been asked to dj at a free rave this weekend

and ive never touched a deck in my life.

should i learn to mix in 3 days or should i learn how to make a mix in software in three days.

i was also thinking i could bypass needing to learn to be a dj by simply playing beatless stuff in between the beated stuff.

a few other ideas would be appreciated, its gonna be a bit scary gettin up in front of 700 hippys and playin an instrument i dont even know.

Probably best not to do it then!

If you really must then avoid beatmatching

On second thought, just dl a psytrance mix and play it off your laptop whilst looking thoughful, they'll lap it up... it's all that seems to get played at free parties round here, whenever I'm ushered onto the decks it's normally 8am and I get to play to 5 fucked mashheads staggering about... bitter? Of course not!

you could always do a ***WESTWOOD*** and make explosion and gun sounds and shout "THAT WAS OFF DA HOOK" inbetween the tracks. thats pretty fly. you should do it though and just have some fun. few times over the last uni year ide just grab an assortment of vinyl before the party and play whilst fucked - simultaneously a floor filler and floor clearer. probably the difference between dnb mixing and scratching squarepusher B-sides over venetian snares.

That's like a Dancehall soundclash and it's stupid unless you're doing a dancehall soundclash.

muuurrrrdaaaaa!

  felch said:

and ive never touched a deck in my life.

 

should i learn to mix in 3 days or should i learn how to make a mix in software in three days.

i was also thinking i could bypass needing to learn to be a dj by simply playing beatless stuff in between the beated stuff.

a few other ideas would be appreciated, its gonna be a bit scary gettin up in front of 700 hippys and playin an instrument i dont even know.

nice! er, i wouldn't bother trying to learn to mix vinyl in 3 days.... took me about 3 weeks just to learn to start beat matching properly.....

anyway, just use Traktor or Ableton or something - as long as you've sorted all your tracks out into the correct tempos etc, should be pretty easy to pull off a half decent mix...

Good luck!

fuck psytrance

the whole point off this festival is to try sand diminish the amount of shitty wank same over psytrance that apparently the whole club scene adores so much they cant bear to listen to any other music. this party is psy trance free.

lead hippy organiser has chosen me because i have some tastes in music that arent the same as most people who dj(ie pystrance)

see i think it would be wicked if i was playing gabba/house/simplistic electronic music for the dancing, then just throwing noise, ambience, contempory classical and modern piano inbetween the beated stuff. i think thats what im gonna do.

that sounds like it would be pretty irritating to try and dance to

just download a luke vibert set and press play on your laptop. lol

Don't go for the ambient stuff, people will get disinterested and wander off. You could maybe get away with a little bit of it, but what you think is a great idea beforehand will more than likely totally kill the vibe if you want people dancing (and I'm guessing you'll want them to be seeing it's a free party)... I've tried that sort of thing before, it works OK at house parties where there's no room for anyone to dance and you're playing more in the background, but in that sort of environment it won't work too well

If all else fails, Idiron's advice is sound (well, not the Westwood bit). Get a bit tipsy, take some vinyl and bang on tune after tune. Normally works for me when I'm too drunk to do it properly or the gear is shit (belt drives, tiny speakers etc). Just try not to send the tone arm flying or anything!

i think im stuck in the middle of some hippy poliking here, because ive basically been instructed to irritate the hell out of the whole clubber thing where you just have a fat beat to dance to. the guy whos asked me is the guy whos land its on, hes supplying all the rigs and generators and that too, but the actual event is organised by a group of chester ravers called 'get twisted' which is basicaly psytrance and drum and bass.

i have no inhibitions about my reputation as a dj being destroyed because im not a dj and i think its a bunch of wank for people who cant play proper instruments, so im gonna go with the irritate the hell out the psytrance heads idea basically. also theres no wandering off, its just one big 4000 watt circle stage with everybody in a big circle around it.

so heres my playlist, which im gonna put together in cubase and then just press play and pretend to spin vinyl:

u-ziq - siege of antioch

aphex - hankie

angerfist - dead man walking

burial - southern comfort

hellfish+producer - spitting blood

massona - part IV spectrum ripper

mr oizo - flat beat

milieu - lazy days

squarepusher - menelec

plug - maker of all

massona - spectrum ripper VIII

luke - piano player hata

and then for my last bit of time im gonna play merzbows rising sun with a bartok piano dance suite over the top of it.

im probably gonna get shot for this.

Haha! Well good luck to you man :) I would consider doing it on Traktor though. It'll be hard to fuck up if you aren't beatmatching and it means you won't just be standing there like a plum pretending to faff around with decks.

