playing smaller venues

[Spender]

Used to play regularly down the (old) Dragon Bar many moons ago.

Tunes that would get people up and sloshing their beers around would be so random, you seriously couldn't plan for it. The less seriously you take it though, the better. Don't think too much about crafting a mix, telling a story with music etc, just get nicely (but not too) p*ssed and enjoy yourself.

All the right tunes in the wrong order kind of thing. Tunes that always worked down there...

Afrika bambaata - Zulu War Chant (Funky Remix)
Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
Spanky Wilson - Sunshine of your Love
Ragga Twins - Illegal Gunshot
X Project - Code Red (94 Remix)
The Specials - Ghost Town
Porn Theatre Ushers - Me and Him
Pharoah Monche - Simon Says
SL2 - On a Ragga Tip
Gangstarr - Full Clip
Tenor Saw - Golden Hen
Frankie Valli - The Night
Ray Baretto - The Soul Drummers
Damien Marley - Welcome to Jamrock
Leviticus - The Burial
Lee Perry - Jungle Lion
2 Bad Mice - Bombscare
The Whatnauts - Help is on the Way
Steely Dan - Peg
Michael Jackson - PYT / Thriller / Billie Jean
The Rebirth - Evil Vibrations
JVC Force - Strong Island
Cameo - Candy
Barrington Levy - Here I Come
Beenie Man - Who am I?
Italian Job Theme (Self Preservation Society)
Class Action - Weekend

 

[zhao]

Tunes that would get people up and sloshing their beers around would be so random, you seriously couldn't plan for it. The less seriously you take it though, the better. Don't think too much about crafting a mix, telling a story with music etc, just get nicely (but not too) p*ssed and enjoy yourself.

that's great, but is not the only approach that works.

i had a few random cuts in my set, but for the most part it was very much planned - i have enough experience as a dj to know what kinds of tracks would work, from afro funk to Cumbia to classic Bhangra to Bollywood, and Cambodian boogie rock, and they have never failed me. and i will continue to do this.

 

[Sick Boy]

My friend had to do a gig like this once (you may remember him, Precious Cuts, he used to post here). I went to keep him company. It was at one of these fake "Irish" pubs on campus with sticky floors that the frat types frequent. There were two PC desktop computers set up with one crossfader set between them, both with iTunes running.

We must've played every hair metal hit to every grace an 80's car stereo. You'd think that would've worked with those ogres but they were too busy sniffing the jailbait. I had a great time though.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

was just listening to this & thought it's another piano anthem that might go over well down the bar...got a certain melancholy (not darkness, more like a love lost kinda thing - vibe reminds of another Yazoo's "Midnight" another favorite of mine) to it but it still rolls something fierce...great great great vocals...either way a tune for the ages...I believe in the genius of T.Power...

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[slye]

It's never a mistake to bring this record along:

"Don't Leave Me This Way" is unstoppable.

 

[zhao]

sorry Padraig, but that track sound crap and stupid and i'll never play it, or anything that sounds like it, in any sized venue. those piano stabs sound so lifeless and ugly man... and the vocals are absolutely shit.

i'll leave that adolescent rave business entirely to you and stick with my bar music:

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see, that is called GROOVE, and FUNK, and DEPTH, and BOOGIE, and LIFE and CELEBRATION and FUN.

and people around the world can tell the defference between real music and teenagers freaking out on bad speed.

 

[luka]

youre going to end up like gilles peterson if youre not careful.

 

[zhao]

youre going to end up like gilles peterson if youre not careful.

haha my sets might overlap his a bit, but for dive bars only.

and for big rooms i don't touch soft stuff like Osunlade at all...

and he doesn't play stuff like this, which NO BAR CROWD ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD CAN RESIST:

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[luka]

i used to play that in the sydney pie shop i worked at. it used to make the customers run horrified from the shop, gravy sloshing onto shirtfronts.

 

[wonk_vitesse]

i'll leave that adolescent rave business entirely to you and stick with my bar music:

and people around the world can tell the defference between real music and teenagers freaking out on bad speed.

