Are You Wearing Out Your Crowd? 😩

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

• Reflect on your growth over the past year, even if it's small.
• Success can be measured in various ways, not just numbers.
• It's important to appreciate the venues you regularly play.
• Personal goals in DJing can vary greatly between individuals.
• Finding your niche can lead to a more fulfilling career.
• It's okay to take a step back and reassess your goals.
• Don't compare your journey to others; focus on your own path.
• Energy management is crucial in pursuing opportunities.
• Recognize when an opportunity serves your goals or hinders them.
• Transition periods in your career require patience and understanding. Ego can hinder decision-making in DJing.
• Confidence is crucial for a successful performance.
• Understanding crowd energy is key to maintaining engagement.
• It's important to adapt your set based on audience reactions.
• Wearing out a crowd can negatively impact a DJ's performance.
• Spotify Wrapped has become a significant cultural event.
• Visual appeal of Spotify Wrapped encourages sharing.
• Music consumption trends reflect personal and social influences.
• DJing requires a balance between energy and audience retention.
• Reflecting on past performances can lead to better future sets.

Chapters

• 0:00 Reflecting on the Year: Growth Amidst Challenges
• 9:00 Personal Goals: The Yin and Yang of DJing
• 20:10 Finding Your Niche: The Evolution of DJing Careers
• 29:52 Ego and Decision Making in DJing
• 32:27 Navigating Crowd Energy and Set Dynamics
• 44:39 Spotify Wrapped and Music Consumption Trends

Transcript

0:01

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the hundred and seventieth episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast brought to you by the Grow My DJ Business Discord, Digital Music Pool and the Parari Production Academy. My name is Kareem. Gary W here. squeezing in a pod, one more pod before the holidays here. think this is a time where Gary and I like to kind of take a break, do some planning, get our personal lives in order a bit and like also the business lives in order. So it's just, it's good. Yeah, I like this time of year for multiple reasons, a lot of hanging out with family, but also you're coming down here next week, or actually the day this comes out you'll be getting here, which would be awesome. We're doing a little planning for next year. It's always exciting, always fun, always good to reflect in and run, you know, run by the things we've done in the last 12 months and just get ready for the next 12. I can't believe we're back. in this position again, I say this every year around this time on the podcast, but like it just, the years fly by. So, but exciting. It's always exciting time. something that I've been telling myself, and I think we all need to sort of tell ourselves a little bit, especially this year, right? This year was rough for nightlife, like really rough. So, you know, we're looking at numbers and we're looking at accomplishments and like, yeah, we're not maybe where we would necessarily plan to be, but anyone that's been successful and booking gigs and growing their business and their brand this year, You should be proud of even if it's a small little bit of growth because it was a really hard year. It was a really hard year for a lot of reasons, which we've talked about it. We're not going to get into right now, but take a second and reflect back and think about where you were this time last year. Think about what you did this year, the new venues, the music you released, the collaborations you maybe you had with other artists, relationships that you created with people that you once never thought you would even know. Like think about all that stuff and be positive and just, you know, don't knock yourself down. Think about all the good things that happened and really look at your growth over the last year and just be positive. measuring your success, not just by numbers is important, right? So all of those intangibles that you just mentioned are extremely important. But on the other side of it too, like maybe you did book the most gigs you've ever booked this year and that's a huge success, right? Maybe you made the most money you've ever made this year. That's a huge success. But then maybe if those aren't the metrics that you grew by, maybe you did grow in those other intangible metrics in which you mentioned, which is just as if not more important. And then that will set you up for a more successful 2025. Maybe you did make the most money you've ever made as a DJ and that's okay too. Right. Completely, completely, especially in a market that not a market, but especially in a, in a scene that's kind of trending down, unfortunately. But I think we kind of said the same thing last year, but we've seen a little bit. were getting ready for this, this trend down in, our industry. But I think it really started to hit in the fall, like it beginning of last year, we were getting ready for it. And we said March. So I'd be interested to go back and listen to last December's podcast because I think that's what we said. We were getting ready for March. We did talk about this because you said kind of something very similar last year on the podcast and we didn't really, it didn't really affect us greatly until the fall rolled around. So, like we said, yeah, measure, measure yourself by, you know, the positives and don't weigh yourself down in the negatives when, reflecting back on the year. So it's easy to be like, I didn't do this and I didn't do this. I've been killing myself, like looking at my 2024 goals, like I didn't do shit this year. Like, suck this year. I've been beating myself up. And, you know, yesterday I kind of sat down and reflected and I was like, you know, Kareem, shut up. Like, stop thinking so negatively. Serious, like you've personally, you've traveled the most you ever traveled. I've known you since year one of DJing, year two of DJing for you. And obviously you've grown greatly from there, but even from last December to now, you've by leaps and bounds just in traveling. The amount of city, if you. for you personally, what I would tell you if I was your coach would be just go look at, all right, great, this is great. I would say just go look at the amount of cities you played. That's it, don't look at anything