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Sketchy situation with longtime friends; Advice? (pg. 3)
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| dj_bas |
Welcome to clubland Rob. It's tough, espeically with all the politics. Should I play here? Can I play there, do I want to play here? Let me give you a little scenario, just happened to me actually.
So next Saturday at Spundae is Andy Moor and Ronski Speed are playing the main room. I get contacted by one of the promoters for the night, a TA actually, and he asks if I want to play on the loft. Now my gut instinct was to say, "hell yes!" Spundae is a REAL club with REAL promoters and it would be awesome to play there. Oh wait, here's the catch. Mike is a total douchebag, he can't run a promotion company to save his life and the night will inevidably blow goats. Andy Moor charges alot of money, and as good as he is, he is completely unknown and will probably not pull that big of a crowd. So I ask myself, why is Mike asking me to play? I never talk to him, he's never heard any of my promos i'm sure. We don't even like each other. So why? It's because he's out of djs, he ran out of people to book. No one wants to work with him and NOW he wants to come to me? No way. He also likes to engage in shady business practices, and I don't want any part of that.
My point is, you can't make everyone happy. You're gonna have to step on some toes to get to where you want to be. Clovis, for example, is playing at The Mor Bar (kinda popular Sunday club) sometime in July. I'm stoked for him and i'll def be there to support. Am I jealous? Yeah! ****** I wanna play at The Mor :p But do I hate him? Not in the least. He's an awesome dj and I know that we're gonna get places.
Yeah. |
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| lücid |
maybe i'm just a sappy chick... but for all the people saying "move on," would you guys really let long-time friendships get ruined over stuff like this?
i mean i agree 100% that they're acting jealous and they should be supportive of Rob, but personally i'd try to smack some sense into my friends before i just gave up... especially if they were people i grew up with and have known for a very long time. |
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| DJ RJT |
Yeah dude, that sucks - ing shady promoters/dj's really just ruin things for me in a lot of cases...
And yeah, picking when/where to play is definitely a catch-22; Sometimes it's who you don't want to play for (i.e. sketch promoters) and sometimes it's just not the right night (i.e. Andy Moor and/or "Pay to play with Oakenfold" night in Milwaukee :rolleyes: ).
I'm not certain that I have the mental faculties to really even deal with big city club politics...
| quote: | Originally posted by dj_bas
Andy Moor charges alot of money, and as good as he is, he is completely unknown and will probably not pull that big of a crowd. |
Andy Moor is charging a lot of money for the kind of sets he plays? :nervous:
Dude needs to stick to production IMO... :p |
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| dj_bas |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RJT
Andy Moor is charging a lot of money for the kind of sets he plays? :nervous:
Dude needs to stick to production IMO... :p |
lol srsly. Just what I heard though :p
What's 'pay to play with Oakenfold'? |
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| DJ RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by dj_bas
lol srsly. Just what I heard though :p
What's 'pay to play with Oakenfold'? |
Last year they had this event with Paul Oakenfold, Hernan Cattaneo, Sharam, and Fergie at this venue in Milwaukee (actually the night that led to Myra and I hooking up :)) and you could "pay to play" at it, literally, you paid $450-$550 for "X" number of tickets that you were then supposed to sell off to bring people in.
They had like 6 stages, main stage, Outlawed Productions Stage (which was ALMOST as bad as Pay to Play), and 4 or 5 other pay to play stages where everyone who paid $450-$550 got an hour set (which for most actually turned out to be like 45 minutes). |
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| dj_bas |
| Wow, that's pretty ridiculous. Although I would pay for the chance to completly blow Oakenfold out of the water with actual beatmatching. |
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| DJ RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by dj_bas
Wow, that's pretty ridiculous. Although I would pay for the chance to completly blow Oakenfold out of the water with actual beatmatching. |
Yeah except here's the thing....
Main Room: Packed to the gills
Outlawed Room: Moderate to fair amount of folks, but that was only because it housed the Oakenfold overflow (attached room).
Every other dancefloor: Empty.
