DJs, There Are DJs Everywhere
I touched on this in my last article, but recently have had a number of people coming up to me in the bar I work and informing me how good they are at DJing, despite then informing me they have yet to do a gig.
This annoys me, and as I am sure most professional DJs out there, but for me it is annoying because it means people think our job is just about the ability to merge two songs together.
It is not.
For those of you who don't know me, I work in the holiday resort of Magaluf, Mallorca; this is my full time job.
I have been lucky enough to DJ around the world, working on Cunard Cruise Liners as well as mobile work around the UK, and have worked in some very challenging environments to some very challenging crowds.
First of all when someone approaches you and introduces themselves as a DJ, I think most of us become sceptical.
As the DJ industry becomes more and more accessible with the age of technology, decrease in price of equipment, and (sad but true) the increase in music piracy, it seems everyone who has an interest in music is now by default a "DJ".
It means that when someone says they are a DJ, we take this with a pinch of salt; in the UK I am always questioning why in the middle of summer someone is at my gig on a Saturday night and not working themselves.
The reason I question what makes someone is a DJ is because there are far too many people who do not understand what our job is.
There are very few customers who turn up to a venue on a Saturday night with the mindset "I wonder if the DJ is good at mixing from 104bpm to 128bpm, I cannot wait".
They may be excited to see the DJ, but customers just want to hear the music they like.
Being able to mix their music is a very good skill to have, but comes second to the music itself.
This is why without having gigs under your belt you cannot call yourself a DJ.
I sometimes wish we had L-plates for our job! My first article focused on The Role of the DJ in 2014, I asked what our job entails and where our focus should be.
I said then that we are entertainers, and there are very few entertainment jobs that you can master and do well without having people to entertain.
If all that mattered at a gig was your ability to mix the track, then why not just have a mix tape and press play and sit back? That after all is what the big famous DJs do most of the time.
The reason we do not do this as professionals is because if that first song does not work to the crowd you have, then what do you do? The difference between us DJs and the famous producer/DJs is that the people they are playing for tend to be there for them.
They want to hear their music, and know the tracks they want; everyone in that crowd wants exactly the same.
The pre-mixed set then becomes essential to add to the performance so the lighting and sound can be perfect, and that everyone who pays for a ticket on that tour gets the same experience.
Until you get to that stage, the chances of you turning up at a venue with a crowd who have turned up to the venue with no idea who you are, and having a crowd that wants only one specific type of music, is rare.
It is difficult to stand in front of a crowd of people, however big or small, and work out what songs will work.
In any crowd you will have a range of age groups, a range of nationalities, a range of musical taste; the list goes on.
Different ages, nationalities, tastes will very rarely completely overlap in what they want to hear.
Our job is to play to the people in front of us, turn up and know enough music to be able to take that crowd wherever they want.
I work in a bar on the strip in Magaluf; during the middle of the season I am very often playing dance music, remixes, mashups etc.
that you may typically expect.
Takes a while to find these mixes, a lot of hours go into making sure that I have the tracks others don't.
Yet at the start of the season I had a night in the same bar playing just Motown and Northern Soul, and did this because that was the crowd I had in front of me.
Reading the crowd is the hardest part of our job, and you cannot do that from your bedroom.
It takes going to gigs with other DJs, seeing how people perform, what they do when they lose a dancefloor (because we all have done that), what they do when they have certain requests.
I know if someone asks me for Stevie Wonder - Superstition I am unlikely to follow that with Tiesto - Adagio for Strings.
That sounds obvious, but the trick is knowing that they will probably like Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Michael Jackson etc.
Knowing that a crowd of mainly women will react differently to a group of men; 18-25 year olds will like different music to 40-60 year olds, above everything that you can always be surprised by the 80 year old woman who wants Hardcore House Music.
These are things you can't learn by knowing how to mix two dance tracks together, it takes practice and dedication in the right area, learning genres and gaining experience from gigs with other people.
Calling yourself a DJ is very commonplace at the moment, as I know when I tell people what I do for a living and they ask "what do you do for a proper job thought?".
This is my "proper" job.
Everyone knows a DJ who will play their mates gig for them, who is a "really good DJ" when people do not know what being a good DJ means.
A true DJ is one that can take a room, through any genre they like, have everyone dancing the night away.
Someone who brings back memories, who plays the right song at the right time, who knows at some gigs, no one cares if you can mix the tracks or not.
The word professional gets thrown around a lot.
A lot of people have been paid for gigs, hired by people they know.
At the same time, I and a lot of people have been given petrol money for giving people lifts; I am not a professional chauffeur.
A DJ is more than someone who rocks up with Maplins finest lights and a 50 song set list in order, to be played through an illegal rip of Virtual DJ.
A DJ is someone who could turn up at the worst venue in the world and make people forget where they are; someone who can turn up to an 18th birthday and end up having a crowd that want 60s swing, someone who can consistently keep people coming back again and again.
A DJ is someone who entertains the people in front of them, not their bedroom wall.
