Why Aren’t You Getting Booked? Fix Your Brand 🤔

On this episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast Cream & Gary W Discuss: 

• Feeling stuck is common in the DJ industry during slow periods.
• Summer can be a time to network and secure fall gigs.
• Understanding the business side of DJing is important for success.
• Reading the crowd can dictate the flow of the night.
• Closing sets should fill gaps left by headliners.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating the Rut: Personal and Professional Challenges
• 3:40 Summer Lull: Strategies for DJs
• 6:35 Maximizing Social Media Presence
• 9:46 Consistency Across Platforms
• 12:47 Creating Effective Mixes for Bookings
• 15:28 Building Relationships in the DJ Community
• 18:26 Understanding the Business of DJing
• 21:26 The Importance of Effort and Visibility
• 24:53 Crafting Your DJ Set: Strategies and Styles
• 38:17 Navigating the DJ Set Structure
• 41:41 The Art of Reading the Room
• 43:50 Preparing for Opening and Closing Sets
• 57:02 Headliner Strategies and Set Dynamics

Transcript

0:42

Alright, what's up guys? Welcome to the 181st episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast. My name is Kareem. Skyrw here, hanging out. You know, Gar, I've been on a real like I've been a rut lately. Well, I heard the weather just broke there, so that's kind of nice. So that'll snap you back a little bit. I heard it's been rainy. I haven't been feeling well. That's been the biggest issue. had COVID. I guess. I don't know. I had COVID once. I got better for about three days and then I traveled and I came back and I was sick again. And I'm still not feeling the best and I'm still tired and it's been a real drain. It makes me not want to do anything. It sucks. I think that coupled with where our business is just kind of running its course right now and there's not a whole ton of stuff, you know, that we're actively actively doing or able to do due to certain time constraints and travel restrictions and things of that nature. it's a little bit of a transition and it's different. this is, know, and I'm sure people, other people deal with this in their businesses too, where they just kind of feel, not that they feel stuck, because it's not like we're not stuck. You know what I mean? Like we actually still gained some new venues and new nights at places and picked up more gigs. And, you know, June's June's been rolling to be honest. And we did all of our bookings through the rest of the summer already. We're done first week of June. And it's just like. I know you like if we're not busy, busy, busy, busy, you feel stuck. You know. Maybe, I don't know, maybe that's it. If I'm not working towards something necessarily, I don't know. I've also been to the pool all week, so I'm not mad at that either. Yeah, that's fantastic. That sounds great. I'm not mad at that either. it's weird. think, I think you're right. think timing wise, this is just a lull in our industry a little bit because it, you know, where we're booking DJs, it's not a vacation uh summer holiday thing. Like our area slows down. New York city slows down. North Jersey slows down and owners and managers aren't really actively trying to do anything beyond the normal. It's sort of just like a survive in advance mind state. until we get to July, August and we start talking about the fall when everything gets crazy again. So. this is the, this is a time that we do start to hear from people, which we have now like, Hey, can you guys fill in like this date here and there? And we'll pick up a couple more city things along the way here that are going to capitalize into more gigs in the fall. Whereas right now it might be a Saturday here and a Saturday there or Friday here and a Friday there. like we send in guys that are going to do a great job or girls and they're going to do a great job. And then we're to come out on the other end with way more gigs in the fall. Right? So like, This is the time we kind of like, we've learned like you sit back and as things come, book it accordingly and you're successful. And guys that aren't gigging out in the Hamptons and guys that I say this every summer, guys that aren't gigging down the shore, yes, it might be nice to go to all those shore spots to go see your friends play, but it's a really, really good time to network up here and go grab new gigs in the regular market. That's not Hamptons, that's not. Jersey Shore. Yes, all have a lot of our younger guys want to be a DJs that, you know, the major nightclub down in the Jersey Shore. But like I said, I never went to DJs because I capitalized on going to the city and finding all of the gigs that people left to go to the shore spots for. And I always had a, I always had a residency come the fall. Sometimes you got to sacrifice the font, the fun, man. Sometimes you just have to sacrifice it. That's great advice. And I think it also it whatever city you're in, right? It's the same thing. I'm sure there's a vacation area or summer area that people go to, whether it's a lake or a beach or whatever it might be. So yeah, take advantage while everyone else is gone. Try to solidify your fall because everyone's booked for the summer. You know, even we booked out the entire summer this year. All the places that are in the popular summer destinations are booked through the summer, most likely. So Any work that you're doing right now should be work towards the fall. So what can you do today to help your DJ career for the fall and the winter? And I think that's how I would be thinking about things for sure. This isn't the most like exciting news or the most exciting thing that you want to hear coming out of Memorial Day weekend. Like, don't go to the fun spots and go network. But like if you want to be successful and you're a hungry young DJ, like you have to do the right things in your market to, to, order to grow, which we are going to get into how to do those things right now, I think. Yeah, there's a happy medium. You should definitely go to those spots that you want to play at and whatever, just for fun and just to show love to DJs and try to meet the Booker in various places. But just understand that what you're doing for this summer is likely going to be setting you up for next summer. It's probably not for this year. If those places are seasonal and they're just booking DJs for the summer kind of thing, or they're just popular in the summer. So, you know, we've been talking about our Discord channel, the Grow My DJ Business Discord channel for a really long time. uh We changed the name of this podcast to Grow My DJ Business to sort of coincide with what we were trying to do in the Discord. Right now, our Discord is a great place for New York, New Jersey, local DJs to pick up work. We're posting a lot, a lot of gigs in there. We're still posting some coaching content and I post my edits in there and other DJs are posting music that they're creating and mixes and we're posting all the events that we're doing. So it's a cool place if you're not in there to go check it out, even if you're not from this New York City tri-state area. But I wanna sort of run through some things that you guys probably aren't thinking about because a lot of the DJs that are in our Discord aren't thinking about these things. Gary and I right now want to set you up for success on social media. And that can be Discord, can be all of your, you know, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, whatever platforms you're using, SoundCloud. We want to give you guys