14 Things DJing Changes About You Forever
When you’ve been a DJ for a while, you can find that your moods and actions have been “hardwired” in a way that may not altogether please you… or those who have to put up with you.
Being a DJ is awesome, but boy can it change you! You suddenly find yourself behaving in certain ways, almost involuntarily, and doing things that many “normal” people think are crazy. I’m not talking about going deaf, developing a drug habit and hanging out with people half your age (these are all things you can definitely control, if you want/need to), but more about the subtle behavioural changes that kind of sneak up on you, until they’re totally ingrained in who you are! Like…
1. You can never go to a nightclub and have fun – Oh, no. Even if you can get over the secret jealousy of wanting to be DJing, you’re hyper-critical of everything, from the DJs to the sound system to the way the door is being run… the lot. The more you DJ out, the more this one creeps up on you, until going out simply becomes research/checking out the competition. You, in short, become a not very fun person to go out with
2. You spot instantly when a CD loops in a bar, cafe etc… You feel you are generally the only person who notices background music anyway, and so naturally, you’re the only one who gets upset when you hear a CD play on loop. It’s especially annoying in nice restaurants, where you can’t help yourself thinking: “Why did they pay so much attention to everything apart from the music?” Saying this out loud, though, usually gets you a kick under the table from your other half for being so miserable
3. You can spot instantly when a speaker is distorting, even at 50 yards! – Picture this: You’re on a lovely beach with friends or partner, sun shining, cold drink, and in the distance, a little beach shack plays top 40 radio… through a distorted old speaker. Can you relax? No chance. That little plastic speaker becomes the bane of your life until you are finally out of earshot. Even the crap they’re playing becomes secondary to the quality!
4. You can no longer count past four – Crazy but true, you find yourself counting any rhythm anywhere or just an imaginary rhythm in your head, and naturally, you go “one, two, three, four” round and round. (At least you’re not a microphone roadie with a rock band, they get stuck at “one-two! one-TWO!”)
You can’t hear a song that you know played in full, without hearing “your” transitions – “Why isn’t song X coming in?” you think, until you remember that this isn’t actually your mix but just one of “your” songs being played somewhere else. Related: Not liking the speed a song is being played at, because you play it at a different speed…
5. You hear mistakes when everyone else thinks the DJ is awesome – Smart DJs learn not to point out train wrecks and other DJing errors to their friends, who – we learn – are not afflicted like us and generally happy to dance through even appalling errors. Related: Spotting mixes that aren’t in key
6. You get annoyed when TV commercials brutally edit songs – …and what really annoys you is that they are not respecting the underlying song structure (see point 4 – see, you can’t help it! You’re subconsciously counting those beats and bars in fours…)
8. When someone asks you “what’s your favourite music?” you reply “for what purpose?” – Being unable to separate what you like from what you think any given dancefloor might like is bad, but it’s hard to stop this developing from the necessary skill of simply separating the two things in your head
9. Instantly spotting when your windscreen wipers, indicator lights or even a loud clock are in time with the music you’re playing – This one really does feel close to madness sometimes (for me anyway), spotting a beatmatch between car hardware and car stereo… Related: Beatmatching your strides to the songs on your headphones when our running
10. You can’t help yourself frantically trying to remember snippets of song lyrics in order to Google them later – …normally when Shazam fails to recognise a new song you know you’ve got to have…
11. You are utterly unable to keep yourself away from DJ booths – Mainly this is to see the equipment the DJ is using, hopefully it isn’t to make requests, although I am personally fond of just shaking the DJ’s hand on the way out if I’ve enjoyed his or her music… after all, we all know how much that means, don’t we?
12. Having the sudden urge to go and adjust the sound when another DJ is playing – Right, I’ve actually done this (in fact, it was the pitch). Some dude was playing 80s megamixes at +8 and he slipped off to the toilet, so I marched up and set it all to the right speed… only to slink away like a coward when I saw him returning! True story 🙂
13. You turn anything with a volume fader into DJ equipment – …and so get irrationally annoyed at any kind of audio gear that has electronic up/down volume controls instead of a knob you can use to cut the music in and out quickly with!
14. You are the only person who spots the odd song from the 90s at a “so-called” 80s night – I mean, we can all hopefully understand why no normal, sane person would care about this… but it’s wrong, isn’t it?
