set. It was such a fun time or whatever. This person was really great at the bar. They were super attentive, not only to me, but to my friends and the people around them. Or that bartender made the night this much better for that. All of those things, just do those things. Still, even if the venue isn't doing it for you. I'm lucky enough where I've gotten to align myself with mostly places that provide really strong hospitality. Like, it may, those are the places that I wanna go be at again, you know? The places that are doing that, even locally, I'm saying, I'm not even talking about the travel stuff, because they're gonna most times take care of you on the travel stuff no matter what. But, Trio goes to the extra level, and you know, I wanna align myself with the venues and the people in our own market that, tried and take it to the next level, no matter what the venue is. Right. Agreed. I will work harder for those people, like straight up. That's that's across the board, right? That's anybody. That's just human human nature. It's human nature. Like if you get taken care of, you're going to take care of the people you work for. All right, can we get a rant out of me right now? I don't know. I don't know if we can. You seem pretty chill today. All right. Well, I don't get excited about equipment ever, ever. You know this, like I would still play on the same CDJs for 30 years, you know, I still play on eight hundreds. That's what I have in my home office set. would play on 800s and a DJM for life, if he could. And that's fine. I don't need anything more than that. Because, you know, it's just the simplicity of me. But this Euphonia Alpha Theta slash Pioneer mixer that just came out, Rotary, has impressed me. The look of it impressed me. The fact that they're putting the marketing dollars behind this mixer has impressed me even. And then I watched a couple of reviews. This was after seeing people like Danny Krivett, Dennis Ferrer, Little Louie Vega. There was like one or two others that were playing on this mixer. Like I said earlier in the episode, these are like old school househead DJs, right? Like very to the core, love their analog. And you should love your analog. As a house DJ, you should love, love, love your analog. Because... Danny Krivitz said it best, he's like, it's warm. And I was like, I know what that means because I've played on a couple of rotaries and you just know what warm means, you know? Digital's not warm, never has been, doesn't feel it. It feels very cold, it feels very, how would you describe that? It's just like choppy, choppy, harsh, yeah. Now don't get me wrong, analog back in the day, you would use, You were playing vinyl records. So you were getting the warmth of the vinyl record along with the sound quality of the rotary mixer. So you want to talk about like top of the line, most ridiculous sound ever. That's what you would get produced out of that. The downfall of the rotary mixer is that it's fucking expensive. It always has been, it's always been in the thousands of dollars. So people saying that with the sticker shock of the $3 ,700 or whatever it is, it's like, well, that's just, that's what they are. That's what a rotary mixer costs. I think rotary mixers, when I first started DJing were like $1 which is crazy, which is crazy money for 25 years ago. So they've... they haven't really moved as far as price point's concerned. It hasn't gotten more quote unquote expensive. And some of the things that I really, some takeaways from some of the reviews that they've mixed digital and analog within this mixer, which is great. So you have the digital for your modern sakes and you have the analog for the sakes that we were just talking about. So for sound quality and. for getting that warm sound. So I'm dying to go and play on this. I just want to hear it. And the one thing that one of the reviewers was hammering home is you're not going to hear how good this sounds on YouTube. He's like, there's just no possible way. It's like, do not comment that it doesn't sound anything like whatever, the DJM or whatever. Or it sounds exactly like the DJM. They said it's. the sound quality, like you have to be there in person to hear it. It's, you know, saying how incredible it was. They're saying that this is the best sounding mixer out, period. I was a little shocked that there's onboard effects on this thing, but that's where that digital component comes in. The fact that you have those built into a rotary mixer is incredible. In my personal opinion, before I go through the rest of this stuff, Actually, hold on. I'll save that because I might get a rant out of you for this. The onboard display is also a first. There hasn't been an onboard display like they have on this mixer on any other rotary mixer. Usually you would have like a meter is kind of what was normal. And I personally think that this should be the industry standard if you are an EDM... room, an electronic dance music room of any