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The "talk about your last night out" thread (pg. 15)
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| SYSTEM-J |
Sometimes it is unavoidable that promoters have to line-up the DJs in a less-than-perfect order. Apparently something similar happened at Cocoon In The Park the same day. CITP is Sven Vath's one-day festival he does every summer in Leeds, and we had a choice between going to the Mayer event in London and CITP. From what I saw on Facebook, the line-up for Cocoon went: Dixon -> Carl Cox -> Ricardo Villalobos -> Sven Vath. Carl Cox had to play early because he had a festival slot in Croatia late in the day, but Villalobos got ripped to shreds on social media because apparently his set bored the out of the crowd and killed the vibe Cox had created. In that case it was unavoidable that Cox had to play early, but it ruined the flow of the whole event. I think you can imagine what a comedown Villalobos must be when sandwiched between Cox and Vath.
Often it is just thoughtless promoters who don't think their line-ups through carefully, but I think the DJs should also take some of the blame. A good DJ should have a deep enough crate to play early, peak time or close, rather than just having one style and one energy level. I wonder if these guys feel embarrassed when they see their own set visibly kill the energy level in a club. |
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| Woony |
Part of the problem is that people want DJs to be one trick ponys, though. Sure, sometimes it won't work but more often than not, people will be dissapointed if they're not getting the trademark 'Villalobos sound' etc.
That said, I do agree that a lot of DJs are hilariously inflexible. I can understand a big headliner just 'doing their thing' but a smaller, 'scene' DJ should really be able to do better. I went to a techno party held in the about blank garden last weekend and two of the resident that usually play the drone-y stuff ended up playing the same stuff they would play at 5am in dark room at 3pm in bright sunlight. I was amazed, do these people not have any other records in their shelf? |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
Part of the problem is that people want DJs to be one trick ponys, though. Sure, sometimes it won't work but more often than not, people will be dissapointed if they're not getting the trademark 'Villalobos sound' etc. |
Not sure I agree with that. I'd say Cox, Vath and Mayer for that matter all have different strings to their bow, and could play an afterparty set as well as a main stage set. It doesn't affect their popularity too much, and I think most clubbers who see this kind of "respectable superstar" DJ don't expect one sound for every occasion. |
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| SPANIARD |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Not sure I agree with that. I'd say Cox, Vath and Mayer for that matter all have different strings to their bow, and could play an afterparty set as well as a main stage set. It doesn't affect their popularity too much, and I think most clubbers who see this kind of "respectable superstar" DJ don't expect one sound for every occasion. |
Most older DJ's happen to be pretty versatile such as the ones you mentioned. They are exceptions in this argument. I think what Woony is referring to is the issue in a more general sense that most DJ's (who DJ based on their production popularity) are quite pigeon holed into a specific sound and really only vary when it comes to tempo or a slight mood change but not genre or sub genre. As mentioned, there are plenty of factors for this but yeah, it does kind of suck to see less and less versatile DJ's out there.
I can attest to this being a problem in the Psy scene. A full-on live act who does a DJ set will play a whole set of Full on, the next Forest act will play a Forest DJ set etc. Sure there are some exceptional guys who will play an eclectic, varied set but for the most part it's a one trick pony kind of game when it comes to DJing. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Not sure I agree with that. I'd say Cox, Vath and Mayer for that matter all have different strings to their bow, and could play an afterparty set as well as a main stage set. It doesn't affect their popularity too much, and I think most clubbers who see this kind of "respectable superstar" DJ don't expect one sound for every occasion. |
Completely agree with this, especially for Cox and Vath. Cox plays the terrace at space for the warm up which is bouncy prog and funky house, then moves to the back room and plays pounding techhouse and techno. I've seen him play small clubs where it's jacking house and big room venues where it's fast and relentless techno.
Same with vath. I've heard him play minimal funky sets and the next time a hard techhouse set.
If anything those guys like that known for playing whatever suits and it can be pretty diverse. You aint really gonna get vocal schranz from them but they can play just about any party and still make people move.
I once watched Cox turn a night around; was at gatecrasher and MoS at lotherton hall. The night on paper was looking incredible, with 40 of the biggest names of the time (sasha, digweed, liam howlett, morillo, sanchez, emmerson, tony de vit, sven vath, carl cox, danny rampling, tall paul, paul van dyk etc etc) but some bunch of ing idiots had made the linups/slot times and completely ruined it.
The event started at 10pm and they'd stacked many of the competing acts at the same time, and other such nonsense as putting sasha on as one of the first acts so he effectively had to play a warmup.
Cox was had been put in a small Tent that some muppet had cleared out before by playing too hard to early and I remember a small group of us literally sitting on the floor of this empty tent as cox took to the decks. He started out slow but funky and just started working it, just getting a groove going track by track within about 30 mins people passing had started hearing in and slowly began to filter in (there were several bigger acts playing right at that time in better set up tents) and watching what Cox did over the next 3 hours was a ing masterclass in how to build a crowd, By the two hour mark the tent was full and nearly everyone was dancing and Cox just kept turning up the heat, deftly mixing in some techno classics to current prog tracks and now he's on three turntables, getting more funky and more relentless, by the last hour, he was working so hard one of the decks skipped and it was due to liquid - his own sweat had dripped on to the track and when he realized he gave a sorry shrug to the crowd and place ing went bonkers with applause and whistles. Word had got out that something special was happening and by the last hour there was a line at every entry to get in and the ing tent was bumping.