else. Look at the amount of states that you played, the amount of different cities you played, and how many bigger rooms you played than 2023. And that's how I would measure your success this year. I think, yeah, sure. you've taken a lot less gigs. So the numbers aren't going to be the same, but the professional growth is going to be there because of how many relationships you made on the road and the amount of different cities you got to go see just from DJ, which is an amazing thing. You know, I always, I always spoke to my grandfather who traveled the world playing against the globe trotters. He was the team that got beat every night by the globe trotters in the fifties. And he got to see every state in the United States, every country in Europe. every country in South America to play basketball and get paid for it. So I always was astonished by the amount of places he got to see by just playing a sport. Like I would look at your, you know, your success this year and how many cities that I get to see this year just to DJ. That's an amazing thing, you know, so. When I'm in those moments too, I've been trying to take advantage and instead of maybe getting the earliest flight back home, try to get the last flight on a Sunday, let's say, and like spend some time in the city and go hit some food. I'm big into food, right? I want to go hit the food spots and I enjoy when I'm going to New City, like doing some homework and finding out like, maybe this is a sandwich spot I want to check out or a barbecue spot or like a noodle spot or whatever it is. And like that's part of my process of like checking out a new city. I do the homework. I like find some food spots. And then when I get there, I try to hit at least one or two. And then the next time I'm there, I try to hit another one or two. And it's fun. And I like keep, I keep notes on each city so I can go back and be like, man, I remember when I was in Philly and I ate at that place. It was so good. an idea for you but I'm not gonna say it online in case I don't want anybody stealing it. So, something like that but you know I think there could be a monetary side of my idea so I'm gonna keep it off here. But yeah, no, I think that's a great perspective and a great way to think about things. And, you know, it's gonna be different for everybody. So if your goals this year maybe were more of like, I just wanna start working regularly in my market. Like, it doesn't matter what venues you played. If you went from zero bookings to five per month, like that's a huge deal. And you should be proud of that. I think it's also important to, if you jump into a nightclub, let's say, or a space that's your goal early in the year, sometimes later in the year that place can become boring and you kind of like, maybe not outgrow the place, but you kind of get comfortable in there and you have to understand, you hit that goal early and that might not look like a goal now because you've been playing there for nine months. Yeah. And you kind of forget like, okay, well, you know, that was a big goal for me. I did it in February and now it's December and I've been playing there for this many months. And it's, you know, sometimes the, the shine can wear off and you can forget that that was a big goal in the year. So I think having some perspective in that, you know, looking at your goals early on in the year and see the ones that you hit early on, those are still goals hit for the year. They were just, they just happened earlier. Yeah, I think for a lot of our guys, it was breaking into venues. then, you know, at Birch, for example, some of the guys that were just opening are now getting opportunities to headline and they're more than good enough to do that, you know, but it's just like anything else, you just have to kind of wait it out and pay your dues. And, you know, when you look at Birch, there's a lot of older DJs that are more veteran DJs that have just been doing the headliner thing for a lot longer. And it's hard to jump those those people sometimes and, you know, still be proud of what you're where you're at and You know, those guys I've talked to about this and like they're getting their headline shots too. And I know they crush when they're in there. So that was like something as you were talking about that that I was thinking of specifically for some of our DJs. Yeah, because I was thinking about those, I was thinking about Birch when talking about that because that is in our market, that is often a goal spot in our immediate market. But the shine can wear off. If you play a place every other week, every three weeks, and you've been doing it for 10 months, it's like, okay. I mean, I tell myself the same thing, Gar, like about places that I play regularly. Like, it's a privilege to play certain rooms and you sort of have to have that attitude and not get tired of it and not want more. I mean, you could always want more, but, you know, just be still, still be grateful and excited to go play places that you've been playing for a year or two years or longer. And I tell myself that all the time, like, bro, still got to go in there and bring your A game because if you don't, you get replaced. And if you don't, somebody else is going to come in with that attitude and do a better job. everybody's replaceable in this in this game you know and and somebody else's work is this art so I know we sort of planned this episode to kind of go a different way, but let's continue down this goal thing. And I know you and I sort of want to talk a little more about like personal goals rather than we talk a lot about get down and the business. But I think let's talk a little bit about sort of where we're at and the things we're working on and where we want to go type thing. you and I couldn't be more opposite, right? And that's just in, every aspect of just even from a business perspective, from DJ goals perspective, everything couldn't be more opposite from a DJ standpoint. So I thought that this would be a really interesting conversation to have, because this is like the yin and the yang of people that have been in the industry for a long time. And then you're the evolution of your goals to change, you know, and you come into, I go into each year and it, does shift a little bit. I've been really, really happy with the places that I've been playing that are a little more, they're a