Create A Moment 💥

• Reading the room is a crucial skill for DJs of all experience levels.
• Observing demographics, attire, and nonverbal cues can help DJs understand the crowd.
• Knowing the venue, time, and expectations is essential for effective reading of the room.
• Transitioning between genres and testing the audience's response is a key strategy.
• Creating moments through tactics like echo-outs, silence, and shoutouts can engage the crowd. DJs can play the same music but still find ways to make it interesting and create energy.
• There are many ways for DJs to differentiate themselves, such as curating unique sets, using acapellas and remixes, and incorporating different techniques.
• The rise in popularity of Keinmusik and the Tulum vibes trend is driven by people wanting to relive the experience and be part of the cool crowd.
• Opinions on music genres are subjective, and what one person enjoys, another may not understand or appreciate.

00:00: Introduction and Weekend Recap
05:21: The Importance of Reading the Room
11:43: Strategies for Reading the Room
18:04: Reading the Room in Different DJ Set Scenarios
23:40: Organizing Music and Creating Moments
30:25: Differentiating DJs: Finding Creative Ways to Play the Same Music
42:27: The Rise of Keinmusik and the Tulum Vibes Trend
52:04: Opinions on Music Genres: Subjectivity and Personal Preferences

Transcript

0:01

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 155th episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast brought to you by Digital Music Pool and the Grow My DJ Business Discord. My name is Kareem. How you doing, Gar? Great to see You know, it's been nice. It's been nice. Got to go to the beach over the weekend, celebrated the fourth, which was excellent in a very community driven way. Just stayed on in the community. They had fireworks, drove the golf carts around, drank some beers, swam. did Love the summer. Love the Fourth of July scramble with all the people in the community had teams. was just a really fun day of just hanging out with friends and getting to see people in the community here. It was awesome. I had such a good Nice. I DJed a rooftop Fourth of July party and you were not able to see the fireworks from the rooftop. It was presumed that you could, that, was that I don't know if it was sold as if you could, but I think it was sort of like a, we have a rooftop. You can buy a ticket and come watch the fireworks kind of Right, right. Well, you know, we knew that it was getting pushed over to the Hudson River as opposed to the East River this year in New York for the Macy's. Is it still Macy's? For the fireworks and. I forgot where they used to do them, but I feel like it was a little more upriver this year toward Midtown. Which makes sense, I guess, around like 34th Street, Empire State Building, etc. but I knew like Uptown Hoboken, you could see them clearly from 14th Right, it was the downtown part, but you know, down further south, it was, you just couldn't really see them. Even the people that were out on Sinatra Drive, which is like on the water, they were even having some struggles seeing because of trees and various things. And it was really further up the river. So unfortunate, but still Hoboken was a zoo. There must have been, I don't know, five to 10 ,000 extra people in the city just taking up space. My set ended in I sat in traffic for like an hour just to get out of the one mile town or city that I'm trying to get out of, Yeah, right. have what three, like three exits out of town. It gets a little difficult when there's congestion like that. How was that? How'd that set A new venue that we're trying to work with, great sound system, loves house music, so it was like, it was cool. It was good. Rest of the weekend I was in Atlantic City and then I was at the Jersey Shore. It was a real like networking weekend. I played gigs, I played a lot of gigs, but I used the time in between my gigs to really try to push forward into some rooms that I either used to play in or I wanna be in. I was at HQ2 in Atlantic City, got to check out Joel Corey, got to meet Joel Corey, super cool, nice guy. Taking a million pictures of all the people there. And I really enjoyed his set. I feel like he gets a lot of hate. I thought he played a great set. I think because his music is very like mainstream dance -y, he plays different from that. And I enjoyed it. It was That's interesting that he plays completely. Is it completely different or complete departure? different, but you know, he squeezes in his hits. Some of them are like VIP remixes. So it's a little harder, sort of fits the sound of today. It's a little sped up. He plays a bunch of pickle stuff. He hits 70 BPM sometimes, like just good. He played, I enjoyed it. Like it was good just as a customer hanging Seems like a lot of fun. Big shout to Andrew Niebs, who opened up. He played for a long, long time, like a four or five hour set. And I thought he did a great job. So I got to talk to him, hang out with him. We'd never actually met. So it was cool to connect with him too. And then later that night, Jersey Shore, Angelo the Kid was in town playing a set and put on a bunch of Get Down DJs. So I got to hear James Yeager and Sean Magda back to back. I got to hear Two -Face and then I got to hear an Angelo the Kid set, which was dope. And it was fun hanging with those guys. Rendine, Tuey, Ron. We had like the whole squad out there. Jake Fab's played his set. It was was a whole get down night. Love So yeah, great weekend, long weekend, traveling weekend as it's been here lately. Yeah, I feel like that's been the regular and it's gonna continue as vacations and things like that roll in. Yeah. So I want to talk about something. We actually asked our Discord. So if you guys aren't in the Discord, there's links all over the place to join the Grow My DJ Business Discord. It's just a great community. We're growing with DJs, producers, nightlife people, Gary's popping curated playlists, edits. There's all kinds of cool stuff in there. you know, Gary and I are chatting and posing questions and ideas. We asked the group to kind throw some topics for the podcast. So all these topics we're gonna talk about today are from the Discord. So shout to the guys and girls that posed some questions and we're gonna read a bunch of them throughout the next few episodes. the