Open Format Is Dead 😵

This week on the Grow My DJ Business Podcast, Cream & Gary discuss: 

• Having a clear identity as a DJ and establishing a specific genre or style is crucial for success.
• Parties that cater to a specific genre or style are currently more successful than open format rooms.
• DJs should showcase their identity on social media and in their mixes to attract the right audience.
• Playing high-energy music from the start is important to engage the crowd and create a lively atmosphere.
• Clean mixing, music selection, and executing the requirements of a specific gig are essential skills for new DJs. Clean mixing and music selection are fundamental skills for DJs.
• Having a good ear for music and taste is essential for success as a DJ.
• Balancing both nightlife and private events can be challenging but can also provide valuable experience.
• Cassette tapes are experiencing a resurgence in popularity, particularly among younger generations.

00:00: Introduction and Catching Up
02:30: Recapping Recent Gigs
05:30: Genre Specific Parties
09:09: The Challenges of Being an Open Format DJ
11:57: Establishing DJ Identity and Venue Identity
18:07: Showcasing DJ Identity on Social Media
22:19: The Basics of DJing for New DJs
26:26: The Importance of Clean Mixing and Music Selection
32:50: Mastering the Basics: Clean Mixing and Music Selection
39:16: Balancing Nightlife and Private Events
47:55: The Resurgence of Cassette Tapes

Transcript

0:00

What's up guys, welcome to the 158th episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast brought to you by Digital Music Pool and brought to you by the Grow My DJ Business Discord. My name is Kareem. Gary W here. It seems like forever, but I'm finally back in New Jersey. It's been, you know, I took a couple weeks off for vacation. I've been traveling around playing some shows. So we haven't had a pod. So I'm excited to talk about all the stuff that's happened since the last time we talked. Now you know how feels to be away from home for weeks at a time. Yeah, it felt good to sleep in my own bed, but I mean, I really can't complain. was, you know, on the beach and on vacation for one week of like real vacation and then one week of like, sort of working, but still on vacation. It was awesome. I can't say how much like taking a full week and really stepping away from everything work related, like how much that can really help, it helped my mental state and just. Like I was ready to come back to work when I was done with that, you know? It was great. definitely ready to have you back, that's for sure. It's definitely a much needed thing to step away and in doing what we do and I think any business owner really, like you don't ever really get to step away. It's very difficult to actually do that and that's part of owning a business, right? But the other side of it is that you do get a little bit more down time when you can find it but it just comes in like little spurts instead of getting a long break, right? It's the pros and cons of being an entrepreneur, right? The pros are you get to make your own schedule, but the cons are people will be reaching out to you 24 -7, seven days a week. And it's just how you kind of handle that. I think we've done a much better job in handling that in the last few years and figuring out ways to, you know, get away and take time off and adjust responsibilities. Yeah, yeah, this year specifically has been really good for that. So but the summer has been very good. Yeah, I'm gonna say summer's been summer's been been good for that kind of thing. And it's kind of able you to go away and you got to build in a couple of really cool shows into your quote unquote vacation there at the end and kind of recap that stuff. And, you know, let's hear about your travels and your gigs because you had some really great ones along the way. Yeah, I had some good ones. When I was up New England area and shout to RM, he hooked me up with some a couple gigs up there. I played Providence, Sport and Leisure, which is a new room for me, super dope concept. I would say for anybody from like the North, from like New York City area, it reminded me of like a little bit of a bounce style place. I think the biggest song of the night might've been like some 41 for me. They told me it was super open format and fun. And I played it sort of like a fun bar set and then still got to go do what I do and play some, you know, tech bass vocal remixes that, you know, I like to play. So it was super cool. Great venue. Got to meet some owners. they took me to like a hot dog stand that's been open for over a hundred years afterwards. walk through the kitchen, sat down at the counter. Like, all they do is make hot dogs and french fries and shakes. And that's all they've done for 100 years. They're probably the best at it in the whole New England. And it is what it is. I also found out they actually do some like really cool, they have DJs in there and they'll do like after hours shit. They did a New Year's Eve party, which I thought was so dope. Man, that guy. was still in there, he's fourth generation, he was like working the counter. It just, it so reminds me, like when you talk about that, it just reminds me of White Man, anybody that's from North Jersey, it just reminds me White Man. They kind of just do, you know, they're known for their hamburgers. They do a couple other things, but like that's predominantly 90 % of what's going out that door is hamburgers, right? And then French fries, like, and that's what it's known there. It's been for, been there for now almost 100 years, I believe. And it's kind of the same thing. I know that their owner, I don't know. who he is at this point. So it's not like the same regard in that, like, A lot of, you know, places that are very established in our area are that like one, one family owners for generations and the place has been around forever and they do that one thing well. It got me thinking about like, you know, how do, how do we translate that into nightlife and do we have that in nightlife even? And in thinking about that, it's like, we, we totally do. Right. Like we, the places that have now been around for like two generations, like, like a DJ's. It's been around since early 80s. I think it's 81 or 82 that they bought that place. It's been around forever. They've just been doing what they do best, which is like four on the floor, ready to rock house music, right? Like, and that's, you know what you're getting when you walk in. And now we'll talk about one of the parties that you went and played this past Sunday, which I'll let you actually get into now. And you could talk about that. That's another party that popped up in my head. Then I'm like, you kind of know what you're getting. Get it. Yeah. So Luke Alexander started a party on a rooftop in Brooklyn. It's called the Azure Day Party. And it's just like feel good, vibey, house music, Afro house, and then like techno, melodic techno, and some of the obviously tech house stuff. But