little older, crowd-wise. And they're weird, some of them are weird shifts, some of them are like brunches, love to play, like I have two or three brunches that I love to love to play because the crowd's older, it's like people that wanna be out from 1 p.m. to 5 or 6 p.m. they want to go and they want to party, whether that's sitting down and sing along to an R and B song, whether that's getting up and doing a dance contest in the middle of the brunch or whatever it might be. Like I love playing those events because I could play nightlife sets in the middle of the day, you know, and then send everybody home at five o'clock. love that. Like I've been loving those. I I've been loving my nightlife places that have been same thing, little older, smaller. I've got, I've liked to start to play much, much smaller venues. If it's 150 people, 200 people, that's plenty for me. That's even a lot. That's kind of where I've transitioned to. Put me in more restaurants, put me in more cocktail lounges. I still like to play places like the Ashford that holds 800 people. I still like to play 626 that holds 500, 600 people on a packed night. But then I like to play the other places like under the boot, that's like 150 people cocktail spot that you still get to kind of turn up a little bit, you know? Because I see longevity in these places. You know, as somebody who's been DJing in nightlife for 23 years, going on 24 years, and kind of, like I said, transitioning out of the younger spots, the places where 21 to 27 year olds hang out, I'm... You know, I'm happy with, I'm happy with like going this route and like, you know, and knowing that I can play these places for the next five years if I want to, right? Like, because there are people my age hanging out at these places, you know, and you can always play these day sets and you can always play these restaurant sets as an older DJ, as a more veteran DJ, and not look kind of out of place, if you will, you know. And I think that it's just a perspective shift that I've had in the last six months. And it's like, okay, well, I still want to DJ, I love DJing, but how can I do that and kind of still stay relevant with my crowd? Not relevant like on social media or anything like that. How do I stay relevant with my crowd? Like and not look at a place and be able to be comfortable playing the music that I want to play. And this is my niche, this is how I found to do it is, you know, a lot. The brunch party I did at Lola a couple weeks ago is a little eye opening for me. There was a lot of older groups of like girls out for birthday parties and things. And I'm talking like older, like 35 to 45. And go, and you know, and that's when I was able to transition like early nineties R &B. And I was like, this is amazing. Like, this is a fun party for me because this is where I want to play. Now, if we put one of our 21 year old DJs in there, they don't want to play that that that kind of vibe, you know? And that's kind of the way I started to look at how I'm booking. Because we were talking about, all right, maybe, how do we expand, how do I play down here in Florida? it's like, well, this is, it's niche now. Like, I don't wanna just go play the big spot. Like, I wanna play a more niche party. Right. And it's not easy to do. It takes a while to get there, especially when you're kind of transitioning into this mindset. You know, Celine's down here and every big DJ plays there and like, you know, if I'm a Timo or a Dario or somebody like that, like that's my goal, right? Like that's not my goal. Like I don't ever want to play. Like I don't want to play a place like that. Like that's, that's behind me at this point. so it's, it's kind of funny cause when I talk to you, when you talk about, you know, I only want to play and I'll let you get into it. I only want to play dot dot dot. I'm like, wow, it just couldn't be more different. Just gonna be more different. And that's why I see, but I've been a local DJ forever, you know? I've been a local DJ forever and I love the local DJ scene. And that's it. you, it's just nice to hear someone that you know exactly what you want. You know who you are as a DJ at this point in your career. And you really only want to play the rooms that fit those two things. And I think that's really hard to get to that point. you know, I think you should be happy and proud that you've sort of figured that out. And you don't need to go hunt out the newest, biggest, best thing. You just find the places that you get to do what you want to do that makes you happy. put some dollars in your pocket. And I think that's sort of the goal. I think that's the goal for a lot of people is like, to be happy in what they do. And you're happy in those places and making your money and playing this the music that that you want to play. not everybody can say that they get to do that. So I discovered some new music this year too, which I think we'll get into it on your end and in the next episode. But I discovered some new music that I really am passionate about playing. And I find that there are more seasoned DJs DJing bigger parties playing that kind of music. That's inspirational still to me that there are these guys that are I'm still inspired by DJs that are that are older that I grew up listening to and looking up to. And they're still introducing new music to me and it's and it's awesome. And they're still DJing out in different spots and they're more niche. They're not playing, like I said, the Salines. They're not playing the Mirage. They're playing more niche parties. They're finding their way. And I think that's kind of what has made me look down this path. It's like, OK, these guys aren't playing the Mirage. They're not playing the biggest house music spot. And they're still producing very good music. They're just throwing their own parties in these good little smaller spaces. And I'm like, okay, well, that's a good path to follow. this, gives you longevity and a young man's game that gives you still longevity. You could play until you're 50, you know, in those different spaces, you have to find those spaces. Yeah, and like, as you said, for me, it's the complete opposite. I've done the local scene. I've done the doubles, the triples, the play every spot in town and build my name in one market. Like, I've done all that. And at the time, it was fine and I enjoyed it it was