How stupid can I get?

Apparently the manager of the whole RMIT Village -- who was present at my last week's gig -- was happy with the music, and happy with the fact that I listened to him when he asked me to turn the volume down! As a result, I've scored myself another gig at the Social Bar and Cafe tomorrow, but this time for about 200 students.

OK so how does that make me stupid? Well, my stupidity arises as a result of me, again, needing to carry my two turntables instead of CD players, and two crates of Vinyl with a total about 130 records instead of a CD folder. As if that's wasn't heavy enough, I've got 70kgs worth of speakers to carry -- the same Behringer B300s I rented last week!!

Why am I so stupid you ask? Well, it's complicated. First of all, I haven't had the time to burn all my Vinyl onto CDs, so that I could take my dual-CD players, that would weigh around 10kg, instead of the turntables and records that weigh around 45kg. Second, I had charged them last week for the Behringer B300s, which was the cheapest pair of speakers I could find, so it will be difficult to get (lighter) speakers that cost more from elsewhere, and justify it!

Anyway, I need to get a bit more organised if I do mobile DJing frequently. The first step is to buy some second hand speakers (preferably under 20kgs each), and then I'll have to start the time consuming job of ripping all my records onto CDs. Wait a minute... is that even legal?

An intimate gig at the Social Bar and Cafe

I had a very interesting time at the Social Bar and Cafe, located at the RMIT Village Old Melbourne (RMIT student accomodation).

It was a private function for around 60 foreign exchange students (although more than 100 turned up in the end!), and I had to take my own equipment and speakers. I hired two Behringer B300 speakers for $70, from DGENR8, which was the cheapest place I could find to get the type of speakers I wanted, and I took the rest of the equipment from home (2 x technics, Numark CDN-36 dual CD player and Numark DM3050 mixer). The speakers were unbelievably heavy, but were powerful enough for the 100 or so people. Since the speakers were so heavy, I didn't bother lifting them up to slide them onto the speaker stands -- I had enough trouble taking them out of the car! Leaving the speakers on the ground turned out OK though, as many of the people were at a much lower area of the bar, than the speakers.


While setting up, I needed to borrow a table from the bar to place all the equipment on, and I decided to go with one big round table, rather than two small round tables. It turned out to be a very bad move, as I ended up with barely enough space for the equipment! Instead of bugging the bar staff again, I decided to place everything strategically on the single round table, so that I could at least use the turntables and the mixer. So unfortunately I didn't end up using the CD players (but then again, I have much more fun when I play 100% Vinyl anyway!).

When the bar started getting crowded, people were surrounding the round table, and it felt more like I was a part of the crowd than the DJ. It was nice though, just the way I liked it. I was able to feel the energy of the crowd and judge what music they wanted. Although generally you get more requests when you're very close to the crowd, than when you're separated from them, I didn't get many requests, luckily. The requests I did get were mainly for 'Latin' music, which I didn't have with me. The other requests were for commercial house, which I played for about 30 mins, until people started going back to a more relaxed state, which allowed me to get back to some US house.

A (under 4 min) video of the gig is shown below. My butt is in the way for most of it though!

Orientations, a beach party and a new thursday night!!

A few interesting events happening in the next couple of weeks, and all of which I'll be involved in at some level, either as a DJ or punter.

Tomorrow I've got a private function lined up for the orientation of 60 foreign exchange students at RMIT Village from 7pm to 11pm. I'll be hiring two Behringer B300 speakers for it (200 Watts RMS on each), which I think will be sufficient for 60 people indoors. I'll be taking my turntables and Numark dual CD players as well.

Day after (Thursday) I'll be meeting up with Luke (DJ Pound) to organise a new night we're starting at Lustre Lounge! It's like old times for me, since Lustre Lounge was the very first bar I've played at, and I was the resident there for around two years. Lustre will be the perfect venue for some chill-out House music on Thursdays, so we'll be starting that up soon!

Next week on Wed and Thurs I've got the RMIT Orientations where I'll be playing for an hour or two on each day. Wednesday is the main orientation in the city campus (which I've really been looking forward to playing at!!) and Thursday is the RMIT Bourke St. orientation. Although I'm not sure how big the latter is going to be, I'm looking forward to it nonetheless!

Finally, next Saturday, Mike Jules will be doing his beach party again, which promises to be bigger and better than ever!! The last beach party held a couple of weeks ago (which I missed unfortunately) was much bigger than the first, and the third seems to be heading towards the biggest beach party yet!

So yeah, keep an eye on this blog for the next month or so, for some pictures, videos and news!!

Joey Youngman Videos!

Finally, a decent recording of a Joey Youngman gig!! The second video is the best. At one point in the second vid. he tries to figure out how to use some part of the mixer but then he gives up and continues dancing! The crowd seems to be loving the track he's playing -- probably a new track of his (according to the YouTube comments). Awesome music, full of piano samples and the typical Joey Youngman beat!

Mark Farina Video

Here's a recent YouTube video I found of Mark Farina playing at "Sea of Dreams" (probably the name of the nightclub). This is the first video I've seen of him where he's playing Mushroom Jazz (or at least that's what I think he's playing!). Nice and slow music, but still very funky and it sounds good! In the last few bits of the video he's mixing into another track.

RMIT Orientation (Brunswick) Video

There were heaps of people there today (around 150 at peak time I think), and plenty of food, stalls, entertainment, and even a couple of speeches. I played the first set (11am-12pm), but I only played for about 40 mins as we got delayed by about 20 minutes. After that two brothers played the guitar and sang some popular alternative/pop songs for an hour, after which I played for another hour, and finally another guitarist finished it off with a solo performance.

I played some house as usual. Mostly vocal stuff and a few house remixes of popular tunes. At one point I was searching for a 'happy' Kaskade remix ("Gonna make it") which I thought people would enjoy, but unfortunately I had left at home. In the end, no one danced, but I wasn't expecting anyone to either at Orientation! There was quite a crowd towards the end of my first set, but not a lot of people hung around after lunch, which was when I started my second set.

They had a good DJ setup (RCF 300A speakers pumping out 360 Watts RMS, DJM 300, 2xTechnics and two foldbacks). I was told that they'll be hiring two subwoofers for the city orientation, to be used along with the speakers, as a crowd of around 500 is expected!

Here's a short (5 min) video of what happened today. It's mostly the guitarists that I've recorded, with a bit of me messing around with the eq's towards the end of the video.

RMIT Orientations!

After handing over two demos, and waiting for over a month and half, I've finally been asked to play at the RMIT Orientation for the RMIT City campus, Bourke St. campus, Brunswick campus and the Carlton campus! I can't do the Carlton one, but I'll be playing at the others.

Really looking forward to these gigs! I've played at the RMIT CS/IT Orientation twice in the past, but this time it will be at the main orientations, which will definitely have better equipment, more powerful speakers, but most importantly, more people! Hopefully there will be over 500 people at each of the orientations, since 300 was estimated for the first CS/IT orientation I had played at.

Another day-time 'party' I'm going to be able to use my digital(video) camera with, so keep an eye on this blog for a video sometime in the next couple of weeks!

Mr. Jules quirking it out!

I had a listen to a new remix by Melbourne man Mike Jules (www.myspace.com/mikejules) and he's getting better and quirkier at every new production! His P. Muzik track already gets plenty of air-time by me, and looks like his new dub of P. Muzik will get even more. His tracks are as quirky and bouncy as they get, but with plenty of surprises to keep them different to the usual 'jackin' sound everyone's familiar with. I think it's now just a matter of time until he puts his three productions into a 12".