I played Sunday, it was like an unbelievable experience. I got to play with cases. So it was the first time I got to meet him, which was cool because we worked on some stuff together and we've, you know, obviously sort of met on socials, but it was cool to like get to hang with him. Rick Wonder popped out. He I think he just played last week. Ferrari just played two weeks ago. So it's like. All the guys that we know and love and have had on this show and stuff and. It's. Everyone goes there knowing what they're going to get right. There's lines around the block. They sell out every week and. They go up there. It's this incredible view. You have New York City skyline in your background, in the background. there's like a rooftop pool up there. And then there's just a small like DJ set up with two CDJs and a 900, a little rope blocking people off. Sound. I mean, it's a rooftop venue. like, it's not, not, don't have like a function one system up there or anything, but like it's good enough sound and a bunch of bass and it's all the sound you would ever need. Right, so like all the sound you ever need, you have a beautiful view and you have an objective when you go there, right? And everybody knows what that objective is from the DJs, right? Right, you're going up there for that sunset set that goes into the night. Kase has played like the, he played like the start of the sunset set and I played like the very start, the very end of it into the night. Which was great for me because I got to play more my style. I played that darker sound that I would much rather play than the, you know, happy Afrobeat stuff. Which we sort of talked about on one of the previous shows. The reason I asked about the sound is because I feel like if you're at a rooftop spot and you know how we have sound ordinances and we deal with all of that bullshit all the time in our area specifically, if you didn't have that kind of sound, does that party still exist? Like you have to have all of these elements working together in order to create this recipe for success, right? have real DJ equipment, 3000s and a 900. They have a real DJ booth set up with two speakers on either side and subs. They have real dance floor sound with enough punch. They have lighting for the nighttime. They have cryo for the night for drops and stuff. It's a it's a it's it's the recipe for success. any ownership and management that listens like this is this is it like this is this is all it takes like if you have there are plenty of spaces that could have successful parties that you and I have walked in and out of and even DJ for years that could have very very good parties if it was if it was executed properly now we don't we we are on the outs where we don't know the the politics in the back door. things that happen as far as, know, we're always dealing with neighbors that are complaining about bass, whether that's inside or outside. I'm talking about both. There was a decibel reader that I could see as I was DJing. No one ever told me like, don't break this number. But I saw it in the corner up there, like 96 decibels, like I was like, shit, better not break 100 kind of thing. I don't know. I don't know what the number is, but I'm sure there's a number that they can't break up there. That's helpful, right? Having a decibel reader in a room that has sound restriction. You know, we don't have that. haven't never haven't seen that in a room that we play in. ever DJed with a decibel reader, but I thought that was funny and cool. You see it like whenever you see festival footage or reels or TikToks. You always see it. It's on there somewhere on the screen. Whether you have the timer and then you have the decibel reader as well. So it's kind funny that you have that in the venue, but that makes sense. But to go back to what we were saying, these guys just... you have an established identity. And that's been, this has been time and time again, we've talked about this on the podcast, that has been what's working. Right? And I'm gonna tell you right now, I went and played on a much smaller scale than the user day party or DJs or anything like that, but I went and played a Britney night and I thought it was gonna flop and I thought it was gonna be terrible. The venue I thought didn't match what the Britney night was, and it wound up working and it worked well. And I was shocked and I have plenty of Britney remixes as well as her regular stuff and got to really mix it up and go in a lot of different places with just her music. And then the crowd that that brought in was able to me to then also bounce around to other places such as, know, girly pop, but also some like disco stuff, which sounds weird, but like that's kind of the crowd that I had in there. So you're right. And we've been saying it. over and over again, like having these established parties where party goers know what they're getting into is really, really hitting right now. And is this going to peter out at some point soon? Possibly because people might get sick of it. But I think getting back to the like we used to have getting back to the hip hop room, getting back to having the hip, the house room, like if you have a venue that has two rooms and really separating it. You know, that line got blended when AM came onto the scene and Beatbreaker obviously blending things for Crooklyn Clan and just that whole 2006, 2007, 2005 to 2007, all of those DJs that really made open format what it is now. I feel like getting back to that pre 2005 to where you had the separate rooms, like I'm saying, and you have... house music in one room, hip hop in the other room, or you could do straight open format in the other room, or whatever you wanna do, but just have an identity. I think the lack of identity is hurting venues, and always has. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I don't think open format DJing will ever be dead. And I think as DJs to learn to play every genre and play them together and go up and down in speeds, that makes you a better DJ. You earn your chops doing that. You earn your chops playing the private events where you have to play all these genres in different age groups. And then once you have that in your tool belt and you can do that, then you can go be more of, you know, a specialist. I wanna be a house DJ, I wanna be a hip hop, I wanna play Afro and reggae and Latin, like whatever the case may be. Having that stuff, you need that as a DJ, but. Open format rooms are dead. Shoot me, kill me in the comments, whatever you want to say. Right now, what is working are very specific, genre specific parties. People go there because they know what they're going to get. They're not walking into a place and maybe they hear five songs they really like and then the DJ switches it up and they don't like the next five songs and they leave. People are going to parties where they are going to hip hop and ribs. They're going to the Azure Day party because they know what they're gonna get. It's an experience. They're