fun and I made money and I grew my name and my brand. But once I started reaching a point where I was getting booked as an artist and getting booked to play big rooms out of state and be able to just own those rooms and really, you know, feel comfortable and know I did a great job and get great feedback, it's been like a drug to me, you know? Once you get a taste of that, like, that big room, that artist style set, I don't want to go back. to the local scene where I gotta play fucking Jenny's record that she's harassing me about. Like, I just wanna go play what I wanna play in these big rooms with visuals, with lights, with good sound, with CDJs and not a shitty controller, because I fucking hate playing on controllers. Maybe it's the cranky cream, you know, been in the game for a long time. Like, I only wanna do those bigger rooms. those places that give me butterflies when I'm preparing, when I'm getting ready to walk on the stage. If I don't get that feeling, like I don't want to be there kind of thing. It's boring. It doesn't excite me. And I'd rather spend time helping DJs who want to be in those big rooms grow or growing our own, our other business, our get down business, right? Like I think my time and I'd rather spend time doing that stuff than going to a local gig and playing a four or five hour set. And can I do that? And can I do a great job? Absolutely. I did it for a long time. But like, I want to go somewhere where I can drop an intro, where I can jump on the stage and jump on the mic and play a full cream edit and bass house or whatever style of music that I want to play in that given night. And if I can't do that, it doesn't interest me anymore. And it sucks because it just means that there's less rooms for me to play. But I think this has been all part of my plan, you know, it's been less gigs, higher profile, higher paying gigs. And I don't have to DJ 150 times, I can DJ 100 or less, you know. And I think the goal for me is just going to continue to grow into those rooms that make sense for me, just like you've grown into the rooms that make sense for you and you play the rooms you want to play. Like, I'm okay having a Friday night off. if I'm not getting booked in one of these places or out of market or somewhere that I really, that really makes sense for me. And I'd rather spend that time on personal stuff like family and friends and girlfriend, or making music and preparing and doing work so that when I wake up on Monday, I can hit the ground running and I don't have to spend a day sort of getting organized and getting ready because I had a long weekend of travel and DJ. Yeah, big. And so like, you know, I think for me, it's really important of the balance between how can I focus on cream and growing my brand and getting into the rooms that make sense to me, and also run our business and do the podcast and be an event, an entertainment director for a hospitality group and all these other things that I'm doing. I think looking back where I sometimes get down on myself, I always tell myself like, you let this other stuff get in the way of your actual bigger goals, which have always been to be an artist and play the big shows and the big stage. You know, it's okay because I love these other things that I do too. And it's all happened for a reason. It's the path that I've gone down and that's okay. I'm not gonna regret. I'm not gonna regret it. But I do think about it, you know? Yeah, I a lot of that to like you. You still gig every weekend. You know, you get every weekend like I'm off. 52 days in a in a year, we're looking at 52 weeks in a year. We're looking at I'm probably working 20 weeks, 20 weekends, 22 weekends. You know, so it's a lot less than. A lot less than what I was used to, like back in the day I was playing, you know, five gigs a weekend every weekend all year long. And now it's down to on a busy weekend, I'll play six. And sometimes that's once a month, or sometimes that's twice a month, you know, and it just depends on the month and how things fall. So it's a lot less than what I was used to doing prior, you know, and I think that's why that's why when I get there, I gig so hard because like I, I mean, I love to DJ what I love to DJ like that every weekend. Absolutely not. would not. You know, and I wouldn't. I know, I tell you every time you come up here, I don't know how you do it. But I love to do it, you know, I love to be there just for those, like I wait for those moments, like 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at that brunch gig I was talking about, I was like regretting being there. And then the 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. portion of it, I was like, well this is why I DJ, this is the exact reason why I play music. Nobody danced, but everybody was having an amazing time. And. It's in those moments, like, okay, well, this is why I take this gig, just in case this happens. If I can make this happen here, you know, that made my day worth it. And it's finding that at every gig. And I think that's what I take into all my gigs, is just finding the moments that make it worth it. And it's just being patient, because it'll happen. If you're a good DJ, you'll make a moment happen in your four-hour set. You know, and whether that's one moment, that moment turns into usually about an hour, hour and a half if, you know, if you're good at what you do, but you'll find those pockets. And I think I'm, I think because I don't DJ every weekend, I'm patient enough. can be patient and wait for those things to happen. I get the itch to DJ in front of people. I bought a controller to put in my kitchen when I have people over like 10 people, you know, because I just want to DJ in front of people. Like, can I go back there and, you know, I bought, built a beautiful table and set up in my office. Do I come and DJ in here? No, because there's nobody, nobody here to DJ for, you know, and that's why it just needs to be 10 people. That's all it needs to be. You know, it's funny. Like you hear how to professional golfers perform in front of all these people because they want to show off. That's what they say. Because we want to show off. We could show that we can do it. You can't. You know, and I feel the same way about DJing. Like, yeah, can I just do it here with no and no, I want to get in front of people and show off. I don't care if