The DJ's Dilemma 🚩

On this episode of the Grow My DJ Business, Cream & GaryW discuss:

• Why Halloween has become the biggest holiday for DJs.
• A Cream rant on Halloween Edits.
• The most important thing a DJ can do......be on time.
• Slower gigs are important too! If you're not there to really work, don't take the set.
• DJs are the highest paid employees in the venue
• DJs are becoming more replaceable. 
• Why your body language and engagement matter.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Halloween Weekend Overview
• 3:01 The Evolution of Halloween as a Major Holiday
• 6:04 DJ Strategies for Halloween Events
• 8:56 Why Holiday Edits and Remixes SUCK
• 12:01 Navigating Criticism and Accountability in DJing
• 23:59 Approaching Off-Peak Sets and Reading the Room
• 30:48 The Art of DJing: Passion vs. Performance
• 50:00 Navigating the DJ Landscape: Events and Recognition

Transcript

0:01

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 166th episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast brought to you by the Grow My DJ Business Discord, Digital Music Pool and the Pyrrhoi Production Academy. My name is Kareem. Gary W here and just saving episodes one pair of headphones at a time. We started recording and I was like, something doesn't sound right here and Kareem's microphone wasn't on. Me and Gary have had a day, so like, if we recorded this entire episode without me having a proper working mic, it wouldn't have shocked me. It made a lot of sense. And this goes to show what being prepared in advance, when you're prepared in advance, things go better. We're doing this, going into Halloween weekend and I'm traveling tomorrow. just one of those weeks that if we got ahead an episode or two, it would have probably benefited us here. this week and next week, having two Halloween weekends in a row, which, listen, I think that we should be grateful to have two Halloween weekends in a row, right? I love when Halloween falls on an off night or a Thursday and not a Friday or Saturday because it does give a little bit of a jolt to all of the venues and a lot of the bar and nightlife spaces because Halloween's become the biggest holiday of the year, as we've learned in the last two years here, coming out of the pandemic. I feel like coming out of the pandemic, Halloween's become like the thing. I don't know if it's a social media thing. don't know what it was. you know, prior pre-pandemic, it was like, all right, the Santa cons were big and things like that. And all of a sudden, like Halloween lines are on the block for all of the parties, all of the venues. It doesn't matter if there is a quote unquote party going on, places are packed. so like, year that Halloween has become the biggest single, biggest holiday weekend of the entire year as a DJ, and I think as a partygoer as well. Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. The last two years, it's been just a smack dab on everybody's radar, and it's been the target on the calendar. Yeah, I would say previously, we had SantaCon or, you know, whatever you would call that in your market around Christmas, the bar crawl that turns into the night and then St. Patrick's Day, right? And some sort of a bar crawl that turns into a night. Those were the two giant, massive nights or weekends. And now Halloween has greatly surpassed both, I'd say, with SantaCon being the next biggest. Yeah, it used to be, it definitely used to be St. Patty's as like the big one, at least in our area, in multiple different towns. yeah, I mean, listen, you go to St. Patty's up in Boston, we're talking about like, that's the party day, you know, that's one of their two party days of the year, their other one being the marathon, right? So it does vary market to market, but we've seen ours evolve into a different, couple different holidays. You know what I don't understand? I don't understand why the big Halloween weekend is, I guess, when you guys are listening this, it's going to be the weekend that just passed. Where to me, in my brain, it makes a lot more sense for everyone to celebrate Halloween on actual Halloween, which is a Thursday this year, the 31st, and then November 1 and 2. I don't understand why we're doing this whole thing for two weekends or like half and half. It doesn't make sense to me. I personally... going into this thought, 31, 1, and 2 should have been the big Halloween weekend for nightlife. I agree. For some reason it turned into the October 25th, 26th weekend. What I've heard from numerous people is that, and this is a quote, nobody wants to dress up after Halloween. So November 1st, nobody's going to dress up for, neither November 2nd either. But what we've learned from a couple of our venues is that people are throwing Halloween parties on November 2nd. at some venues and buying out spaces and getting bottles in some areas and getting spaces that they can have their 10, 20, 30 people get togethers and they're still gonna dress up. So I think it varies, you know, I think it varies. if they're dressing up the weekend of the 25th and 26th, then maybe potentially going out on the 31st. Like there's no way people are gonna be dressed up November 1 and 2, in my opinion, but I could be wrong. Yeah, see, what we've seen in the past is that on the Friday, on the Friday that the holiday's being celebrated, the Friday you see some people out in costumes. It's not like full on, it's maybe like 50-50. And then obviously Saturday's the day and that's where you're have lines around the block everywhere and for whatever reason it is this week. And maybe it is because it's before. and nobody wants to celebrate right after. It'd be like having a Christmas party on the 26th or the 27th. I kinda understand that. You need a little break until New Year's at that point. plug here. So as entertainment director of birch in Hoboken, initially, you know, we were talking about doing either two weekends or celebrating this Halloween 31st, first and second. I'm booked on November 2nd at birch and Once we decided that 25th and 26th was gonna be the big weekend, we pivoted and we're now doing a 360 DJ booth on the floor of the dance floor, me and Dario Valley on Saturday, November 2nd, to try and like, you know, coax people out after a big holiday weekend and doing something different. We haven't done in that space yet. We haven't done it in our market yet. So I'm excited to try to do something different and fun and hopefully it's successful so we can do it more. Visually, we've talked about this for a long, long time in that space, and it just makes sense. The DJ booth right now is a little smaller, it's upstairs, it's a little out of the way. It just makes a lot of sense to have the DJs really in the middle of the dance floor, in the thick of it. And then that upstairs area really does feel like a VIP area where it's kind of isolated and up away from everything and overlooking. write the dance floor. area, is amazing. When you think about it that way, that becomes real VIP. I'm looking down, I'm outside of it, but I'm looking down on it, which is a great bird's eye view. I just think it's gonna be really effective, and I hope people come out and support the event and the party. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah, me too, I'm excited. I'm kind of bummed I'm not gonna be there. Like really bummed I'm not gonna be there. I'm a little pissed off that this is the weekend that was chosen, but you know, can't catch them all. and do some, you know, this is something we've been talking about, but it just sort of worked out. Let me ask you this question. Everyone in our Discord and anybody that knows me knows my absolute hatred for any holiday, Christmas, Halloween, St. Patty's edits or remixes. I just think they're terrible. I just think they usually don't work and all the bad edits ruin the one or two every year that come out that are actually decent. What do you think is the worst holiday of edits that are created? Shout to DMP, get your Halloween edits exclusively on the Digital Music Wall. I was supposed to send them Halloween edits and I just happened to not send them this year. What I, I don't know if I can pick one holiday or the other, and I don't mean to sound democratic here, but what I will point out is that if I have to hear another Michael Myers tone play, or for Christmas, all I all, or for Christmas, all I want for Christmas is you tone play, I'm gonna lose my mind. Just knock it off with that. It's been done so many times. It obviously gets updated with whatever the, with the popular songs gonna be, but you know, especially with the Mariah Carey track, like why would I play that into the other biggest track of like you're, you have two lethal tracks that you're gonna combine into one, like that makes no sense, number one. I'm never, ever playing that because I'm gonna lean on that Mariah Carey track three times throughout the night to garner a huge reaction. And then I'm gonna take whatever the biggest track is that's out and do that at a different time of the night because that's just more effective DJing. It's not. it doesn't make sense to mash them together and then play them within the same three and a half minutes. The Michael Myers tome play is just at this point unoriginal. did it initially, kudos to you, amazing job. I've definitely played it and that was amazing 10 years ago, but at this point it's been done a billion times. Let's just knock it off. There's so many other scary movies that have come out. in the past 10 years or five years even that can be utilized as whether it be tone plays, whether it be mashups and you you just kind of have to be a little creative with it. The one that I really enjoy and I still play from time to time is the squid games into, my gosh, yeah. No, squid games into the Okra's track. Do it, it. I really like that one. for a while. I really like that one, it flowed nicely. everybody didn't always understand or hear the Squid Game's portion of it, but if you're gonna play one, that's probably one that I would still play. Can you play that now? don't even know if you can. I'll take Halloween edits over any other holiday, not close. And I think the reason for that is, like you said, there are some more modern movies and themes and songs that you could use. Stranger Things, Squid Games. There's a few that have been used that are newer and something different. The same five Christmas songs get edited and tone-played and it's just awful and I hate it so much. Yeah. my ears when it's September 30th and I'm hearing Halloween edits on the record pools. I just want to punch my computer. But yeah, Halloween for sure. think also with Halloween, it gives you a lot more leeway to sort of create an original or a remix or just something a lot more unique because you can use like scary samples and like dark horror samples. And it doesn't have to be from a movie and you can create something really cool. This is the one time of year that I take the opportunity to go back and play a lot of the house music that was produced probably in the early 2000s, like Nightmare and like, there was actually almost like this horror house genre, if you will, that happened back then. I don't know if it was super on purpose, like, know, was Nightmares, the Brain Bug Nightmares, the one that stands out to me, and somebody did a Halloween. mashup of that recently. That came on my running playlist the other day and I was super hyped about it. was, you know, just an amazing track to me. I actually texted Pyrrhaery. I'm like, are we gonna get a Pyrrhaery update remix on this? And there's a bunch of Plasmac Honey tracks too. I'm like, obviously dating myself here, but guys, if you're looking to do some original stuff within a Halloween remix, check out all of Plasmac Honey's stuff, like The Funeral and... obviously the Brainbook Nightmare and there's a bunch of things from back in that era that can definitely, like if I was producing, that's what I would be doing right now. I'd just be adding new vocals over it. There's a really good Nightmare remix with Rihanna that was excellent, that came out last year that I played a bunch. And I'd even just play that normally, because the track is just good. So I... with their music. So the nightmare track you would know and then Plasmic Honey, you probably wouldn't know. That was like a little more like 98, I would say. that was being played probably like Twilo and Gosh, Exit wasn't even there. Sound Factory, places like that. But it was just a little more aggressive. 