playing smaller venues

zhao

there are no accidents
context goes a long way when dropping in your more recherche selections: if you've laid out a pathway to the music in question, it'll make a lot more sense to the people listening.

If you get people's attention early on, chances are they'll stay with you as their night goes on and you start navigating the corridors of your mix. Also, people are drinking/going out for a toke, and as things get more surreal for them so can the music.

Basically, the venue wants to make money from the crowd, the crowd wants to have a good time and the dj wants to play good music. I don't think these goals are at all mutually exclusive.

finally someone who gets it! that's indeed what i'm after, the best of all 3 worlds, the golden mean, the common ground... to do this i think is where true skills lie -- not denying expectations of the familiar, and not conforming to them either; winning over the audience and challenging them at the same time. and when it works EVERYONE is happy. :D
 
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slye

Allied Heights
Zhao - Yeah I'm actually very intrigued by a lot of the music you've brought up in here. I'm well into a lot of the afrobeat/juju/ethio music, not an expert by ANY means whatsoever, but really into the stuff I can get my hands on.

I had no idea about Turkish and Egyptian Funk though. I've sort of poked around here and there and what I've found is amazing stuff (Baris Manco and a dj mix, really).

I don't know if this would be beyond the scope of this thread, but would you be down to discuss this stuff further (maybe a fertile crescent funk thread is in order ;))? I haven't had any luck finding any of the Egyptian stuff so far, and the prospect of Cairo Funk existing and not being able to hear it is, frankly, too much to bear.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
oh man that Turkish and Egyptian funk is some deep digging... quite frankly not the kind i'm ready to jump into.

stones throw used to have a night in LA and sometimes this Turkish looking girl would get on the decks, and nonchalantly go through piles of 7 inches stacked high in a matter of a couple of hours. each one deeper and funkier than the last... wicked, wicked shit. needless to say i was not able to trainspot a single tune.

so... outside of some tracks and a few comps i've found here and there, i'm pretty much in the dark with regard to that stuff too... :(
 

slye

Allied Heights
^^ A sensible post, thumbs up.

Hey thanks.

BTW I was gonna mention, but realized my post was too long already, that I could see ardkore going down well in a lot of bars out here (where the nuum isn't common knowledge obv) given the right circumstances.

Say for example something like Trip II The Moon or Hurt You So... I'd use it as a crescendo tune, work up to it with some beats and then drop it at the appropriate time so that you get the rush effect. I could see it having a wtf?! effect on the room, but in a good way.

And if people eat it up, why not drop in a little set of the stuff. I like to do the faster jungle stuff with reggae and slower hiphop at half-tempo. I've never tried this in a bar, but I'll give it a shot next time I'm doing one at let you know how it turns out.
 

slye

Allied Heights
oh man that Turkish and Egyptian funk is some deep digging... quite frankly not the kind i'm ready to jump into.

Yeah I understand. It does seem pretty labyrinthine so far... but that's what makes it so fun!

stones throw used to have a night in LA and sometimes this Turkish looking girl would get on the decks, and nonchalantly go through piles of 7 inches stacked high in a matter of a couple of hours. each one deeper and funkier than the last... wicked, wicked shit. needless to say i was not able to trainspot a single tune.

Yeah from what I've seen, 7"s are where it's at with the Turkish stuff. There's supposed to be a Stones Throw mix floating around on the net, but no luck so far for me.

I actually like what Peanutbutterwolf's done with Stones Throw, and his willingness to be quite catholic in his scope, with hip hop, California folk rock, the J Dilla Donuts record, this Turkish psyche stuff, etc. all rubbing shoulders, while maintaining a sense of cohesiveness to the whole endeavor (weren't there some funk/soul reissues as well). I haven't kept tabs on it as much as I probably should have, so it might be time for another look in.

so... outside of some tracks and a few comps i've found here and there, i'm pretty much in the dark with regard to that stuff too... :(

Yeah, but that's such a great time isn't it? You obviously want to hear it all now, but there's something to be said for this whole ocean of music and knowledge that you've gotta navigate/translate. It's all spread out for you to explore, the terra incognita. And when you finally find it in a shop somewhere and get to hear the stuff, well that's experience stays with you for a long time...
 

zhao

there are no accidents
i'm definitely not entirely opposed to early rave at all, and do think it can work in a bar, as almost anything can work, if it is carefully selected and skillfully contextualized within the set.

could use some disco to lead into it, and then cut to uptempo northern soul...
 