it's five people, you know, and that's. sports play better when I had friends, family, girls that I was talking to or dating like in the building for basketball or like at the field for baseball. Because I was like, all right, like they came to see me like I got to do something. I got to show them what I got here. I'm trying to think, like I've had some bad, I've had some good ones and I've had some bad ones in sports for sure. But the college I wound up getting recruited, recruited to, I had like a hell of a standout game when they came to see me. But like, that was like the only one that I can think of that was like a super positive. But yeah, it's that same thought, right? It's that same thought. But yeah, I think like in hearing us talk about this and me and Gary have been friends for a long time and business partners and DJing a lot of the same places, we couldn't, our goals and our perspective in DJing right now couldn't be more far apart. And that's okay, but that's just what we're going after, right? It's like the path that we're on and all you guys have your own path. Your path's not gonna be my path. You're not gonna DJ locally and then start get down and then start track like. it's gonna be completely different and that's okay. don't compare yourself to me or don't compare yourself to Gary or don't compare yourself to the other DJs that you're competing against to become like the next big DJ in your market. Just worry about your path and what makes sense for you, what makes you happy and what furthers your long-term goals. And I think that's why this part of the year I love and it gets me excited because I think about all this stuff. And because we work with so many DJs, that have so many different goals and different paths, it like excites me because they're all different and that's okay. And just worry about you, worry about where you wanna go as a DJ. Yeah, we've seen many DJs go different routes, Like their personal goals outside of DJing change, which then in turn changes their DJ goals, right? And that's okay. Right, changing your goals is okay too. We always talk grow, grow your brand, grow, grow, grow your brand, grow your brand, grow your brand. And it's like, well, maybe, maybe your personal, maybe something happens in your personal life where your brand goes on the back burner or your DJ career goes on the back burner. And that's all right. Like you don't have to listen to every, all the advice from all the podcasts that say you need to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. Right. And I think that that's sometimes overlooked. that you have to grow at all costs. Like, you know, the Gary V, you know, grow at all costs. You gotta do this, you gotta do that. And it's like, no, it's okay to take a step back and reassess. I need that advice because in my brain it's like if I'm not growing then I am not successful. Priorities change you go through different stages in life, right? Like and that's and your priorities shift and you have to realize when that's okay and if there's a stalemate for six months and You know you fulfill those other priorities for those six months and you don't grow professionally for six months. That's alright You know, it's it's that's okay, but then you got to get on the horse for that next six You know and that's a portion that's that's part of that's part of growing because you do need transition periods I was listening to a podcast the other day and they're talking about like a CEO transition period and it usually takes 18 months and I'm like, that's crazy. that's a imagine your business needs to have have a transition period for 18 months. Like it's an insane amount of time. And it made me think like, OK, like when you are just even if you're just personally transitioning from I want to be a bigger DJ to I want to be a local DJ playing all the spots that I want to play. You have to give yourself six months to make that adjustment. It's not going to be immediate because you could kill yourself stressing yourself out about thinking, my God, I haven't transitioned to where I need to. And now it's March and I made this plan in December. It's like, well, that's not a long enough period of time. You know what I mean? Yeah. But some people think like that, you know, some people stress those stress when it's not happening fast. Yeah. I think my best advice and when DJs come to me and ask me, hey, do you think I should do this or not? I always ask them this question and it's, is this what's best for you or is this what's best for the person that's approaching you? And sometimes those two things might align, but a lot of times they don't. A lot of times someone's going to ask you to do something or take on a role that's best for them. It helps their business. It helps them advance the things they're trying to advance. And it might hinder what you're trying to do. I think, just ask yourself when an opportunity arises, is this what's best for me in this moment? Is this gonna help me reach my goals? Or is this gonna hinder my goals? Is this gonna get in the way of me reaching my big goal for the year? Is it gonna take time away? Is it gonna take energy away? I think the energy one is an important one too, because... if you're doing things that are just an energy suck and are taking from your bucket, a lot of times that has more of an effect and more of a negative effect than anything else. Yeah, we spoke about that in the last, in the last episode and that's, that's a huge one. and, I think, I thought about this a little bit in the last two, three days, another big thing that you kind of need to get out of the way is your ego. Sometimes your ego gets in the way of making the right decisions, you know, because just because. Like we said last week, just because I can go play the biggest place doesn't mean I should. Right. Your ego says go play it because it's the biggest place and it's the best place. But are you going to put your best foot forward in your set? You know, in. are you even a fit for that place? Exactly. that's why you have to like sometimes ego needs to be checked when making when making decisions from a business perspective. Think about ego a lot because we do live in a very ego-centric industry. And we all want to be the best and we all want to play the best places and we all want to do better than the next guy. And that's all good. That's