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-- Dodgy Gigs, Let's Hear Them

Posted by Tony Morello on Nov-09-2007 17:41:

Dodgy Gigs, Let's Hear Them

the incontrollable mishap thread sparked an idea

anyone paying their dues has had them, those horrible gigs that you go through with anyway, gotta play somewhere and establish yourself

here's mine

i was booked for an outdoor party through a small not well known promoter

i show up for the gig, followed a map and shit, only to find myself underneath a busy overpass in calgary's beautiful industrial area

the only good thing about the setup was they at least had tech 12s, the mixer was a beat up old numark with sticky faders and the whole shebang was set up on a rickity card table

there were no monitors, the only sound came from the 1 jbl eon in front of said rickity ass old card table

speaking of rickity ass old card table and sticky mixer, anytime you tried to move the fader the tables would skip, so every mix pretty much

in spite of all the shortcomings, very low partygoer turnout, like really, who wants to party under an overpass, i still managed to pull a set out and rock it for 2 hours

let's hear yours

Posted by Freak on Nov-10-2007 14:36:

Toooooo many to list

Well and truly paid my dues...

Posted by Tony Morello on Nov-10-2007 17:20:

i was expecting a story out of you, nem too

pick one

Posted by Freak on Nov-10-2007 18:26:

Ok... im getting ready to go now so havent much time..ill just mention a recent one.

While doing lighting & sound for the valve sound system ( drum & bass legendary thing... REALLY fucking loud) the bass was so intense, it was making plug sockets come out of the wall.
So the filters (stanton djf-1/vermona action filter 2) were unplugging themselves from the wall.
No filter power = no cdj sound (they arent passive...stupid design flaw).
Kept cutting out every 5 mins as they kept coming out .
Then the mixer plug did it.
Then both TTs.
Then the cdjs themselves.

Cue me:
Crawling around under the mixer on a beer and piss soaked floor, duct taping EVERYTHING into the wall as best I could, while the dj was still playing.
I had to keep retaping them every 40 mins or so all nite.

Plenty of stories like this.....loads and loads of 'fun' times.

Anyone who has any idea this industry or djing is glamorous, you can fuck right off...

Posted by djdk on Nov-10-2007 20:06:

Yeah fucking loads, most from when I used to do mobile stuff.

There was one wedding where there was a bit of a ruckus andf the best man threw a punch at someone and ended up sparking out the bride. It then well and truly kicked off, everyone piling in, punches, chairs, tables, people flying everywhere. Fucking nightmare trying to keep the equipment in one piece and not get involved.

Its a great story to tell, but at the time it was seriously scary, as you can imagine the people at this wedding werent exactly the nicest sort...

Posted by djimmersion on Nov-11-2007 02:19:

Prolly the worst gig I has was one that I was not even hired to do...

My friend scored a gig at this really rundown house with a big courtyard in San Jose Cali and I let him use MY equipment and tagged along myself, and so I present you a list of what happend:

1. The host of the party was drunk even before the party started

2. The people who arrived for the party were already drunk and proceded to throw around any beverage in a cup they could find at anyone they could see

3. Then this one drunk guy got on a dirt bike and nearly ran into the DJ booth several times, while almost running into everyone else in the area as well

4. the only sober people at the party decided to lock everyone out of the house

5. at some point I found that my friend using MY equipment blew one of the speakers, beacuse he put too much power through the amp

6. One side of my dual CD player failed to function correctly, so my friend decided to leave things up to me and leave somewhere with his GF who came to the party

7. After fixing the equipment issues I was asked to stop playing after 30 mins

8. My friend only got $65 dollars for 2 hours of play and I got nothing exept a blown speaker, and a dual CD player with only one side that works

Sad story I know

Posted by aLviNx80 on Nov-11-2007 09:50:

quote:
Originally posted by djimmersion
Prolly the worst gig I has was one that I was not even hired to do...

My friend scored a gig at this really rundown house with a big courtyard in San Jose Cali and I let him use MY equipment and tagged along myself, and so I present you a list of what happend:

1. The host of the party was drunk even before the party started

2. The people who arrived for the party were already drunk and proceded to throw around any beverage in a cup they could find at anyone they could see

3. Then this one drunk guy got on a dirt bike and nearly ran into the DJ booth several times, while almost running into everyone else in the area as well

4. the only sober people at the party decided to lock everyone out of the house

5. at some point I found that my friend using MY equipment blew one of the speakers, beacuse he put too much power through the amp

6. One side of my dual CD player failed to function correctly, so my friend decided to leave things up to me and leave somewhere with his GF who came to the party

7. After fixing the equipment issues I was asked to stop playing after 30 mins

8. My friend only got $65 dollars for 2 hours of play and I got nothing exept a blown speaker, and a dual CD player with only one side that works

Sad story I know

you friend should have shared the money atleast.