first question was, you know, we talk a lot about reading a room and as DJs it's our job to read a room and read a room. But how do you actually do that? And whether you're brand new DJ or someone that's been in the game a very long time, this is like the most important thing that you need to learn how to do. And you're gonna continue doing throughout your entire DJ career. So what are some ways that you read the room, The first thing that I do when I walk into the room is I take a look around and I just like to kind of understand who's in the room. And I look at things like race. I look at things like age. I look at things like what people are wearing, you know, because I feel like sometimes that leans into the type of music that they might be into and kind of take a shot in the dark. you know, if I'm reading people the right I think age is a big one for me, especially in a lot of the venues that I play because it can be anything from 21 to like, it could be anywhere from 21 to like 45, 50, right? Especially in the beginning of my night. And that's kind of where I start from, right? I know that my peak hour is going to be my peak hour. No matter what happens, it's just how, how am I going to get there? It's the journey from first song to say that first peak hour track. is the dance that you do. And a lot of times, you know, a lot of times I can read the room pretty correctly from Jump Street and then after I play that first song, well, it's like, okay, well, if I don't get a reaction in the next two or three, I'm gonna move on to whatever the next genre is, whatever the next thing is that I think is going to garner some kind of reaction, whether that's a head bob or somebody getting up to dance or. grabbing a group of girls getting out and singing or whatever it might be. and then I start to kind of maneuver right from there. this is just in, in a very, you know, how to read a room. Like sometimes I'll have my first three or four songs that I want to play that I want to listen to that I know aren't going to work all night. Like sometimes I'll do that and start there and then start to read after that. But not to say that you need to be reading right off the jump. Sometimes you do that. Like if you're at a place that serves dinner, and you're gonna go dinnertime into your set, which a lot of places do, you're going to wanna do that. You're gonna wanna look around the room, you're going to wanna profile. I hate to say that, but that is what it is. That's our job. Like we're profiling who's in the room and we're gonna go from Right. And that's for you to start. And I think some of the other things that you can take into consideration is what time is your set? Is it an early set? Is it a nightlife set? Is it an afternoon set? Is it a pool set? Right? What's the context of where are you? What time is it? What's the venue? If you're playing a venue that only plays house music, why on earth would you even consider playing something other than house music? You know? So just understanding the place you're playing, the time you're playing, and the expectations. And you can find out the expectations by simply asking the person that booked you, asking other DJs that play in that room. And that gives you a little bit of a plan or an idea of how you're gonna go into playing that particular place, right? So I think like Gary said, profiling the room and understanding who's there, at least to try and get an understanding of, all right, what might these people be interested in? And I think this really goes the open format rooms where it's really, really important. But I think as far as sort of more of what I've been doing, where it's more one speed, more one genre, I think it's also important to understand, well, how deep can I go? Right? Is this like I'm playing dance music with popular vocals that everybody knows the whole time? Or can I go and play deep, dark techno? Or can I go and dip into, you know, 70 BPM Speedhouse or Jersey Club something that might be a little off the beaten path. And you could probably still do that a little bit in your very, like, shallow end places. How do you read that, like, I can go away from what we would call like regular house music, very generic, what everybody knows house music, the Fishers, the Chris Lakes, et cetera. Right, so you test the water with some stuff that they know, right? If I want to go deep into like tech house, let's say, right? And I want to go from, let's say a Fisher track that everybody knows into maybe like, I don't even know, like Eli Brown, just something like darker that, you know, might be a little faster paced or whatever the case may be. You test them out with some like vocal stuff or songs that they know and you go a little deeper and then you go a little deeper. And then all of a sudden where you started at Fisher, now you're in this dark techno hole and they're still rocking out. Yeah. But maybe you've advanced one or two layers past Fisher and it's like, well, nobody's moving and they're not into this. And then it's like, all right, well, I got to get out of here. So it's baby steps going from shallow to a deeper end of the spectrum as far as the style of music that you're playing. I think a good way to go about this conversation is like, can take more of an open format, because I don't play full house sets. I just don't do it. I do it 0 % of the time. I play super open format sets everywhere. I think you really play more of those higher end rooms that you're playing artist sets and things like that. So I think you can really speak to how you read those kind the other thing, right? No matter what room I'm in, I wanna play how I play. And I have to get to that point to see if that'll work. No matter what. And if it works, great. I can rock out all night and have fun and play what I wanna play. If it doesn't work, all right, then we're going back to the Joel Corey's and we're going back to the Fischers and the Pitbull vocal over a drop kind of thing. It's good too if there's other DJs playing around you to get there and hear what they're doing. And you get to watch a crowd then if you're not just playing open a closed type thing and see what they're reacting to. And then you could start curating in your brain, all right, well, I'm gonna start here, then I'm gonna go here kind of thing and see where the night takes But yeah, like we're