all well and good. But it's figuring out when the ego gets in the way of doing the right things. need to have some of that dog in you to be successful for sure. Because if you go on stage and you're like, I'm gonna crush this and be super confident and go up and do a great job, or you can go up there be like, I'm so nervous, I'm gonna mess up, then like you're more likely to not have a great set if you have that negative mind state. Whereas you go up there like. I'm the best DJ that this place has. I'm gonna go crush it. And like, you're not gonna say that to anybody, but you're gonna think it in your mind and you're gonna sort of motivate yourself and use that ego to have a great performance. It's when the ego sort of gets in the way and you're blasting that out into the world that like, people start saying like, this guy's got an ego. I don't wanna work with him or her. I think confidence in a D J set can be separate from an ego in a, you know, checking your ego in a business, in the business side of things. Right. And, you know, always walk into a set with confidence and you will, when you put yourself in the right places, when you don't, you'll know it because your confidence won't be, you know, at a hundred, it might be, it might be at, you know, 85 because you're untrue. You didn't put yourself in the right place. Because your ego said, go play that, you know, and that's where and that's where it goes hand in hand. So things to think about in the coming year here. All right, let's got Dario. I got Dario call. It's got your deal. Dario's knock it off. Let's move on to another topic. Where do you want to go? Do you want to talk about our first topic? Yeah, you know what, I played two weekends, a half a weekend and then a full weekend coming out of vacation and I was a little nervous that I wasn't gonna be fresh, kinda still in vacation mode, that's why I gave myself a half a weekend to do a couple warmup sets. But I went into, two or three sets I was playing, I had a very energetic crowd from Jump. One of my places I know is an early party spot and then people tend to move. So I went a little big, a little quick, which I do. I have been doing a lot in the last year, year and a half. I just saw an older DJ on another podcast talking about don't ever do that, set the room up correctly, et cetera, et cetera. But I think it's just knowing your room and you know. No, thinking that you're good enough to keep people for the whole time. That's that was my that's the way I look at those things. And by like 1130, 1145, 12 o'clock, kind of when you should be going to peak, I wore out my crowd in that brunch set I was talking about. I was nailing them track after track. They were singing everything. lot of O's, a lot of Oz. And then like 45 minutes in, I could tell they just got exhausted. You have to play when you see this happening. First of all, you have to sense it probably a song or two before it really starts to happen. and my advice in that would be, you know, look at the tables that were screaming and yelling, or look at the people that were dancing hard and singing to everything and realize that, okay, maybe one or two of them left to go get a drink. Maybe recognize that. you know, a couple of groups got off the dance floor. All right. How am I going to get out of it? Right. What are some tactics that that you use to get out of this wearing out a crowd? Now I was playing R and B at the one place. I couldn't get any slower. It was like I was playing Tevin Campbell and stuff like this. Right. And it's like, okay, how do I, how do I get out of it? I was thinking, all right, well, let's stay in this time frame. So maybe it was 90 to 95, 96, but I'm going to hit dance music from this era, right? And change that energy up. So I'm gonna bring the energy up. We're gonna stay in this kind of sing-along area of 90 to 95, 96 dance music, which is kind of hot, you know, and has been hot for about a year. And it's more energetic, so people get back in it. And you just wanna kind of reset people's ears. And also their expectation of what the next song's gonna be. I think that's a big portion of it when people can be like, okay, well, it's gonna be a 90s R &B song that I could sing along to again for the 30th minute. It's like you wanna reset the expectation. Okay, what can happen next? And you wanna keep people back, you wanna get people back on their toes or on the edge of their seat guessing what's gonna happen next. I think that's a good way to do it. I think thinking about it and relating your next move to... where you're coming from. So I'm coming from 90s R &B, while my next move's gonna be, I said, keep it in the same years, and it should be a genre that kinda cross-pollinates with that last genre. People that listen to 90s R &B, they probably listen to Show Me Love and Whitney and stuff like that as well, right? And I think that's a good way to do it. If you're playing Latin music and people are getting tired of the Latin vibe, well maybe you go to Latin House. You know, and that's, it correlates in some way. And you do, maybe the Latin house stuff has elements of that, of whatever you were coming out of, whether that's salsa or merengue or any of that stuff. And I kind of, when I saw that happening, I played a lot of pop at this one place and I just wore that, like they were singing and dancing and going crazy and wore them out. And it was like 1130. And I'm like, shit, I gotta keep these people here because this is the time when they'll pay tabs and they go on to the next place. We're in a densely bar populated area. And I wish I had my setup. I should have pulled it up before we started. And I kind of transitioned into hip hop and that kind of worked because it wasn't so high energy and it wasn't so poppy and it changed, like I said, just changed the ear. And. But wearing a crowd out is a thing, man. Like it's a real thing and it's detrimental to your DJ says detrimental to the place that you're DJing at as well kills your numbers. Yeah, I would rather err on the side of caution. So I would rather play a few songs with not enough energy instead of just diving right into this to hammering people over the head. Especially if it's like a full night type thing. Also coming in as a headliner, a lot of times like I'll have openers that just play too high energy so that when I go on, there's just not