sort of a best practices and some things that you should be thinking about that are going to help you in the long run. So I'll set it up, Gary. You sort of explain what's been going on in there. Well, first of all, you know, this is for our Discord specifically, but if anybody's listening to this that is a part of a Discord or a community, like these are the things that you should be thinking about in order to be successful and to be uh kind of just noticed by a booker. And a great way to get booked, right? and Gary, I think this crosses discord. This goes for any platform that you're posting and you have a presence. It could be any platform. Because if someone finds your page, there are certain things, or if someone's going to look for your page, there are certain things that need to be consistent. Yeah, for sure. like we're battling with, you know, we have some events, like you said, that are open, that we're trying to book DJs for, like we're openly asking guys to, know, are you available to work? And you and I, if we don't know that person, go in and we're trying to do our due diligence. Obviously, if we do not know that person, we really need to run an extensive check on where they play. uh booking DJs. That's bad for business. right, like where they play, um what's their social media presence look like because, what's their social media presence look like because we know that the owner or manager that we send this person to is going to look that stuff up as well, right? um So that's where we're gonna get a feeling of what kind of DJ this person is. Are you a Latin DJ, are you a house DJ, are you a super open format DJ? Like what does your presence look like? We talked about this tirelessly, but. We're going to get into this because we're just struggling. Right. you local, do you live in New Jersey or New York, or do you live in California and you're requesting gigs? are you providing enough information to us and then enabling us to then book you? Are you doing that? And in a lot of cases, like 90 % of the cases right now, it's no, you're not. Because I'm gonna just go tip of the iceberg here. So one thing that happened today when we were trying to book a couple gigs out, somebody had requested gigs, their icon on Discord, their DJ name and then their Instagram DJ name and icon, none of it matched. The goddamn DJ name wasn't the same. How is that a thing? Like, this is not rocket science. This is not rocket science, guys. It's not. Like, you can't put an extra O on your name on Instagram and not have it on your Discord page when we're trying to book you, when neither of us have ever met you before. None of it. No idea who you are. Like you're setting yourself up for failure right from the jump street. Because the first thing you and I are going to look for, we usually go to Instagram first. We're not jumping to TikTok first. Guys, you have to know who's booking you, right? Kareem and I are in like, we're in the age group where Instagram is our first jump. It's not TikTok. If you and I were 25, that would probably be our first jump, right? That's where we would go look first. Well, I like Instagram because they have a link tree and I could find all the different things that the DJ is doing. And like sometimes there's a link on TikTok, but not always. I think that's something that we can get into. What should your Instagram look like in order for a booker to get the most information possible? That's a good place to start. Well, there are certain things that need to be consistent across all platforms. If you go to any one of my pages, it's the exact same name. It's DJ Cream NYC. No matter what the platform is, it could be SoundCloud, Mixcloud, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, you name it. It's exactly the same. And that was done purposely because I want someone who's looking for me to type in DJ Cream NYC in any platform. If they found me on Instagram and they want to go look for me on YouTube, it's the same. My profile picture, exactly the same on every single platform because it's me with my arms wide with a red background. If someone's looking for me and they're not sure if this is the same person, it's the same background, it's the same name, this has got to be Cream. If, if... I'm putting different names in different pictures. makes it very difficult for someone to find you, whether it's a fan, whether it's a booker, or whoever it might be. Also, in all of your profiles, wherever your profile, you should have a SoundCloud link, you should have an email, and or you should have your Instagram profile or whatever platform that you use the most. so that if I go to one platform, I can easily find you on other platforms. As a booker, I wanna go look at your pages, I wanna see what type of places you're playing at, I wanna get a feel for who you are as a DJ. I would love to be able to go to your SoundCloud or Mixcloud and go listen to mixes. So I really understand what you're putting out into the world. And DJs, if you're not creating mixes and you're not getting a lot of DJ bookings right now, the first thing I would do, after listening to this podcast is plan on recording a mix that showcases the style of music that you can play. If you want to get booked for only house music shows, create a house music mix that you think would translate for someone looking to book you. If you want to play open format bar gigs, that's a little bit of everything, create that mix and make sure it's there. People are looking for these things. to be hour long mixes. They can be 20 minutes because nobody's gonna sit there and listen the whole thing. All they wanna know is track selection, cleanliness of your mixing, right? And just track progression. That's all they wanna know. Are you a messy scratcher? Don't scratch, you know what I mean? Like, make sure it's a tight representation of the genres that you're trying to portray. And you could do a couple of them. you're a super open format, you could do a super open format one. But then if you want to just do a Latin one, you could do just a Latin one. You want to do just a house one, you could just do a house one. Like if you are a versatile DJ, showcase all of it. Right, just label it so someone who goes to your page understands what they're looking at. I get it, like, so we were just asked about somebody who's really pushing their, the artist side of what they're doing. We were just asked about them as a DJ and it's like, well, he's an amazing open format DJ, but you really can't find a lot of his open format stuff because he's pushing the artist side of his brand. ah In that case, it becomes a little tough. So maybe you don't need to put that out into the social media world. Like if you're strong in an open format, room. uh You don't have to showcase that like it on social media, but have it in your back pocket. Have a mix ready in your back pocket so you can send it to people. I think that's probably a great way to go about it because you don't want to do all this work on the artist side and step on your own toes. Yeah, I think that's a great example, right? Even Gary and I are booking our get down DJs for other gigs, for private events, for nightlife gigs that people approach us and say, hey, do you have a DJ for this? Do you know what we do? We send a link to our website, the artist page that has the person's SoundCloud, that has the person's Instagram and has their TikTok. So that booker can go look at those things and do exactly what we're talking about. So whether you're a new DJ or a DJ that's