playing smaller venues
- Thread starter zhao
- Start date
don't think i haven't looked on here enough to know what you're talking about, matey. i'm not having it!
even if i didn't think you were wrong in your tacit assumption that, as some have suggested, hardcore etc. isn't best, i would still entirely decline to agree. when you start aspiring to propagate normative protocols about what people should or shouldn't be listening to, then the tendency is towards a fate worse than anything so far discussed including being kicked off the decks in a pub.
peter gabriel and everything he does went fully downhill after sledgehammer you know. personally i'm listening to the 2 bad mice remix of music takes you by blame, which i bet is a lot more kicking.
ok bobbin, i will be sure to follow your hardcore and garage advice when playing in your neighborhood -- would really enjoy it too.
but in other parts of the world, i'm going to mostly stick with my global boogie set.
some smaller bar gigs coming up in Berlin. watch my space.
but in other parts of the world, i'm going to mostly stick with my global boogie set.
some smaller bar gigs coming up in Berlin. watch my space.
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baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
i know you're on a wind-up mission, but can't resist posting this nonetheless:
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nice one!
i got taken to see orchestre polyrhythmo de cotonou recently. didn't like it enough not to go home after a couple of songs. to be fair though, i'd already seen something completely satisfying, and the venue was the barbican, presumably not really right. the organisers and the some of the audience were very embarrassing incidentally.
nah, i don't want to wind anyone up.
i'm sure you know as well as i do that township funk hardly comes under the category of rare african bollocks
look at this though. my message board chops are all over the place. absolutely nothing to do with the thread. genuine apologies.
Oh yeah it's a wind up, I know.
But seems to me that's what you did. If anything I suggest the opposite. Lots of stuff to dance to that can often work in ways most 'rave' music rarely touches on. It's not a case of exclusivity though, as if that needs saying, just a shame if someone gets caught up on side or another of some imaginary divide. I've heard it from all sides, is bollocks.
ok, bad start i admit, but of course i don't need to point out that not being conscientiously po-faced all the time isn't the same as being on a wind-up.
i thought i was just making some empirical observations actually, to underline the existing point that there's a range of situations that might seem a little unbelievable from different viewpoints.
to me you seemed to be the one saying it ought to be good for people to be cured of these post-rave effects. presumably so they can finally ease into a glass of house red and some suitably dignified world-beat and bloody well enjoy it? (LITTLE BIT WINDY-UPPY ALERT!)
evaluating music like you mean it, fine, but personally i don't really much like converting that into prescriptions. (i think not liking that probably means one of two things: getting caught up with imaginary divides, or an attitude to music that's unimpeachably bland. i prefer the former.)
oh, and not for argument's sake, but just as an addition, i've just remembered i once tried playing some highlife in a pub. people literally hated it!
i once as an experiment when playing records in a small trendy venue (bar) decided to play what were in my opinion the worst records to hand. the set went down a treat and my suspicions were confirmed.
fortunately 'pubs' are not the measure of all situations. i don't like most pubs anyway and tend to prefer it if they don't play loud music generally so i don't care.
fortunately 'pubs' are not the measure of all situations. i don't like most pubs anyway and tend to prefer it if they don't play loud music generally so i don't care.
Anyway the stuff in Zhao's tracklist there doesn't look like rare obscurist African bollocks, it seems to be current 'global' house related stuff which is quite populist and poppy really. Like non-muso snobs would probably dig it. Actually there's a lot to be said for blindsiding people with a sexy groove - there they are sipping their wine and all of a sudden find themselves having to get up and dance. As opposed to bashing them over the head with a 909 kick or tearing amen.
And you can play things like hi-life in (British) pubs but of course it depends on the situation / expectations and you have to pick your moment and contextualise it right, same as anything really. Especially when playing in open places where the crowd isn't so homogeneous. That's what this thread is about isn't it?
And you can play things like hi-life in (British) pubs but of course it depends on the situation / expectations and you have to pick your moment and contextualise it right, same as anything really. Especially when playing in open places where the crowd isn't so homogeneous. That's what this thread is about isn't it?
Major part of good DJing is feeling the situation and working with it and bringing people with you. So many DJs just can't or won't do this. It's horrible. Genre nights or genre DJs might think they are doing a good job because they are filling the ostensible remit (music policy) - people get drunk enough and they don't care, but we all know the bloody warm-up DJ who insists on playing prime-time bangers while 10 people sit around supping pints trying have a conversation.