Posted by ibz on Nov-11-2007 18:15:

Posted by Clovis on Nov-13-2007 20:21:

I don't wanna talk about it.

Posted by Dojomaster26 on Nov-13-2007 22:35:

quote:
Originally posted by Clovis
I don't wanna talk about it.

+ a big 1

immersion: It sounds like your "friend" owes you some money for damages to that equipment. The least he could have done was split that $65 with you...

And what is up with gangs shooting up EDM events these days? Can't they find some other place to kill each other?!?

Posted by Tony Morello on Nov-13-2007 23:45:

well i guess i can lay down another one

so i'm booked to play the night of a massive rave, only it's not at the rave but at a REALLY sketchy afterhours spot that's long-closed now

so i show up with my friend whom i used to do a hard house tag team with, we split a 26 of crown royal in the booth while playing to only 2 people, a really messed up guy that i assume had been kicked out of the rave for being too high and the bartender who disappeared into the back room for a while

regardless, we recorded the set, got smashed then got a couple free discobiscuits after we finished from the promoter who left as we got there and returned shortly after we finished from the rave

he had the balls to say we were missing a killer party then realized what he said and hooked us up

Posted by SwerV on Nov-19-2007 18:18:

Man.. I would have to say my worst gig was actually my chillest. Well in the sense it was just a party for the homies. We were at the Desert and we were to throw a surprise birthday party for a friend at this one camping spot. Well i was told that the spot had a mobile stage with a pretty impressive sound system. Turns out there was not jack shit. So i show up and there is nothing to plug into. Well i had a home theatre sound system in our storage shed so i said fuck it. Busted it out and borrowed an amp from someone elses home theatre. Plugged in and started doing my thing. They were alright sounding, not the best but they put enough sound out for people to dance. An hour into the party, it happened. One speaker just cuts out all together. I look at it and it turns out they have these overload saftey things that pop when they are over loaded. Like a circuit breaker. So for the two and a half hours i am playing music i keep having to run to each speaker and reset them. They would pop every 7 - 10 min.

I would say my second worst is i had to run behind my light truss for a second to check something and some fucking ass hole had unplugged my mixer to try and plug their ipod. Lets just say i would have won the loudest feedback noise award.

Posted by CReddick on Nov-20-2007 02:35:

This is back when I lived in Ohio.

I get asked to play this huge weekend rave event thing... you know, the ones with like 500 local DJs on the flyer.

I'm still a new guy in the scene, so the promoter says, hey mang... you can play while we set up the stage and people show up. I'm like, "hey, thats cool".

So I drive out to the boonfucks to this campground where they're having the event... I'm on time... no one is there. not the promoter, the stage is empty, no sound equipment, nothing. oh wait.. there were a ton of families setting up camp that normally camp on this campground every weekend... wait, do they know there's a 48 hour rave planned 100 feet from their tent?

So eventually the truck with all the sound equip and lighting stuff shows up... i make friends, and help them unload this 20 some foot truck full of heavy cases. I figure, the sooner we can get some sound running, the sooner or more time i might have to play.

Some other DJs show up with their girlfriends... but no attendees. no one paying at the gate, no one.

The sound / lighting guys freak out... they start tearing down all the equipment, saying that they know they're not going to get paid. this is bad. many harsh words are exchanged by the promoter and the sound guys... doesn't matter. they pack up and leave.

[snip to hours later]

back in the woods, a small wal-mart esque tent is set up, and a generator kicked on... ok, now we're rocking. See, originally, there was going to be 3-4 stages for all of these 500 DJs to play on... now only one small tent. there was no table to set anything on... they had found an old rotted out table in some creek where the wood top was gone. they set this metal frame upside down, and smacked some TTs and a shitty numark 2 channel mixer on top. it was warped, and rocked back and forth.

Rank is pulled, and now I don't get to play. The promoter says, stick around, and you can play later on tonight.

It starts raining.

[snip to later on]

5 something AM. I get setup to mix into the previous DJs track... a 4 wheeler drives by.. its the campground people.. they demand we shut off the generator and call it a night.

I sleep in my car soaking wet and drive home in the morning.

good times.