More Gems from Collectors Corner Melbourne!

I went over to the city for a while today and thought I'd pop into Collectors Corner on Swanston Street since I hadn't been there for a long time. I used to go there often to buy Vinyl when I was just starting out -- since it was mostly second hand Vinyl, it was a good way to start my collection!

When I went over, I found that their house/techno/DnB section upstairs had closed down, but luckily they had a small collection downstairs. I started digging in and after just a few minutes I hit gold -- I found an Inland Knights double record, an Inland Knights remix, and a Fred Everything track! All 8 tracks of the Inland Knights double sounded great! I also found another good track with some quirky beats from an unknown artist. Best of all, I only payed $8 on average for each record (counting the double record as one)!!

I'm not sure if I'll ever get that lucky at Collectors Corner -- they don't seem to have a big House collection anymore and I think I finished looking at all the relevant Vinyl today. I may just have found the last few gems. Oh well...

Lawnchair Generals in Melbourne!

The duo responsible for some of my most played Chicago tunes will be pumping it up at OneSixOne in Melbourne this year, on Friday May 12th. The sound system at OneSixOne is considered one of the best for a venue of that size, so it's going to be great listening to some of my favourite tunes on a top sound system!

I missed the Lawnchair Generals last year at Two Floors Up -- the venue was packed by the time I reached their, so I wasn't allowed to buy a ticket at the door. This time the will be playing a 4 hour set that I definitely won't miss!! I'll hopefully be able to make a small video to put it up online here. If not, you'll definitely find heaps of pictures!

New Home for Abandoned Vinyl!

I found a new home for some of my older abandoned Vinyl -- right alongside my favourite tunes in the US House and Commercial crates.

I had bought these abandoned tunes at Collector's Corner and HMV about a year ago, but they slowly slid to the back of my crate and eventually out of my crate, probably as a result of my changing taste in music. Now that I've got a much more diverse collection and taste for music than I did back then, I thought I'd have another listen to the abandoned tunes, and I was over the top when found some awesome tracks from artists including Miguel Migs, Mylo and Arman Van Helden!!

Some of the tracks from even the unknown artists made it into my crate -- although they weren't US House tracks, they still sounded darn good!

Hmmm...looks like I can skip record hunting this week!

DJ Video Clip -- Lustre Lounge, NYE '06

Again pretty dark but it's the best I can do! Try increasing the contrast and/or brightness on your monitor.

Lazz is the one playing 80's and I'm the one playing commercial house.

DJ Video Clip -- Dinner Plain Hotel, Mt. Hotham

Bad quality and very short, but better than nothing!

Me last year at the DinnerPlain hotel. Played mostly Chicago style US House.

Deep House @ Inck

In an effort to get to know the tracks I've never, or rarely played before, I played mostly the "Side B" tracks in my record collection, at my set tonight at Inck Lounge. In the first half of my set, the "Side B" tracks were mainly deep House tunes, and the second half was funkier. In the end, I wasn't very satisfied with my set, mainly because I didn't enjoy the set as much as I would have if I played quirky Chicago House, but also because I was mixing tracks I've never heard of or remember. It was a worthwhile exercise though, and I can see myself doing this occasionally to make best use of the money spent on Vinyl!

I realised after my set that I have a lot of Funky and Vocal House Vinyl at home that I don't use anymore. I bought these before converting to a US House purist! I think it's time I either sold them to a second hand Vinyl store such as Collector's Corner on Swanston Street, or it's time I started playing those tracks in my sets, for variety. The problem with the latter is that these tracks are fairly different to the type of House music I play now, and what people expect me to play. Therefore these tracks will only grace the decks on a quiet Friday evening at Inck, or in a set long enough for me to need all the Vinyl I've got!

It was good to catch up with some friends after my set. We headed off home an hour and half later, after enjoying a few drinks and jokes. I think this was the most satisfying part of the night for me.

Inck Cafe Melbourne

Inck Cafe (a.k.a. Inck Bar and Inck Lounge) is being recognised by many as a very convenient venue for almost anything to do with entertainment. Being conveniently located right on Swanston Street and near Melbourne Central, Inck is visited by hundreds everyday, either for a chat over a Latte, a business meeting, lunch, after-work drinks or even for some good music!

Downstairs, Inck is a restaurant serving dishes ranging from pizzas and pastas, to burgers and souvlakis. There is an open sheltered seating area outside, with comfortable chairs, forming a very nice place for a Latte or smoke.

Upstairs you'll find Inck Lounge, which hosts an impressive bar, a large area with plenty of room to move, and some more comfortable seating. If you wish, you could have your meal upstairs while listening to some background music, or have a beer and snack instead, on the large balcony overlooking Swanston Street and RMIT.

On some nights, Inck Lounge hosts DJs who play a variety of tunes including funky Latin and Chicago House. On these nights, drink prices drop, snacks are available till late, and the DJs turn it up, keeping Inck lounged out, but at the same time satisfying even the clubbers among the crowd.

Below are some pictures of Inck taken from this website.

Blog Renovations!

I made a few changes to this blog, to make it a bit more user friendly:

1. Removed the stuff at the bottom of the blog (pictures, venues, etc.) and added links to them on the side-bar instead, under useful posts and dj buddies. So now you're not forced to view any of that content!
2. When viewing archives, an index to all posts of the archive being viewed will appear on the side-bar, to make browsing through the archive easier (especially helps for archives with a lot of posts).
3. Added a few extra links to the highlights section on the side-bar.
4. Changed the name previous posts to 10 most recent posts on the side-bar (because the latter is what it was anyway!)

Fancy DJ Tables

Check out these futuristic DJ tables! I'm not sure which ones are actually used in clubs but I wouldn't mind having one at home to go with my furniture.