looking at nonverbal cues. We're looking for head nods. We're looking for people at the bar tapping their hand, tapping feet, especially early in the night. You have to look at like some other things other than people raging in front of you with their hands in the air or singing the songs because you got to get them to that point first. And I think early on in the night, we're taking cues, right? So what are like some other things that you're looking for when you first start that you know, like, all right, I got this in my back pocket for later on when I want to go. more aggressive. I think that, yeah, right. Like I'll, I'll, I'll sprinkle in a, a, a track or two that I think is going to garner a reaction. I hope is going to that. can, like you said, put, put that genre or put that type of music in my back pocket for later on. And like, once I put that on, I'm looking around like how many people are singing along to this? How many people are maybe got up to dance to it? Like on an earlier side of things. So it would be like, okay, if I want to, if there's like a big. Afro beats record out right now, right? Right? I'm trying to get there. I know that's going to be a big part of my set, but I don't know if this crowd is going to mess with it. okay, I could play party animal, gala party animal like early. And like, if people start to move to that, I'm like, all right, well, you know what? They like this kind of genre. I know I can get there later. I'll play a couple more tracks in that genre and then work my way out of it. And then, you know, work my way out of it in a way where maybe like, I'm going to go into dance hall or I'm going to go into a Sean Paul record. that's maybe 120 BPM and work my way back up in an open format room, I'm saying, and then I can be into my 120s and then know later on, okay, maybe I can revisit my Afro beats or even Afro house music, you know? And you're thinking about all these things at the same time. Go ahead. Are you going out of your way in an open format set early in the night to really run through a bunch of genres to try to get that information? Or are you kind of just like playing some stuff until you find one genre that's working and sort of go with that for a little bit? Like, what's your strategy there? how I'm doing it is, lot of times in this one venue, I'm just gonna think about one venue and kind of run you how I go through that. So I know I'm gonna start with R &B and like, okay, I wanna see if there's a Caribbean crowd in here. So then I'll start to work an R &B track that has some kind of Caribbean vibes and then work into my Caribbean stuff and see how deep I can go with my Caribbean stuff. This happened to me actually two weeks ago. This is actually a great, story for this, for this topic. I walk into a room. have never ever, ever, ever played Soka in this room ever. And I walk in and I'm like, okay, it's an older crowd. so I started to play maybe some catered, like, was like, all right, well, I'm going to test out some Afro beat stuff. So I played a little bit of that and they were really vibing to it. And then I was Oh, they're really into this stuff. Let me see how deep into this I can get. got a little deeper and then I was like, let me try a Soca track. And it wound up being like half the room was Caribbean. And like all of a sudden I'm, I'm like 10 songs of Soca and, like people are like going hard at 10 30. I had started at like nine 30. Um, and that's just what you do. You got to kind of start to dip your toes in. And then as you could see, people are reacting, just keep going deeper and deeper. And then you get that feeling where it's like, okay, I think they've had enough and now I got to switch genres. How that's the. important to find that crew early because if you find that crew early that starts making it fun in there as people walk in, they stay. And that's how you create a vibe and create a party. Whereas if you don't find that group of people that's going to kind of get the party started, people might walk in and leave because there's no vibe. There's people just sitting around and it's not exciting or cool. Whereas if they walk in, there's like a group of 10 people dancing around or 20 people dance around at 1030. They're like, this is great. This is gonna be like a dance party. We're gonna have a good night kind of I could have stayed in that cater not at that night, right? Because you know what the vibe of the room was like chill at the time, but it was like, all right, well, I think I just ran into one track and I was like, wow, they're really vibing to this cater not a version of this dance hall track. And I was like, well, let's try regular dance hall, you know? and then that's kind of how that in a room that's open format where maybe you don't like you're playing differently every time. I think it is important to try to move around and play a bunch of stuff early just to see right like what's my crowd tonight because sometimes they want to hear R &B sometimes that you can get away with a bunch of house music early sometimes it's going to be a hip hop crowd and then maybe you could drop into some like Jersey club stuff. So I think like testing your audience playing a bunch of genres early. And taking those cues from the various groups of people that are reacting to certain things is really important in a great way that later on in the night you can come back like, I remember this group of people that's still here rocked the Jersey club. So I'm going to hit another little mini Jersey club set in my peak Right. I think within reason, right? Like an meeting because some people out here might not think of like, okay, I shouldn't be playing Jersey club at nine 30 and people are eating dinner. You know what I mean? Like you should know, like you shouldn't be playing that, you know, you can get have like more chill Jersey club that's just like a sped up R &B style stuff. Yeah, there's like a new, there's a new style of music. forget what it's called, but it's Jersey club style and it's like sexy R and B, like not as aggressive. Right. Like, yeah. So I think, but it's just important to know, like, you you can't go too big too early. You know, you're gonna test that stuff more between your 11 and 11 .30, right before your peak hour goes. It's hard to say, right? Because every venue is different and every DJ set's different. Like, sometimes