Seriously, I do hope you can still go out and have fun at least sometimes, and that you can see how us DJs maybe can be just a little annoying to everyone else, at least every now and then! I wanted to end with a true story from our friends over at Tuff Covers. One of that gang went to a pre-natal appointment and when the nurse scanned their tiny unborn baby, and its little heartbeat echoed through the examination room… I quote: “I knew the BPM of the baby’s heartbeat before the machine even worked it out”!
There really is no hope for some people.
Posted by Phil Morse (via digitaldjtips)
A Look Back At The Top 10 Best DJ Fails
While we love the contributions DJs make to our daily lives, we can’t ignore the times where, for whatever reason, they fail. Be it a malfunction with their hardware, someone knocking over a DJ table, or an ill-timed stage dive, DJs make mistakes that are bigger than trainwrecking a mix. And while we salute the DJs who enrich our lives, we will still showcase the times where people screw up.
These featured clips showcase the bad times. Everyone from Skrillex to Tiesto have had issues while playing live, or the entire dance music community has been trolled by Paris Hilton with her “DJ sets.” Whatever the case may be, laugh a little, and remember not to take yourselves too seriously.
btw: The deadmau5 one isn’t a real fail
Posted by Damian Good D (via randomvideos)
Lollapalooza Reveals 2016 Lineup
This year marks 25 years of Lollapalooza and the quarter century celebration is definitely shaping up to be the biggest yet.
Four full days of music and over 170 performances will grace Chicago’s beautiful Grant Park, July 28-31 with headliners Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, LCD Soundsystem, Disclosure, Major Lazer and more.
Continuing the Lollapalooza trend of being on the cutting edge of the music industry, the festival will also play host to some of the most groundbreaking artists in recent history. ZHU, Grimes, Leon Bridges, Flume, Bob Moses, RUFUS DU SOL and Skepta are all artists who play very different styles of music, but have pushed their sound into the spotlight thanks to their unique delivery.
There will also be a special performance by Janes Addiction, helmed by frontman Perry Ferrel who also founded the festival back in 1991. He had this to say on reaching this major milestone:
“I’ve immersed myself in this experience for 25 years now, but it’s in a constant state of evolution, living and breathing. As long as we always try to find the eye of the hurricane, the epicenter of the music that is truly connecting right now, I think we can go for another 25 years! And we’ll do it by always making sure to keep it fresh. Four days this year, over 170 of the best bands, including acts from all over the world as the music community connects globally more than ever; the best sound, staging and lights. We promise the festival will always strive to be the ‘lifeblood’ of the music scene.”
4-Day General Admission Tickets sold out on March 22. A limited number of 1-Day General Admission Tickets ($120) and 1-Day VIP Tickets ($650) will be available for purchase today, March 23 at 10am CT. 4-Day VIP Tickets ($2,200), 4-Day Platinum Tickets ($4,200) and Official Hotel Packages are also available now at lollapalooza.com.
Posted by JD Live (via magneticmag)
New School DJ’s! Take Note: Rafik’s History of Turntablism
Time for some more Native Sessions courtesy of NI. This time, Rafik and Unkut take to the stage to deliver some knowledge and give a great performance.
DJ Rafik drops a personal take on the history of turntablism, commemorating the pioneers and key influences on the craft.
Posted By David Miller (via nativeinstruments)
Diplo Calls Zedd a Flume Rip-Off Over M&Ms Song
Zedd and Aloe Blacc recently teamed for an assumedly M&M-sponsored remake of the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory classic “The Candyman” to celebrate the candy’s 75-year anniversary (see it below). It’s a strange piece of branding that would have been largely forgotten or ignored, had Diplo not said something about it.
On Monday (March 21), Diplo tweeted at Zedd with a link to the video that was released nearly a month ago, asking “wtf is this?” and accusing him of ripping off Flume, presumably due to the similarity between the song’s stuttered synth-driven drop and the Australian producer’s signature sound.
The two went back and forth and deadmau5 even got involved, calling out Diplo for his Justin Bieber collaboration on Jack Ü’s “Where Are Ü Now.”
It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time Diplo has insulted Zedd’s music. Last May, he took to Twitter to share his feelings on Zedd’s sophomore album, True Colors.
