Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Chicago DJs.. Let's change it up.


Whether you're playing an MP3 or a record. If you're playing bad Top 40 music or the same "Old School" Classics from the past 25 years or so.. You are part of the problem.

7 comments:

JDLP said...

I'm sure this one will get some ppl hot! LOL

Anonymous said...

Care to take that thought a little further? Most DJs seem to be upset about one thing or another these days. The whole DJ landscape is changing with more DJs and more parties showing up all the time. The "digital vs. traditional" debate, as I like to refer to it, is raging. We need the vets of the scene (like Jesse De La Pena) to give some guidance, I feel. So, please take a little more time to explain what you mean by "the problem" with DJing today.

Unknown said...

I believe it's a true DJ's job to break records... I think that's where you're going????

JDLP said...

Thanks guys, this is definitely a topic that we will all feel very different about.
Your music is something you hold very close to you. Some may feel that it represents them to a certain degree. Others don’t think that far in to it. Anytime something is referred to as bad or not in a favorable light you’re going to ruffle some feathers.
So... with that being said. I constantly hear DJs talk about how they hate what they play & feel like they can’t play stuff that they personally like because the of the crowd. This brings me to something we will discuss in the near future. “Where does the fault lie?” Is it the DJs job to educate? Take chances? Have a better knowledge of music? I see and hear a lot of very predictable ones working. Doing the very same mixes (blends) or slams. Playing the very same tunes in nearly every set. You can almost set your watch to it.
It’s like they are all playing out of one crate. It’s not hard to find new or even older music, with the advancement of technology & the Internet. Music is beyond accessible. So why do DJs still play the same ol same? Because it’s easy.. plain & simple. We all can fall in to this rutt. Playing it very safe & popular. I can’t tell you what to play or how to play it. But I just have to ask, where is the creativity? Even if you are playing popular music, approach it with a creative edge. This is not about keeping it real or top 40 sucks. It’s about the art of DJing being lost. One of the problems is that the crowd is used to hearing the same ol same or strictly radio music. I know this is nothing new, there have been safe & lazy DJs from the beginning. It’s just sad that as a DJ who loves music as a whole, I can’t even go out to a club without feeling sick after being there 10 minutes. What’s even worse is the crowd is dictating everything the DJ plays. He or she are player pianos or a Juke Boxes with very limited selections. This is partly the reason for my comment about playing bad top 40 music & the same 50 Old School tunes. If you are going to play that music.. let’s try to do something different with it. Edit yourself.. if you find that you have been playing a certain tune a lot.. put it away. It will be just as good 6 months from now. Another thing we will touch on is “What makes a DJ a good one?”
One quick note: Just because they play your favorite song every time you are at the club like clockwork doesn’t make them good : )

Groove-Bunny said...

YUP! Its a trickle down effect...if we are "sheep" to the DJ "Sheep" of the industry...then we're are misguided, and will never break a circle of Bad Choices in Music. They're losing out by following....Dont be SHEEP peeps ; )

Vince Brown said...

AMEN JESSE!!!!

I spin at a club in Cape Girardeau where the music of choice is 'crunk'. But my crowd is more mixtape selections than anything. The problem I have is that whatever selections I swing from one source, some patron may want to hear from another so-called mixtape.

If there's a word that has been misused over the past 10 years is mixtape. IT'S NOT A MIXTAPE. It's an EP! Mixtapes are continuously blended things that are played, not selection to selection. Again, the sheep being shepherded by the wrong folk.

Unknown said...

Amen as well to JDLP, but I have add that if established cats such as yourself continue to stop doing what you've been doing, then the alternative will continue to be what's out there: People telling you how they are "in the building" and slamming their songs together while charging you 20 dollars to listen to this.

Also, as far as the club scene goes, the "problem", or at least a leading problem in my opinion, is that deejays do not cater to dancers. There's so many places where people don't go to listen to the music and to dance. Instead, people go to see and be seen ... the chicks who go to be cute ... Nowadays , even the women don't dance, they just grab a drink on the dancefloor, and do their best stripper imitation. Fine, if you're at a noodie bar, but if you're at a dance club, shut the f### up and dance. The last time I went out and asked a chick to dance, she turned around and rubbed her butt on me. I'm no different than the next dude, I like a woman with a nice butt, but I asked her to dance, not for a lap dance. It's just goofy, the posing that goes on in clubs nowadays. Everybody's either a stripper wannabe, or a thug wannabe, waving their hands in the air like it's a Gin & Juice video shoot. The crowd ruins "deejays" just as much as "deejays" ruin crowds. It's one reason why I don't go out much and rarely play out. I'll never understand why people go to a dance club and don't wanna dance. I once went to a couple clubs in Germany, and was blown away. The chicks in the clubs (many, not all) wore comfortable shoes, and were there more for the music.

Problem number two, everybody wants to be a dj. Nobody wants to be a fan. If you can't blend two beats together, but you have a ton of equipment and a Mac, you are not a dj. You are a button pusher.

And I couldn't agree more with the mixtape comment posted earlier. Stop calling production demos "mixtapes"!

The solution: If you love good music, simply stop supporting bad music and the button pushers who play it. That's a start.