..........goes off to dig out some old rave tunes for tonight, maybe it doesn't work where you are, people get it in ldn.

 

[zhao]

i used to play that in the sydney pie shop i worked at. it used to make the customers run horrified from the shop, gravy sloshing onto shirtfronts.

overweight aussie mothers in bad trainers shopping for pie is not exactly the kind of clientelle i cater to...

 

[slim jenkins]

It's never a mistake to bring this record along:

"Don't Leave Me This Way" is unstoppable.

Yes. Taste.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

sorry Padraig, but that track sound crap and stupid and i'll never play it, or anything that sounds like it, in any sized venue. those piano stabs sound so lifeless and ugly man... and the vocals are absolutely shit.

i'll leave that adolescent rave business entirely to you and stick with my bar music:

see, that is called GROOVE, and FUNK, and DEPTH, and BOOGIE, and LIFE and CELEBRATION and FUN.

what is wrong with you man? I mean really?

I don't even know where to start...you sound like bloody Derrick May...only worse...actually dude is right you sound like Gilles Peterson but even more mealy-mouthed, at least he's upfront about it...somehow you've managed to make African music unappealing, something I didn't think possible...

and people around the world can tell the defference between real music and teenagers freaking out on bad speed.

clearly you're unfamiliar w/Woebot's Senegal thing (where apparently Africans *gasp* danced to Steve Poindexter and probably some "adolescent rave business" as well). if "real music" requires one to be a pretentious po-faced cunt about everything then I'll take teenagers on bad drugs, thanks. as if there's some kind of arbitrary difference (as decided by Zhao) between the two anyway. of course we should all be listening to FUNKY AFRO-COSMIC DISCO BOOGIE bollocks or whatever but unfortunately we're not all as enlightened as you.

I don't need your fascist GROOVE thing man...

 

[zhao]

you sound like bloody Derrick May...only worse...actually dude is right you sound like Gilles Peterson but even more mealy-mouthed, at least he's upfront about it...

oh? i wasn't UPFRONT about it enough? hahaha... how much more direct do you want me to be? and how did gilles peterson get a bad rep? dude can be a bit silly but i hope to be as successful soon. and you obviously missed Woebot (long as we're using Matt as some measuring stick of crdibility, he will surely have a good laugh if he ever reads this) enthusiastically talking about his work.

as if there's some kind of arbitrary difference (as decided by Zhao) between the two anyway.

nope. not decided by me. there is music only a small group of nerds enjoy, and then there are grooves and melodies universally irresistible, by people from all walks of life.

and that is what we are talking about in this thread: music for regular bars, where people from all walks of life gather.

I don't need your fascist GROOVE thing man...

call me a fascist if it makes you feel better man. or you can just face the truth: that proto-happy hardcore crap will work in extremely few bars outside of London. and not even all of London i suspect, only select pubs.

people around here have their heads stuck in the "nuum" so much they are becoming delusional. i like some of that stuff as much as the next Dissensian, but to some of you it's the center of the musical universe, around which everything revolves. pure monkey shit i tell you. monkey shit.

i used to be a jungle, techno, jungle-techno nerd like most people here. and then i realized what a myopic and small minded musical world i was spending all my time in. and since i've opened up my scope much wider than before, my life has only been more fun and interesting, and my djing has only gotten better and become more successful.

so i don't hessitate calling a spade a spade. and if you're too weak to deal with it, you are free to get as angry as you want and go further into your rave hole.

 

[mms]

zhao:i used to be a jungle, techno, jungle-techno nerd like most people here. and then i realized what a myopic and small minded musical world i was spending all my time in. and since i've opened up my scope much wider than before, my life has only been more fun and interesting, and my djing has only gotten better and become more successful.'

doh.


most people here can enjoy all types of music without sneering down their organic breadstick.

you go ahead and stick up for real music with real intruments with real people and we'll carry on having the fun, you've not been to many uk bars i guess.