we're starting at 9 or 10 o 'clock and sometimes it's a two -hour headline set from 12 to 2 kind of thing. So it's a little different. I'll speak a little bit to the headliner thing, right? Because a lot of times, I'm playing a bunch of open to close, but I'm doing a bunch of headliner stuff too. And I Instead of me being able to play the room and test out all those things, like I said earlier, like getting there early, seeing what's happening. If it's a new room you've never played, it's really important to ask a lot of questions, talk to the staff, talk to everybody. And then make sure you have a couple, like, you know that it's gonna work, records that are just gonna hit no matter what, right? I mentioned Pitbull before, but like, some of those just classic up tempo. feel -good songs that everybody knows, it's a great idea to maybe start there. Get your crowd a little bit, introduce yourself, and then you could start kind of dabbling into the other subgenres and just like hook them first and then you start dabbling into the other genres later in the night, whereas if you're opening the night, you're gonna kind of bounce around to start and then kind of go into that set that you know is gonna work. So it's a little opposite. Yeah. Yeah. That set to me is harder, but it's because I do that a lot less, you know, and, and, and I feel like whenever I have done those sets, I kind of stick to what I'm, what I'm thinking I'm going to do. That's why I like to play. That's why I'm a long, I'm a long form DJ. I like to play long sets, because I like to play a lot of different genres and I really like to read, read rooms at different types of the night. That's the challenge that, I like, feel like when it's cramped into two hours, I find it way more difficult. I don't know, man. Prepping for open format is so, it takes so much longer and it takes so much more time. And like, I always talk about how before every gig, I basically create a folder of music that I'm gonna at least maybe play or think about playing in that set. When I do these open format sets, it's like, all right, I gotta build fucking 10 folders of music because I don't know what I'm gonna play. So I think Having folders organized and really focusing on, this week I'm gonna update my Jersey Club folder. This week I'm gonna focus on my EDM folder. This week the TechHouse folder. And just really making sure that you're rotating through those folders and keeping them updated. Because when you are playing open format, it's impossible to just prep specifically for that one gig. You're gonna have to rely on the folders that you have in Serato that are existing. It's just not possible to create one folder, you know? Yeah, I went into one of my folders last week and realized that it was just a hot mess. It was a hot mess. couldn't, it was so messy. Like I wanted to go into that genre, whatever it was in the 2024 version, the folder of that genre. And I couldn't even go in it because I didn't organize it. So I didn't know like what those top five hitters were in that in a quick time. Obviously if I wanted to let track go out two verses, could have quickly organized something, but I wasn't doing that in the middle of my set. So I just kind of let it be, and I was like, well, frig it, I'll just organize it for the next Yeah, it's super stressful to me if I have unorganized or old folders and there is not music that I'm excited to play in those folders. And I think something that we do as DJs, we're always downloading the new music, right? I'm on the record pools, I'm on the bandcamp and Patreon, I'm on all these different places, SoundCloud, downloading, downloading, downloading, downloading, and organizing that music. But I think sometimes it's really important to say, hey, I'm not downloading any new music for the next week. And I'm to sit here and really prep out a bunch of folders. And I'm sort of going through that right now because I am sort of trying to transition over to DJing fully on sticks. It's a work in progress for sure. But the most important part of being able to do that is making sure that your crates are extremely organized. And with the computer, it's a crutch because I could just type stuff all day. I'm typing song names all day. And I've been doing this long enough that if I'm playing one song, I can think of a bunch of other stuff that works in that zone. And I could just type it in. So I'm going through it right now, guys. Like, I need to tell myself for the next two weeks, we're just organizing Styx and Serato, and that's it. No new music. organizing existing music. I feel like you'll have your best DJs. I've had my best DJ sets on just reorganizing existing music, not on downloading new music because realistically at a lot of 90 % of these open format spots, what people are going to get most excited about is the stuff that they know. Not the, we all know the top 10 new stuff. We're all going to play that no matter what happens, but it's that like back wall news stuff that nobody really cares about, doesn't know yet. That's the stuff that like you really don't need to worry about right now. It's the reorganization of the older stuff and playing it in order that is effective, right? Sometime, and we're gonna get into this as the next topic, but we all play a lot of the same stuff, so a lot of it's organizational. Yeah, the other thing too, for me personally, I'm excited when there's new or different versions of songs that I'm playing. I don't want to play the same shit over and over again. And sometimes when I'm playing a big room casino set, like, you sort of got to play a lot of the same vocals. So what I like to do is, alright, if I've been playing this version of hotel room service, I have fucking 50 versions on my computer, let me take the one that I've been playing out and pick another Maybe I play a 70 BPM version. I just made a Jersey club version of it, whatever. That's really important to me too is like, all right, I've been playing this whatever edit for a long time. I need something new because I'm getting bored playing it. So let's go find another version Well, here's a question for you. So how about when you you talk about these surefire tracks that are going to work, right? Well, what happens if you do pick? A remix of this surefire track and it kind of falls flat. You lose your room and you