been doing this for a while and you're just looking to grow and you're looking to be seen and for people to understand who you are, you need to have this consistency and have some of these things across all these platforms no matter what. think if you're kind of lost as to what we're talking about or how it visually looks, because maybe you're just a visual learner, go to getdowndjgroup.com and go check out our roster and check out the way it looks with the picture, the logos, the SoundCloud links, uh the write-up, and it gives you good idea of really what gives a booker a full scope of who you are as a DJ and as an artist. Right, you need to use your bios and your descriptions on all these platforms to give someone a snapshot into who you are, what you do, and why they should book you. Or at least giving that person the information to be able to go learn more about you. A link tree, right? If you don't have a link tree or something similar to it, you need that in all your profiles, you know? Showcase the things that you're doing. Showcase your music. Showcase previous gigs. It's very important. I'm laughing because the number one thing that I had in my notes was before all of this, if you want to get, well not before it, after all this is done and you want to get booked by somebody, make sure you at least follow them, right? Like if you're trying to get booked by Get Down DJ Group, wouldn't it be a good idea to follow Get Down DJ Group, Girl My DJ Business Podcast, and Me and You, right? Like that would just. That's just common sense. At least I think it's common sense. The amount of people who request gigs in our discord that don't follow me or you is wild. and because if you followed me, at least if I put your DJ name in the, I haven't discord would pop up 90 % of the time, it doesn't pop up. It like hurts my head to think that like, you think that I'm going to send you into a venue that's making us 50 to $75,000 a year. You don't follow me and I can't gain an understanding of who you are as a DJ. That's, that'll be an awful business move because you're going in there to talk to owners and managers. And it's not only your career that is being affected that day. It's the careers of 60 other guys that we use. You know, I think that gets overlooked. It's not just a one night thing. This is a many night thing over the course of a year that you could screw up. badly for many people and lose a lot of people a lot of money. I know that sounds like it sounds like a lot of pressure, but that's the real that's realistically how we need to look at it as people who are book placing DJs in venues and trying to maintain relationships. Right, because one relationship for us is not a $300, $400 DJ booking. It's a multiple thousand dollar account that we're managing and partnering with over the course of a year, you know, and hopefully over the course of many years that would equate to thousands of DJ bookings and multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. dollars, right. Right. So I think that it gets overlooked sometimes when you're trying to get booked by a company or a DJ group how the venues are looked at by the group itself and it's not just a gig. Whereas if you're a singular DJ sometimes you're like, it's just a gig. You know, it's just $350 or whatever it might be. I'll give you, I'll give you guys another sort of homework assignment. After you go get your profiles aligned and your profile pictures and all that stuff and you get that lined up, make a list of all the venues in your market. Make a list of any, you know, agencies or bookers, make a list of all the higher end DJs in your market and go follow every one of those people and places because If you follow me and Gary and you follow Get Down and you're liking our stuff and you're commenting on our posts and we see those, we see the comments, I see them, I like them, I'll respond to them. It starts to put a face to the name and it might not equate to a booking, but it at least gets your name out there and so the people and the venues and the places start seeing your name so that maybe if your name is brought up as someone who potentially could DJ in their place, they'll say, I know that person. He or she comments on all my stuff. just followed me a couple weeks ago and they've been really active and liking all my stuff and like they shot me a DM and introduced themselves. They sent me a mix like you have to go above and beyond in this climate of many DJs and not that many venues. You have to really, you have to like try hard to get in people's algorithm, right? And the way you do that is simply just like everything and comment on everything and eventually you will just slide into their algorithm at some point. You know what I mean? And then it becomes that, like you said, that familiarity is so important to getting booked. Recency bias is so important to getting booked. Showing up to the events that these people are throwing is so important to getting booked. Especially if you're going from not knowing anybody period that is a booker at a group to, oh, I'm requesting gigs from these people. Like you need to do all of these things in order to just be familiar, to be like top of mind, to be like, okay, I wanna book that person. We have so many people that ask us on a weekly basis, like, how do we get to work with you guys? Or, hey, I'm looking to get booked or this or that. But not many people go above and beyond. Not many people stand out. So what are we looking for? We're looking for DJs that stand out, that put in the legwork, that go the extra mile. Because there's hundreds of DJs that just DM us and say, hey, I'm looking to get booked. But there's not a lot of DJs that... do all these different things that we've been talking about. And it goes the same for a venue as well, you know? And that's why showing up at the venue and interacting with all the different people that work there are important. And we've talked about that a million times on this podcast. So yeah, it might sound like a lot of work, but like it takes the extra effort and it takes work to be seen and be heard and get opportunities. And if you're not doing that, then you shouldn't expect to to get booked. I don't wanna downplay this. I really appreciate hearing from DJs that I don't know via DM, whether it be on the Get Down DMs or my personal DMs that wanna come and work with us, right? I love it. I love that, right? And I'll shoot back to how you get involved, but then it's like doing the next... That's step one. And then step two is making sure your ducks are in a row so I can understand who you are since we haven't met. We've maybe just DM'd a few times, right? And then make me want to book you. It's not just raising your hand asking for a gig. It's understanding, and we've said this time and again, understanding the gig that you're raising your hand for. Does your profile match what that gig entails? If you're an... uh If you're a Latin DJ, you're not gonna ask for the open format house heavy gig. You know what I mean? And that's happening. So it's kind of knowing who you are as well and setting yourself up for success because you don't wanna be thrown into a gig and then absolutely fail. You'll never get used again. There's common sense that needs to be had here in some ways. it's matching your brand with the gig that's being offered and then also being visible enough in a way. uh, that you're going to get picked for gigs. It's, it's not all easy, right? Like it's not all easy. No, it's hard. And that's why it's hard