getting something that they want. If you like house music and you like Afro house, you go to the Azure Day party. If you like hip hop and R &B, you go to hip hop and R &B and ribs party. I just think that is the formula that's working. You like country music, you go to the country bar, right? You want to hear Bad Bunny, want to hear Alejandro, you go to the Latin party. And those are the parties that are doing the best right now. That's it. If you want to be successful, you have to have a very specific thing that you're telling your customers that you're doing. And as a DJ, it's the same thing, I think. You have to have an identity of what you are. Who are the people that you cater to? What's the style of music that you play? And I think now more than ever, it's extremely important that on your socials and the type of music that you're playing and the mixes that you're putting out, you showcase what you do. It can, I guess it can be open format. Open format will never die. I just think the open format rooms right now are not doing as well as these very specific style parties and rooms. think there's a very finite distinction to be made here. I think the middle level to high end parties all have an identity, right? I think everything that's like what we would consider like a low level DJ gig, what everybody would consider like a low level DJ gig somewhere maybe if you're just starting out, your corner bar, your local bar, that you're gonna make your chops, like you said, you're gonna make your chops in open format there. You're gonna have to work that room, right? because you're gonna have all different types of people in that room. People aren't specifically coming to that space for music. People are going to that space to drink, right? What I talk about mid -level is like, I don't even wanna say bottle service, because that's not accurate, but like, mid -level, like you're just mid -level DJ gagler. I don't wanna put a number on it, but like some place that, know, DJs are, right. average DJ is going to take aspire to play. It's maybe a higher end party in your market, right? I think establishing some kind of identity in those venues is important. Yeah, but I still think those venues, they can do like party specific nights. You can do Britney Spears night at a bar, and then you could do like rock night or you can do reggae night or whatever it is, because you're telling your customers what they're gonna get. People pay tickets to go to Brooklyn Mirage, to go see Taylor Swift, to go see Beyonce because they know what they're getting. There's no question, in a time where money is really tight, When people are going out to spend their money, they want to know what they're going to get. doing these specific genre or artist specific parties, people know what they're going to get and they're okay spending their money on that. And I think all level places can do this. Like even if you're the local bar, you can still do it, you know? Right. Yeah. I don't know. think Rick, Rick Wonder said, said this on a, on the road podcast. And I know, some of the, the, people on that show kind of fought back with him, but I don't know. I just really think that to be successful, you have to have an identity, whether you're a DJ or a venue right now. And that's just what it is in 2024. Well, that's what that I mean, Rick pivoted hard. He was he's he's an incredible open format DJ. Unbelievable. One of the one of the best in New York City for a long time. You know, we've played plenty of venues that he's been through and venues that he came up in, that he was the best open format DJ in that venue or in those several venues that we were in there with with with him and. He pivoted straight to going to more EDM style, big room style, and focused on his production. And he's right. he's blown up tenfold because of that. So yes, I could see where he's coming from on that 100%. too, he has that open format chops so that even if he's in a room that they hired him to play his music, right? Like he can pull from past experiences or pull a track out that maybe he wouldn't normally play, but he knows is gonna work and help the room or he goes to a new city and it's not a house music only venue. Like having that background and being able to do that makes you a better DJ and a better artist when you do specialize. Yeah, not only can he do it, he can do it in an impressive fashion, right? And that's an even bigger feather in his cap. What do we talk about? Like we work with a lot of DJs, right? The hardest thing for me is when we're working with a DJ and I say to Gary, like, I don't know what this DJ, what this person is. I don't know. I don't know what their identity is. I don't know what rooms to put this person. To me right now, that's, that's a struggle that I have. So if you're a DJ listening to this, ask yourself, what is your identity? And whatever that is, are you portraying that and putting that in out into the world? And if you're not, you need to figure out a plan and a way to do that. It's really important right now. Like if you're a tech house person and you're producing tech house and that's what you're doing, don't make a dubstep mix. Don't make an open format mix that you're promoting if that's not what you want to be. Now, have those mixes in your back pocket so if someone wants to book you open format, you can send it to them and you can do it. It shouldn't be the featured mix on your socials though. Right, but don't make it the featured mix on your Instagram profile or your socials, it's right. mix should be what you do when and what you do best because everybody's looking at that. It doesn't matter if it's the highest end place or the lowest end place. There were, everybody's looking at your socials as your resume, as we always say time and again, make sure that shit is clean. Make sure you're featuring mixes that showcase what you do and who you are. And if you're a completely open format DJ, make sure you have a mix of showcases that, you know, If it's everything from disco to Afrobeats, then make sure you have a mix that showcases that because you could do it, you know, and make sure that that's the one that you have up. Because I feel like that's the hardest thing, right? Especially as somebody who does do that. That's the hardest thing is to, hey, what do you play? I play everything. Well, that's a really boring answer, right? I have people ask me that all the time. Well, I play everything. No, like I literally play everything, but that's... It's a boring answer. Like, so what do I have to show people that I play everything? Right? So you have to make sure you have a mix that showcases all of that stuff, or make sure that whatever you're showcasing your mixes on, whether it be a SoundCloud page, whether it be your website, make sure that you have a series of mixes labeled very specifically, this is what these things are. You know, this is my Afro mix, this is my disco mix, et cetera. Yeah, I think that's great advice. Things are changing