enough room for me to like make an impact, you know, coming on. And then I also see when the openers are playing too hard too early, we clear out early and there's nothing that I can do to keep people like I there is but there isn't if that makes sense. And an opener like that's out of your hands, that sucks. Like when I play full night sets, I'm still opening the room. I don't care how many people. like, yeah, maybe I'll jump in to headliner stuff earlier than I would normally if I was opening for another DJ. But I don't know. Maybe it is that old head mentality of like, I still think there is a place for an opening set. And in order to have a full night and maximize revenue and... keep people late into the night, you sort of have to. In certain situations, sure, like you can go harder earlier and only you as the DJ knows when those times are. And I think if you're playing for yourself, yeah, you could do that. A great example, played after the Yankee World Series game, Yankees lost and the owner was like, all right, Kareem, you gotta go in right now. We gotta keep these people here. And that was at like 10, 20. And like the place was empty by 1.30 because like I just couldn't keep that, I just couldn't keep it. There's no way if you're hammering people at 10.20 that I could keep them till 2.30. You know what I mean? Like it's just not possible. Yeah. Yeah, I think my situation at under the boot came when somebody requested like a pop song. I was like, all right, I'll try it. And then it worked really well. And then it led me down this rabbit hole of like, pop anthems, which if anybody know, like anybody listening to this, you know that venue, it's like, well, pop anthem shouldn't work in this venue. but it was going like super hard and it's like, all right. It's a basement room. It's a lot of like Afro how Afro be hip hop R &B older crowd vibes normally. One of our DJs walked in, he's like, I have never played this in here and why the hell are these people going crazy to it? And was like, well, I think it was a request and it just led me down this path. And here we are at 11 o'clock playing like clarity or something. And it's like, this just shouldn't work here. and that's, but then when you, you're as a DJ, you're going to find yourself in those situations where a request happens, you take it and it goes off a lot better than expected. And now you're in a place maybe that you don't expect to be in, well then you have to figure out how to get out of it, right? And kind of be a pro in that regard. that's the reason why I brought this up, because I don't think I got out of it as cleanly as I could have. And it made me start to think about, what happens in those situations? Let's talk about it on the podcast. Because I'm still a little clueless as to like, yeah, when that happens, it was just so unexpected. It's like, do we go from here? And still keep a room and still keep energy, you know. happen in a headline set. You can't play every hands up, sing along, big drop in a row and expect your crowd to react the same way every single time. You have to sort of pick and choose and spread those monster tracks out so you can keep the same energy. And I think a lot of DJs I've been talking to, like, they don't even necessarily come in with their big intro to start. It's just a continuation of sort of opening the room. You play for 30, 45 minutes and then you drop the big intro and reset the room that way. things are changing and you know, every room is different and every night is gonna be different even in the same room. So, gotta be a DJ. I found my set. Yeah, no, I mean, I was in a good place until... playing like a little disco house playing exactly what you said Afro Lumidy. I don't know, yeah, I don't know where it went, went off the rails. Maybe I'm off in my timing. Taki Taki at 10.30 might be a little much. I played house music at 10.50 and then it went into that stuff. That's what happened. Maybe I went a little early. Yeah, but like that room's not a 2 30 a.m. Room, is it? It's not, it's usually like a 1 a.m. and then it resets and then we get people back in at 1.45 for their last drinks of the night. Right, so that room, like maybe you do have to just go hard and keep as many people as long as possible and that's just a different format than the average open your doors and build a room to headline time. I did it at the right time. was about 11 PM and that's about because it's about an hour earlier than regular peak. So that's exactly what I wanted to do. But like weird records were working in their spectrum break free timber. Turn up the music Chris Brown. We are who we are. Kesha. Hello, Martin Solvig. Man, you were in your like 2013 bag. I was and people were singing every song. We found love. How will I know Whitney? my God, Usher. And then like the I haven't, which I haven't done in a while. The. Konga shake one more shake one more time back to back to back like for Ruggio and Daft Punk, Swedish House Mafia triple that I used to do for years. Mr. Postman Baltimore Club like that's the kind of room this is like and you can get into Baltimore Club and you can get into Jersey Club and. warm out early. It's our learning learning lesson. Yeah, you know when you've worn out a crowd. I think what you just did is like sort of going through your set and reviewing it and seeing like, maybe I shouldn't have played clarity at 1050. The next time you're faced with that, where do I go? Maybe you hold off on that clarity for 30 minutes or something. And you just use that as a learning. But out of that, I didn't give them a break. Like Party Rock Anthem, Show Me Love, Love Tonight, Dance Monkey, and then Gimme Gimme, Love Despacito. And then I went down and played a bunch of Bad Bunny. But then I was in Gasolina and Drop It Like It's Hot and Dolly. Dolly and Nasty and My Neck, My Back. my God. Yeah, I mean they were exhausted. records in an older room, you know. And they were loving them, so they were exhausted by midnight. Just firing off records. Whoops. Anyway. So that was interesting. Let's talk about it. We're gonna see it on our timelines for the rest of the year. I've been seeing a lot of the artists Spotify wrapped and I looked at mine and I was kind of depressed because I didn't release any music on Spotify in 2024. I don't think if I did it was like January 2024. And it's such a big thing. Like