to grow and it's hard to get booked and it's hard to make a name for yourself. But that's why hopefully you're listening to this podcast so we can help you navigate some of this stuff and give you some actionable items that you can go take into your business and hopefully it'll help get you booked. And Gary and I are literally giving you guys the blueprint on these podcasts. of the type of DJs and the things that we're looking for if you want to work with us. So if you're listening to this podcast, it's a step in the right direction because we're giving you, we're giving you the insights, we're giving you all the things that Gary and I are looking for, you know, and what most people are looking for. And we never had that. Like I never, I had to figure this shit out pretty much. Yeah, it sucked. It sucked. But, you know, it is a different time, obviously, than when we came up, and there is more access, and there are more ways to put yourself out there and get your name out there and get your face out there and get your sound out there. It's easier than it ever has been, but you need to make sure that the Booker can connect the dots. Absolutely. I think of my journey and you know, I'm drawn towards the DJs that were doing that are doing a lot of the things that I was doing when I was younger, you know, I see the DJs that are putting in the effort that I put when I was a beginner DJ. And those are the DJs that I want to help, you know, I want to see you putting out content, I want to see you creating, creating music, creating art, like art, when I say art, I mean, just being like, flyers or cool graphics or things to promote what you're doing. I want to see you active. I want to see you popping out. That's all stuff that's important to me. And maybe that's not important to somebody else, but That's what I'm looking for. It's interesting because we both have a different, a little bit of a different perspective on, like I like, I'm a recency bias guy. Like if you came out and you said what's up and you were a nice person and we really got along and like, we're super easy to come in and approach. Like you're looking to DJ, we're both DJs. Like we can just talk about that. We don't have to like meet in any other, you know, portion of conversation. Like it's just very simple. Like let me know that you're a good person and that I could trust you walking into a place and you're a grinder. Cause like, that's what I want. Like I was working Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday since high school, you know, and I like those guys that grind and I like those guys that put out mixes and you know, they want to come out and show love and I'm a little old school in that way. We're like, I like people that show up to stuff, you know, and that gets you more opportunity, you know, um, Because you definitely came up later where it was marketing and branding. That was all involved when you came up. Like when I came up, it was you had to just go out and meet people because there wasn't social media at all. um So it's interesting. And I know that's difficult for some younger guys that are used to just communicating on socials and that's the way that they wanna go about it. But like I said earlier, you need to know who's booking you. and understand what their styles are. We know guys that like, know owners that we work with. We're like, well, we know how this guy's style is. He's like, he's old school. He's an old school Italian guy. We know exactly how he is. It's just understanding people. That's what we do for a living. We read people for a living. So you need to kind of understand that when you're trying to gain access to places. That stuff's important. And there's been a couple DJs we've talked about that just came and hung out with me for an entire set and chilled in the booth. We did a couple shots or he brought me a, you know, they brought me a drink here and there. Like we've used those DJs because now I have a face with a name and I know you're cool as a human being. like, we talked after the set and like, it's kind of that easy, but. those people made an effort, you know? It's crazy, like 95 % of people aren't gonna make an effort. if you could just go a little above and beyond what the average person does, you can really stand out. And we wanna work with DJs that stand out. We want A players, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Or at least we want to try to work with people that we target as DJs that potentially could be A players, you know? a hundred percent. It's, it's not easy. The whole thing's not. There's a lot of work that goes into this, this is what happens in a competitive field, right? No matter what. song and dance, Gary. I'm still doing this. We're both still doing the song and dance. It doesn't stop. It's the truth, it's the truth. I'm completely at fault of not doing any of this when I'm in Florida. This is why I haven't done any gigs down here, because I don't do this stuff. know? But. It's because it's difficult because it takes a lot of time. takes a lot of effort. And I understand how much it does take because you and I have been doing it for so many years because we're just doing it with venues like for the business at this point, right? You're still doing it, trying to grow as an artist. Like you're right. It is a lifelong song. This never stops. You'll never stop growing. Right. Like, if I was in sales, I'd be doing the same song and dance in whatever industry that I was doing sales for, you know? I did it as a teacher coming up. Like I did everything, coached everything, did everything. There was extracurricular that I wasn't getting paid for. You do that after school. Make sure the person that hired you sees it. Try to get a rave, work your, work your raise that way, right? Like you always working an angle in life. So like how, how can you do that in this industry? And I think, you know, we're just laying it out there exactly how you can be doing this in this industry. Play the game. All right, so the next thing I want to get into, thought, I don't know where I got this idea from. um It was probably from another podcast where I was just listening and they were talking about sort of like the flow of a night. I thought it might be interesting for you and I to sort of go through different types of sets that we would play. For example, like a four hour full night open to close open format set or opening set, right? Whether I'm opening for a bigger. local DJ or regional DJ or opening for an artist and then like a two hour headline set and sort of just talk about how we would attack each of those and like by like almost in an hour by hour basis of like the first hour I'm gonna start this way and then I'm gonna do this and see what I think let's go through that so you want to start with what a four hour open format set I think that's probably the best. I mean, that's what I'm most used to. It's what I've played forever and ever and ever. I have to plug in my light real quick, so I'm going to get up, like, start this. I could I could start this off and I wouldn't I'm to break this down probably in more like half hours. I feel like hours are just maybe too long if I think if I'm just going to speak in genres. Well, first of all, when I start my set, I look around the room to see, you know, my age group demographic, demographic on all fronts, you know, age group. there more women? Are there more men? Is it heavy Latin? Is it heavy white? Is it heavy black? And kind of go and. start to feel songs out, especially if it's