Todd Oddity

I played a little piano, guitar and the xylophone but haven’t touched any of them in years. I could never read sheet music and just played back what I heard others playing. Used to really piss off my instructors.

Oh, and of course, the cowbell. Everything needs more cowbell.

When I was first trying to break into clubs, I toyed with a ‘the first show is free’ policy hoping a no-risk show for them might get me more paying shows down the line. In reality, I worked a few places for one night only and never got a cent or a call back.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t consider it and that it isn’t one way to get a little exposure – just don’t let yourself get taken advantage of…

As for the internet radio thing, in my opinion they are a dime a dozen. If you are good, lots will take you on without charging you for the privilege. I’d say stay away from anybody asking for an upfront fee to let you work for them. Has sketchy written all over it…

Just my $.02. Good luck!

I admit to not being a Pioneer fan, but I really don’t see the Ergo being a good investment at all. From everything I’ve read, it does less than the competition but costs more.

If you are willing to go modular, maybe something like the Denon SC2000’s would work for you – I believe they have a nice long throw, and are solid units too for a reasonable price.

I do mostly mainstream/top 40 venues and the trick is selection and placement and good clean mixes between tracks. Try and program 20 to 30 minute sets of a similar vibe that constantly build in energy, then slam in something else and start again. This keeps the dance floor energy up, but also rotates your crowd to the bar – and if you want to impress the owners/managers, make them money!

Try and get a sense early just how mainstream this place is. If it is your typical top 40 bar/club, they aren’t going to respond well to you going effects nuts and cutting up their tracks – they want to sing along. For the actual mixes, try and line them up so that when song A hits its out, the main kick of song B hits – only leave long instrumental breaks if you are making announcements, or they are really, really interesting for some reason. If they are throwing their hands up constantly, you’re probably on the right track.

Not sure where you are located – but that’s the top 40 trick around here, and most of the places I’ve been to around North America… But most importantly, stay calm and enjoy yourself and you’ll do just fine. Good luck!

PS. Almost forgot, don’t let a ladder stop you from bringing what you need. A place I used to work at quite a few years ago had that kind of booth, and I’d just load my decks (it was the pre-digital days) into backpacks and have the doormen pass them up to me. Space in the booth is your limitation, don’t let access issues slow you down.

Mine came to be as a play on an insult kids used to throw at me in elementary school, “Odd Todd”. I didn’t want to use my name directly, so played around with it a little until I found something I was comfortable with – “Oddity”. It was the early 90’s so everyone automatically tacked a DJ on the front of that and away I went. After a number of years of working in clubs, some of the staff actually merged my name in there too and I got the nickname Toddity, although I’ve never used that in actual publicity – it just stuck as a nickname. For official purposes it remains “dj Oddity”, “dj ‘Todd’ Oddity”, or the one I use most these days, just plain “Oddity”.

I use the Denon with Virtual and haven’t had any mapping problems. I find the unit very enjoyable to work with and despite some saying it has a cramped workflow, I find the layout easy enough to use.

Yup, I use Audacity to split tracks. Quick and easy.