136 BPM, 138 BPM. And it just had like these very like dark and sinister strings and things like that. Very cool production. Yeah, I think it's cool to produce in that style. You know what song instantly came to my brain when we started talking about this? Knife Party Internet Friends. I had to look it up real quick because I couldn't think of who produced it. But it has like that, just like cool, like horror-y samples in there. Yeah, that became when that came out. What was that like? I don't remember the year that was, but when that came out, there were a few tracks that got produced in that style that were really, really, really good. My party was, was awesome. I think. Damn, that's way longer than I thought it was. I thought it was gonna be like 16, 17. Yeah, that was a good track too. But yeah, like you can you can dig deep in house music history and there is stuff that was produced not for Halloween, but could translate. Yeah, kind of funny we're talking about this because I did text Parari literally midway through my run and I was like, can you make a remix of this? Because I feel like you'd do a good job with it. Yeah, so anyway, so outside of that, we also have the Yankees this weekend, which is, or this weekend and possibly the following weekend. I know this is gonna come out. This. Dodgers, give me Shohei, Judge, Soto, give me all the stars, give me the, give me the favorites. Like this is what I want in a championship all day. It helps it's the Yankees. we're hoping that we had a good weekend, because this will come out what, Tuesday? And we'll be going into game four, so we'll see how hyped we are when this drops. One of our, yeah, yeah, go ahead. You know, for the first time in a long time, me and Gary got chewed out over the weekend by a venue owner. And we deserved it. We deserved it. It was one of those where Gary and I just had to take it. We had to just take it. There was no, there was no excuses. There was no, well, we should have done this. You should have done. It was just, you're right. We were wrong. We fucked up. Like it was one of those situations. Can I tell you how refreshing it was to just get chewed out? Hahaha! It hasn't happened in so long to me or like I haven't seen someone get you know in so long and I'm like this is just absolutely refreshing. We're not pussyfooting around. We're not we're not beating around the bush like we could do this better this could get there's like no you done fucked up. This was wrong. I'm sick of it and if it continues we're not having it anymore period and like just refreshing. Business needs to get done that way. I'm sorry, I'm a firm believer in it because that's the way I was brought up, that's the way I was coached, that's the way I was taught. it's just, you understand, okay, I'm wrong, right? There's no gray area, like maybe I wasn't wrong. Like there was, in this conversation, there was no doubt we were wrong, right? And it's just nice to know that. It's just nice to know this is what I'm pissed about. Like there's no shots where we're held back, you know, and it's just, I was refreshing, honestly. I know that sounds weird. So let's talk a little bit about how, like, when is the time to fight back on certain things? And when is the time for you to just be like, you know what, you're right, we fucked up. Like, I guess for DJs listening, right, if someone who booked you or a manager or someone approaches you and is critical or you did something wrong, like, how should DJs approach taking that critique? The black and white issues, meaning things like being late, Things like leaning on the wall and texting on your phone. Things like looking like you're not having a good time. These are the black and white issues. These are not the gray area things like music, which is subjective, right? Music's always subjective and that's always left up for argument because you might interpret it one way and I'm gonna interpret it another way. and then the manager and owner's gonna interpret it another way. The black and white stuff, if you're in the wrong, you eat it, you apologize, and you make sure it never happens again. And then you go a step beyond that, so if we're gonna talk about, let's talk about lateness, right? This is the one thing, am I going too far ahead here, talking about the lateness? You know, I wanna just talk about the black and white stuff, like that's the stuff that, that you just tuck your tail between your legs and you apologize and you ensure that it doesn't happen again. And things like when you're late, the owner doesn't wanna hear about traffic. They don't wanna hear about the train. They don't wanna hear about, you you got stuck behind a crashed bicycle. Like they don't care, you know? if you say, I'll stay the 15 minutes extra that I was late. That's like rubbing salt in the wound. That's not the point. that's, like, if you think that that solves the problem, that's, you're not looking at the problem. You're looking at something else. Right, right. So like, I think that's the stuff that you don't fight back on by no means. You don't say anything about it and you ensure that the next time you're gonna be 30 minutes early. You're gonna make sure that they know that you're 30 minutes early. because like, it's just, that's one of those things that it's hard to come back from. see it all the time. Lateness is the hardest thing to come back from because it then affects the way that your set is perceived. as well. Right, because everybody in the building is stressed. The DJ's not here. We have a packed house or the DJ's not here. It's been a couple weeks in a row. The same DJ has been late. It's like you already have this negative connotation towards your DJ set before you even step foot in the booth, right? And then on top of that, managers, owners, don't... totally understand how we prepare for sets, right? If you rush in and rush to plug in and just immediately start playing music, their perception is you're not prepared, you're just winging it because you're late. Like, someone actually said that to us this weekend. That's like the perception of that owner was, well, the DJ usually gets here early and they like set up the first five, six, seven songs they're gonna play and they come in ready to go and they prepare and they look around what's going on in the room and they pick their songs based on that. It's not rush in and just hurry up and get anything on to say that you started your DJ set. which I never thought about it that way, but it does give you time. When you're earlier, it gives you time to read the room, walk around, get a drink, understand that like, okay, this place usually has a bunch of 20 year olds at it, but there's a bunch of 40 year olds today watching football. I'm gonna approach my set completely different, right? Is it an afternoon young drinking crowd or is it a sports crowd that's sitting down and eating wings? You know, my set's gonna start completely different. Well, like you said, if you're just rushing to throw anything on, maybe you're not setting the tone with that first song. And honestly, a lot of times, my first song really dictates where I'm going to go, at least for the first 30 minutes. You know, because you want it to sound smooth. You don't want to start in, you know, area A and then wind up in area Z. Like, it sounds... then it sounds rushed and it sounds like you're just winging it. And nobody wants that, especially in a situation where... Where you're getting paid a lot of money in a lot of instances. Right? Let's circle back, right? Let's go back to the question I asked you initially that started this little side convo. But if you're a DJ and you're getting criticism or you're at, you and I, and we're getting criticism, when's the right time to just take