like a thinner crowd early. then like, so maybe it'll be an R &B set, throwback R &B set to start and see if there's any movement in that. And then if I get some movement in a throwback R &B set, I like to then transition into like a early 90s house set. like Show Me Loves, but maybe not Show Me Love, but in that. in that world, uh maybe some B-side Whitney Houston tracks that are 118 to 122 dance, but they're not peak hour dance records. ah So I like to play the originals. So it would be like R &B into those early 90s house originals, which always hit and people love. And then it gives me so much flexibility to go into like current dance, which would still not be peak hour, but it would be like my 1030, I would say records and then play some like dance stuff, see how the reaction is and then drop it down probably around 11 and like hit some like real good like pop hip hop and sing along stuff. Your Rihanna's, your Beyonce's, your, you know, things in that world. And then like some, maybe some start mixing in some more current stuff in that like 100 to 105 BPM. And now I'm like in my 1130 ish range. and now boom, I'm back up and I'm gonna build right into my peak hour, which is going to be how I do my Crate Skies would be I do it by genre and then I do it by year and then I do it by genre and then I have like a peak hour and then like a pick it up folder and once I hit that peak, it's just, I'm in that most current peak hour folder, probably usually house music and I'll toggle back and forth between house. and whatever the current hip hop folder. right now it'd be 2025 peak hour hip hop and then 2025 peak hour house. And I'd go back and forth between those. you know, and then like bang them over the head for like 45 minutes with stuff. And then I come around 1230, bring the energy back down into that like 100 BPM, which right now would be all that women like hip hop stuff, the Megans and all that. And then from there, I'd probably play like a Nikki record, one of her like more, this is very specific because I use this a lot. One of those like Nicky like Island records that like sound a little more reggae ish and then maybe come come into like a like a dance hall set and do something with that. And then transition back up to house from there. And I figure out like probably a Drake transition, you know, and get into maybe one of those like islandy sounding Afro Drake house tracks and then build from there. pretty quickly, like in one or two tracks. uh hit it with another super high energy set. like now it's probably like what, like 115? This is where my set always gets tough in open format. Like this 115, 130, where I'm really trying to keep a lot of energy. So I'm still hitting like some house records that are popular. And then start like reaching back into my other years of peak hour. So I'll be in. you know, anywhere from 2020 to 2025 in peak hour and just start working records that have been big over the past four to five years. And then to end the night, I usually just play like I play what I want to play at end of the night. Like my last half hour is going to be whatever I left on the cutting room floor. I'm going to I'm going to pick that stuff up. And like, you know, I've talked about. Like Dennis Cruz and Bontan and stuff like that, like I. probably be in that world a little bit, maybe for like 10 minutes just to appease myself and then kind of see who's in the room and kind of finish it out. ah But that's a typical me set. All right. I mean, that's good. I like hearing this because it's like, there's a lot of ways to get to the same result, you know, and everybody's going to do it a little bit different. And obviously, you know, who's in front of you and the room you're playing and the demographic matters greatly in this. um But yeah, I'll sort of run through mine. And it's a little harder for me because most of what I've been doing has been heavy, heavy dance music lately. So like, My, my sets have comprised mostly of like 75 % house music probably and dance and EDM. Um, but if I was doing a more traditional sort of open format where I'm bouncing around, you know, early on, I'm probably starting with like a bunch of R and B ish records, like you said, but that could be like, I've been playing a lot of like eccentric and Nick bike and stuff that's like, has a little electronic vibe to it kind of. um 115 kind of in that area. it's like 107 to 115 range. um Yeah, and I just have like a lot of really good like Miguel and SZA and Bryson Tiller and like all these different R &B-ish records that still have a little bit of energy and like people know, and it's not like the 85 BPM original kind of thing. um So I've been starting a lot like that lately and I've been seeing some success with it. So that's kind of why I've been doing it a lot. And then from there, I can transition into sort of that hip hop vocal or R &B vocal house your vibes and then into sort of your traditional top 40 dance music. And usually I'll sit in that for a little bit, especially if it's working ah and the room is starting to get a little busier. know, if that's like that. If I've gotten to this point and it's now 11 o'clock, it's like, all right, we have to start building the energy in the room. If this is a four hour, 10 to two type thing. So like a lot of like burnout remixes, I've been crushing all the burnout remixes. He's been killing it. A lot of my own edits of just dance music, vocals of styles of stuff that I like. Your stuff in this in this hour is the best always has been. Yeah, mean, a lot of like the tech house with pop vocals is where I'm gonna live for this amount of time. And then at some point, I'll say, all right, I got to transition down and I'll go one of two ways. So I'll either drop down to maybe like some lighter like Jersey club style. So 130 to 140 BPM that you could transition to 70. And I can play a little bit of like lighter Jersey club, not super aggressive stuff, just something that has a little more bounce. And I have a whole folder of this built out in my like warmup folder. And then transition into a little bit of like older popular hip hop, you know? And I could do that for a little bit if I want. I could also do some like hard dance stuff if I want to. Many times that'll be the progression where I'll go down to some hip hop R &B Latin Jersey club that's lighter. Then I'll go to some regular older hip hop, know, the Lil Wayne, Drake. you know, that type of stuff, maybe a little Cardi B, whatever, whatever I'm feeling in that zone, 70 BPM. And then when I know I wanna go back to dance music, I'll go into some hard dance stuff, right? Where it's again, not super aggressive, but it gives you this little extra bounce and the BPMs are fast and people can dance to it and they know the vocals. And then I can transition back to my 130 dance music. ah And at that point it's peak hour and I'm just doing my peak hour thing that's you know, I'm going up and down between EDM and Tech House and maybe even a little techno um And just moving around and seeing what works Dipping into hip-hop dipping to Jersey Club Maybe I hit you with a little Latin set if I've got some bad bunny requests and I do a little bad bunny Routine that I have with a couple reggaeton tracks That's one that I missed that like, play so much Latin and I totally missed it. But like that goes into like that hundred BP, like 95 to 105 BPM pop hip hop. That's what I consider that. And then if I do drop down into some 100 BPM Latin, I could do a hip hop set and then I can come out of that with