and we as DJs and producers have to change with what's popular and what's happening in the market. And this is what's happening in the market, you know? I think one thing that really started like weighing on me and made me really kind of, I'm still doing open format, right? I'm still playing rooms that most rooms we play, like there's not a lot of parties where I can just go play 128 the entire time. There's a good amount and I'm picking and choosing more of those because that's what I want to do. but I'm still doing some open format or some of the parties I'm playing still require me to play 15 % hip hop and Latin, let's say, right? But like what pushed me away from wanting to play those open format spots would be like playing a room where I find a pocket of people that are into one thing, right? Or I get a request and I go down a rabbit hole and we start playing one thing and then this other pocket of people is booing me or is pissed because they want me to play something completely different that I was playing maybe an hour ago. Yeah. another group of people, like they might be vibing, but they want to hear Jersey Club. And another group of people, they want to hear EDM classic bangers. But like, you can't make all of those people happy at the same time. You have to rotate through. And it's like, you could never make anyone happy. And I don't like feeling that way. Part of that is maybe the room, the particular room that I'm talking about. doesn't necessarily have the identity. So you just get this group of people that you're trying to make happy. And like, that's a room that I don't play anymore or want to play anymore because I don't want to feel that I'm not doing a good job because there's different groups of people that want different things and you can't make them all happy. You can, but you have to, like, you just got to move so fast and I'm okay doing that, but I don't want to do that. I just don't. It's a lot of work in a long period of time in a lot of these places, right? You know, the elongation of DJ sets has really ruined this. I don't think we brought this up. The elongation of DJ sets has really ruined open format, in my opinion. Four hour sets. You could do four hour sets of open format and be very effective and be very interesting. Right, because you're moving fast, you're working hard, you're jumping through genres. And it's not that you're not working hard and moving fast while playing one specific genre, but your brain is working like quadruple time because you're trying to fit all these pieces together. In a five hour to five and a half hour set, which we're seeing more and more in our market that that ownership and managers are demanding and then still want an effective open format set. It's not realistic. It's not realistic. We tell owners all the time that our DJs are not gonna be as good after the fourth hour. And that's just part of the way that we sell it. like, you and I both think that's really true. And that's honest, you know? that, for sure. For sure. Now, can we all go in and do it? Absolutely. Absolutely. But is it going to be as interesting? Like those 10 minutes each hour of filler because, you know, don't want to burn everything out, well you pull that down and now that's 40 minutes gone of your five hour set. And you know, now you can have more of a finite four hour effective, interesting, very energetic DJ set. Instead of pushing this out over five, five and a half hours. There's plenty of times where I'm like, I'm I tell you all the time, I'm going sometimes at 945. I shouldn't have even started till 10 o 'clock. Right. Well, and part of this is also just like the different what's working again now and it's moving quickly. It's playing energy from the jump. Like there is no opening anymore. There I truly believe that like you're yes, you're an opener, but you you have to, you have to bring energy from the first song you play. I used to talk about this when I would go play casino sets, right? I'd open at a casino and it's energy from the second jump street because someone's there celebrating and partying and they're there to have a good time. and that's what the casinos wanted. But now it's every single room that we play, you know? It's every room. the attention span that they once did, right? Nobody is patient enough to sit through an opening set at this point. They want to hear what they want to hear now. And just as you were saying, it's like, if I don't hear what I want to hear now, because we live in a very unattentive, very privileged world at this point, they're going to move on to the next place. So we're in this place where we have to be energetic and we have to be attentive to what people want who are in that room. at that point. And nobody cares about the opening. it's not that there's, the art of opening is still a thing. You still have to be an opener if you're in that position. You can't play the biggest records, you can't play the highest energy records, you can't play the put your hands up records. But there's so much music out there and there is a way to play high energy, up tempo stuff that the crowd is gonna be into and you're still not burning the headliner if that's how your night is broken up. you're not letting songs play out, you're quick mixing from the jump. And that's different too, you know? And you're playing a lot more songs. So things have changed in that regard too, you know? Yeah, for sure. Well, let's rewind this completely back to, you know what? Let's talk about the basics. Let's talk about new DJs, right? And how to establish yourself when you're first starting out and then building yourself up into this place where you have an identity as a DJ and you've established a good base of fundamentals in order to build skills upon. you know, the things that you should be doing as a very beginner DJ. I had come up there for some family things I had to take care of up north, kind of on a whim, and I was in one of our venues on a Monday night, there was not one of our DJs wasn't on. They had another DJ. I thought you were in Florida when you heard this. I didn't even know it was from up here. Interesting. of our venues, not one of our DJs though. It was a Monday, which is, you're gonna get a kick out of that I guess too. no, so we're sitting there, we're having dinner, right? Food was great, we had a good time, food was good, we're having a couple cocktails. My whole family and then like my aunt, my uncle, a couple cousins, it was good. but we hear that they're doing like a night next door. They were doing like a game night, bingo, trivia, whatever it was, something. And I hear it happening and the game that they're doing, whether it was bingo or trivia, is moving at an absolute snail's pace. And now I'm like, all right, this guy's never done a night like this. He's never done a bingo night in his life, right? I'm like, okay, fine. Not a big deal. Now he's starting to mix and I'm like. This guy can't fucking mix anything. He couldn't Like nothing, there