Numark's IPod DJ Mixer?

Since IPods are so popular, this seems like a neat idea. Instead of carrying crates and crates of Vinyl or many CD cases, just plug in your IPods and start playing! Great for mobile DJs, but not that great for club DJs -- it will take some time for something like this to get standardised in clubs, even if it becomes successful.

There's a couple of additions they need to include in the current model before it can realistically be used by DJs though. How will pitch control be implemented? I'd imagine the track (or a part of it) will need to be downloaded from the IPod to the device so pitch control can be simulated. The problem is, downloading will take some time, so the system may not be useable (at least with current technology) during a live performance (waiting ten seconds to get to a track on CD with my Numark CDN-36 is long enough!). From the pictures shown, it doesn't seem like there's a pitch control option on system.

Another issue is with scratching -- the track (or part of it) will again need to be downloaded and buffered first. But scratching is not really a strong requirement -- many CDJs don't support it.

A feature that would be helpful for many DJs is if the mixer can be separated from the DJ system (e.g. a rack-mounted Numark DJ kit requires the mixer to be connected separately). In this way a top of the range mixer can be connected to the IPod DJ console (that will include only the jog wheel, play etc. buttons and pitch control).

Looking forward to playing around with one of these things, whenever they become available in stores around Melbourne!

New Pictures of Lustre Lounge

Dancing while DJing

I had a look at videos of good DJs like Derrick Carter, Mark Farina and Kaskade (some accessible from the OM website : http://www.om-records.com/events.php?event=7, and two others from here and here). And boy does Mark Farina really move!! Kaskade and Derrick Carter moved a lot less to the music. When I saw Joey Youngman in Melbourne last year I thought he moved a lot too, but his movement is more of a head movement than a body movement, whereas Mark Farina was pretty much dancing, in all three videos of him.

It's great to see such recognised DJs enjoying their music. Makes the crowd want to move a lot more too!

Free Legal House MP3 Downloads

I was pleasantly surprised to find last night that www.download.com has a section for free Music downloads, and there are Vocal House, Deep House and House sections!! I downloaded a couple of gems like tracks by Joey Youngman, Kaskade and Mark Farina. Although a bit deeper than what I'd usually play, they're free so hey I'm not complaining!

I think I'll play them at the beginning of my next set, which means I'll need to use a CD player -- not something I generally do, since I never usually download MP3s. I like collecting music on Vinyl so I feel like I've actually got a collection of something -- looking at burnt CDs doesn't really give that same feeling! But I think getting MP3s for free is a good enough reason for me to start using that CDJ 1000 they've got @Inck!

Should the bar manager manage your music?

A recent incident got me thinking -- should the bar manager tell you what music to play?

When I first started DJing, the bar manager used to always tell me what to play. I found it a bit annoying at first, but the constant nagging eventually helped me become a better DJ. Most importantly, back then the manager knew more about House music than I did, so in retrospect, it helped. But I think such a situation where the manager has to keep nagging the DJ shouldn't generally arise. It was the case with me because I was hired as a RnB DJ and then asked to play House!

Now that I know what music to play, and since I've been playing for a while, I find that I don't need to be told what/how to play -- putting up with the crowd when I get stupid requests is difficult enough! If the manager wants to give a suggestion based on past experience, based on what they think of the current vibe, or based on music requests from the crowd, I'd be happy to hear it, and I'll possibly implement it. But demanding a specific sequence of tracks/sub-genres, or specific tracks, is going too far. If that's what they want, I think a Jukebox, or iPod connected to the mixer is what they're looking for.

Friday Night @Inck

Had a good day last Friday. Started it off by doing some record shopping at Rhythm & Soul, followed by my Friday night set at Inck Lounge (yes -- I woke up late). At Rhythm & Soul I was looking for some bumpy House, but most of the stuff I looked through weren't bumpy enough for me, so I ended up picking a few more Deep House tunes than I had planned. The jewel from the lot was a DJ Freestyle track, followed closely by a Joey Youngman remix of a deep track.

Inck Lounge was fun as usual. I enjoyed the new tracks I had bought earlier in the day -- they mixed well with my collection. I could do some finer mixing than the previous Friday because the foldback speaker was connected this time. I stayed at Inck with some friends till about an hour after my set, listening to the next DJ -- Jorge Hernandez -- play some funky upbeat House with a Latin flavour.

Looking forward to a 5 hour set tonight at Lustre Lounge!

Lustre Lounge Private Function

I'ts been a while since I've done a private function at Lustre, so I'm looking forward to a 21st party coming up this Saturday. The menu will be Top 40, Commercial House and some 80s, so it's definitely different to what I've been playing recently! Since its a 4 hour gig, I'd probably play about 30-45 mins of some Chicago-House to warm up the place, move on to some pop and then to some Top 40 stuff. When people are a bit warmed up I'll let them boogie on some 80's tunes. I'll play some Commercial House for the last hour.

And after all that cheeze, I'll wash it down with some malibu pineapple whilst having a long chat with the gang at Lustre Lounge!

Friday night @Inck Lounge

Had my first gig @Inck Lounge last Friday night 5Pm - 7.30Pm. Probably the earliest set I've ever played. In the beginning I had to keep the volume down and play some layed back tunes, but even then someone complained it was too loud. I reduced a bit more but couldn't reduce any further as I could barely hear the music myself! Thanks to me, the foldback speaker wasn't connected as I thought I'd be fine without it, but it started getting pretty loud in there and I could barely hear the beats at one point. I've learnt from my mistake!

I played 2.5 hours of pure Chicago style US House! The DJ playing after me had pretty much the same record collection as me, so it was a fairly smooth changeover.

Looks like they're getting the flyers together for the Chicago House Friday nights we've got planned and looks like it's all set to start within a week or two!