I'm not taking sides but my view is actually that Hardcore is good for a bit of kitsch amusement these days. No more than 10 minutes at a time. I mean really, yawn. There's a lot of fetishists around here I know but I think it's either a pose or actually far more conservtive than those people who get a bit older and you know, move on, even if you do think that means 'tasteful grooves' or something, which it doesn't have to.
;-)
;-)
good point! having said all that, a lot of the time i'd rather have a (genuinely) quiet pint. always been suspicious of this idea that music has to be 'enjoyed' everywhere at all times. if someone is properly putting on a bit of a party (as opposed to supplying a 'soundtrack' as if it was a bloody montage from human traffic) i've got more respect for that though.
come now
if you're sure THAT's not a pose... then to think that people must pretend to like this stuff must be to fail to feel it in a way i find pretty inexplicable. to be far too one-dimensional about it for the sake of argument, hardcore supplies one of the two synaptic responses (a massive rush) that i reckon i genuinely value in music, in larger quantities than just about anything else, therefore is good. does anyone care if it's conservative to like it rather than 'progressive'?walked into a popular bar with a basement dancefloor yesterday, handed the dude a copy of Nomad Boogie, and after briefly explaining what it is, he immediately pops it into the stereo and turns it up LOUD. i had only 1 drink with a friend and during this people came up to me after the bar guy pointed me out, to tell me that this mix is amazing. when i left many were nodding their heads and the bar man says "we'll be in touch soon"
i djed at a bar last night, friends party, the place was packed, but they weren't set up for djs - no monitor and one deck that fed back the other one with a very blunt dust collecting needle so it distorted all the time if you weren't careful, fucking impossible to mix and keep the volumes at a level, urgh not doing that type of shit again, bad for my health, also made me think laptop djing is perfect for this sort of set up, more versatile, can keep everything tidy no fucking about with hardware and monitors and shit.
some anorexic psycho started staring the hell out of me cos i wouldnt play cameo 'word up' i didn't have it, ( i did play some cameo earlier though) then her dumb boyfriend started just trying to put me off, very clearly told him to fuck off. gotta have rules.
some anorexic psycho started staring the hell out of me cos i wouldnt play cameo 'word up' i didn't have it, ( i did play some cameo earlier though) then her dumb boyfriend started just trying to put me off, very clearly told him to fuck off. gotta have rules.
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oh man. yeah. been there.
2 of the speakers also didn't work at the bar i played last night. and i fought the grumpy no-good-times bartender all night about volume. but all in all it went well and i was very happy with my set. afro-asian-latin boogie soul for the first 3 or 4 hours, at around 2 AM went reggae.
sold a couple of CDs on top of pay, met some good people. had the following requests: "dizzee rascal" (wanted to, but didn't bring), "Murder She Wrote" (i was doing 70/140 at the time so didn't want to step down to 100 just for this one guy), Paul Kalkbrenner (no way would i play this mediocre producer who is only famous because of that movie)
feel i have a better and better grasp of what works with bad sound. like everything people said earlier thread: strong mids, clear melodies, etc. classic Colombian cumbia always works a treat: girl parts immediately start shaking all over the place.
had a thought: maybe all Truly great music sounds also great on shitty systems? hmmmm... :slanted: but i agree with the Dissensian who was present, there are exceptions.
2 of the speakers also didn't work at the bar i played last night. and i fought the grumpy no-good-times bartender all night about volume. but all in all it went well and i was very happy with my set. afro-asian-latin boogie soul for the first 3 or 4 hours, at around 2 AM went reggae.
sold a couple of CDs on top of pay, met some good people. had the following requests: "dizzee rascal" (wanted to, but didn't bring), "Murder She Wrote" (i was doing 70/140 at the time so didn't want to step down to 100 just for this one guy), Paul Kalkbrenner (no way would i play this mediocre producer who is only famous because of that movie)
feel i have a better and better grasp of what works with bad sound. like everything people said earlier thread: strong mids, clear melodies, etc. classic Colombian cumbia always works a treat: girl parts immediately start shaking all over the place.
had a thought: maybe all Truly great music sounds also great on shitty systems? hmmmm... :slanted: but i agree with the Dissensian who was present, there are exceptions.
4linehaiku
Repetitive
The only music which sounds (as) good on shitty soundsystems is gabber. I'm not sure that counts as "truly great".
gabber (usually) sounds like shit on big systems, and much shittier on shitty systems.
jazz sounds great on shitty systems. but jazz doesn't exist in your world, right?
4linehaiku
Repetitive
"Jazz"? You'll have to explain.