was like nothing that he could do. The most basic beats he couldn't mix together, right? Then every 35 seconds he was using his drop. Right, so now I'm like, all right, there must be a bunch of people over there playing like bingo because like he's playing the super energetic music. He's train wrecking everything and he's playing his drop every 30 seconds. I was like, so the room's got to be filled, right? Like this all, I'm in a different room playing up what the other room looks like in my head. As a DJ, if I was to be doing this, I would only be doing some of these things if I had a filled room, right? I mean, he's focused on the music, he's not focused on the bingo portion of the night, right? So he's there for bingo, but he's rather train wrecking garbage music the entire time. You know, and so he's not doing his job in any fashion. Zero ways he's doing his job. And I could just tell like, okay, this is just a new DJ, right? I get up, I go to get another drink, my family leaves, I go get another drink at the bar. There's three people. Three people in the room. Actually, there was six. The old lady and her friend got up because he wasn't finishing bingo fast enough and they left. So he loses a huge percentage of the customers because he's not being effective at his job. It sounds like a bad booking by the venue. Sounds like they needed a get down DJ in there. I think so too. And I'm not saying that for that, but I'm saying this because as a new DJ, I think you need to walk in and you have to know your purpose and you have to know what you should be doing and you should know what you should be doing well, right? So if you're booked to be a bingo DJ, if you're booked to be a trivia guy, that's what you do, that's your focus, it's not for DJing that. And if you are going to DJ, make sure you know how to mix. And make sure you're playing the correct music for the venue that you're in. Right, you're at a local bar on a Monday, they don't wanna be, he had a couple tracks that were good, like there was like a freestyle track that played that like fit like this table that was there. He should have been playing like a couple more older tracks for the older people that were there, that wasn't, like the 50 Cent and then like also like the Kendrick Lamar, like that just. Yeah. Kendrick Lamar did not work, you know? And I think just honing those very basic things, clean mixing, music selection, organizing your music in a way that's effective for the gig that you're at. All of those things need to be impeccable when you first start out. Because realistically, if you're a new DJ, you don't know who's in the room. We talk about this all the time, too. There was 15 to, actually no, I'm sorry, our table was 12, and then there was probably another 15 to 20 people in the other room, right? And out of those 35 people, there was a booker in the room. And I was gonna walk up and introduce myself, and I thought, the way that he handled the night, there wasn't a shot ever that I was gonna go up and say who I was, and give him my card. So you have to make sure all of these things move. before you take a job, I feel like you should really ensure that you at least have one of these things in line. Whether that's mixing, whether that's song selection, whether that's just executing the bingo night or the trivia night correctly. Because if he even just did that well, I would have went up and got his information. Could always use a bingo guy. Could always use a trivia guy, right? We'll worry about the mixing, we'll get you there. Well, get your song selection there. That's not a big deal. But because he didn't do any of those things, correct? It probably cost him some work. You just don't know who's in the room. And that goes for established DJs that are doing low, extra low, call them lower end gigs. I'm quoting if you're listening to this. I'm not watching. lower end meeting just like these low leverage gigs where you're like, maybe it's a brunch and it's a little slower. Well, you don't know who that guy at the bar is that that's listening to you. You don't want to be lazy because you might be passing. You might be passing gigs up right there because you're being lazy because you think that nobody's in the room. You know, so I don't know. It's just. I haven't heard a brand new DJ in such a long time and it made me think about all of these things. It made me think about what I did when I was a young DJ too and like and how I try to grow and be in situations where you were always a student of of you always just being a student, right? If that old lady came up and she said she wanted to play Frank's, hey, can you play Frank's an outro? I'm like, well, I have 50 cent on well, how am going to mix these two? Right, like what am I going to do in order to make this sound clean? Sounds like my nightmare. But this is what you deal with when you're 19, right? And you're 18 years old, and you're DJing in the local bar, right? I mean, you didn't really do that as much as I did. I did that for many, years, like many years of just standing in the local bar and DJing for the 60 -year -old guys in the room that all wanted to listen to Zeppelin, right? And it's like, well, how am I gonna? and I hate it now. But what I'm saying is for these younger guys that are just coming up, if you can get out of those rooms and you can rock those rooms effectively, you're really prepared for anything once you get out of that space. It's working your way out of that space that is very hard. Yeah, mean, some of the stuff you're talking about is just like the most basic stuff of DJing. It's like, all right, well. like we talk about all the high end stuff. Sometimes you gotta talk about the most basic, get back to the basics and the fundamentals of it that guys don't think about. can you can think about it from how we judge and listen to DJs, right? Like the first thing I'm going to listen to, the first thing I'm going to take notice of is, is how clean you're mixing, right? If you can blend songs, and you don't have to be a crazy, you know, Red Bull three style, style DJ, to be impressive, you can be impressive by your music selection, and the way that you create a flow in the room and how you move through genres. And That's okay too, you know, like that's important. That's the first thing that someone who's listening to you is gonna see and hear. The music selection is super important too, and that's your taste and your ear, and I can't teach you that. Gary can't teach you that. That's on you. Some people have great ears, amazing taste. Some people don't have any taste or don't have a good ear and... Sorry to say, like those people probably aren't gonna make it very far in the DJ world, you know? Like the DJ is the tastemaker and is the person who kinda is creating the vibe and you have to have that. And if you don't have it, it's really hard to teach someone that, I think. The music selection stuff, like on a very simple level, the way you organize, download and organize music