Top 40 horror-story thread

[Terry_42]

Did you ask before the gig what the manager/promoter is promoting this gig for?
If it was promoted as a top40 gig then yes, playing hardstyle may be wrong for the occasion.
Preparation and asking for expectations beforehand is a DJs responsibility (unless you are so famous that people should know and even then we have people getting booted from the decks…)

[NietzSKY]

Problem was, the guy was a friend of a friend and my friend hyped me. When he asked me what I play I told him electro & dutch house and hardstyle. I played some of my tunes for him and he said that’d work; I played some Bingo Players/Organ Donors and Sidney Samson’s cover of Out of your Mind/Afrojack’s cover of Alejandro. I guess he thought I mainly do top40 covers? Beats the hell outta me honestly, I was a bit surprised. At the same time, he didn’t sound as if he had been in booking for a long time.

[Terry_42]

He prolly is not that much into music at all, that is the problem with many new promoters or bar/club managers. They have little knowledge about music and sometimes even have little knowledge about expectations from the crowd that visits the place. This is in my opinion one of the reasons why so many bars/clubs do not live past their first year.

I mean we had a place in my town that wanted to be a “cuban bar”, but they:
– had no cuban dance music, they played top40
– had no cuban rum selection, they only had all the cocktails all other bars have too, nothing special
– they had no cigars
– their interior design was not “cuban comfy” it was more screaming industrial hehe
– when ordering a cuba libre you got a coke with bacardi, which is OK for a standard bar, but if you advertise cuban… man

suffice to say they are out of business…. but I think you see where I am going with this.
it is all again about expectations being met…

[Daryl Northrop]

Ouch! Feel you pain on this one. Back in the day, I played a regular night at a midwest club. Played lots of 808 state, lords of acid, information society, that sort of stuff (it was in the early 90’s). Drunk girl yells up to the booth “CAN YOU PLAY SOME BLACKBOX???” No sweety, not happening.

[Richard Driver]

you used to be able to get away with that back in the day because you only brought like 3 crates of records, not 100 plus gigs of mp3s lol. its funny how nowadays patrons think that you have to have every top 40 hit ever! if they only would for once stand in our shoes to show how impractical that is. gosh sometimes i hate people. lol jk but seriously.

[Ess Jay]

My worst by far was getting my wrist slapped by the owner of the boat party I was doing, because I refused to play “who let the dogs out”. They asked me to play the next week but I kindly declined.

[DevilsCaretaker]

My best one to date was my own party…! I wanted to start building my audience for Dubstep & Trap so I named the night “Progressive” and detailed out in the flyers what we would be listening to. As the party got up to around 25 people the girls were moving a good bit to the Trap remixes of Rihanna and so forth but 2 songs later they scattered. Then my own sister was like “You got some 2 Chainz?” I gave her the honor and she led the floor, had all the girls 12 or so dancing for 20 mins or better so I tried to slide back into the theme of the night and they all cleared out shortly after. The 15 people I had at the end of the night were the ones I was looking for anyway so we continued on once a month.

[Jordylu1007]

Played a gig where during my initial meeting with the promoter he made me aware that he wanted underground Hip-Hop, R&B and beats type get together(He didn’t want stuff you hear on the radio and if it was a radio cut he wanted remixes and b-sides). Met up a couple days before the gig to finalize everything and confirmed we’re still underground/Obscure. Got to the gig and about 30 Minutes in I’m getting the request for top 40 “How come you aren’t playing….” by the patrons but I keep it breezy and play what I’m playing figuring the promoter hired me to play this until about 10 minutes later promoter comes up to ask’s me what am I playing. I’m playing what we agreed. The problem was this dude promoted the party as you standard run of the mill top 40 Hip-Hop R&B fest not as the obscure 3rd white label release of a Madlib remix of a Dilla remix of the Herbalizer original album only released in Papau New Guinea(For the record I really don’t know if there is such a thing as this haha) or that b side re-re-remix of Real Love by Mary J Blige that sounded NOTHING like the original. I was lucky that I had a crate(this was 2004/2005) with nothing but top 40 and club bangers that I used to carry just in case things went sideways. So I had to mix the top 40 stuff with the underground I would get them dancing for about 3 songs and try to slip in something else and the dance floor would scatter except for 2 or 3 people out there losing their minds over the fact that I’m playing MF Doom hahah

[DJ Contour]

Im Feeling an Episode of Intervention for People Who need Broader Musical Taste. “Im Addicted to Top 40” The first step is to admit you have a problem.