 

[zhao]

most people here can enjoy all types of music without sneering down their organic breadstick.

you go ahead and stick up for real music with real intruments with real people and we'll carry on having the fun.

context, mms, context.

this thread is about music for regular bars, where people from all walks of life gather.

i am the last person to make some kind of silly "real instruments" versus electronic instruments argument. totally against that sort of stupidity.
you are talking to someone who bought the entire Warp catalog on CD back in the day. and i played ONLY european and N. American electronic music as a dj for years and years.

again: context.

no i have actually never been to the UK (want to though). and there are regional styles in every place in the world that bar crowds in other places would not get. this is not anything new to anyone, huh?

 

[mms]

context, mms, context.

this thread is about music for regular bars, where people from all walks of life gather.

i am the last person to make some kind of silly "real instruments" versus electronic instruments argument. totally against that sort of stupidity.
you are talking to someone who bought the entire Warp catalog on CD back in the day. and i played ONLY european and N. American electronic music as a dj for years and years.

again: context.

no i have actually never been to the UK (want to though). and there are regional styles in every place in the world that bar crowds in other places would not get. this is not anything new to anyone, huh?

well they play dance music in lots of bars across the uk, 2 step at the time meant the place was kinda upmarket, alot of euro trance gets played, r and b in brighton they play alot of funk etc, it's funny as brighton is the funk town.
in london its indie post punk and shit in yr trendy shoreditch places.

 

[luka]

in london its indie post punk

not in yates' wine lodge in stratford its not.
i think you are all talking about a very particular type of 'bar' here. if zhao played that sort of thing at anywhere i used to go to he'd either be assiduously ignored or bottled off, depending on whther people wanted to dance or not.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and that is what we are talking about in this thread: music for regular bars, where people from all walks of life gather.

call me a fascist if it makes you feel better man. or you can just face the truth: that proto-happy hardcore crap will work in extremely few bars outside of London. and not even all of London i suspect, only select pubs.

right, I'm not a DJ. I don't care what works in or pubs. or at raves or in warehouses or in or in ultra chic Berlin techo clubs or what have you. nor am I waving a gun in your face demanding that you play breakbeat piano anthems at your sets in "regular" bars. I wasn't aware that we were required to stick so closely to the topics of threads...I seem to recall you getting off-topic now & again...

and the fascist GROOVE thing was (mostly) a joke - you picked that up right? I wouldn't ask but it seems like it kinda passed you by?

people around here have their heads stuck in the "nuum" so much they are becoming delusional...i used to be a jungle, techno, jungle-techno nerd like most people here. and then i realized what a myopic and small minded musical world i was spending all my time in.

I think you're laboring under a few misconceptions (well, many misconceptions actually, given the absurd nonsense you're prone to spouting on a variety of topics)...first that I - and I'm sure most other people - are unaware of our nerdom, or that I'm so adverse to eclecticism & yunno, non-jungle/techno/etc music...secondly that you're somehow more open-minded than the rest of us (which is, of course rather ironically its own form of myopia)...it's not the music that's the problem, it's your particular & fascinating combination of snobbery & cluelessness...but hey I mean, whatever...

so i don't hessitate calling a spade a spade. and if you're too weak to deal with it, you are free to get as angry as you want and go further into your rave hole.

I'm not angry at ya mate. amused & slightly perplexed would be more accurate.

and you obviously missed Woebot...

the point isn't Woebot, it's that your bollocks about "universally irresistible" is just that, bollocks.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

i think you are all talking about a very particular type of 'bar' here. if zhao played that sort of thing at anywhere i used to go to he'd either be assiduously ignored or bottled off, depending on whther people wanted to dance or not.

to clarify - in the first place - I wasn't suggesting that it's somehow superior to anything...just sharing a nice tune apropos of some uptalk thread about a few of the most accessible & listener-friendly '91-92 hardcore tunes might fit into a bar set...anyway of course I could care less what Zhao or anyone else plays it's the inexplicable personal attacks that bother me, as if putting up a tune is some kind of great & terrible affront to his thread on playing at "regular" bars or whatever...ah whatever anyways...