is like... the most important thing, the next most important thing that you can focus on after your DJ skills, right? Create those crates. Do it in a way that makes the most sense for you. How can you find music? How can you move through genres quickly and easily and find the stuff that you need to play? And then like Gary said, when you're in the room, it's like you're mixing cleanly and you're playing and you're showing some energy and being excited to be there. Like that's the next thing, right? Do you look miserable up there? If I walk into a place and a DJ looks miserable, like I'm not going to say what's up to him. But if that person's rocking out and they're dancing and they're smiling and they're high fiving people and they're interacting with the crowd, like that shows me that you love to be there and you love DJing. And it doesn't matter if you're Brooklyn Mirage or you're playing a local spot that you're just creating. You're making it fun for everybody that's there. So that's the next thing I'm going to look for. And then the final thing is like, If I do come say what's up to you, or I talk to you after the set, like you got a little bit of a personality and you can talk to people and you know how to interact with the staff and that's an important part of it too. And I think as a young DJ, if you focus on those couple things, those three things, like that's a great way to get started and, and, you know, start to, to get your foot in the door and make a little bit of a name for yourself beyond just being a veteran DJ. Fantastic advice, I love it. Man, baby DJ life. It's hard. It's one of, it's, every level, to level up on every level is very hard in thinking about it. I was going to say, my knee jerk reaction was to say that's the hardest, that's the hardest level up, is getting out of the bar, but it's not, every level is difficult. Yeah, it's snowball. think it's a snowball effect, right? It's the getting the ball rolling is always going to be the hardest part. But once you get the ball rolling down the hill, you start to pick up some momentum and some steam. And if you can take advantage of that, you can grow relatively quickly if you're skilled and you have the networking capabilities and some social media. I mean, like you can move quick if you got the juice. If you don't got the juice, I mean, you're going to be stuck. You're gonna be stuck. In the same spot, me and RM talk about that all weekend, if he's got the juice or not. Hahaha Shout to RM, man. Took care of me all weekend, bought me dinner, let me stay at his house, like A1 that guy, A1. And one of the best DJs that you'll ever see in here. I haven't seen him in a long time. gotta make sure I go see him. here in November. He's coming down. Maybe I gotta go up before it gets too damn cold. should, he's got a room up there right now in Boston that's like Gary W 101. You would crush sport and leisure too, man. Yeah, from what I heard. was a cool spot. We had dinner before it was good. To go back on something, I'm gonna, this might be taking our conversation off the rails a little bit, but I think, you know, we talked a lot about the venues and DJs that are more established, like having identities. I think as a young DJ, you're doing everything, but your goal is to start building that identity, but you have to build the foundation first. And then you could start talking about, well, I wanna be this style of DJ, right? I don't know. I think that's something that you can get to. And there's ways to do that and social media is gonna be one big way, but the mixes and some of the stuff we talked about earlier is another. I'm trying to figure out how to transition into this other topic that I wanna talk about. I think something... Something I've talked to multiple DJs about here recently, it's DJs who are doing both nightlife and private events. And Gary, we didn't even talk about this, but it was something I really wanna talk about, because I think it's important for everybody to hear. I think it's a great thing if you're playing in both worlds, right? You can learn a lot about being a club DJ by being a private event DJ. You can learn a lot about being a private event DJ. by being a club DJ and taking some of that stuff back and forth. I think the best DJs can and have done both things. But if you're a DJ that wants to play in both worlds, you have to consistently play in both worlds. You can't dip into the nightlife scene when the private event scene slows down and vice versa. And specifically for some of the private event DJs that we've worked with, and I've had these conversations with a few of them already, you know who you are out there. Ha ha. Like if you're starting to build momentum in nightlife, you can't just completely disappear when the seasons change and your private event stuff picks up. You have to make sure that you can somehow balance both. You gotta save those nightlife gigs or dates for nightlife when the private events come back. And vice versa, like you still wanna do some private events even during the solo season, right? Like keeps your sword sharp and keeps you... you know, working with those companies or with the people who are you booking you in both worlds. Like, you can't build momentum in nightlife and then disappear for a quarter kind of thing, you know what I mean? Yeah, you hear it all the time on both ends, right? I've talked to countless over the years, countless private event DJs that wanna be club DJs. It's just, for whatever reason, naturally, what people wanna do. then when club DJs, if you're not being booked, or you get booked for a wedding or something, and then you start to get momentum doing weddings and things like that, I've seen people start leaning into that more because the money's better. But then they still want to come back and do the nightlife thing and it's very difficult to then come back if you've then like you said leaned into the night into the Private event thing so hard that you kind of got forgotten about in the nightlife space That's what's going to happen right? because I've seen it happen to three different nightlife DJs that I came up with that we've tried to do both together and I've seen them lean so hard into the private event space that they tried to come back to nightlife and it was like Right, their window has closed at that point. closed and it was gone. they didn't have the connections that they once had. know, management had changed in the venues that they were at, so nobody knew who they were. And it became very difficult for them to come back. And they never, they actually never came back, these two or three people I'm talking about. So you really have to find a balance in doing both and understanding. when to take your foot off the gas on one and when to put your foot on the gas and the other. Yeah, again, it goes back to having an identity, right? Are you a private event DJ or a Unite Live DJ? You can do both, but you'll never be the best in either space if you're going to do