Massive ovation when he finished and set of the night by a long stretch. pure Versatility and talent. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by SPANIARD
I can attest to this being a problem in the Psy scene. A full-on live act who does a DJ set will play a whole set of Full on, the next Forest act will play a Forest DJ set etc. Sure there are some exceptional guys who will play an eclectic, varied set but for the most part it's a one trick pony kind of game when it comes to DJing. |
The standard of DJing in the psy scene is extremely low. It's one of the reasons I got tired of going to psy events so quickly. Nobody had a ing clue. I've seen DJs playing 146bpm full-on at 10pm in the first slot of the night, DJs mixing exclusively with the cross-fader, DJs who literally didn't know how to use the CDJs in front of them and had to ask the previous DJ what the buttons did, DJs who had to delay their set by 10 minutes so they could run back to their car and retrieve a piece of paper with their setlist written on (!), DJs who repeatedly tried to cue the upcoming track with both faders up, and more than a couple of DJs so fried on acid they didn't even try to mix tracks together. Honestly, not a single one of those stories is a lie. And what really pissed me off is that nobody ever cares. 90% of the people who go to psy events don't give the first about the quality of the music or the DJing. They'll just stomp away regardless. |
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| Innocence Lost |
| Got blasted. |
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| lacksesepsotygh |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The standard of DJing in the psy scene is extremely low. It's one of the reasons I got tired of going to psy events so quickly. Nobody had a ing clue. I've seen DJs playing 146bpm full-on at 10pm in the first slot of the night, DJs mixing exclusively with the cross-fader, DJs who literally didn't know how to use the CDJs in front of them and had to ask the previous DJ what the buttons did, DJs who had to delay their set by 10 minutes so they could run back to their car and retrieve a piece of paper with their setlist written on (!), DJs who repeatedly tried to cue the upcoming track with both faders up, and more than a couple of DJs so fried on acid they didn't even try to mix tracks together. Honestly, not a single one of those stories is a lie. And what really pissed me off is that nobody ever cares. 90% of the people who go to psy events don't give the first about the quality of the music or the DJing. They'll just stomp away regardless. |
I usually don't go to psytrance parties, but I went to one in Copenhagen a few weeks ago. The closing act, some darkpsy guy in a bathrobe, had his laptop connected to channel 1 on the mixer. He never touched the computer, never put on his headphones, and his hand was firmly placed on the level / depth rotary button. He was basically adjusting the flanger / filter for the duration of 2 hours on something that was prerecorded. Of course people didn't mind. |
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| Woony |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The standard of DJing in the psy scene is extremely low. It's one of the reasons I got tired of going to psy events so quickly. Nobody had a ing clue. I've seen DJs playing 146bpm full-on at 10pm in the first slot of the night, DJs mixing exclusively with the cross-fader, DJs who literally didn't know how to use the CDJs in front of them and had to ask the previous DJ what the buttons did, DJs who had to delay their set by 10 minutes so they could run back to their car and retrieve a piece of paper with their setlist written on (!), DJs who repeatedly tried to cue the upcoming track with both faders up, and more than a couple of DJs so fried on acid they didn't even try to mix tracks together. Honestly, not a single one of those stories is a lie. And what really pissed me off is that nobody ever cares. 90% of the people who go to psy events don't give the first about the quality of the music or the DJing. They'll just stomp away regardless. |
:stongue:
I know some people that do psy parties but now i'm glad I've never went to one (can't stand the music anways, with a few oldschool-goa exceptions) |
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| ucforange |
| quote: | Originally posted by Guest
Saw Lee Burridge in philly this past weekend. He's the successor to Sven Vath IMO. Super-animated in the booth and really fun to watch and interact with. Can't help but love the guy.
He played lots of warm and partially melodic "All Day I Dream" type tech house. Everyone in the place was loving it, myself included. Was dead sober but high off the music for 3 hours. |
Agree that Burridge is amazing but uhhh, he's been doing this since the early 90s. Him and Sven are basically peers. |
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| corjay9 |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I don't know if there were external factors affecting the line-up, but Niggeman should really have been shunted back in the line-up to play just before Mayer, with Wruhme on warm-up duties. Wruhme's minimal stuff would have worked far better when people were just arriving and sipping a drink than at the start of peak time, and Niggemann had no interest in playing a restrained warm-up set.
Altogether though, I'm glad Niggemann didn't hold back as he probably played the set of the day for me. Him and Mayer together would have comprised six hours of peak time dancefloor nirvana. It's just a shame there were 4.5 hours of boring sandwiched between them. |
The bigger billed DJs will always play to a fuller room, regardless of their sound. Sure it'd make more sense to have Robag play the opening set, but he's being paid a lot more then Alex Niggemann and they won't have him open a party. If I'm Robag and the promoter tells me I'm playing opening set at 6pm, I won't take that gig. Its up to the promoters to book the correct openers. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| I guess I didn't think of Robag Wruhme as being a substantially bigger name than Alex Niggemann, but I always find it hard to measure up the relative popularity of DJs at this level. |
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