going to like Dembow. If I know my Latin people are in the room and I know a quick Dembow set will work because I can transition up to 118, 120 and then that brings me back into my EDM world that I kind of want to live in anyway, you know? And then end of the night, it really depends. End of the night could be like techno, could be just like more chill, deeper tech house. It could also be reggae. I do reggae a lot at the end of the night because it just like feel good. Yeah. depending on who's in the room, it could be R &B again to end the night. It really depends where I am and what I'm feeling and kind of what has worked so far. Classic dance hall in the rooms that I play regularly at like 130, 145 goes off. I play, that's like, play some Latin, play some classic dance hall, and then you kind of have room to do whatever you want at that point. Yeah, the beauty of playing a four hour open format open to close is it's your world and you can do whatever you want. So that's why there's no real format here because go be a DJ, right? Like build the energy as you see fit. Sometimes it's going to be early. If it's, there's a line around the block and at 11 o'clock you're jammed out and people are dancing to like your chill stuff at 10 30, maybe peak hour is earlier. But if it's a slower night and you're still building the room, You know, maybe you never get to techno or you never get to the big EDM stuff with big drops because you just can't, you know? Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of nights like that. Where you just don't... I've left complete genres out in nights just because the room didn't call for it. Right. Or you just hadn't maybe dance music's just working and you break it up for a little bit and you go do some hip hop and it doesn't really work. So you just go back to dance music and like that's your night, you know. Yeah, I've opened some recent open format sets with like an hour and a half of like real house music. Like not like pop, no pop remixes, none of that, like real house music. But it was energetic, people vibe to it, you just stick with it. You gotta, you have to just read the room. You know, it's the one thing that I think you and I do really well, is being able to see what's in front of you and adapt and do what the right thing is. I mean, that's what's gonna make or break you as a DJ is how you can adapt and how you can see what's happening because if you if you're not reading your crowd and people are leaving and the venue is not making any money, then you're not gonna be asked back, you know, but if you keep a crowd and it's busy until the very end of the night, they're not gonna care if you're in a room that they say don't play this genre, but you play it and it works and they make money like it doesn't matter what you do. Right. So that's the beauty of a full night. It's your world. Do what you see fit, you know? And there's some freedom in that and there's less pressure sometimes in that. Yeah, because these next ones that we're going to come onto are a little more difficult for me that are like more pointed. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because like, right now you're mostly doing full nights, right? Like you're not, there's your it's rare that you're opening for anybody. And it's, it's definitely more rare for you to open for anybody. And it's occasional where you have your headlining, right? And you have somebody come in. For me, it's the opposite. I'm either like Friday, I'm playing with actually I'm closing, but I'm playing with Julian Jordan at Nebula my first time there. I'm closing the night. a little different, right? Way to prepare for a set than if you're the headliner and you're coming on to play a set. let's talk a little bit about how do you prepare? What are you thinking about? What would you play if you were the opener for a night? The way I always approached opening was definitely look at the set from the headliner's perspective, number one. I think that's the number one thing that I would do. And it's like, okay, what would I play if I was the headliner? And do your research, like what is the headliner playing in their sets? Stay away from all of that. Like don't even sniff any like the newest big records. Yeah. my opinion. Because if you burn a headliner, like you're burning a bridge, essentially. You really don't want to burn the headliner. I know you might look at this a little differently, but I think stay away from anything that's new and newest biggest records. There are several ways that you could set this up. Like, do you play a completely different style? Is this an open format? There's a lot of questions surrounding this. Is this like an open format headliner? Is this a artist headliner? ah Because you'd... your opening. You're playing a local gig with a bigger DJ from your market. Let's start there. Yeah, mean, I would, first of all, you're going to start when probably nobody's in the room, right? So you can kind of create your own vibe off the jump. ah I would probably start with something like if I knew that like this DJ is going to come in, he's playing two hours, it's going to be all big stuff. Like I'd think about like Afro house. I would think about coming in and playing even Afro beats and kind of like playing something that's kind of more vibey and then building this set. with energy as you get closer to when the headliner comes on. um I'm trying to think, God, I haven't done this in so many years. So it's so difficult. But I think that I would do it like I was opening for myself. And so maybe that's where I would start and then build my way into like 120 BPM, more chill house with some popular vocals that aren't too popular that the headliner might play. um And then once you're building up to the hour before the headliner comes on, really increase the energy. You want to be not headliner energy, but you're going to have a packed house and you're going to want to keep the dance floor and keep everybody interested without playing anything that's too new. So maybe you reach back a few years and you grab a couple of records that were popular years ago and you play different remixes of that. ah in genres that aren't going to, it's not going to be the same as what the headliner's playing. So if you're like, know, they're going to be playing like, you know, 135 BPM house. Like obviously you're not going that big. You're going to maybe play some 128 BPM house pop dance remixes that still have energy. People are interested on the dance floor and it's going to keep their attention. And then you can kind of smoothly pass it off to the headliner. You've seen and had a lot more opener situations recently. So I'd be interested to see kind what you're seeing out there. I mean, what I'm seeing is most openers just play, you know? Like, they take into consideration, but I don't think they totally realize that just because a song doesn't have like a 10 in energy doesn't mean that it's not a peak hour headline song, if that makes sense. So, so like, my biggest advice and the things that I'm thinking about as an opener are first and foremost, volume of music has to be lower than when the headliner goes on. You can't be blasting your master from the jump and give the headliner no room to increase that volume. That's an important piece of the headliners. Like there's certain things as a headliner which we'll talk about, increasing the volume is a big one. So you have to give the headliner volume room. You also have to give the headliner BPM room. The most annoying thing to