gotta regain the regain your room like what? What's your? What's your tactic to grab him I don't know, there's just certain tracks that I think no matter what, like, are gonna work. But in the, in the instance that you're saying, it's like, okay, well I've been playing this version of this vocal for such a long time. I'm going to try this new one out. And it's like, shit, I tried this new one out and it didn't hit as hard as that other one. I'm like, it's we go back to the version that has been working on the second half of that track and and you know, reset. going like you're going to like then play that other one next or let the first build go, the drop hits, nothing happens. All right, let me go grab the other one that I know works. And if that doesn't work, then maybe I'm just playing the wrong genre of music. You know? right, right. Well, that's a good tactic. I like that. I like But yeah, there's certain songs that no matter what, if I'm in a bind or my crowd looks bored or whatever, like there are certain songs that I know are gonna work. And I have folders for, you know, 2024 bangers. I know that if I'm in EDM, peak EDM, and I need a banger, I can just go to that folder and it's all songs that have given me big reactions consistently. know, 2024 hip hop, these are the 10 tracks I know are gonna and I have those folders built Nice. I have, I have something that I haven't done in a while. Like I have to be feeling pretty, pretty good about myself. Pretty saucy usually if, if I'm going to do this, like if I see that I played a track and I kind of lost the dance floor, I try to think of the most left field, other direction thing that I can think of, but Garner is usually a huge reaction, right? So if I'm playing house music and I just played a great song. Everybody was going crazy. I play this next song. It doesn't hit right. And it like really falls flat. It's like, well, what can we do to like wake people back up kind of like a smelling salt situation, you know? And like, if that happens and it's like, okay, well, this house song just like missed I'll like dead, dead the song and like have it go silent in the room and like drop something like public service announcement, Jay Z. Right? It's completely different. Now everybody's like, holy shit, and like they're back involved instantly. Right. Creating a moment is the way to get your crowd back, the number one I love I love silence. Like I love that as an effect. I know not a lot of you echo out or spin it, echo, I echo spin a lot. like, do you just like echo it out and then like scratch in public service announcement or whatever, all I do is win or whatever, whatever, insert banger. Do you still play public service announcement? I was like, damn, I don't, haven't played that song in so long. was thinking about it last week and I'm like, fuck, I haven't played the song in so long and it's amazing. Probably, I don't know. Guys, comment below if you even know what public service, I know you guys know what it is, but when's last time you heard it out and would the younger, if you're a club goer that's 21 to 25, would you even be interested in hearing that? Do you know what that is? Hell no. I think that's older crowd, hip hop crowd only. but I was using that as a complete weird, you know, that would be a left field thing to play. But anyway, yeah, I'm a big like echo out and then just hit pause and let it literally let it go silent for like a second or two where it gets awkward. I don't even scratch it. Just, you know, allow me to introduce Yeah, I like it. I think a couple other ways in creating a moment. Shout the birthday people, right? Like, you could echo out, you could use the mic, right? Use the mic as a way to recapture the crowd. I have a bunch of birthday edits that I created that have a slam at the very beginning. So it's just like an impact, a down sweep, and then it goes right into birthday bitch. goes like a bunch of different ones. bunch of different genres. It's like the ultimate, if I'm in a bind and it's around midnight, we're gonna create a birthday moment. And it's the same thing, right? Echo, spin out, whatever. Silence or loop or whatever, jump on a mic, get the birthday people going like, there's gonna be somebody that gets hype when they hear any birthday song. I was walking by a bar the other night and it was like an indoor outdoor bar and people are just sitting down and I can hear from two blocks away. Like, I don't know what this DJ was doing, but as I got closer, I can tell that he was just shouting out birthday people and he was playing birthday tracks and people were sitting down partying so hard. And I was like, this guy's good. I don't know who he is. I don't know what this place is. two floors Right, if it's a restaurant, like a lot of people are probably going there to celebrate something, right? If they're going down on a Saturday night, that's why they're there. right. It was it was it was great. I don't know. Like I said, I don't know who he was, but he was doing a great job. Place looks fun. Yeah. So yeah, guys, find a way to create a moment. However that is, whatever style of music that is, if your crowd looks bored or they're not reacting to anything specifically, try to create a moment. That's gonna be the title of this podcast. Perfect. I'm glad we don't have to think about it. You don't have to text me later. I know, like two days later, like, what are we gonna name this podcast? So let's go back to something we talked about a little while ago. it's just, and something that you said that, you you go and grab different remixes of the same song, the same songs that you're playing, but like we all do play the same music and it infuriates you, right? Like, I mean, it's something that you don't like at all. I don't think any we work with like Jay Diamond, Slav, like you guys all play the same music. DJs all play the same shit. Which is fine. We all sort of have to play what's popular, right? We are, that's what we do, right? We just find creative ways to do it and we find our own ways to do it. But what I will say Alright, well if everybody plays the same thing, then why are you hiring a DJ? Just put a Spotify playlist on and play the hits, right? Or I would say, give me the top hundred songs, top 50 songs, top 20 songs, and I guarantee you I will create more energy playing those 20 songs than half the