Posted by JD Live (via Billboard)
DJ Snake recruits ‘Hunger Games’ star Josh Hutcherson for ‘Middle’ music video
Since broaching the top 40 in 2014 with “Turn Down For What,” DJ Snake has been a veritable mainstream force. After pairing with Major Lazer to release the most ubiquitous song of 2015, “Lean On,” the Parisian producer partnered with British pop singer Bipolar Sunshine to create “Middle”. DJ Snake’s most melodic track to date, “Middle” has garnered widespread mainstream success, holding strong at number three on Billboard’s “Hot Dance/Electronic” chart five months after its release.
Alongside the song’s five month anniversary, DJ Snake has further proven his mainstream viability by releasing a music video for “Middle” starring Josh Hutcherson, best known for his role as Peeta Mella in the Hunger Games series.
Posted by David Miller (via dancingastronaut)
Vegas turns up nose at superstar DJs
Call it the death of the SUPERSTAR DJ?
Las Vegas, the place that turned Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Calvin Harris into a $400,000-per-night commodity, is poised to cash in at least some of its soundboard-superstar chips.
On April 28, when the new nightclub Intrigue opens at Wynn Las Vegas, no world-famous knob-spinners will swell the payroll. “It is the opposite of a big DJ-driven club,” Sean Christie, chief operating officer of Wynn Las Vegas, tells The Post’s Michael Kaplan.
Explaining that the new spot will feature a small, private VIP room, where social media is verboten and conversation is encouraged, Christie adds, “The DJ is no longer the most important part of the recipe.”
Says Victor Drai, whose eponymous club has focused on live music since it opened in 2014, “People are sick of the DJs in Vegas. It’s ridiculous to have the same five or six guys, pay them a fortune and lose money. It will reach a point where DJs are totally irrelevant.”
An insider says that most DJs have been on multiyear contracts with the hotels: “When they renew, offers are expected to go down, some by as much as 50 percent.”
In 2018, when the hotly anticipated Alon Las Vegas casino and hotel opens across the street from Wynn, six-figure DJs will not be in the mix. Jesse Waits, who had been the force behind Wynn’s EDM mecca XS and now oversees clubs, lounges and restaurants for Alon, says, “We created a monster.”
He’s referring to clubs that got loaded with EDM fanatics and eschewed a picky door. “People who just want to see DJs don’t dress up, they don’t have style, they don’t even want to be in a nightclub — they want to see a concert,” he says. “They’re not cool. Nightclubs are cool-people clubs.”
At Alon, he adds, “I’ll be creating a club for the cool people.”
Posted by Richard Johnson (via PageSix)
Go Behind The Scenes of Disclosure’s Live Setup
Celebrated UK producer duo Disclosure give a peek behind the scenes of their elaborate live set-up.
While people were still struggling to pin a name on Disclosure’s amalgamation of club music tropes, the brotherly duo’s meteoric rise saw them spearhead a house revival in modern pop music. With two UK chart-topping albums under their belt, as well as a justifiable claim for kick-starting the career of Sam Smith with their “Latch” collaboration, Howard and Guy Lawrence have continued to challenge themselves artistically. Their elaborate live set-up has earned them praise from fans and critics alike, and we’re happy to present this look behind the scenes as part of our ongoing Studio Science series.
Posted by JD Live (via RedBullMusicAcademy)
Vinyl: Now Available at Your Local Supermarket Chain
Vinyl sales have been exploding for nearly a decade, but where can you buy a record these days? If you’re in Britain, try aisle 17 of your local supermarket.
The music industry witnessed another massive increase in the sale of vinyl in 2015, with a 29.8% boom in the US alone according to Nielsen Music. Over the past decade, sales in this format have been growing steadily: 6.1 million records were sold in 2013, 9.2 million in 2014, followed by nearly 12 million in 2015— which marks the 10th straight year of vinyl sales growth, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Nielsen Music also says that independent record stores have driven the sales, accounting for 45% of all vinyl sales in the US. That’s a refreshing boost: while most traditional record stores are crumbling, it’s exciting to see the opening of stores dedicated to vinyl.
But increasingly, LPs are popping up in non-music retailers. In November last year, Barnes & Noble opened vinyl sections in each of its 650 stores. But multinational trend-setter Urban Outfitters has been in this game for years, and now claims to be the largest vinyl retailer in America.
But it’s not just in the US that vinyl is growing, it’s also booming in the UK.
Retailers — of all stripes — are responding. In December 2015, Tesco — the biggest supermarket chain in the UK — decided to stock a range on vinyl albums after a successful trial during the summer.
