Does it piss you off when a "DJ"…

*PEWPEWPEPPWW (airhorn) HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BLBALBLABLAL PEWPEPWPEEPWWW”

if you want a shot, you have to approach it as a business man. go in and explain to them how youve been there a few times and seen what the place was like, tell them youve talked to patrons about the music and what they thought (even if its a itsy bitsy lie) and be prepared to low ball the price to get in the door… tell them about your online presence (facebook and whatever other sites ur on) and explain to them .. hey this is what i have to offer.. ask for one or two nights a week at a given price… have em try you out for 3 months and if there bar sales dont increase of if the floor starts to empty… youll walk with no hurt feelings… but if you do well and there wallet gets fat… youll expect a few more nights and a lil more money…. bar/club owners really could care less about what a dj plays or how they play… as long as they make money… and if you can show em that you can make them more money than they are gettin… youll be in there for sure

I have seen this happen not too long ago on a great after exams party of my gf. About 700 people, a gym, large speakers, light and strobes and all the fancy stuff you could really beat the $hit out of the crowd with – but the dj was the typical poser 6itch. Wearing a muscle shirt, doing nice gestures to the ladies, and all he did was letting a playlist in winamp run through, disappear from the stage, typing messages on his phone…
I was going nuts that I had not taken my gear with me…
I HATE THOSE FOLKS! 😉

Winamp and Itunes open transitioning his songs completely manually between the two and it sounded horrendous

haha it would piss me off a lot more if he sounded good and was still getting paid to use only those two programs, as a new DJ I am still amazed at the widspread diversity of this hobby and how every individual is so unique in his or her own settup, still a shame to see someone like that in the Booth. Hopefully you killed it when you got up there so he looked very unprofessional.

This is just an occupational hazard of creative work. There’s always somebody less talented who will get a better job or more money than you. I’ve seen it so many times, that I just throw my hands up in the air. This is a pretty glaring example though. But that happens.

Maybe I should update my original statement:

and there’s occasionally somebody HORRIBLY less talented who will get a better job or more money than you..

When I lived in LA 5yrs ago, I couldn’t believe how bad the DJs were. Auto-sync probably made their beats match, but the phrasing was horrible. They’d suddenly fade out of a power chorus to an intro, the energy was up and down all night. I was going crazy. Not as bad as the DJ you mention, but I saw this pattern at multiple places weekend nights in all the top LA hotspots – in a city full of the world’s top entertainment professionals. Did my co-workers mind? No their eyes lit up when they recognized every (predictably familiar hit) song. . . I’ve also seen jaw-dropping incompetence in the professional creative world, too.

However, this sounds like a good opportunity for you. I’d say you should guest DJ at this place, when the owner sees the huge improvement you’ve made, you’ll probably get a gig there. The owner is comparing you to Mr. Winamp not Tiesto. Who knows, the owner may not know a thing about the DJ scene, and found this guy because its a cousin or something like that. But be diplomatic — I got a lot of my first gigs replacing shit DJs by being nice. Sometimes the crappy DJs enjoyed working with me. They admired my mixing ability and the energy I brought into the place.

I’ve been a victim of this sort of thing, but in my case it was a manager who honestly didn’t care. I played at a weekly uni bar night for a few months, absolutely loving it and blowing the place away. I was also paid decently well for my services and I had (what I thought) was a good relationship with the management. However at the start of the new semester I found myself without my weekly gig: I had been usurped by a kid with a laptop. This guy got the gig because he was doing it for free. Sadly, since I’d put so much work into making this night go off, the same crowds showed up when this guy was playing songs on his iTunes and the management figured that he’d work just as well as I had. I got a bunch of texts/FB messages asking where I’d gone/that he was crap and they missed me, but the majority of uni kids going to the bar were looking at getting pissed and hooking up, not for a sick DJ.

What I learned from this was that you can’t always compete with free. If the venue that you’re looking to take over isn’t really affected by trainwrecking laptop “DJs” then you won’t be able to offer anything valuable. Look for venues where your skills will be appreciated! And beware the free DJ!

If you aint grindin’ you wont suceed…. feet on the pavement is how you get the work… its a numbers game… the more places you ask, the better the chance you have at gettn a yes.