Every who actually payed to play and ended up playing to an empty dancefloor got EXACTLY what they deserved. |
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| Aquadyne |
| I'll be honest with you, I haven't experienced anything like that - then again I'm not cutthroat and ruthless. I'm pretty much a live-and-let-live guy even in a city as big as Chicago. There will always be other shows, other promoters, but only one reputation. So I always make sure to conduct myself well regardless of everyone else. For example, Bas would tell the guy at Spundae to f-off but I wouldn't. Exposure is exposure, regardless of whether you get paid for it or not even if the promoter is shady or has a bad reputation. |
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| idoru |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
You see, Mr. Turner, there's one thing about people we can't ignore:
Defence mechanisms
When some people fail, they tend to blame their failure in something else. It's a great defence mechanism, because they cease to believe they're responsible for what they've done - rather, it's "fate" or "something they couldn't control". No egos hurt whatsoever.
In this particular case, you're achieving success through hard work, while they're not, and there were problems with communication (which weren't your fault at all). It's natural (although unnecessary) that the feeling that you're stabbing their backs arises, even if you're not doing it and you're telling them that you're not. They're insecure. They need this belief in order to feel better about themselves for now. It's like a person who believes a magician has super-natural powers even if the magician tells them that it's all about tricks - there are studies on this field, actually.
Give it some time. Either they will drop this defence mechanism and look toward you with respect, or... well, we never know what outcome a situation might have. |
I couldn't have said it better myself. You can't just take two of your best friends for the longest time and say, "You know what, screw you guys, I'm done with you," and leave 'em be just like that. It's hard, and I'd bet that if most of the people in this thread were in a similar situation, they'd have some trouble doing it.
And yeah, local scenes are a pain. Although it's fairly easy to survive in it providing you do it right. Never jump into the scene right away; take a year exploring the scene, getting to know who's-who (who's shady, who's decent etc.). Once you figure it out, start flyering or photographing for the non-shady promoters to get your name out there. At least that's where I am right now. Get your name known to the promoters, show 'em you can work hard, then send 'em your demo. That, in my opinion, is the best way to go about it.
Aquadyne: I disagree. If local promoters know that a promoter is shady, then they wont want to do business with them. I know that at least in Seattle if a DJ spins for a well-known shady promoter, then unless he's been a popular local DJ with a history of bringing in crowds, he has a 90% chance of not being booked elsewhere. Because if everybody knows they're shady and you go and spin for them, it looks like you're supporting them which is what most promoters don't want.
/ramble |
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| DJ RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Aquadyne
I'll be honest with you, I haven't experienced anything like that - then again I'm not cutthroat and ruthless. I'm pretty much a live-and-let-live guy even in a city as big as Chicago. There will always be other shows, other promoters, but only one reputation. So I always make sure to conduct myself well regardless of everyone else. For example, Bas would tell the guy at Spundae to f-off but I wouldn't. Exposure is exposure, regardless of whether you get paid for it or not even if the promoter is shady or has a bad reputation. |
To be fair though, the way you broke into the scene in Chicago isn't exactly the standard "pay your dues, wait it out" story, which isn't to say that's a terrible thing, I'm just not so sure that in the short time you guys have been playing out that you've really had the opportunity to deal with the worst of it yet...
But what the do I know - You went from nothing to Vision in 2 months, I've been stuck spinning in northeastern Wisconsin for 4 years now.
Bah - I just get more confused as I go on... :clown: |
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| dj_bas |
| quote: | Originally posted by idoru
Aquadyne: I disagree. If local promoters know that a promoter is shady, then they wont want to do business with them. I know that at least in Seattle if a DJ spins for a well-known shady promoter, then unless he's been a popular local DJ with a history of bringing in crowds, he has a 90% chance of not being booked elsewhere. Because if everybody knows they're shady and you go and spin for them, it looks like you're supporting them which is what most promoters don't want. |
Yeah exactly! The other Spundae promoters, as well as local promoters, know this guy is shady. I don't want my name attached to that trainwreck :p |
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