it? And what do you say? What did we say in that situation? How do you approach that? You've been late a number of times in a row. How do you approach that compared to a different situation? The way I approach the lateness and then also with no shows too, because we've had over the many, years and the thousands of bookings, we've had no shows. It's gonna happen. That was the last time that I could think of that we got reamed out was for, I think we might've had a couple of no shows at the same venue in the course of like a month or two months. took that call because I work with that venue pretty much solely. And he wasn't like super mad, but he wasn't happy. And he did it. I just said, I just said, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do. And if you don't want to work with me anymore, then I don't blame you. You know? And. just like no excuse. You can't give excuses in these you making excuses, it just makes the person more angry. There are no excuses that can be made for your lateness. Nobody wants to hear that you were stuck in traffic because you've got to build that in. There's too much technology in place these days to know exactly how long or roughly how long it's going to take for you to drive from point A to point B. Because if I wake up and I see that it's going to take two hours to get there, well, I better get myself because being in the New York City, New Jersey area, you have the best public transportation in the world. You better get your ass to a train and get there in a way that you're gonna be on time. Nobody cares that there's traffic. You know, need to take a ferry, go do it. You need to take a train, go do it. Like, figure it out. the gig. And if you're going to be, if you could see that, okay, it's going to take two hours to get into the city. I don't think I'm going to make it. I now have two hours to find somebody that maybe can. Right. Because showing up 30 minutes late is unacceptable. Showing up 45 minutes late is unacceptable. Showing up 15 minutes late is unacceptable. Because of all the things that we had just already talked about. But let's go back to what you were saying. There's just no excuses. And that's the way you take the criticism. With no excuse, you have to just say, I fucked up. I messed up. You have to own it, you have to take responsibility, and you have to say, you know what? This will never happen again. And that's the only way that you can really move forward. And if it does happen again, then you're probably fired. The owner that I'm referring to that had happened to last year literally said, I wasn't expecting that. Like he just said, I wasn't expecting you to just own it. Right, but that's what a responsible adult human being does when they make a mistake. You own it, you know? Nobody wants to hear the thousand and one excuses. They've heard every excuse in the book already. Just own it. Apologize and that's it. Either we move on and we do better or we don't and we don't work together anymore and that's it. Because the minute I gave him an excuse, he was going to fire us. Right. Because that's what I would do. Because you just don't want to hear the excuse. Because you have a responsibility and you didn't uphold that responsibility. And that goes for all DJs. That's not just bookers. That goes for DJs that are just getting booked. You have a responsibility to be there and playing music on time. Just because your set time is four to nine, doesn't mean that you show up at 357. Right. That's your start time. Like you better play your first song, be prepared, play your first song, ready to go. Had said hi to everybody in the, in the room and read the room and saw who was there and started the correct way and had everybody at ease. Not like, my God, where is such and such. Right. Yeah. the lateness is is inexcusable. It really is. Well, that's sort of, you know, that's why we got yelled at, right? We've had DJs late for a number of weeks in a row at the same venue, while the owner is managing the room during that time, which is incredible to me. But let's talk a little bit about, like, that's a day shift, right? It's a slower shift. It's an off peak. It's not a Friday or a Saturday night. You never know what you're walking into. All those sets are a little bit different. It's extra money in our pocket. Let's talk a little bit about how to approach those sets. The first of which obviously is being early, right? Being on time means being early. It means being in the room. You say your hellos, you shake hands, you kiss babies, you check in, you see what the people look like in the room and what they're, what is playing and what they're, if they're, are they watching sports? Are they dancing? What are they doing? And then you go up there and you play your set and everybody's happy and, and you are look prepared and ready to go. That's the first way to approach an off-peak set. Yeah, it is. What are some of the other things that are important? Well, I'll start with, play a ton of off-peak sets, a ton. And you don't. So I can speak to this, you know, inside and out. And I love my day sets, because it's a little more laid back, number one, right? But because the set is laid back, doesn't mean you go into it and just mail it in. I'm gonna interject really quickly, because this can also go for slower nights, or maybe not like the greatest room ever. Maybe this is just a local bar, it's slower this night, or maybe it's a great room that just happens to be slower that night. So this can go for off-peak gigs, or just for slower nights in general. Sorry. I made my chops in local bars, right? And I approach these sets still to this day, this many years later, just like I would approach those nights, right? With no expectation. No expectation for genre, no expectation for just for any kind of flow or path. What I try to do during these sets is appease as many people in the room as I can, right? So I am going through every group of people and being like, okay, what do I think that they would listen to? Judging by how old they are, judging by how they dress, judging by, and then sometimes the venue that I'm at or the city that I'm in, that all kind of comes into it. And they do your best to kind of figure out, okay, let's try this, let's try that, right? And I just have one instance where I had this group of guys come in. And I'm like, these guys look like they could be like, I don't know, maybe African or like South African or something. And I'm like, let me play some Afro House. And I did, and they wound up knowing every song. And then the six of them, for an hour, danced with each other. They were the only people in the whole place that were moving. But I'm like, okay, do we have to profile? 