other DJs that you hire, or all the DJs you hire, whatever, whatever. That's the big part of I can create energy in playing the exact same music, way more energy than another DJ. And that's why you're paying me. That's why I ask for more money than other DJs. Because I find ways, and we who are higher end DJs find ways to make the same songs interesting. And keep your crowd having fun and excited. And there's a lot of ways to do Yeah, I think there's a million different ways to go about this. mean, it is true and there's a million different remixes of a million different songs and it's finding the ones that it's finding your style of those songs and then putting those together in a way that it does create energy naturally. Right. And if you can string together a set that is pretty cohesive, then you're a damn good DJ over if it's a four hour set, right? Like even if it's a two hour headline and you do two hours of straight energy and like not give people a break. And it's stuff that they could sing along to. But you are able to give people a break in a way where they don't realize they're getting a break. Like you're good at what you do, right? It's like you said, we can all play the same music. It just matters. How do you string those songs together in a way that works for you and your crowd? I feel like that would be such a cool DJ challenge to say, DJs, here's 20 songs, make me a mix. And the most interesting, creative, cool mix wins. We might have to switch our mix up. like that. Mixed content. I'd do that in a second. That'd be I think that'd be so fun. And I think it would be so interesting to see the different styles of music that everybody would play and how they would play I would love to see, right? And this is the, this is the fun part of it. feel how long everybody's mixes are right. Here's the 20 tracks. You have no time limit. Like you can. Yeah, right. You're 20 tracks. We used to do a little off topic, but I'm to bring it up. Anyway, we used to do at the Ainsworth for halftime of football games. How many songs could cream play at halftime? Because it's I think it's a 15 minute halftime, right? I think we in between 15 and 21 one weekend. think we got to 18 songs in a co in like a cohesive sounds good kind of way. the crowd's dancing, we're having a great time and we're rocking out. But how many songs can we jam in? Yeah. And all the people that used to work with us would be like, how many this week, Cream? How many this week? So to that point, like you can be given 20 songs and it could be a seven minute mix or it could be a 30 minute mix, 40 minute mix. You know, so there's a million ways that you can mix a song and, and it's especially 20, uh, 20 different Yeah. The reason why this this comment infuriates me is because, yes, we are playing a lot of the same vocals, but there are so many ways to play every song. For every, you know, hit there is, there is a version of that song living somewhere. That's Jersey Club, House, hip hop, it's by LeFunk, you know, like it's there's a version of everything out there. So it's curating your sound. curating something that the crowd is going to be into and There's just so many ways to get creative SoundCloud is an amazing tool you can find so much shit on SoundCloud if you're looking for a specific remix of a song I've sat there and gone through hundreds of remix to find the one remix that fits into my sets I create a lot of edits and remixes and songs and stuff that fits in my set that only I have that sets me apart from everyone else. You know, that's just curating the music. That's one aspect of how you as a DJ can sound different from everyone else. Not to mention acapella ins, acapella outs. Not to mention slam versions. Not to mention mic work. Quick mixing. Like, there's just so, so many ways. And I know that the people saying that, you know, DJs play the same music, partly they say it to me because they know it pisses me off. But partly it's because they just don't know the intricacies of what's happening to create a successful Those two got some balls on him because you know what? They work at a place that they play the same damn song, the same version a billion times and they still go crazy to it. Well, that's why they say because there are you could play the same five songs on repeat for 12 hours and it would work the same version, the same I would love to go in there and play Calling on repeat and see how many times I could play it without someone yelling at me or the crowd not reacting. I feel like that'd be a great experiment. A track said something one time and I'm thinking about like, you know, being a great curator of music and sometimes we're not all the best. know, you and I aren't the best technical DJs, right? I can mix the shit out of two songs, but I can't, but I'm not great. I'm not great at scratching. So I'm thinking a track right we have enough in the tank to be able to do some things. But A -Trak was saying, he's like, one of my favorite DJs can't scratch. He's like, just literally, he's not a good scratcher, but he's one of my favorite DJs. So I'm thinking, if you wanna go see somebody who can put together a set list and move and rock a nightclub, but you know they're not a technically great DJ, that's a great person to go learn from how to build a set. Right? Because they're so reliant. Like I am so reliant on the flow of my night because I'm not a great person on the microphone. I'm not a great scratcher. You know, like I said, I can mix two songs and I could seamlessly get from reggae to punk rock, you know, pretty quickly at like where you wouldn't even notice it. But like those are the, those are the DJs that you want to go see if you want to learn how to, to arc a night, you Yeah, and I just understand who you are as a DJ. You don't have to be the guy that's on the mic if that's not your strength. You just have to be able to do enough, you know? If you don't scratch or you're not that good at it, you don't have to scratch. Just don't scratch. Mix the songs cleanly. Use some effects. Use some loops. Do some cool things when blending music. Use acapellas. There's so many ways to sound great in your own way, you know? Like, the way that that shows off your skills the best. Do that. If you don't know how to scratch, don't scratch in the club because it sounds like shit. there's DJs I've been like, yo, like