”Our trial selling vinyl this summer was a real success with all our stock selling out and this really proved to us just how popular the vinyl album format is again with music fans,” says Michael Mulligan, Music Buyer.
The supermarket giant now stocks classics like Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen, Legend by Bob Marley, and Purple Rain by Prince, amongst several others across 40 of their stores. Now, Sainsbury’s – another UK-based mega-supermarket in the UK — has announced plans to stock vinyl across 171 stores.
In the UK, vinyl sales have grown year-on-year since 2007, reaching a massive 1.3 million in 2014, the highest annual total since 1995.
So what does this mean for artists?
This is now starting to seriously benefit artists, both in the US and UK. Indeed, vinyl is the only other growth area in the music industry besides streaming. But vinyl is generating more revenue than all ad-supported on-demand streaming music services, combined. This includes YouTube Music, VEVO, SoundCloud, free Spotify, and all ad-supported, on-demand streaming music platforms.
That’s a trend that’s likely to continue, especially with supermarkets — not to mention a full range of other retail categories — jumping on the profit train.
Posted by David Miller (Via Digitalmusicnews)
SoundCloud & Sony Confirm Licensing Deal
As reported last week, SoundCloud and Sony Music Entertainment were rumored to have struck a deal that would allow the major label’s artists to be streamed on SoundCloud. Now that deal has been confirmed.
The deal allows for all artists on Sony, including its affiliated and distributed labels, to have their music available on SoundCloud. It’s a win/win for the streaming giant, that has now struck deals with the big three major labels, including Warner and Universal, allowing the company to move forward with a proposed subscription service that would save it from its recent spate of financial woes.
“We are pleased to be making content from Sony Music Entertainment available to SoundCloud’s large user base of highly-engaged, passionate music fans,” said SME’s president of Global and US sales, Dennis Kooker in a released statement. “This agreement creates a business framework for the use of Sony Music songs on the SoundCloud platform that meets the needs of our artists and labels, and supports the growth of SoundCloud through its new premium on-demand music tier.”
“Today is of particular significance to us as a company, as the addition of SME means we now have deals in place with all of the major music labels,” said Alexander Ljung, SoundCloud Founder & CEO. “With SME now on board, we continue on our journey building a unique platform, empowering our community of more than 18 million artists at every stage of their careers to share their work and connect with their fans, and enabling listeners to discover and be inspired by new music and audio. We are very excited to be working with SME and cannot wait to see what we can achieve together as we continue to transform the future of music online.”
With the necessary deals in place, Soundcloud’s new subscription service could launch sometime this year, though no date has been confirmed.
Posted By Michael Scott Barron (Via Thump)
Jimmy Kimmel Enlists DJ Khaled as His Snapchat Coach
On eve of Ultra Music Festival, the dance-music craze is slowing down
At first glance, the throbbing hubbub of Miami Music Week and the Ultra Music Festival, one of the marquee events on the global dance music calendar, looks as vibrant as ever. General admission and VIP tickets for Ultra, which takes over Bayfront Park Friday through Sunday, are sold out. Clubs and hotels in South Beach and downtown Miami are touting famous DJs and parties that extend past dawn.
But behind the booming façade, the situation is not quite so bright. Some of Miami’s top clubs, such as South Beach’s Cameo and downtown’s Grand Central, have closed recently. SFX Entertainment, which several years ago bought a host of top dance music promoters, festivals and websites, inspiring predictions that billionaire owner Robert Sillerman would take electronic dance music into the corporate and consumer mainstream, recently declared bankruptcy.
The 2016 edition of the TomorrowWorld festival in rural Georgia, one of SFX’s trophy events, has been canceled after a debacle last September that saw thousands of concertgoers stranded in mud and rain. Icon, the name new owners have given to Mansion, a longtime South Beach dance palace, has seen a sharp drop in crucial VIP liquor sales and is struggling to fill the massive space.
“EDM is over — it’s like disco,” says Vanessa Menkes, former head of communications for the now disbanded Opium Group, whose clubs including Mansion and Set dominated South Beach nightlife for years. “In 2005, you could open your doors on a random Saturday night and make $150,000. Those days are not coming back.”