1,000%, it's part of our job, right? They didn't even make a request. I just played whatever the biggest Afro house song was and they loved it. And like that is like one instance that really stands out to me because there was only maybe like 30 people there, you know, and that's kind what I do. Just pick these groups and it's always groups. If it's two people sitting there eating or two people just having a drink like a little harder to to gauge, the groups are going to be who react because they're there having a good time with each other. And it's just power and numbers kind of a thing. could change the energy of the room instantly if they decide to get up and start dancing or whatever the case may be. So that's kind of the first thing I do just go around and hit a bunch of genres that I think that, okay, are they going to react? Are they going to react? If they do, let me, I can always go back to it, right? And that's a huge tactic, but it takes a lot of work. Like that takes a lot of work to do. You're gonna work for 45 minutes to an hour just to kind of go through the room and play the different genres that you think might work. And they're gonna be a little. different. do this a lot at Ashwood Rooftop and I go a lot from like a I play Soka up there all the time and then I'll hit like city, New Jersey rooftop spot. Yeah, so it's a pretty diverse rooftop spot that we play, huge space, and I play everything from Soca to Afro House to Afro Beats to reggae to dance hall, just everywhere, just go everywhere. I find that to be a lot of fun. If you don't find all of this work to be fun, do not take these sets. If you're not there to like really work in DJ, don't take these sets because like, because then it looks like you're mailing it in. looks like you're bored. looks like you're not trying, you know, and it gets very easy to sit in one genre in these, in these sets and it gets easy to just kind of play what the popular stuff is and not really work to kind of find the vibe because you do, you have to pull it out of the people that are there. Yeah, I think it's commendable that you're you want to go do that. Like I love that that you're you want to play the gigs where you got to work and you got to jump genres and you got to figure it out and it might be a longer set and it might not pay as much as a night set. And like, you have to actually like DJing to want to go do that. DJing, that's the portion of it. If you don't love DJing, if you, we talked about this, and if you wanna hear more about performance versus DJing, there's a couple episodes ago we talked about that, but I get it, some of these upcoming DJs, they love the performance aspect of it, right? And they might not love that grind of the actual DJ set. Right. You can definitely speak more to like the afternoon day shifts. One of the reasons why I sort of stopped playing those is because I just wasn't really having that much fun in those anymore. And like, I started mailing it in. And once I started mailing it, I'm like, I can't do this anymore because it's not right. It's not right. You know, it's not right by the venue. It's not right to make this money and just sit here and like, go through the motions. When there's someone else... who would go there and play that set like it's like the best opportunity they could ever have, you know? And those are the type of people and those are the how you should approach those day or slower sets. You just talked about a daytime like work in the room. If I go to a place and it's a slower Friday or Saturday night, like I'm making my money no matter what. You're making, we're all making our money as DJs no matter what. The rest of the people working in that room are not. So it's almost a smack in the face for us to be up there looking miserable, not doing our best when we're the only ones in the room, including the venue that are actually making a flat rate no matter what. We're going to make our number, whether there's zero dollars across the bar or a hundred thousand. And you could look at that as a good or bad thing, right? Like whatever the case may be. But you know, this was something else that this owner that we had a conversation with also said to us, the DJ. is the highest, most expensive line item of the day, of the night. It's the single most expensive employee or contractor that I have. If the person's gonna mail it in and not give their best and not do what's best for my venue, what's the point of even having a DJ? Why should I spend the money? When you look at even the bartenders who we all think make a lot of money, right? They are not making as much money as they once did. And you said it in a previous conversation. At one point, the bartenders were making more money than we were. That's not the case anymore. And sometimes, because I date a bartender, she can work from noon till 3 a.m. and I still make more money during my day shift. Which is crazy at this point. So it is a complete slap in the face to walk in half-assed and do a half-assed job DJing when you are the most expensive thing in the room for that business. Right? Because the cooks aren't making as much as you are during their shift, and they're working eight and 10 and 12 hours. Same thing, even some of the managers at this point were making hourly more than the managers, 100%. So you're the highest paid person in the room, hands down, bar none. If you walk into every set thinking that, It definitely puts a different perspective into how important it is to perform. And you know, I'm always blown away by afternoon money because afternoon money was never a thing. Never a thing for years and years. But the DJ has become such a highlight and such a great extra in the room and it's become more popular to have a DJ in the room. I love the fact that afternoon sets exist. And that's why I love to walk in and do them because it's just extra money. It's extra money that's it's it's found my it shouldn't say it's extra money. It's found money. Completely different, right? And I just think there needs to just be a little more pride taken even when you're DJing for 25 people. Because because we because we live we are absolutely spoiled because we live in a time where you can get Spotify playlist, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, you name it. You can be replaced for free immediately. Yeah, especially with especially with the emergence of AI and all the different things that AI can do. I'm sure you can go find some AI program or whatever that's out there that will mix songs for you. Like I guarantee that exists already. And if I was a bar owner, I'd consider it what I rather pay hundreds of dollars to a DJ that doesn't look like he wants to be there. That's like just letting every song play out. Or would I rather just set up an AI and play the Spotify that does the same thing in that person's opinion, you know? Yeah, and think about who knows their crowd the best, especially during an afternoon at a bar, the bartenders. They know they have their regulars coming in, they just have a hold on who comes in and out of the room because they're usually there day in and day out. Right, and they're also having more conversations during those slow periods because there aren't, you know, three customers deep at the bar and they can talk to people. Guess who knows what those customers want more than anyone? The bartenders. So how hard is it to stick one of the bartenders in charge of the music for the afternoon? That they're not gonna pay them for it. Owners at. at our venues. What do mean? Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Sometimes I walk in and I'm like, I don't even want to DJ the bartenders music is so good. They know exactly what these customers want. Like I don't even want to go on and like throw the vibe in a completely different direction. You know what's the worst? When you walk in and they're playing something like completely left field from what you wanted to start the night with and it's like, fuck, do I just do it or do I like completely change this up? This happens on my Sunday party on the roof at one of our venues. And I'm always in this soulful house vibe, disco house vibe, and they're playing straight pop music. And I'm like, god damn, this is gonna sound nothing like what they're playing or what they are enjoying at the bar. But that's what I'm saying. We're easily replaceable at this point. It's not like it used to be where somebody's gotta be back there pumping CDs or whatever it might be. whatever they used to do at bars, I don't even remember at this point, and they could just stick somebody back there and be like, you're responsible for the music for the afternoon, until the DJ comes, and it's free. And at this point in time, owners are looking for every opportunity to cut costs, because the bar industry, as we've beat this dead horse over and over again, is just in a bit of a decline right now. So what can we do to make sure we keep those day shifts, we keep those off hour shifts? We sort of alluded to it, right? Obviously we talked about being on time, being early, that's extremely important, you know, body language. But your body language matters a whole lot. It matters, whether you can see it or not, everyone else can see it. If you look miserable up there, if you look... unengaged or disengaged, you are leaning against the wall, you're on your phone, you're not really like, you're letting songs play out. Everybody in the room knows that, you know, everybody in the room is going to know the difference between someone that's actually DJing and trying to work a room and mix through music and play the room as if there was 1000 people versus I'm going to just go through the motions and stand up here and look uninterested. So you don't have to be jumping on stage and dancing around and going crazy. You just have to look like you're happy to be there. You just have to look like you're engaged. That goes a really, really, really long way. Even if you're not the best DJ, that goes a really, really long way. I'm not a jump arounder, I'm not a dancer, I bop. I like to bop while I'm DJing and that's how you know that I'm doing what I'm doing and I'm really engaged in what I'm doing. And my mixing too, like I'm making sure my mixing during those slow sets is so clean. And I'm trying to, I'm not over scratching, you know, you don't wanna sound like you're trying too hard. I think this is something else that's a little overlooked because sometimes I'll walk into a place. and I'll hear the DJ sound like he's in a battle, like a DJ battle, and it's like two in the afternoon and there's 20 people there. I'm like, there's no reason for all of this. This is too much. Just make sure that there's flow. Make sure that it makes sense. Make sure that you're clean and don't make it look like that you have a mix on. I think those are all very important things in order to... Just show that there is value there, that you're doing more than Spotify does, right, but without overdoing it. You don't wanna step over the line. Let's stay. like, should DJs ever play a mix while they're being paid? I don't think so, Because we just, like I said before, we live in an age where the bartenders can go put Spotify on, or not Spotify, like a Mixcloud or a Soundcloud. Most bartenders at this point are fans of DJs, are fans of music, at least the ones that I know, and they follow DJs and they know where to find their mixes. It's not like you need, it's not like it used to be where, you know. This was fringe. This isn't fringe anymore. This is all mainstream like to find a mix is quite easy You know when everybody's a fan of some mix Right. So like it's that's very easily anybody with the mix on you're getting paid to do a job do the job Right, like could you imagine like showing up to any day job and be and just like I'm just gonna sit here And play on my phone like that's I guess sure people do it I know that but they're not performing either. That's the difference. Yeah, I've done it for sure. But I've never done it in a nightclub setting or like, I've done it, you know, maybe the first little bit when I get into a venue, if I have to go talk to an owner or if I need to go take care, like I've done it because I'm wearing the Get Down DJ Anthony Colosurdo hat, not the DJ Cream hat, because I have to go deal with something that that's what I've done in nightlife. I mean, I've done it for daytime stuff sometimes. I cleaned a DJ booth and put a mix on because there was no customers in the building one time. I mean, there's definitely been some day sets where I'm like, throw a mix on for 20 minutes to like grab some food or whatever. But yeah, like we have a running joke in the Discord because I used to make these mixes for slam radio in Europe and they're like 25 minute clean, like dance vocals people know. So it... There's and there's 35 of them or something. So like we all have jokes like, man, these slam mixes are killing it right now. But like at least those slam mixes are I'm DJing. Those are like fast paced, quick mixing mixes. They're your mixes to like you you you you put those mixes together. So like, you know what you want to like you want to put that on for 20 minutes and go order your food and grab a drink fine, but like you. get when our team talks about slam mixes in the Discord? I just I can't say I get mad. about it, like it doesn't really bother me that much. It sometimes does. But I in my head, I'm like, Gary's file yelling it through the phone right now. No, I try not to because like, I don't know the venue. I don't know what they're