me isn't always the song selection, it's the speed. Like if you're playing 130 to 132 as an opener, like bro, what are we doing? Like you need to be in 126, you know? that's, when I start my sets, I'm DJing at 124 and I, at 11 o'clock I'm DJing at 126. At 1130, I'm DJing at 128. Like I'm slowly building up my pace. And I don't think a lot of people think about that, but that's also important. So volume and BPM speed is super important. um If I'm opening a room, I'm playing like vocals that everybody knows, feel good stuff, stuff that people can like bob their head to and it's familiar and it feels good. And when someone walks in the room, they hear it and they don't immediately want to leave because it's either too weird, too obscure, too deep. I think that's always the biggest thing. It has to be familiar. has to be something safe. And that doesn't matter if it's dance music, hip hop, whatever you're starting with. So I would start there, you know, whether it's Tech House or maybe some new disco or the BPMs are slow, the volume is lower and the vibes are chill. And then as I continue on, all of that is increasing, you know? But as an opener, your job is to just play stuff that makes people wanna be there, you know? So however you do that is okay to me. For me, I'm gonna play dance music, I'm gonna drop down and play one little mini hip hop set probably. Again, very pop, very middle of the road, Rihanna, Drake, Nicki Minaj, stuff that everybody knows, none of the new stuff, and then I'm gonna go back to house music. And I'm not gonna play all the biggest records the last 20 minutes before the headliner goes on. I'm gonna do the opposite. I'm gonna stay so far away from the big records for the last 10 or 15 minutes. Again, so you're creating a little breathing room for that headliner to come in and make an impact on the first song. What I've been seeing is openers just like many times a lot of the places that open that people are getting booked where there's multiple DJs they're expected to just play bangers like people want their DJs to just banger banger banger banger. And I guess that's okay if that's what your venue calls for, but as a traditional opener, like, you shouldn't be playing Odd Mob, you shouldn't be playing John Summit, you shouldn't be playing like, Insert Mal P, Dom Dalla, you shouldn't be playing any of that stuff. That's all headliner stuff. Unless you're playing Dom Dalla, uh Take It from six years ago, you know? Or John Summit, Deep End, or something like stuff that's super old. Yeah. I, as a headliner, I come in and I hear DJs playing a lot of shit. like, this guy's playing all of his tracks that I want it to play. Like it's, it's not the end of the world because I'm a professional and I'm going to come in and reset the room and do what I have to do. And it's not going to be a big deal at the end of the day, but it's annoying for sure. Like I said, it could burn a bridge. If you piss off a headliner enough, depending on the situation and where you're at, that could burn a bridge pretty badly. So. if if if you're opening for me and you're just zero zero regard for anything that I'm about to come and do like I'm not booking you. Or if I did book you, I'm not booking you again. Right, right, right. Yeah, even tougher if it's a book like the Booker and the DJ like do you want to talk about a nerve-racking opening spot, you I don't even like to hang out, especially in Birch. I don't even like to hang out there. I'll come in, drop my stuff, and then I go to our sister bars to hang out because I don't want to stress out the DJ. And I don't want to sit in the room. I want to see what's happening, grab a drink, and then I want to DJ. I used to love sitting there and hearing it, but it gets me anxious. I just want to show up and rock. I'd be anxious for the DJ. Yeah, I would not want to be there. So I think that's the way I would approach like local opener, regional opener DJ. If it's an artist, if it's an artist, I'm going a 1001 track list, I'm going to SoundCloud, I'm listening to their mixes and seeing what they're playing and just playing something different from what they normally do. Anything that remotely would might fit in their set, I'm not playing. I loved the opening closing. I hated to stick around. I mean, it was nice to stick around and listen to the DJ and it was like, well, I gotta go jump on now for the last 30 minutes. I feel like that's a huge waste of time. And I always bitched about it. And then I would do it and I'm like, this guy, he didn't play all of these records. I'm like, this is incredible. And then go in and have the crowd going even harder than when the... headliner was on, I wound up loving it after the fact, but I hated it while I was waiting around to play again. Yeah, the closing set was the best. But like when you could go harder than the headliner went, like that was always getting you more points on the, in the booker's eyes, right? So like sit there and do your homework and pay attention and you know, drag and drop the, you know, prep your neck, your closing set as, you know, oh my God, all right, he left this and he left that and he left that or she. And it's like, yeah, you start dragging stuff over. I remember like one time I closed her beat breaker and I was like, my God, like I was expecting him to play all of this like hip hop. But when he was transitioning over into being more of an EDM, not EDM, but like more of a house DJ. And I was like, this is amazing at the way that was amazing hip hip hop closing set, you know? And it was like, it's just nice to be able to do that and like showcase your abilities and show that you paid attention and you know, you paid attention to what was also working on the dance floor at the time of the headliner one or what wasn't working. this is a team effort. This is not a like, what can I do to do the best job for me and me like, you guys are working together to create a night. like, you don't want to repeat the same songs and you want to be aware of, of if you know what, what's been played, what hasn't been played. And if you're closing, you play the stuff that hasn't been played and you fill the gaps. That's, that's what it is. you're open or enclosed, the majority of the people aren't there to see you, right? And if you could pick up the slack at the end of the night, that's an amazing feeling, it's an amazing thing to do. the closer you get to come on and be an extension of the headliner and then try and keep people there to show that like, this guy's good. He could keep our, he could keep our customers till the very end of the night or beyond. Like when I used to do this in New York, I would open, I'd hang out or I'd go somewhere else to go hang out with other DJs. And then I would come back and like, if it was stayed busy and I kept the room, we'd stay open past four o'clock. Cause like there was no rules and like you could just keep rocking. I'm so happy I never opened and closed. open until 5 a.m., like I crushed it. So happy I never did that in New York, man. Those are long nights. I only did opening and closing in Jersey for a very short period of time. I like doing a full set. I always say this. It's just, I like to be in control the entire time. Yeah, between Ammo and like Alex Persaud used to book me a lot. Wow. Nick Russo, like, Krim, can you open close this club in the meatpacking? Like, fuck yeah, bro. That shit was fun. Made no money, like, you know. 150 bucks, 250 bucks, whatever it was.