In some ways, the music is falling victim to a success that appears to have peaked around 2013. Many of the music-loving clubgoers that are the genre’s core audience have been alienated by spiraling entry and drink prices that put the cost of even a minimal night out well over $100, even as clubs cater to wealthy customers who spend thousands in VIP sanctums. The performance circuit has become dominated by a small circle of famous DJ/artists like Calvin Harris, Tiesto, Diplo and Skrillex, leading to repeat appearances and fan burnout. According to one Miami music insider, when Mansion booked leading DJ Afrojack for more than $150,000 shortly before the club ended its 11-year run last fall, it couldn’t draw enough of an audience to break even.
Fans like Annie Tomlinson, 22, an ardent Ultra attendee when she could get a one-day ticket for around $100, are opting out. She last went to the festival in 2013, though she says her peak experience was the year before.
“I still like the music,” Tomlinson says. “But it’s not worth it for the money anymore. It’s so hyped up and I’ve already experienced it.”
Senthil Chidambaram, CEO and founder of popular EDM website Dancing Astronaut, says that kind of burnout is growing.
“You see someone DJ and throw his hands up and fireworks in the background, and that experience is replicated a hundred times,” Chidambaram says. “So how is it changing for you? What’s the selling point unless you’re a super fan?”
Soaring DJ fees have become part of their celebrity cachet. Harris, the top earner, can command $400,000 at a luxurious Las Vegas nightclub such as Omnia in Caesar’s Palace. Other elite acts make $200,000 to $250,000. Those costs contribute to a kind of nocturnal financial arms race, pushing up base prices at clubs and festivals. Meanwhile, frenzy over the profit potential from wealthy customers for festivals like Ultra, where VIP tickets are $1,512, or at clubs where a tiny circle of clients can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single night, conflated excitement over a show with the thrill of extravagant consumption.
The focus on finances could also shape the music. According to Chidambaram, as the scene peaked in 2013, many artists put out as much music as possible because each new release generated hits on social media and music sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Soundcloud — numbers that booking agents used to determine which acts to hire and how much to pay.
“There was so much content shoved down people’s throats, but it was not about the quality but the quantity,” Chidambaram says. “The more content you pushed the more opportunities to increase your number count.”
The buzz that led corporations to rush to sponsor what seemed the hottest genre for coveted millennial customers sometimes led to a blurring of music and marketing. The videos for two of EDM’s biggest hits, Avicci’s Wake Me Up, from 2013, and Swedish House Mafia’s Greyhound (the name of a vodka drink), in 2012, prominently showcased images of Ralph Lauren’s Denim & Supply logo and clothing line and Absolut vodka, respectively.
Meanwhile, the acts that haven’t produced a radio hit or are focused on the old school skills that keep a room full of dancers moving until dawn — what hardcore dance music aficionados call “telling a story” — are relegated to smaller clubs and fewer events. This limits the chances for the next creative DJ or cutting-edge style to emerge, or for a new generation of audiences to be drawn by music rather than celebrity and hype.
“The oversaturation and commercialization is the death of anything relevant in terms of artistry,” says Carmel Ophir, a longtime dance music promoter whose downtown club Vagabond closed in 2014, and who is presenting a week of old-school house music DJs like Louie Vega and Jellybean Benitez at Yuca on Lincoln Road this week. “The EDM world is one big KISS concert — we’re gonna give you bang for the buck, fire, explosions, blood.”
Dance music fireworks still dazzle many. EDM has become central to mainstream pop, as demonstrated in hits such as Where Are Ü Now, produced by Diplo and Skrillex for Justin Bieber. Ultra has franchises in Europe, Latin America and Asia, where a new luxury club market has opened up in countries like China and Singapore. Festivals such as Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas and New York, or European EDM celebrations such as Belgium’s TomorrowLand, continue to be popular.
David Grutman, operating partner of LIV in the Fontainebleau hotel, the most successful of the Beach’s remaining high-end clubs and whose lineup this week boasts David Guetta, Afrojack and Harris, says those kinds of acts are still a draw.
“The top guys are still pulling as much or more,” Grutman says. But he has had to adjust from the peak of several years ago. Costly star DJ’s are mostly reserved for special occasions like Miami Music Week, and hip-hop Sundays have become hugely popular. Grutman has seen a drop in VIP customers from Europe and South America, whose currency has been devalued against the dollar, and are spending less or going elsewhere. And Grutman has branched out, opening Komodo, an Asian fusion restaurant in the trendy Brickell area. His former competitor Eric Milon, one of Opium Group’s founders, now co-owns Coyo Taco, a hipster eatery and speakeasy in Wynwood.