everybody posted and not just the DJs and the artists, but consumers. Like it's such a big thing. Why is it such a big thing? Spotify has done a great job in making some bringing something to the table that these other I don't know if they do do it, but if other streaming platforms do it, it's not as popular. It's visually very pleasing when you like click the link in the email and it runs you through this. Like everything's moving and it's just awesome. Like it's fluid, it looks nice, it's visually pleasing. so good that we did a Get Down wrapped last year, visual. It is, you're right, it is just visually appealing and people wanna post what they've listened to for the year and all my friends that posted their wrap yesterday, I was like, this isn't shocking. Yeah, yeah. Like Tyler Valentine posted his and he's like, tell me I'm not gay. And it's like Charlie XCX Beyonce. you know, you just name, you name it, Sabrina carpenter. And I'm like, yep, this is all, this is what I expect. you know, some of my other friends, like we're all house music and you know, some of other friends are all country music. And it's like, all right, that's not shocking. I'm always interested to see mine because it's a little all over the place. but I didn't get mine this year yet. So. I'm a little bummed that it's not in because I would really like to go through what mine was. What do you think yours is? you, is so skewed because when I hang out with the kids, like we're listening to, I don't know, like Travis Scott all day or like Sabrina Carpenter, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift. So like my Spotify is gonna be skewed between like the kids stuff and then also cream stuff. So like my playlist stuff, because that's really all I go on Spotify to listen to really is like, I'll create my playlist and I'll listen to that stuff because that's all the music that I like. I think my year was less Grateful Dead heavy. Last year Grateful Dead was number one. Did not go see them on tour this year, which means that I'm gonna listen to them a lot less. Because that's always what happens. I go see them and I'll listen to them for like three months straight. So I think I was probably, anything that's on my run playlist, so a lot of old school hip hop, so a lot of Jay-Z, a lot of Mobb Deep. Yeah, I listen to that on the ride home in the car a lot at night. Like, all the stuff that I listened to as a kid. Yeah, that and then think Trant, Old Trant is another one that I go to a lot on my Spotify. So like Four Strings and any Tiesto, anything off of any of the Tiesto mix albums from 2002 to 2007. What else? Like Old Polo Can Fold and stuff like that. I don't know. That's a lot of stuff that's just on my run playlist. And so that's gonna get, that's gonna log a lot of hours. Right. I listen to so many podcasts. Like that's what I listen to. I don't even listen to music that much because I music, I listen to music so often. I'm playing music so often. It's like, I just like podcasts and I use Apple. So if I were to look at, if I was to listen on my podcast on Spotify, it would be my morning podcast. like the morning brew, which is like a three business tech tech stories per day. Yeah. and it's like my news podcast. listen to a lot of Tim Ferriss. I listen to other DJ podcasts. like when Rode podcast was on Apple Music, I listened to that every week. I listened to the Headliner Music Club podcast, the Earbuds podcast, which is like a spin-off. Shout to Neil Jackson and Five and those guys and Jersey. So yeah, podcast is where Joe Rogan I listen to. that's what I like to listen to when I'm like doing stuff around the house, when I'm working out, when I'm in the car, usually. Fantasy football and baseball podcasts, forget about it. Yeah, I don't I Don't know that's yeah podcast Morning Brews definitely an everyday or for me. That's like the the main But I watch a lot of podcasts too. I Wish I get a YouTube wrapped. I would wonder what that would look like Check that out YouTube, you know do it do it. I'd be really interesting rap this year and we could talk about it on the year end podcast. We are, we'll do it. I'll have that all done then by December 30th, so January 1. Hopefully have all our, not financials, but I wanna have all our gigs. How many gigs we booked and how many DJs we booked and we cleared 100 DJs last year. It should be more than that this year, I hope. A lot, a lot of gigs. A lot, a lot of gigs. And then I don't know, what else? What else could we add to this? I don't know, we talked about it last year that we wanted to do something this year, but I don't remember what we talked about. It's gotta be an email or in our notes somewhere. What we wanted to do for the year end this year. We gotta look back. we're gonna talk, yeah, we'll talk about our favorite, I'd come correct with like a favorite album, would, favorite artist. yeah, we did that last year, didn't we? We like asked each, we came up with all these categories and we went through it. We'll do that again. That was fun. of fun. I wanna go back to the last three years and see what our, what do you think's gonna be the next big genre? Because that's always a fun topic, but we never revisit to see if, yeah, so I'll have to go back two or three years and look at, know, that specific, just that specific one, because that's, think, the only thing that we do like a projection for, right? I Afro was one ye- we did last year so we can see who that might have been. Breakout artist, right? I have mine for this year, so that's fun. We'll have to look back. We're gonna come up with some good questions. If you guys have or want to hear any topics for this year in review or projected 2025 predictions, let us know in the comments or email us. Yeah, guys, just a bit of housekeeping. think this is gonna be our last podcast here through the holiday. you know, we're gonna take a little time off. Like Gary said, we're doing some some 2025 planning 2024 review. You know, enjoy your holidays, take some time off, spend some time with friends and family, and hit the ground running after the New Year's. I think that's a good time to do all that. So look for our year end episode first week of January and Take a couple weeks off here, so. Guys, have a happy holiday. Enjoy yourselves. Be safe. you guys. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon. Peace. peace.