sort. If you have strictly house music DJs, I think this should be the standard. Because, I mean, because this puts the art of mixing at the forefront. Yeah, but I don't think... How many DJs would actually use this? I don't think one DJ that started producing or DJing in the last five or ten years would want to even... Why would they try and want to learn a new mixer when they're used to playing on... They could pick any mixer that they want. They played on the same mixer their whole lives. I feel like we always have the argument of, oh, you're not going to pick that controller or that mixer because the sound card sucks, right? There's been many conversations I have had with that being the paramount discussion point in picking out a controller or a mixer. Yeah, but if you're playing digital files, like how you're not playing vinyl, you're playing digital files where the sound is going to be more harsh anyway. So like, how is that how is that affected as far as as far as playing off that mixer? where the digital slash analog comes into play, right? It's taking your sound quality of your digital files and it's improving what the live sound is. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I can see why the older DJs use it because they used to use the rotary and they liked it and they probably missed it. And now there's this new cool tech that has come out for them to go back to rotary. But if someone's never used rotary, I don't think there's enough that would get them to be like, I'm going to change everything I know from my DJ M 900 and my zone mixer and go learn how to DJ on a rotary. I don't know. There's no there's no I don't, haven't looked at the effects or how they work, but like, I don't know. Do you think that there's enough difference to really, like, if you know how to mix songs together, does it really matter if it's a knob or an upfitter? It's just preference really and I don't think as a DJ that you're really gonna hear the difference in a nightclub or in a you know in a bar especially obviously but Yeah, now this is not a bar. This is not a bar mixer. By no means is this a bar mixer. This is for a nightclub with big sound. I walked into a nightclub and they booked me to come play out of state and I showed up and there was a rotary mixer, I would laugh in their face. And I'd say you should fire your sound guy because this is never not working for me. try it? No. Me and RM talk about this all the time, right? There is a specific setup that I am my best on, that I prefer to use. Right. Right? It's the 900 and 3000s. DJM 900, 3000s. You put that in front of me, you're gonna get the best version of Kareem that you could possibly get. And if I'm going to another state or a new venue I've never played or a high -end venue that's expecting a high -quality DJ, like, do you want 100 % of Kareem or do you want like 75 %? Because if you put some shitty controller in front of me, it's gonna be at least 75%, maybe less. Because I have to think it's not second nature for me to just my hands are moving my it's muscle memory. It's I do this every day. I don't even have to look at the mixer. Whereas and I could think about how's my crowd responding to these songs? Am I in the right place? Do I need to move? Like that's what I'm thinking on. If I'm thinking about some equipment that I'm not used to using, it's like, oh my God, am I hitting the right button? Is this going to sound right? Did I bring that in too fast? is the volume knob gets louder at a different point than on my normal mixer that I'm used to. And it's like, I'm thinking about all this other shit that takes away from my performance. I'm on the mic less, I'm looking at my library less, I'm deciding on the next three songs less. And I'm thinking more about like, am I doing this right? Am I gonna fuck this up? It's just not. thinking from a quick mix DJ perspective. This is not for a quick mix DJ. are long mixing? Not a lot. Like what percentage? Very few, in my opinion. I mean, what we call a short mix and what a, you know, you're talking about like a minute. What's your normal mix time, would you say? 8 bars, 16 bars max, which is what 30 seconds, 20 seconds? Yeah, like that's not what this is for. ripping through songs. But like I'm thinking even in like a Brooklyn where it's a minimal or a tech spot, like maybe those would be rooms where this would work. Maybe, I don't know. I'd say definitely, I'd say definitely in any place that is, that you are playing longer tracks. which I think is a good percentage of house music producers and DJs. Yeah, but like, nobody at the ultra main stage is long mixing. Tiesto's not playing more than two minutes of a song, three minutes of a song. maybe the whole song, but he's gonna mix in and out of the song in eight or 16 bars. Like he's not up there. Like I'm thinking more like Steve Angelo where he's playing four decks and like he's playing the vocal in one and like maybe that would make more sense. But