don't do that anymore. I see too much, so much overuse in, overuse in skills that people don't have, whether that be being on the microphone too much, whether that be scratching too much, whether that be mixing the same exact way every song, if you are in like a, if you like a, like a three scratch and, and, and drop kind of a, kind of a mixer, like don't mix like that every song, people get sick of it. You know, if you're echo out, spin and mix. Like don't do that every song. Like it's tiresome. You have to use different techniques throughout your set. And I think that's a great way to keep a crowd interested. Yeah, that's great advice. I totally agree. At the end of the day, I find it as a disrespectful comment. It's disrespectful to the art of DJing and it bothers me because of that. It really does. And people don't understand how much it takes to be good at this craft. And how many hours it takes and how much practice and how much work to be able to play for two hours or four hours or five hours. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, I could teach you how to play two songs in an hour probably on decks, but there's a far cry from being able to mix two songs together and being able to be a headliner DJ. It's like a world apart. It's a world get It's a world apart to me sometimes in just being a good DJ that can play a local bar to being able to be like a headliner party rock nightclub DJ also. Some people never get there. It's hard. It's hard. took me a long Somebody had asked me like, how do you, you know, how, how long did it take you to get to where you're at? Like, I know, 13 years, like, oh, not like a year. It's like, no, like 13 years of playing crap gigs. You know, so it's just, it's, it's interesting. And some people just won't, ever like, I'll never go play shows that you play ever. That'll never happen in my lifetime. You know I mean? want to though. If you you wanted to, you've done it and you could have continued doing Right, right, right, right. I guess so. But like, I don't know, I'm just saying in the grand scheme of things, a lot of DJs who start will never get to that No, it's fucking hard. Like there's there's less and less venues. There's more and more DJs. How do you set yourself apart? it gets tougher. It's gotten tougher. It was tough when I started DJing, you know? And it's only gotten harder. Yeah, for sure. I hope these guys don't hear that this episode because they are going to bust your balls till the fucking cows come home. Justin and Slav? yeah, Cream? Shut up, Cream. You can't tell me that you're not playing the same set as the next DJ. if anybody knows Jay dime, that's absolutely hilarious. All right. I'm going to break some hearts on this next topic and I apologize ahead of time. And maybe I'm just a hater. Maybe I'm a hater. If I'm just a hater, call me out. You can call me out. It's, it's okay. But I just don't understand the kind music like explosion. I don't understand kind music at Brooklyn Mirage. I don't understand how you could listen to that music for more than a few hours type thing. Like, I just don't get it. Help me understand. Two days at Brooklyn Mirage, like incredible to me. There's that many people that wanna go do Well, mean, man, where do we start? don't get it. I like the music, but to me, I wanna listen to that music when I'm cleaning my house. I wanna listen to that music when I'm at the pool. I wanna listen to that music when I'm floating in the sea in Croatia, which I did, which was amazing. I don't wanna go to Brooklyn, to this big ass place with all this lights and sound and all this, and like, I just don't get it. I put my pashmina on, you know? Your crochet shirt. big pashmina crowd over there. Is that how say it? Pashmina? Is that what it is? It's like the Fisher bucket hat to the kind music pashmina now. my god. thought you were going to say crochet shirt for sure. Yeah, that too! Get your crochet out! They knitted it on the way there! Hahaha! man, I saw in a comment that you, in a, your note that you called it opener music, which kind of like, I was, I took a little, I took a little offense to that being, right. think, I think calling it open opener music, I think that's a very subjective thing because I'm a, I'm like a straight fan of that. I'm not, I'm not just a fan of them or their genre? Is it Afro house? Is it? What is it called? it's somewhere it does it lives in Afro house land, but it's not straight Afro houses. I mean, it's really what we used to call what it used to be progressive or deep house, we would call that deep house, right? Like when I would go out, right, you would have to go minimal, right? minimal, deep house progressive is what it used to be, right? The guys who would use to play that would be like, Seth Troxler, who's still around, and Sasha, and Ben watt from everything, everything but the girl, like, were all skips for me. Those are all right. And we would we would have to go out and find little bars that play this and I'm talking like 100 person bar, right? And they sell tickets and you'd go hotels would usually pick up these parties. Yeah, this is great hotel lobby music. but they're still parties and they were, you know, the sound was great and they were great DJs and they were great producers. And I had never met, when it was less popular, I had never met a more passionate group of people about music. For whatever reason, they were more passionate than the next guy that was playing techno or that was playing EDM at the time. The EDM was just starting to blow. And now, I feel like with the popularity of black coffee and you know, black coffee just played MSG last year or this year, one of the other, was in the winter time. And with the popularity of like a Shimza and with the popularity of Afro house and with the popularity of Afro beats, I feel like so many more people are kind of exposed to more cultural music. And I think Also with the popularity of electronic music as a whole, it was just only a matter of time before this genre really blew up, right? Where that, that you can just play kind of chill, chilled out music and the drops is really what it's all about. Like all those little minor drops is really what it's all about. And they're very minor. They're very minor. No, they're not. They're not. But the drums came back in like Right, right. But it's it's all about