For all the djs: THE FRIEND’S PARTY: If your friend is having a party and she knows you are a DJ, she might ask you to perform. Since she is your friend, you will probably do it for free. This almost always leads to a bad result. Realize that you understand a lot more about electronic music than she probably does. You are an expert at recognizing what’s hot and play the latest tracks and underground music. You practice a lot in your bedroom and you are hungry for a gig. She is hot and so are her friends. She says she loves EDM, House, and Techno. Tiesto is her favorite. Unfortunately when you start performing, her definition of electronic music is not the same as yours. Then everyone at the party starts getting drunk. You better have a hard disk full of David Guetta’s remixes of Rihanna, Avicii, Macklemore, 2 Chainz, and plenty of hipster rock. If you are not prepared for this, be prepared to destroy her party. If you are performing in front of a crowd that does not recognize the good stuff, do not destroy their mood and kill the party by showing them the good stuff. Keep it underground. And if you cannot stomach playing mainstream music, do not get into this situation again. The lesson learned here is that you have to be smarter than the person booking you. You have to assess their needs. Even if they tell you they heard your demo, love your style, and that’s what they want you to play, always assume they never actually listened to your demo and have no idea what you play and what real dj’ing is even about. Obviously some of your friends get it. Some of your friends understand the House Music scene, but that’s usually not the case with most of your friends.THE UNPAID GIGIf you are new to DJ’ing this is one of the hardest things to avoid. DJ’ing for free. A dude approaches you and asks you to DJ at their event for free. “It’s good exposure” he says. “We can cross-promote” he says. And look, let’s be honest, you have no name recognition whatsoever and could use the practice, right? Sounds pretty good, you might even get free drinks. You might even get your name on a flyer, that helps you, right? Wrong. Totally wrong. First off, if you are a bedroom dj, you probably have at least $2,000.00 worth of equipment. You probably will need to rent speakers, that will set you back at least $100 for a small event. You will have to work 12 hours picking up the speakers, moving your equipment, striking your equipment, returning speakers, and then you still have to DJ for at least 4-8 hours. You also have to pay gas money to handle all the logistics. Also, you should have at least a friend there that can help you out here and there and watch your equipment so it isn’t stolen.Once you start performing at your free gig, the person that booked you with no pay might not realize what kind of music you play whatsoever. Now they are going to start making requests. And you are going to start resenting them. Here you are, working your ass off for free and person that booked you has just turned you into a jukebox. You might ask yourself, “why did this dude book me if he knows I only play dubstep?” The truth is, he only booked you because you are the only sucker that he could find that would dj for free. So it never really mattered to him, at least he found a dj. Now, here’s your dilemma. You can either keep playing the dubstep tracks that you love and destroy the event, you can change it up and play mainstream, or you can walk. Because after all, you are not getting paid. No matter what you do at any gig, people will always hate on you. There’s nothing worse than people hating on you and making unreasonable demands, then driving home exhausted, unpacking your equipment, and realizing you have nothing whatsoever to say for it. It might take you a couple of free gigs until you follow my advice. That’s ok. It’s a rite of passage.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 14:12:40 +0000
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