both. That's my opinion. I mean, we've, you know, we've talked with Angelo the Kid about this a lot years ago, years ago. Mikey Perario was like the first, the number one person saying Angelo, never book another wedding ever again kind of thing, right? But at the time, Angelo knew what he wanted to be and where he wanted to go. If you're a DJ and you know what your ultimate goal is, why are you doing this other stuff? You know, it's only getting in the way. It's only hurting you from reaching those ultimate goals. Everybody's goals are different, right? Maybe you maybe you just want to do both and make money. And I understand the money side of it that plays a big role too, right? You're a full time DJ, you have to make money to pay the bills. And those private events are usually big money makers, right? So I get it. But if you're a DJ that wants to ultimately be an artist, right? You wanna make music, you are making music already. You're playing some pretty good shows. You can't just disappear and go do night private events because it's busy and you have every Saturday booked in private events. You just can't do that. If your ultimate goal is to be an artist and be to play the biggest shows that you can play. you'll never be looked at as fully a nightlife DJ, right? Because you have to, like you said, you have to fully commit. that's looked at upon your peers, that's looked at upon ownership and management and bookers in the area. That's everybody. Everybody will look at you like, okay, you just wanna do half and half. I've had multiple conversations in the last week since I've come back with venue owners and managers that have said to me, isn't that DJ a private event DJ? I haven't seen them post anything about nightlife. And I literally, I said, I wanna book this person. They said, isn't this person a private event DJ? What can, how can they bring it? Can they bring people out? Like what have they done in nightlife lately? So like this is a thing, not just DJs watching, this is bookers and owners and like guys, they see what's happening, they see what you're doing, there's a reason why we're posting all the shit we post, right? They see it. So yeah, so I just think in talking about this like focused identity driven things we've been talking about today, I wanted to bring that up because it's something I want you to think about, If it's the summer and it's the slow season and your heavy nightlife season is starting in the fall like it is around here, you can't tell me as a DJ you don't have any dates to give me for nightlife. If you wanna be a nightlife DJ. It just slows your momentum. hurts the, you know, that ball we've been talking about. Like, it slows that snowball down. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that you're not going to work nightlife anymore, but... It's a what have you done for me lately type thing. And it's, you know, it's just it's just how our industry is. And I'm not talking about me and you. just talking about in general. We live in a very specifically, specifically very cutthroat, very competitive DJ market where it's very difficult for guys to do both. I think there are definitely, there are definite markets that you can excel at both, but I think our market specifically, and I don't know, you know, I don't know very, I don't know every market. I'm thinking of like two or three different ones that I know that guys that do dip into both and are pretty good at both, but, But it's so cutthroat. It's next man up every week. definitely do it. You just can't disappear from each like you can't just completely like, for example, if if I was someone who was trying to do both, I would try to line my schedule up where if there's four weeks in the month, and I have eight total Fridays and Saturdays, I'm going to try to do for nightlife and for private events. That's how I would try to set up my thing. And I get it. The private events come across your your your plate. It's it's good money. But like There's gotta be a way where you can still make money on the private event and send another DJ. Like there's gotta be. We've been doing it, right? Like I don't wanna play in private events because I'm trying to do this nightlife thing and I look at it like, yeah, it's great money but me playing a private event does nothing for what I'm trying to do. Yeah, ATK. No private events allowed. He was banned from booking weddings. Ha ha ha ha. He's gonna laugh when he hears this. All right, I'm gonna get into this last topic or you wanna save this one. I was listening to one of the podcasts I listen to on a daily basis, like a business, whatever, business news podcast. And there was a story that I heard this morning that said that cassette tapes are at a 20 year high in sales. And I didn't know this was even something that was happening behind the scenes that like younger people are like basically buying cassette tapes as like collectibles. How many people would even know how to use a cassette tape if they had like a boombox in front of them, right? That are listening to this. Nobody that's under, I don't think anybody that's under 30 years old, 35? one. I think how to is one thing. I think how many people listening to this podcast have ever used a cassette tape, period. I think that's probably a better question. Gary, don't think I've picked up a cassette tape or used a cassette tape in since I was like a little little kid. cassette tapes stopped being made, you ready? In 2002, 2003. Stopped being made. So major labels stopped producing cassette tapes in 2002, 2003 in that area, right? So that means anybody who's 20 to 24 years old, right, they were born between 2000 and 2004. During that span, cassette tapes stopped being made. They were zero. One year old. Yeah, like I was listening to CDs and like my Discman and then my MP3 players. some of those kids were not even born, if you're 21, you were not born when cassettes stopped being made. So therefore, there's no nostalgia in that because your parents weren't using cassettes. Whereas when we were kids, I got addicted to vinyl because my dad had a stack of vinyl and I loved to put vinyl on, I liked the act of it, and let's be real. I liked scratching his vinyl when I was like six years old and he'd want to kill me because it literally scratched because you know it's a diamond tip needle and it's not made for scratching and it literally scratches the records. So you'd get killed for things like that. I can remember scratching Bruce Springsteen I thought I was going to get thrown through the wall. We have a you know we have a nostalgia we have there's a nostalgic connection. But we but you and I have a maybe not as much, but I guess a little bit right now. But what I'm saying is I think we have a nostalgic connection to vinyl. What are kids, 21 year olds right now, connection to cassette tapes? There is none. dad had a wall of cassette tapes when I was a little kid in the basement. I still have it. I still have. of vinyl too. But like, you get in the car, my dad