Follow me on Twitter @DJChrisOToole Like me on Facebook http://www.
facebook.
com/djchrisotoole
This annoys me, and as I am sure most professional DJs out there, but for me it is annoying because it means people think our job is just about the ability to merge two songs together.
It is not.
For those of you who don't know me, I work in the holiday resort of Magaluf, Mallorca; this is my full time job.
I have been lucky enough to DJ around the world, working on Cunard Cruise Liners as well as mobile work around the UK, and have worked in some very challenging environments to some very challenging crowds.
First of all when someone approaches you and introduces themselves as a DJ, I think most of us become sceptical.
As the DJ industry becomes more and more accessible with the age of technology, decrease in price of equipment, and (sad but true) the increase in music piracy, it seems everyone who has an interest in music is now by default a "DJ".
It means that when someone says they are a DJ, we take this with a pinch of salt; in the UK I am always questioning why in the middle of summer someone is at my gig on a Saturday night and not working themselves.
The reason I question what makes someone is a DJ is because there are far too many people who do not understand what our job is.
There are very few customers who turn up to a venue on a Saturday night with the mindset "I wonder if the DJ is good at mixing from 104bpm to 128bpm, I cannot wait".
They may be excited to see the DJ, but customers just want to hear the music they like.
Being able to mix their music is a very good skill to have, but comes second to the music itself.
This is why without having gigs under your belt you cannot call yourself a DJ.
I sometimes wish we had L-plates for our job! My first article focused on The Role of the DJ in 2014, I asked what our job entails and where our focus should be.
I said then that we are entertainers, and there are very few entertainment jobs that you can master and do well without having people to entertain.
If all that mattered at a gig was your ability to mix the track, then why not just have a mix tape and press play and sit back? That after all is what the big famous DJs do most of the time.
The reason we do not do this as professionals is because if that first song does not work to the crowd you have, then what do you do? The difference between us DJs and the famous producer/DJs is that the people they are playing for tend to be there for them.
They want to hear their music, and know the tracks they want; everyone in that crowd wants exactly the same.
The pre-mixed set then becomes essential to add to the performance so the lighting and sound can be perfect, and that everyone who pays for a ticket on that tour gets the same experience.
Until you get to that stage, the chances of you turning up at a venue with a crowd who have turned up to the venue with no idea who you are, and having a crowd that wants only one specific type of music, is rare.
It is difficult to stand in front of a crowd of people, however big or small, and work out what songs will work.
In any crowd you will have a range of age groups, a range of nationalities, a range of musical taste; the list goes on.
Different ages, nationalities, tastes will very rarely completely overlap in what they want to hear.
Our job is to play to the people in front of us, turn up and know enough music to be able to take that crowd wherever they want.
I work in a bar on the strip in Magaluf; during the middle of the season I am very often playing dance music, remixes, mashups etc.
that you may typically expect.
Takes a while to find these mixes, a lot of hours go into making sure that I have the tracks others don't.
Yet at the start of the season I had a night in the same bar playing just Motown and Northern Soul, and did this because that was the crowd I had in front of me.
Reading the crowd is the hardest part of our job, and you cannot do that from your bedroom.
It takes going to gigs with other DJs, seeing how people perform, what they do when they lose a dancefloor (because we all have done that), what they do when they have certain requests.
I know if someone asks me for Stevie Wonder - Superstition I am unlikely to follow that with Tiesto - Adagio for Strings.
That sounds obvious, but the trick is knowing that they will probably like Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Michael Jackson etc.
Knowing that a crowd of mainly women will react differently to a group of men; 18-25 year olds will like different music to 40-60 year olds, above everything that you can always be surprised by the 80 year old woman who wants Hardcore House Music.
These are things you can't learn by knowing how to mix two dance tracks together, it takes practice and dedication in the right area, learning genres and gaining experience from gigs with other people.
Calling yourself a DJ is very commonplace at the moment, as I know when I tell people what I do for a living and they ask "what do you do for a proper job thought?".
This is my "proper" job.
Everyone knows a DJ who will play their mates gig for them, who is a "really good DJ" when people do not know what being a good DJ means.
A true DJ is one that can take a room, through any genre they like, have everyone dancing the night away.
Someone who brings back memories, who plays the right song at the right time, who knows at some gigs, no one cares if you can mix the tracks or not.
The word professional gets thrown around a lot.
A lot of people have been paid for gigs, hired by people they know.
At the same time, I and a lot of people have been given petrol money for giving people lifts; I am not a professional chauffeur.
A DJ is more than someone who rocks up with Maplins finest lights and a 50 song set list in order, to be played through an illegal rip of Virtual DJ.
A DJ is someone who could turn up at the worst venue in the world and make people forget where they are; someone who can turn up to an 18th birthday and end up having a crowd that want 60s swing, someone who can consistently keep people coming back again and again.
A DJ is someone who entertains the people in front of them, not their bedroom wall.
Follow me on Twitter @DJChrisOToole Like me on Facebook http://www.
facebook.
com/djchrisotoole
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