I've been looking up the bios of various major DJs. I'm amazed at how many of the stories are the same. DJ plays at small club. Big name celebrity just happens to come to said club. Celeb loves DJ, brings him/her to private upscale party. DJ kills it. Now DJ is in the inner circle, and it builds from there. The crazy thing is, almost all the major touring DJs are from New York or LA. Like Atlanta, Miami, Houston or Chicago don't have world-class DJs.
I'm sitting here at Therapy Cafe in Dayton listening to some no-name DJs that are really good. What's the difference between them and Tiesto? I'm sure Tiesto had to start at a small club and work his way up, but at the type of venues he plays at now, ANY good DJ could rock the crowd. The real difference between a superstar DJ and a no-name DJ? The superstar DJ has the trust of the crowd, so they can play whatever they want and the crowd is receptive to it. The superstar can play Mary Had A Little Lamb and the crowd will lose its fuckin' mind. The no-name DJ can play the hottest set, top it off with the #1 song in the country, and the crowd will go "ahhhh… I'm not feeling it. I need a drink."
I love it when people complain that I play the same songs every week, but when I try to be adventurous and play some new music, the crowd looks at me like my head just split open. "Are you gonna play this all night?" "Umm, I've only played the first verse of this song." "Well, can you play?" "Umm, it's 10:30 right now, I'll play it later when there are more people in the club." "But there is no one here, can't you just play it for me?" "I don't play songs twice, I have 11,000 songs in my computer, I don't want to play the same songs over and over again." They look at me like, "but you're my personal jukebox. You're supposed to play the songs that are in my head. If you don't, you suck!"
The superstar DJ doesn't have that problem. First of all, they don't open up, they are the headliner. If the promoter did their job, there is a crowd waiting for the superstar to get on stage or in the booth, which is inaccessible. Don't even think about asking for a request. Their playlist is all set, because once they are finished, they are on to the next city. The crowd there doesn't know superstar DJ played the exact same set in Pittsburgh last week, and they will play that set again in Sacramento next week. And the best part about being a superstar DJ? You can play a bad song and get away with it, because the crowd will think you meant to play that!
The craziest thing is when someone from another city asks me to play a song from a local artist out of the city they are from. True story: "You got Do That Shit by Chip Tha Ripper?" "No, the only Chip Tha Ripper I have is Get It Gurl." "How can you not have Do That Shit? It's the hottest song in Cleveland right now." "Well, I'm not in Cleveland, he's not a major national artist yet, no one has sent me the MP3, so I have no way of knowing about the song." "Well, you need to get up on your game and expand your music." Riiight. I've worked a year and a half on making sure I had what Dayton wanted to hear, and because I don't have YOUR song by an out-of-towner I suck? (BTW, Do That Shit is hot as hell and I'm making that another Dayton anthem, but that's besides the point).
People really don't realize how hard it is to be considered a great DJ. I can play the best music, bring in each song perfectly, rock the mic and keep everyone's head nodding, but if there are 100 people in a 1000 person club, and those people don't want to dance on an empty dance floor, I suck. I can have a packed house with a full dance floor, but if the promoter/manager/club owner's friend doesn't like what I'm playing and complains, I'm perceived to be not that great of a DJ. I can play 30 minutes straight of great songs, play one song that bombs, then play 30 more minutes of great music, and "the music was up and down all night." One more difference between the superstar DJ and the no-name DJ. You go hear the superstar DJ for the experience of hearing them spin. "I can't wait to hear what he is going to play next." You go hear the no-name DJ to hear the songs you already like. "I want him to play my favorite song right now!"
What is so amazing to me is how unique different areas are in terms of music. Perfect example: Nann Nigga by Trick Daddy and Trina is a classic up and down the East Coast. Here in Dayton I almost got tomatoes thrown at me! Billie Jean by Michael Jackson is a party starter in Boston. That song got me blackballed for 4 months in Dayton! I learned my lesson: don't assume that because something works in one city it will automatically work in another. A couple of weeks ago I played at a really nice club in Cincinnati. I'm not in the city on a regular basis, so I had to feel out what people wanted to hear. The night didn't go as well as I wanted it to (it didn't help that the owners didn't get a crowd in there… I can't rock a party if there is no party to rock). The really messed up thing is that was my first and probably my last opportunity to spin at that club. Since I'm basically brand new to the area, I had one chance to make a good impression. Now I'm my own worst critic, but the people who came up to the DJ booth let me know they liked the music, there just wasn't enough people in the club to make it feel like a party, so they didn't want to dance. Now the club owner won't return my messages. I asked for feedback from him. No call back. I asked about the party he told me he would talk to me about coming the next week. No return message. I even went to his club on a Saturday (when I should have been at my own club!) to see what the club looked like packed, and texted him a compliment. No return message. I know the night I was there wasn't the hottest, because I do my best work when I have a crowd to feed off of. But I definitely wasn't bad enough for the owner to completely ignore me!
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