From no experience as a club dj...
1. How much did you charge for your fist residency slot? - Keep it cheap until you prove to yourself and the club you are worthy.
This is what I was thinking, standard DJ rate for London seems to be £10p/h, which is what I'll be asking for
2. How much of your setlist do you change week to week? - Id keep current tracks on a weekly basis as thats what people expect on a friday night in a standard club, but inject new releases for your own satisfaction and to gauge response.
It's a house set, so not necessarily bog standard music to begin with, but I get your point
. I played some old school garage and even a track from the 80s tonight
3. Do you play new releases? Or give them a couple of weeks to get known? - As above really. Dont just hit people with lots of unknown stuff as they struggle to take it in. Put unknown tracks in but they shouldnt be the main set content.
I have noticed that no matter how mainstream or similar sounding a track is, if they haven't heard it it may not go down great. Weird, but hey.
4. How much do you drink within the realms of staying professional? - Id sup 3-4 bottles if I was working I guess.
I think this is about right! Thanks
5. And finally, how long did you keep your first residency for? Did you leave, or was let go? - Id see how it all pans out before thinking of leaving for greater things. Hopefully you can gain enough popularity to be used elsewhere on Thursday/Saturdays etc.
I'm definitely not going to be leaving until there is a much better opportunity. I'm also looking for sets throughout the week, however I can't do too much as I have another job, and of course Uni work is paramount.
Thanks for the advice mate!
never dj'ed but would like to give you some advice.
i'll start by saying i've seen your mixes on youtube and i've seen some of the equipment you have and i conclude you take it seriously. good on you. this brings me to your question on drinking. i would advise you drink very little, maybe only enough to calm any nerves. if you impress, a residency can lead to bigger things. some people make a lot of money by dj'ing, if you want to be in with a sniff of chance, you need to be professional and this means staying focused. no matter how mashed the crowd are, if your mixing is appauling, or you're late, let it go to your head and get lax etc you won't last (not until you've made a name for yourself anyway) and never forget, you're now getting paid, you're not doing it soley for the fun of it.
One thing I cannot stand is DJs riding off the back of their fame and not putting any effort into it. This is why I think Guetta is a massive douche, his actions at Tomorrowland were frankly abhorrent. Thankyou very much for the kind words! I've only ever DJd while mashed once, and as well as it went I'm not planning on repeating the experience!
play what you want to play be it new or old. aslong as you believe in it. 20+ yrs ago, ltj bukem was spinning a style of dnb that was going straight over a lot of peoples heads. i remember reading an interview where he was getting booked, and literally playing his choice with his head down and getting out of there but he believed in it, stuck with it and it became his style and became accepted. a style which has led to him being an incredible mixer who has played some of the best sets i've ever heard. well, until 1998 when he sold out imo.
Great point, thankyou. As I said in my reply above, I was mixing in some old school garage and acid house, and it went down really well. Half of DJing is gauging and understanding your crowd it seems, something I am slowly but surely getting the hang of. I've had previous sets where I played a lot of music that people hadn't heard of, but mixed with remixes and known tracks. If done right, it can go down a storm, as I found out at Proud2. During my drum and bass set at Cable, I noticed that a lot of the crowd weren't into a lot of the music that I played, and I ended up playing to a hardcore of about 30 people. As fun and personal as it was, I would much rather have the feeling of playing to a massive crowd (over 1000 at Proud2), and seeing how they react to stuff they may not necessarily have heard of, but mixed with stuff they had. Earthquake (Noisia Remix) with Next Hype played over the top was a good example of this, it was ridiculously heavy, yet they had heard of both. That enabled me to drop one of the most insane tracks from last year in, and because the vibe had been set the crowd went nuts anyway
if i had just bagged my first residency, i'd be using it as an opportunity to play stuff i wanted to play, even if it wasn't mainstream. any dj can play it safe so remember the reason they asked you is because they want something a little different? there's tons of good house tunes out there. check out the bedrock label and poker flat for starters. house is a broad spectrum so get on beatport and see what's about.
Thanks a lot mate