faced with. Like do they got four people in the room and you know, but like, I think there's a huge distinction. You know, you got two, four, five people in the room and you want to put a mix on for 20 minutes and maybe, you know, prep for that night and put like maybe a folder together. If you have a gig that night, I get that. I understand that. But like when you start to get more than 10 people, 15 people like you then have then you're there to work then you're there to work. DJing can make or break how much money the venue's making at that point. Because what you want to do is you want to turn that 10 and 15 into 30 and make sure that that first 10 and 15 when they get done, let's say they're eating, it's brunch, right? Because a lot of times these are brunch gigs. You want to make sure after they have their brunch, they go to the bar and have a drink or they order a drink at their table and you keep them around for another hour and you sell two or three or four or five or six more drinks. And now you're worth it. Now the ownership won't think about cutting you because instead of the ring at the end of your shift being $1,000 and now it's $3,000. If you're getting paid 300 bucks, that $3,000 is 10%. You're still taking 10%. Like it's still a lot of money from an owner's perspective. You got to think about it in that. If you think about it in percentages, it's a lot. It's a lot. You're getting paid a lot. And I know not a lot of people think that way. it's, I don't want to be negative about it, but it is, it is a lot when you put your own, when you put the owner hat on and you know, if I'm only making $3,000 while you're playing and you're getting paid 300, 10 % is a lot of my money. Yeah. That's just one line item for the day. 10%. Yeah. So it's important to just stay engaged. And if you don't like these gigs and you don't want to be there, don't take them. Because it's painfully obvious when people don't want to be at these gigs. Because we hear it. We hear it from all of the owners and the managers. And I get it sometimes. They are. They can be boring. You got to figure out a way to make them fun. Whether that's asking the bartenders what they want to hear. Go grabbing a drink or two like can find a pocket of people that you can lean into and you start having a little more fun when you get a reaction, right? Like, even if it's a small group of people, it gets you through that shift. You cater to those people like you said earlier and it's like, hopefully you can build upon that group, but if not, at least you know you have a group that you're playing for that you can read their reactions and go and adjust and play music for them, you know? It's great practice for that. It's great practice for reading a room. Not everybody's as skilled at reading a room as the next guy, right? That's not something that is across the board an equal thing. And a lot of times, when you're a mid-level local DJ, reading a room is the most important thing you can do outside of mixing cleanly. Because you have to pivot. When you're a local mid-level DJ, your job is to pivot with the crowd and move with the crowd and be manipulative and if you can't manipulate your set in a clean way because you're reading room because another this group came in and they want to hear that this group over here wants to hear the other thing like that's what makes you a great local DJ. And I've talked about this WMC set over and over and over again, but years ago I watched an artist do this and it's just impressive. It's impressive to see good DJs. You know, it's hard to come by, honestly. Yeah. It is. There's a, yeah. You're right. I'll leave it at that. Artist level is a different thing. That's a whole different thing, you know, but this we're talking about places that you have to read rooms. Yeah, I think it's a it's a how you approach right? It's a mind state. It's a it's it's a perspective of how you approach these sets. If you know, you're positive and you're you're giving positive body language and you're engaged and you're playing the room and you're talking to customers and like, you're doing a great job. And that's what owners are looking for. They know you you know, some nights are going to be slower than others. You know, focus on the things you can control. We talked about this. What can you control? If you do the things right, and you do them well, that you can control... You're always gonna have a job. You're always gonna get booked. My Saturday afternoon bartenders and managers hate me because I'm so excited to be there. Because I just love Saturday afternoon. I love to have a couple beers and play a couple songs that I want to hear and I love it. I go in amped up and everybody's hung over from the night before. But I'm just ready to rock. It's just, you said it, it's mindset and it's attitude. And those two things will get you a long way during these sets. I feel like this conversation is like half music, half sports coaching. Like it's the same shit that every coach has ever said to me. It is. It's like Nick sound like a Nikki cast real. But it is it's mindset and attitude. really all it is. An effort. All right, coach. Not everybody's got the skills, you show me the effort. Show me the effort. All right, let's move on. I think this is something important. It's something that's been happening with us and we wanted to kind of share and go through this and dig a little deeper on how you guys can approach those situations in those slower gigs. So recently we just had Amsterdam Dance Event, ADE, and during that time we had some DJs and producers from here head out there. I haven't really heard a whole lot about their experiences, but I'm... I'm gonna reach out and just find out how those were. ADE is very different from Miami Music Week. ADE, you're there to like learn and sit down and go to panels and conversations and you're signing up for these things throughout the day. It's very regimented. Miami's a party, right? Like with some other stuff thrown in. I've always wanted to go, but I've never gone. Because I think I would embrace that more like regimented coaching, teaching, learning atmosphere. It's what WMC used to be when it was Winter Music Conference. They've gotten away from it because it transitioned from being a convention to where you learned about the new equipment that was coming out. then, I don't wanna speak to how old NAMM is or any of that stuff, right? Or NAMM. because now you have an equipment show and you have a lot of different segmented shows and conferences. that used to be, Winter Music Conference used to be equipment and then panels about nightlife and then panels about owning a nightclub and then these different panels. And it was expensive to go to, but then as the popularity of