[DJcRave]

So my FIRST EVER CLUB/BAR GIG, I told the manager that I wanted to try an EDM night and he said that’s fine. So me having no rap music I download about 30 songs just for back up because that’s what they mostly play, Top 40 and Rap/Hip-Hop. So I get there at 10 and he lets me hook up my stuff, the night goes on people come in I’m going through playing electro-house, progressive house, trap, dubstep and 1 or 2 hardstyle songs. People are coming up to me “damn, you need to come up here on the weekends when it’s really packed” its a pretty good time so far… then 12:30 hit….. *dun dun dun* sloppiness comes… “can you play some drake?” I do. (Worst mistake ever-never take requests) i play some requests and continue into my EDM set.. then the owner comes by, “my N***a you got some Zro? lil wayne? webbie any rap? *no, i only have like 30 songs and already played that* what? *i said no* well play something else instead of this gay s*it” At that moment my headphones completely stopped working, trainwreck, trainwreck, trainwreck after finding more rap songs. My heart dropped and I just wanted to pack up and go right there, but I didn’t. It was 1:30ish so I stuck it out, we talked after and he invited me back again he said give him a call/text. So I did a week later and he said No, we only want Top 40 and Rap. Oh well, I did what I could with him and that bar/club.

[Daryl Northrop]

Yeah – there’s some serious sketchiness going on in clubs. Even some venues that seem interested are scared to do it. I’ve been talking to the manager at one club via email/IM for a couple of weeks. I can tell he’s interested, and we’ve gone over some specifics of what the night might run like, but I can tell he’s terrified of how it might turn out since they’ve never done an EMD night before.

We basically have an agreement to do a trial run on a quieter night after their happy hour and see what happens. Now he just needs to pull the trigger on a date. Or, I can help him pull the trigger 😉

[D-Jam]

Frankly, if a promoter hires you saying he/she wants your style…then it’s egg on their face.

However, as a DJ, you should be prepared and keep a folder of more “mainstream” sounds that align with your sense of taste. That way you can please them. Now if you’re pumping dance music you like that is more mainstream known, but the crowd is all “Screw that! Play some gangsta rap and reggae!” then you know the promoter was clueless and you should not work with them again.

Promoters need to make sure when they book DJs they promote to a crowd that will want those DJs. Seen too many times where they’ll promote to anyone and then end up with a crowd that won’t be into the vibe/atmosphere he is shooting for…so they pressure the DJ to change in the hopes of keeping the crowd. Ruins their brand in the process.

I know when guys ask me to come DJ, I get into it, and often times they realize what I’m saying when I say “I’m not the guy for you”. I’m not being a snob, but just making it clear if the room is full of trixies begging for nonstop “Call Me Maybe” then I’m not the DJ they should have in the booth. It’s just nudging them to be smart with booking DJs.

[Richard Driver]

Dj Jukebox in the house lol

[Bojan Ljukovcanin]

I had a similar expirience to Nietsky’s the other night,playing a great electronic dance music set there’s over 100 people on the dance floor in a club that holds 150 people and the manager comes up to me mid mix telling me to change the music to mainstream or get out.I stopped the music got on mic and told the people about it,they boo him off the stage and let me continue on.Minutes later the owner walks onto the stage and offers me possition of manager,he apparently fired the guy imediatly.

On another gig about a week before that i got almost the same expirience as cRave,but being that i my self am bi and kind of make a big deal of the gay things,i packed my stuff the moment it happened and told the management i’ll never play at that club again.

[Daryl Northrop]

Dj R. driver, post: 37877, member: 5499 wrote: Dj Jukebox in the house lol

yeah -I can’t get down with having my set dictated. That stuff can be handled in advance with a simple conversation – which seems to be beyond the capability of many promoters an club managers.

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