Alfons

Way of the future
yeah probably some other people know what i'm getting at with the best of both worlds approach... but a lot have expressed things like "it's all rubbish and it's impossible to plan bar sets"

think more people have expressed things like "it's rubbish that you can win over any bar crowd in the world with the "universal" grooves of cambodian free jazz and african disco"
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Yeah from what I've seen, 7"s are where it's at with the Turkish stuff. There's supposed to be a Stones Throw mix floating around on the net, but no luck so far for me."
I like a lot of this Turkish psych and funk. For compilations there are the Bosporus Bridges one and also one of the Love, Peace and Poetry series is Turkish stuff although I think that's more psych than funk. Recently there came out a (bootleg) compilation done by Andy Votel (I think) called Anagram Jam which is a load of toughened up remixes of Turkish stuff with the names of the original artists anagrammed to nonsense names. I say it's Turkish but pretty much the only anagram I could solve was Bappi Lahiri and he's from India. It's a pretty limited though and it may be already sold out. Looks as though there was a single from it as well

http://www.phonicarecords.com/detail.aspx?ID=35371
 

zhao

there are no accidents
think more people have expressed things like "it's rubbish that you can win over any bar crowd in the world with the "universal" grooves of cambodian free jazz and african disco"

Cambodian Rock is not "free jazz". did you see the video i linked to 1 or 2 pages ago? tell me that won't work in bars.

anyhow i did and will continue to win over bar crowds with my carefully planned world-boogie set.

(a dissenssian was there 2 weeks ago from 2-4 AM and he can confirm the crowd happily dancing in a normally non dance bar)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Cambodian Rock is not "free jazz". did you see the video i linked to 1 or 2 pages ago? tell me that won't work in bars."
Yeah, that was a nice tune. Sounds like a cover of a US rock n roll thing to me although I'm not sure what. There were a lot of those done in Singapore, Hong Kong etc although not sure about Cambodia. Is it from those comps that came back a few years back where none of the songs or the artists were listed?
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Yeah, that was a nice tune. Sounds like a cover of a US rock n roll thing to me although I'm not sure what. There were a lot of those done in Singapore, Hong Kong etc although not sure about Cambodia. Is it from those comps that came back a few years back where none of the songs or the artists were listed?

yeah it's from the Cambodian Rock series, not sure which of the 6 or more volumes though.

but that music is a lot more than "covers"... that track starts out sounding like rockabilly or surf, but then the girl steps up to the mic and it's pure Cambodian madness... you can just see people get up out of their seats.

here it is again for those who missed it. and those who heard it 3 pages ago, play it again! :D

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

and here's another jam:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

in the 60s there was a thriving rock'n'roll scene in Cambodia and they certainly did their own thing with the style. it's about as "derivative" as Ethiopian Jazz is "derivative" of James Brown... or the Beatles of Buddy Holly.

this is the sort of thing i'm focusing on: far out and alien (to most) sounds that RESEMBLE what people know, but isn't. and IMO better: more groovy, more sexy, more fun...
 
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hint

party record with a siren
but a lot have expressed things like "it's all rubbish and it's impossible to plan bar sets"

I don't think anyone suggested it's "impossible".

The general gist seemed to be that you'll have more fun and be more successful if you keep bar sets spontaneous. I would imagine that most of the people expressing this view have more experience playing bar sets than you and were perhaps under the impression that you started this thread with the intention of receiving some advice along those lines. Instead it all went peculiar and you got defensive whenever someone suggested an approach that didn't fit in with what you'd already decided to do.
 

Spender

Member
yeah probably some other people know what i'm getting at with the best of both worlds approach... but a lot have expressed things like "it's all rubbish and it's impossible to plan bar sets"


Now come on. I suggested you don't bother planning it because to be honest, if you don't, people will still dance. Try it! It's the weekend, it's a bar, people are drinking, letting their hair down. They're not in search of a musical epiphany. Providing you're not offending their ears for the majority of the night, they'll dance to anything you throw at them (within reason). If they don't, you switch styles. Simple. Believe me, I've been doing it for 15 years.

That's the joy of it. You can be wildly eclectic, sometimes clumsy and chaotic with your selection and it won't matter. I wasn't suggesting your intricately planned World Boogie journey doesn't make people move, I'm sure it does. But to suggest you can only play a genre if it can be skillfully contextualised into your set is a touch pretentious don't you think? Your playing a 'bar' man. Take your head out of your anus and have some fun. :p
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"but that music is a lot more than "covers"... that track starts out sounding like rockabilly or surf, but then the girl steps up to the mic and it's pure Cambodian madness... you can just see people get up out of their seats."
I know it's not all covers, it's just that that particular track sounded very much like... something. There was one track I remember really liking from one of the comps, a kinda wonky, shouty almost new wave type thing. I'd love to know who did it but it doesn't say on the comp if I remember correctly.
 

alex

Do not read this.
So many Times - House tune, cant rem artist.

Robin S - Show me love, for all time handbag orbit action
 
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