$150 I remember those But it was fun and I got to play all the good rooms and I met a ton of the big New York City DJs, which was like equally as important, you know? Right. Yeah, totally. Should we run through one more, you know? Yeah, we could run through a headliner set. think we sort of talked a lot about it, but I would say just as a headliner, you want to sort of, if you weren't in the room to hear what the opener was playing, maybe look through the history of what was the last 30 minutes of songs and see where they went. Communicate, right? Like, did you hit a hip hop set yet? Did you do any of this? Did you do any of that? Communicate back and forth. And then your job is to bring the energy from a seven to a 10, you know? So volume up. energy up, BPM's up, and I'm hitting all the big records. Big EDM, Jersey Club, all the new hip hop. Do you, my thing was always, I liked to open with like the biggest record out, or like, you I know you create, ah create like an intro and whatnot. ah Like sometimes I do an intro, sometimes I wouldn't, but like, you know, yeah, get on the mic, know that there's a DJ change, know that the headliner's coming, like introduce yourself kind of a thing, get the room ready for the headliner to be on, for you to be on. I usually would like hit like the first like one or two biggest records. right off the jump. It's just the way I liked to do it because it grabs everybody's attention and everybody who's there for it. And then after 15 minutes or so, bring the energy back down a bit. And then just play with people for the next, for my whole set, for an hour and a half of just go up and down and big records in all the genres. I still always liked it to be... super open format. never, even when I was headlining rooms, wasn't going all into EDM. I was still playing everything. ah know, hitting a throwback set of stuff people hadn't heard in a long time. I think the way I looked at it was probably very different than a lot of these guys that get on that always wanted to be the house DJ and now they get to be the headliner and they get a bang out for two hours of house music in whatever genre of house music it is. That was just never my thing. Even in the EDM, when I was headlining in 12 and 13, when EDM was like the biggest thing, was still dropping into old school hip hop, sing-along, even like bar, even touch like bar sing-along stuff. Because I think I was just always truly an open format DJ and never really had interest in going all in one direction or the other. especially like yeah, loved Tiesto, but I still loved at the time Funkmaster Flex at the same exact time. You know, so it was always nice to play all the Tiesto records that he was playing and then also then go and play all the Flex records that he was playing at the same time. it must've been a very interesting thing to hear when I was doing that in like 2002, 2003, where it was like, nobody was really doing that. But then once AM came onto the scene and be able to, and then once AM came onto the scene, I was then headlining up like a year or two after that. And then EDM became a thing and it was like, that's why my headliner set was always still so open. Because I was like, though, I look at like an A-Track and an AM as, I mean, they're headliners and they still play everything, you know? It's a different approach. if I could not play one hip hop song in a set, I'm happy. But I think years ago, I was also the guy that would love to drop into a hip hop set because I was still excited about playing hip hop music and I'm just not excited about playing anything lately. know, if I can go two hours straight of just playing various genres of EDM, sub genres of EDM, I'm happy and I can play a great set and I can change people's ears up enough. that it works out. um think going back to what you said earlier about like coming in with an intro, I think a lot of the sets that I've been playing, like I want to come in with an intro, but it's just when I go on, it's not necessarily intro time yet. So, so a lot of times like I'll play a few tracks or I'll play a little mini set, still sort of building the energy of the room. And then you know, I'm warmed up, the other DJs out of my way, the equipment's out of my way, and I can really do then a true intro, um where it's like, you know, a big, a big down sweep and a bomb or whatever that goes into whatever intro that I create, unless I'm playing a big, big room, right? Like Barstool Nashville, or if I'm like, you know, Trio or one of those like, I'll go on at 12 o'clock and I'm starting my set with whatever intro I create. even on these travel gigs, most of the time, like if I'm jumping on at 11.30, let's say, like I might not drop my intro till 12.15, if I even drop an intro at all, you know? Yeah, that all goes on feeling. Yeah, it really depends. But yeah, like I'll mean, that's great advice because like maybe some people think like, I'm headlining. need to do that. Right. I mean, that's great. And then unfortunately then like it looks, it kind of looks silly. Like if you're dropping an intro at a wrong time, it has to fit. But if you're at the point where you're headlining, you understand the vibes of the room at least. have to be this like super dramatic drawn out intro. It can just be like you jumping on the mic and introducing yourself and turning the volume up and increasing BPM and like that can be your intro too, you know, it doesn't have to be this extravagant thing. So, I don't know, I hope this sort of like helped you guys sort of peer into our brain when it comes to these various sets that we're playing and hopefully helped you a little bit. Yeah. Love that. Love that conversation. I don't know, Gar, should we just wrap here? Yeah, I think so. Anything we got to promote for next weekend. Soundgrid. Our next Soundgrid event in Hoboken, New Jersey, Birch, June 14th. Uh, Cream, back-to-back Marty Dunston. Frizzle from Boston, Providence, back-to-back Avera. She is. We have some contest winners that are playing early. Controla and Tek are gonna play the first hour back to back. So this is our latest installment of our 360 party in Hoboken. And uh yeah man, excited for that. If you guys wanna come out, we'll have ticket links in show notes and you can find it on our Instagram at Soundgridparty. They've been fun man, they've been super fun. If you want to party all day, earlier that afternoon, uh Club Cafacito with me and Dramos on Ashford Rooftop. We're gonna be doing a vinyl set for the first hour. I haven't played on true vinyl DJing in a few years now, probably two or three. uh So that'll be fun to do, especially in Latin, playing like old school, we're playing like 50s, 60s, 70s Latin stuff. So I've been great digging. So that's gonna be fun. we're gonna start with a vinyl set and then we're gonna play just various, it's gonna be more of a, yeah. Yup, yup. um We're gonna have dominoes on all the tables. We're gonna be doing uh salsa lesson for an hour towards the middle of the party. What else am I missing? We have a local rum company coming in and they partnered with the head bartender over at the Ashford. They created a cocktail for the event. So come check that out. We have a local run club coming in. They're gonna party with us. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be really... It's gonna be a great afternoon. So if you guys wanna come hang out, Ashford, June 14th, ah right before Soundgrid. So you guys can get all prepped before Soundgrid. Yeah, be good. Alright, cool. Thank you guys for listening to this episode and we'll talk to you guys soon. Peace. Peace.