would put a cassette tape on, right? I think? Or, I mean, obviously CD mostly, but like, when I was really little, he had cassettes. Really, really, really little. My dad was big, he was big into electronics, so I don't remember anything but CDs. I think he might have had the first CD player. And I talked to him. dad, your dad being all about the new tech. I talked to him like, you couldn't afford that. He's like, no, absolutely I couldn't afford that, but I bought it. He had the best stereo, his stereo system was ridiculous. The sound was insane and it was all like 1985 and CDs, I was just looking this up, CDs came out in 82. So they were relatively new and he was buying these CDs in 85, 86. That's not like CDs are still even nostalgic to us. Like, and that's why people use CDs still that are that are our age. My cousin has that's what my cousin uses in his car. He doesn't use any digital because he thinks CDs he has. He travels around with like a book of like 100 CDs. Actually, I got a funny really quick and a little off topic, but really quick. He's traveling back with his girl from Maine last week and the fucking tape he has like the old tape thing that like that connects to his iPod. or whatever the hell he has, mad old school. He's got an old car, it's like an 02. Anyway, that thing breaks and now his poor girlfriend's subjected to nothing but Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, and fish for like 10 hours. He was telling me a story, I'm like this poor girl, she hated it. anyway, we have a connection to CDs and nostalgia as well and the sound quality on CDs is better than vinyl, whether you... Believe that or not it is and it's obviously exponentially better than mp3 So I can understand and there's convenience in having a CD you can flip through the tracks and you know having a You can have a CD book in the car and you know what it's a great way to listen to albums, right? It's a great way to go through a whole album what you see, you could do that too. You can go that route if you feel like it, right? you know, and then obviously the vinyl thing, know, the sound quality, like I said, the nostalgia, but vinyl's expensive now. Right. I think we saw the resurgence first with vinyl, right? People vinyl got really popular, like you saw how many how many like little like urban outfitter and some of these places like they sell vinyl and they sell vinyl players and it got cool again to like collect vinyl. But now it's too expensive to collect vinyl. And I think these kids are like looking for another like another cheaper outlet that they can collect and I guess it's cassettes. But it's so dumb. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The sound quality is terrible. Where's the convenience in it? I gotta rewind? I gotta rewind, Cream? Fast forward? a Sony Walkman that you put your cassette tape in or something? Yeah, my uncle used to go to work and carry that thing around every day. I remember it. Like it's yesterday. click it closed? There's no convenience in this. what like I said, what's old is new. Like, I see a lot of people now in the clubs that have those old school digital cameras, or polar like Polaroids got popular for a while, then digital cameras got popular again. It's like, I don't know, I think people are just, like we said, what's old, like what's old is new and nostalgia and people want to be cool. And I guess cassettes are cool again. I don't I'm not buying into this. first I've heard of this. So that's why I really wanted to talk about it. Cause like, has anyone else seen or heard of this? Do you know anybody that even has remotely talked about, I picked up a cassette to add to the collection. Like, is that a thing? I buy into old stuff all the time. I'm 100 % on board with buying into older trends and things that were popular at one point. This is one that I can't get involved in. low, Gar, buy low, sell high. I'm sure you can go to a record store right now and there's probably a wall of cassette tapes that you can take off the owner's hands for pennies. Like I'll take all your cassettes for whatever, 200 bucks. I'm talking all this shit. have 50 tapes right now in my living room currently because because as a I'm not part of the movement. I'm a Grateful Dead fan. If anybody has any knows any history about the Grateful Dead, their their entire music catalog was moved and traded about their live tapes were taped by these guys, these tapers that the dead would let in. And they take the tapes and that people would people would copy them and then they passed them out and then that's how the legend of the Grateful Dead grew. They used it as promotion. The Grateful Dead let Taper's tape to use as promotion and then as the tapes got passed about, it's like wow, this band is so much better live than they are on their album, which is true. They grew a larger and larger audience and fan base and now Taper, they're still Tapers. To this day, there's Tapers in the in the Grateful Dead crowd that tape every show. And they had a specific tape that they would use, TDKs I think they were. And so I have like 50 of them in my. the next cream mix? No Spotify playlist. We're doing it cassettes, baby. Holy shit. remember that was one of my first mixes was on cassette and I would sell them for five bucks in the lunch in the lunchroom. Can you even go and buy something that you can play cassettes on right now? Like a Sony boombox or something? Like I guess you can, right? I'm sure my mom has one in the attic somewhere in the basement that I can go grab. A thousand percent. My mom doesn't throw stuff away. You should go check it out. Here you go. take my mom to the airport today and she hasn't flown in a really long time and it was like incredible having to like coach her through everything. It was hilarious. She's not an airplane person, so I thought it was hilarious. right now, real quick, cassette. I mean, there's little cassette player boom boxes, 33 bucks. There's just like a Walkman, I guess you'd call it, right?$28. wild. I just thought it was funny. wanted to bring it up and it was just interesting to me. But for our music conversation, I thought it was a good it was it was a good topic to at least touch on. Enjoyed that. All right, let's wrap right here. We're back guys. This is like full sprint to fall, full sprint through the rest of the year. So Gary and I are gonna be pumping content and podcasts and all kinds of stuff. we're excited for this is always the busiest time of the year. Lock in, get your shit. us with any questions that you guys might have, any topics that you might wanna hear, because we're always down to hear some new topics from you guys and to know what you guys are interested in, what you wanna hear and what you wanna learn about, or what you wanna hear us banter about back and forth, anything, really. Anything for the show, let us know. For the kids, yeah, for the kids. All right, guys, thanks for listening to this episode. We'll talk to you guys soon. Peace. Okay, peace.