melody. It's not so much about I feel it's not so much I want why I listen to it is not is more melody and vocal like if there's a vocal, the vocal needs to be good. as the music is getting more popular, I think the vocal part of it is kind of coming. now guys, I like, like, I think the music is good. I don't, I'm not like hating on the music overall. I don't, and maybe I just have to go and experience it, but I don't know. I don't, it's, it's just so far away from the music that I like and listen to. And that's probably part of the reason why I don't, can't understand it because I just, it's just not what I like generally. I would rather go to that personally, then go see, I don't know, name somebody fit, but we could because we talked about Fisher Fisher. I just I would headbang at the rail and listen to fucking dubstep and Ray Volpe and all and Subtronics and all that shit than the chill house stuff. Yeah, I'm ready to headbang at the rail. I want to chill out in the back and like have a cocktail. Listen to that. I sort of, think part of the reason why I hate on this is because like, I feel like it's all the people that like, I don't even think they understand the music or like the music. It's just the cool thing to do now. And people are, that's why I hate it. Cause everyone's jumping on the bandwagon and getting their Pashmina and going to fucking Brooklyn Mirage till seven in the morning because it's like the cool thing to do. It's like the people that, hold on, hold on. It's like the people that go to Yankees playoff games because it's the cool thing to do in New York and Yankees are in the playoffs. Like that's what I equate it What is this a product of? This is a direct product of. Do you know? mean, could you take a guess? It's a direct product of everybody going down to Mexico and everybody Instagramming that. yeah, then, and vibes. vibes. Gary, my computer's gonna die, so talk, I gotta put a charger in. So like this to loom vibes, you know, phenomenon has become a thing so much so that like when we book places like we book a market or we were booking like a farmer's market on like a Tuesday and what did the head of the farmer's market want? Quote unquote to loom vibes, which is such an strange thing to be requested. And then it was like, okay, we're going to do this rooftop, this one certain rooftop. And what did that manager want? We want quote unquote Tulum vibes and then you go and play real Tulum vibes and like, no, no, no, no, that's not what we want. It has become just an overhyped, overused, quote unquote genre. And then I feel like all the people that really did go down to Tulum and consume Kai music and consume everything like it, you know, wants to relive that experience. And that's why Brooklyn Mara shows sold out and sold quickly because when they came out in the winter time or the fall, it was, might've been last fall that they dropped those tickets. I went to go buy them and the day one was sold out immediately. This is just a recreation of everybody wanting to be back a part of or feel like they're into loom and getting your quote unquote to loom vibes. That's what this you're in Brooklyn, New York. Like, I don't know. I don't get it. I want to listen to this in Tulum. If I'm in Tulum, this is all I'd want to hear. All day. It'd be great. I'd love it. But it's like, it's an environment thing. I just don't, I don't understand. I guess, I guess I'm hating and I've never experienced it. And that's not always the best way to, I don't know, to think about something. I could see where you think that like it's more just environmental, but like if you're somebody who puts that on in the car going to work, like you're a fan of that music, you want to go see that music no matter where it is. Right. Whereas like you'll go put that on because you're in the pool in Croatia when you're in the sea in Croatia, right? You're like setting your setting your musical taste to the place that you're in where these people are actual fans. Like they're listening they? Hey, listen, if they listen to it in their car going to work and they, and they listen to it regularly, they want to go see it play, you know, performed whether if it's boring or not to you, you know, they're, they see something in it. Just like, you know, just like the dead. Like I listened to the dead all the time and some people listen to the dead just when they're touring or whatever it might like if people at the dead shows, think the people that go to the con music shows dance the same way. It's probably they they're like mock hippies, right? I guess that they're they're the hippie. They're the hippie version of house music fans. Is that what it maybe that is what it is. I don't Yeah, are they wearing hemp and shit? No, but crochet. They're definitely wearing crochet. But like it was hilarious. was watching like a bottle train going out like to a table while this was all happening and I'm like, what world are we in? What are we doing out here? Yeah, I could see if, I don't know, could see if people were like smoking a hooker or something like, or like smoking something. At the end of the day, though, I will I'll say this, right? I'm like half joking, but I'm half serious. I'm just not really into it. And I don't totally understand it. But I understand that a lot of people do if they're selling out the Mirage for two nights. So I want to give a huge shout out to ToneSetta. He's been really into this vibe and making music in this world. And he got some support from and me, I think, and a couple of the guys at various stops on their tour. So go check out ToneSetta's Big Jet Plane remix. It's on his SoundCloud. So good. So good. I love listening to this wanting to punch me in the face. So Tone, I wanted to make sure I shouted you out to get a little love back. We love you. Help me understand. Awesome. All right. Anything we have to promote I don't know, man. I don't think I we're good. Have a great summer. Follow us on, go subscribe on YouTube. We're really trying to grow our YouTube and trying to spend some time there. So if you don't follow us on YouTube, you can watch this podcast on YouTube and we're putting a bunch of other stuff on there and join the discord. Those are the two things I will say to do. All the links below, so check it All right, guys, thanks for listening to this episode. We will talk to you soon. Peace.