This one event I went to someone called the promoter (who thought he was one badass dj too) on his DJ skills. The guy gets up on the decks and starts playing a scratch record like it was a regular track. Never laughed so hard in my entire life, he cleared the room out promptly.

i never realised yuou scratched with a specific record, thought u just used normal ones and picked your timbre of track carefully in order to achieve the righ scratching sound

i used to play free parties to crowds of hardhouse / trance / crappy free party tekno and dnb heads (the usual basically)

many's the time i've cleared the floor with "making orange things" on one deck and "making orange things" on the other deck .. always played half of the planet-mu mealtime lp (esp. horse opera), girl/boy, mr angry, dimotane co, smedley's medley, plug, sonic youth's providence mixed with random gabba, geoff love's ufo theme (as ripped off by jake slazenger), the dallas theme, bergerac theme, (early) human league and end with this truly abysmal charity shop cover version of "love is in the air".

nowadays i'd just play some proper tresor tekno for hours which is equally as bad for your typical crowd cause its a good few bpm too slow for the cunts and it's actually good

basically 90% of the time if you play anything good you'll alienate your audience in these situations

  felch said:

i never realised yuou scratched with a specific record, thought u just used normal ones and picked your timbre of track carefully in order to achieve the righ scratching sound

of course you can do that

but there are records with hundreds of little samples and beats and shit on specifically for scratching

Oy Felch, i actually went to one of the Get Twisted events last weekend actually, it was called The Laff Fest and was held in a place called Waverton. There was the usual naff electro house and trance shit, but they had a load of hip hop turntablism, some dubstep and some pretty brutal d&b djs too.

Sound bunch of people, i was asked by a guy called Dale (who i presume the main organiser) if i'd play one of their parties. From what i observed they seemed like pretty open minded folk, not sure if i would play piano and ambient stuff mind, but you never know.

Is it just one rig that'll be there?

I would ask you to fill me in on where it was if i wasn't going to a breakcore night in Buxton, when is it?

  Jimbob said:

Oy Felch, i actually went to one of the Get Twisted events last weekend actually, it was called The Laff Fest and was held in a place called Waverton. There was the usual naff electro house and trance shit, but they had a load of hip hop turntablism, some dubstep and some pretty brutal d&b djs too.

 

Sound bunch of people, i was asked by a guy called Dale (who i presume the main organiser) if i'd play one of their parties. From what i observed they seemed like pretty open minded folk, not sure if i would play piano and ambient stuff mind, but you never know.

Is it just one rig that'll be there?

 

I would ask you to fill me in on where it was if i wasn't going to a breakcore night in Buxton, when is it?

yeah i was at that too. was a bit full of scallies, few bits got robbed that nite, and the guy who owned the house was a complete prick. i turned up at 1 and put some tunes on in the tent close to the house and 1 minute later im getting some mad farmer screaming BASTARD BASTARD I HATE YOUR SORT TURN THAT FUCKING SHIT HOLE ASS MUSIC DOWN even tho there was tunes goin off fuckin everywhere.

garden was full of masonist symbology apparently but i dont know shit. nice house.

  felch said:

  Jimbob said:

Oy Felch, i actually went to one of the Get Twisted events last weekend actually, it was called The Laff Fest and was held in a place called Waverton. There was the usual naff electro house and trance shit, but they had a load of hip hop turntablism, some dubstep and some pretty brutal d&b djs too.

 

Sound bunch of people, i was asked by a guy called Dale (who i presume the main organiser) if i'd play one of their parties. From what i observed they seemed like pretty open minded folk, not sure if i would play piano and ambient stuff mind, but you never know.

Is it just one rig that'll be there?

 

I would ask you to fill me in on where it was if i wasn't going to a breakcore night in Buxton, when is it?

 

yeah i was at that too. was a bit full of scallies, few bits got robbed that nite, and the guy who owned the house was a complete prick. i turned up at 1 and put some tunes on in the tent close to the house and 1 minute later im getting some mad farmer screaming BASTARD BASTARD I HATE YOUR SORT TURN THAT FUCKING SHIT HOLE ASS MUSIC DOWN even tho there was tunes goin off fuckin everywhere.

 

garden was full of masonist symbology apparently but i dont know shit. nice house.

y'mean the 'tea' tent?

i spent alot of time there quite mashed, sat on those bizarre mini stool things.

I didn't see much trouble to be honest, but i was a bit pissed off when the owner came up to the barn and shut the bass down, cocksucker. It was really quite packed wasn't it.

Might catch you at the next (next) one.

Where do you reside?

just play a 4/4 808 bassdrum loop for a couple of hours

i live down in neston like. should meet up for a spliff on the new year, that one is gonna be ballin, hopefully get myself a live set there.

  felch said:

i live down in neston like. should meet up for a spliff on the new year, that one is gonna be ballin, hopefully get myself a live set there.

yeah man awesome, get in touch nearer the time innit.

who knows if we're lucky we might be on the same bill :p

  modey said:

just play a 4/4 808 bassdrum loop for a couple of hours

lol, yeah just do that - no hi-hats or snares or anything, just a kick drum on loop at 130 BPM for 2 hours......well minimalist.

lol, merzbow with post immpressionist piano went down extremely well in the chillout section.

nice one! went ok then?