EDM exploded, it became more of a party business, right? And those hotel parties have become a thing. artist showcase week is what it really is, you know That's what it's become. it's interesting to see that at least there is an event that happens that still highlights these panels and whatnot. So yeah, it would be really interesting to go check out. I'm trying to look up how old... Amsterdam either, so that's on my list for sure of places I'd like to get to. But the real reason why I brought this up was because they do the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs, and they announce the winners or the list during ADE. So this year, the top 10, so let me take a step, before I announced this, I named the top 10. So we looked this up. Voters basically select their top, five DJs and this is a accumulation of all those votes. Now, do labels figure out ways to get their artists more votes? I would assume so. I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. You could take this kind of as it, as it is, but the top 10 are Martin Garrix, number one, David Guetta, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike are four. Alok, Alok, I never know how to say his name. Timmy Trumpet, Armand Van Buren, Afrojack, Fisher, Vintage Culture, and Peggy Goo. At a quick glance, what are your thoughts on this list? it's a pretty wild list that has a decent amount of DJs, artists that have been in the game for a long time. I think that was probably the most shocking. And then as, I don't, what is it? I don't know, like as I went down the list, I'm like, well, the more viral acts that are happening right now are like far down the list. It usually takes a few years for them to like build their way up the list. It's rare for an artist to just pop on the scene and be like top 10 or top 20. Like Fisher at eight almost surprised me, thought he would be a little higher. Yeah, the earliest new entry on the top 100 is ANMA at 17. Everyone else has been on the list. And his music is just so good. It's just so good. And like, is 35. That's the next one. But speaking to Emma real quick, just to touch on why he's probably shot up as far as he has in the first year, I mean, the production is incredible. The music is incredible. And then the shows are just unbelievable, right? They're viral, they're just really, really impressive at the end of the day. And I think that, along with the... along with the music production, it just goes hand in hand for him to be very, very, very popular. Yeah, I never take much credence into these lists. It's because it's like, I couldn't tell you the last Martin Garrix song that I played in a nightclub. It's had to be 10 years, probably. I couldn't name the last song he put out. I don't even know. But I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that's like, Martin Garrix is my favorite DJ. So, sort of what this list shows me is number one, there's so many artists and new artists and sub genres and stuff that I know nothing about even in this EDM world. And I think that's cool. I think that's awesome that someone's favorite artist is someone who I don't even know who that is. And like, I should know, you know? Yeah, it really spans a lot of different genres, and especially in that top 25, like it just, you're right, it goes to show you just how popular electronic music is across the board, right? Like for certain artists to be up there, know, Peggy Gou, obviously, incredible producer, great DJ, and... to be in the top 10 surprises me to be honest. That's the one that stood out to me, I think, as most surprising in the top 10. Yeah, I was definitely shocked on that, but I am not. And I'm not taking away from anything. Her production, her DJ skills, I think she's awesome. She's great, she's amazing, and extremely, extremely, extremely popular in the UK. I think there's a huge departure probably by the way we look at things as opposed to someone in the UK who grew up on, and their parents grew up on house music. You know, where that's not the case for us. You know, so sometimes these things get taken a little more seriously. Yeah. and Peggy goo is just that big over there. Like I just think that this is just, you know, it's just so such a broad spectrum. it's great to see. that stood out to me was just some of the older names and names that have been on this list for so many years that just continue to be like a David Guetta and an Armin and Demetri Vegas and like Mike even have been on this list for how long. Afrojack, like it's a lot of just your prototypical EDM names that you've seen and known and loved. Nicky Romero top 25, kind of surprising. The other thing I thought was cool was the biggest mover that I saw in the top was Hardwell. He was up 26 spots. I thought that was interesting from last year. Yeah. And Gorda- sound that he's been sort of pushing for a few years now that he transitioned to has now become more popular and I think that's a main reason, you know? He went into this harder, faster sound which at the time wasn't super popular but now it is. kind of funny on the on the flip side of that like Gordo down 24 spots and like I've been into a lot of the stuff that he's been dropping in his in his live sets whether they've come out whether those tracks have come out or not because I know that you know he loves to just play IDs but like the stuff that he's playing in his life it's like I love like and for him to drop down that far is that because he's not putting out a lot of his production or is he withholding a lot of stuff? You never know, you don't know. up in the air because who knows? Who knows? It's probably all rigged. It's all paid for, Gar. James Hype at 57. Like I feel like, you know, but maybe I'm a James Hype fan and maybe that's why it's surprising to see him that low. I'm gonna give us homework for next episode. I want us to come up with our top tens, or at least top fives. What's the criteria? Is it just top 10 overall EDM? Is it most influential? Is it our favorites? How do we wanna? I think it's a mixture of all that. you can have the, I have this guy or girl at three because of this reason. Alright, I like it. That'll be fun. I'll have fun putting that together. a reason behind it. And it could be live performance, could be production, it could be stage presence, it could be artwork, social media content, any of that stuff. Alright, I like it. Open canvas. Blank canvas. Yeah, that'll be a fun exercise. All right, me and Gary said there's no way we're gonna get to one hour on this episode. We did. So I'd like to wrap here if that's cool with you, I didn't even know it's been an hour. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for listening to this episode and we will talk to you guys soon. Peace out. Alright guys, peace.