like any, I don't think it makes sense for mainstream in any way. would make for sure more sense. You make a good point here where like, because you can be so particular about which, like where your levels on like vocals you're sampling and bringing in and you can really manipulate in four different ways. I think that's a really great point and a DJ that should be using it. But yeah, it's not a, it's not a, like a, Like you and I DJ, it's not for us. Like you want the Ferrari, give me what I want, give me my equipment. You want the Toyota Corolla? Sure, you could put an analog thing in front of me or some controller that I don't use, but like, I'm gonna not be as good as if you give me my gear. You've made good points because if I was booking you, I wouldn't have not done my homework if I gave you an analog mixer, knowing that you quick -mixed. out of state, you're getting my rider that's telling you what I want anyway. So like, I wouldn't be in that situation pretty much or most any DJ that's traveling, they're going to ask you what equipment you want to play on. Right. Right. I think there is a place for it. there's definitely a place, but I think it's more of like a niche thing. I think it's because I'm into the style of music where this works. That's why. I enjoy the style of music, like Tone Seta, also into the same style of music, where this mixer works. And you are not into that style of music, and it doesn't work in the world that you work in. Right? And that's where this conversation... And that's always where this argument comes about. Across like, anybody who's a DJ has had this argument, their one friend's probably, you know, is you and is the quick mixer and is not into, you know, the Afro and the Latin and the garage house and all that stuff. And then there's me who loves a long form. It's like, I love. play an eight minute track and bring in like the vocals of another track and let it ride and take the bass out and put the bass in on the new song. Like if that's how you DJ, fuck yeah, this makes a, this is perfect. Like I love that. Like I love to be able to mix for three full minutes straight. Like, you know what I mean? It's like that. if I play a three minute song, that's like, long for me. Yeah, yeah, but you would never play those styles and that's why. You know? So that's kind of where the, that's where the conversation lies. Can I tell you a good rotary mixer story? going to be DJs. So I'm probably like three years into DJing Nightlife. I've been playing like my local clubs and I'm trying to get booked at this place called DJ's down the shore. We talked about it on the show. If you're from out of town, it's like the go -to EDM house music spot at the Jersey Shore. And so I get booked there and... First time I go in there, they're like, yeah, this is the mixer. I don't even know what it was, rotary mixer. And I'm like, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Rain rotary, there's no crossfader because they have it taped shut so you can't use it. And at the time, I don't think quick mixing was super popular, but it was one of the ways that helped me stand out as far as keeping high energy and playing a lot of music and running through songs quickly. It was maybe just getting popular then. Or maybe I just had no idea what I was doing and that was just something that I was doing that started working for me. But they put me in this room. I'm nervous to begin with because like every DJ in our market wants to play here. I'm young. I don't have a ton of experience. I'm really only used to playing on a 900. Maybe like here and there with some rain mixers and they're all up faders and cross faders. And I'm like, holy shit, I'm super nervous about playing this room to begin with. There's like all these people that I look up to standing right next to me in the booth. I need to do a good job in order for me to work here again. And you put this mixer, I have no fucking clue how to use in front of me. Like I didn't get a chance to play with it beforehand. So first time I've ever played on a rotary mixer was at the time the biggest set of my DJ career. And I'm sure I sounded way worse than what I would have sounded like. But I guess I sounded good enough to keep it going because actually that was another one of those situations where I brought mad people to that gig. So even if I sucked, like I showed value in another way. So it's like, yeah, Cream didn't mix the cleanest, but at least he brought 30 people or 50 people or however many people and they were all wearing Cream t -shirts. I remember the promoter like, man, you had a lot of people come out. They were all rocking the t -shirts. I'm like, fuck yeah, Bob, let's go. I gave every bartender that worked their t-shirt. and I gave every one of my friends and every person that I knew a t -shirt. Like, I literally bought the box and handed out every single one for that one gig. Jeez. So yeah, rotary mixer, woo! there, we're not giving free t -shirts out. rotary mixer story, like trying to play hip hop on a rotary mixer, that's like a whole other thing. I'm trying to play open format on a rotary mixer. Like. Yeah, I don't know who booked you for that one, but that's ridiculous. I'm sure. I'm sure that that hybrid one that had the crossfader on it, like maybe you can get away with some shit on that. Maybe. a crossfader. But yeah, trying to play hip hop where it was like, I don't know, I guess I'm just blending today, totally. Yeah. That's. hard because you know, it's maximum eight bars you're blending for hip hop. Right, and then I know that those, like those rotaries, they have like the, they have a lot of tension on those, on those volume knobs. They're like heavier. Somebody told me that I'm DJing on a rain mixer. Like, the rain mixers, the rotary mixers, the controllers, they can all go in the same pile that gets lit on fire to me. I just have no interest in ever touching any of them ever again. I don't care. I don't care about the technology. I don't care about the newest and greatest. Like, just give me what I like and what I'm good at using. I don't like controllers, but there are certain ones that I've gotten used to. You get used to shit after an hour anyway. It's a pretty minute. There's some controllers that may be like, you know, I'm like, you go from the Corolla to the Lexus, but it's definitely not the Ferrari. All right. Oh man, love a good rotary mixer rant. Yeah, I mean anything else you want to say about the rotary mixer? Like you should definitely go out of your way to try and take a look at that thing and just play with it. going to go check it out. I mean, it's astronomically priced and does it make sense to just throw that thing in my office to mess around with? Not really. But I don't know. I'm interested in the tension, how they switch tensions with how fast you're up, that you're going up in volume on each knob. They say if you go up quick, it's easier to go up on. And then if you're slow mixing, then it creates more tension the slower you turn the knob, which is crazy technology to me. So you can, they're saying, so you can slam a record in if you want to, and it doesn't create all that tension that like an old rotary would have. It adjusts with how fast you're using it. So I thought that was a really neat feature as well. I don't know, I wanna play with it and see what's up. seems like they really like took it to the next level where I'd be interested to see how many venues or if we see any videos of some bigger artists using them. I would imagine it's going to be your older DJs that have been in the game a long time that want to test it out. Or you're just gearheads who are into trying all the stuff. Which is, you know, if that's you, like that's dope. You should want to go try it. Like it's something new and different. And it seems like they've made it better than the previous one. So. Definitely worth checking out. The other thing I'd be interested to know is how many DJs listening to this podcast have even ever seen a rotary mixer, let alone used one. Guys, if you've made it this far along in the episode, in the comments below, let us know if you've ever seen one, number one, and what you per... Well, we all know what everybody prefers, so I'm not even gonna ask that question, but let us know if you've even seen a rotary mixer out there in the wild. I'd be interested to know how many people have actually seen one in a booth anywhere. Yeah, I mean, our DJs have seen him at one of our venues because it was in there for a long time, but... Is it? think they run the main through there before the sound quality. And when you go into that room, that sound quality is actually a little better. It's fuller. Yeah, I believe it. what it creates, it creates a full, like really full sound. It's like when I throw on a record, when I'm here, when I'm home. Even though I'm running it through my Sonos, it still has this more full sound. You know? So, anyway. couple things to promo. B3, our monthly networking event, two weeks away. It is Tuesday, April 9th, Hoboken, New Jersey. We have not announced who the special guest artist is just yet, but we should probably be putting that out this week. Anybody who tries State Area, we'd love to have you come through. If you want to jump on the decks, I will be in the building for this one. I was on vacation for the last one, so I'm excited to meet you guys, hear some DJs play. The other, are we gonna talk, grow my DJ business? Are we gonna kind of, you gonna hold off on that? What do you wanna do? Let's hold up, we're an hour and nine minutes in. Let's hold off on it. You might see an extra video come out here, talking about Grow My DJ Business a lot. So stay tuned. Alright guys, appreciate you listening to this episode. All the episodes that me and Gary like aren't totally sure what we're gonna talk about go longer than anything we have planned. true. All right, guys. Peace. hour and 10 minutes.