Starting a Wednesday Night?

I was walking to the bars around Chapel Street and surrounding areas, talking to the managers regarding starting a night. I got to this bar close to Chapel Street, on Toorak Road, where there was a Wednesday night available if I wanted to start something. But there was a (huge) catch. I'd have to pay for promotion, for the bouncer and will only get the door charge as payment (e.g. if 50 people come on the night and I charge $5 per head, I get $250 for the night).

Sounds good if I manage to get 50 people, but I doubt a lot of people would want to come over on a Wednesday night, considering also that there's a door charge, albeit very affordable. But even if I do get the 50 people, I'd still have to pay the bouncer and for the promotion, so I wonder how much I could go home with?

I guess I would have done it in the past just for the experience, but right now, I can't afford to. If I was payed an hourly rate I'd possibly consider it. Otherwise, I'm better off going around and playing at a couple of open decks sessions instead!

Making full use of Vinyl

Last Sunday I was feeling a bit sick, and I thought it was because I didn't sleep well the previous night. My neck felt stiff and my eyes were aching. Little did I know that I'd end up with a bad case of food poisoning on Sunday night! The stiff neck and eye ache was probably because of very high blood pressure, in addition to the bad sleep.

Anyway, besides feeling sick on Sunday, I was also feeling bored, so I thought I'd put back my Vinyls in their appropriate cases. I have a bad habit of not putting the records in their proper cases when playing, since I'm usually in a hurry, and the last time I played it was so dark that I couldn't even see the covers.

While putting the records in the cases, I realised that there were a lot of tracks that I have rarely played, and some that I have not played at all. Most of the time I only play my favourite track from a record, resulting in forgetting about the rest. So I decided I'd play at home for about one and half hours, with the set consisting only of unplayed tracks.

It was fun!! The mixing could have been better, because I spent a lot of time searching and listening to tracks. But it was good to hear a lot of fresh music. Most of these were downbeat tracks, but a lot of them were the bumpy stuff I liked. Looks like I'll have a lot of fresh tunes to play at my next set!

March 2006 Demo Up!

I've finally created a demo after a long silence! The main motivation was because I had to give Inck Lounge a few copies for them to distribute. The demo can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.

The new demo is a bit different to the others, as I've put in a few deep tracks around the twenty minute mark, which some may actually think of as an anti-climax. But I think after this "deep break" I managed to raise it up to quite an upbeat (maybe even a tad commercial) track, after which I played a few more funky and chunky tunes before shifting to low gear and finishing it off with a few jazzy tunes.

Overall, I think some of the mixes could have been better (e.g. the mix into the Jack Childs track), but in general I'm happy with this one.

Concrete Lounge Hawthorn

I played at an Open Decks session today, at Concrete Lounge on Glenferrie Road. Concrete Lounge is a very nice, stylish bar lounge. They have some comfy sofas near a fairly large window facing Glenferrie Road and a reasonably large dance floor. The main bar area is a rectangle (similar to Candy Bar) with the DJ booth in a corner and a pool area at the back, separated from the main bar. What's different about Concrete Lounge is that on Tuesdays, they show the O.C. live, projected onto on a large screen hanging from the roof! The rest of their week is quite full-on too, and on Sundays they give some newcomers a go on the decks, with their Open Decks session.

Their DJ set up is; two Technics 1200s, two CDJ 100s, a Denon mixer and what seemed to be a couple of JBL 12" Horn Speakers. This was the first time I had played on a Denon mixer, so it was a bit of an experience. For one thing, the eq's didn't have same sensitivity as the Numarks / Rane / DJMs, so I found it difficult to get the mixes right. E.g. I couldn't properly overlap the vocals of one track with the bass and treble of another track because I couldn't always get the vocals isolated from the track. Also, there was a button next to cue called eq or something similar, that can be used to switch the eq's on or off. I have never seen such an option in any other mixer so I had the eq's accidentally switched off for a while, and was wondering why the eq's weren't working that well! It took me a while to get the hang of it all.

The two blokes running the Open Decks night were very friendly and helpful, and one of them took down my contact details after my set in case they wanted me to play their in the future. He wanted a demo too, but unfortunately I didn't have a copy with me, and I told him I'd drop one off in the next couple of days. I'm hoping to do another Open Decks session sometime soon -- much more interesting than practicing at home in an empty room!

Clemenceau's Bar Singapore

I had an interesting experience at Clemenceau's Bar located at the Holiday Inn Parkview Hotel in Singapore. Holiday Inn is located in the heart of Orchard Road which is one of the main entertainment regions of Singapore.

Clemenceau's Bar has a live performance by a duo every day except Sunday. The bar has a good PA system including (what seemed to be) two Bose 802 Series II speakers. The duo performing their uses quite a bit of equipment including three electronic keyboards and wireless microphones. The drinks menu at the bar is impressive for a bar of that size, and the atmosphere is very layed back, yet with plenty of freedom for people to have a dance.

On Fridays, the bar is open until 1 AM, so my relatives decided to take me their after treating me to a very satisfying late dinner at the Tandoor North Indian Restaurant located at the Holiday Inn. At the bar, the duo were playing tunes ranging from oldies to modern pop music, and they seemed very passionate about their music, getting the crowd involved every few minutes. Soon enough, a dance group of around ten people formed, but what was most surprising was that the dance group was led by the bar manager! It seemed like he was having as much fun as everyone else!

Out of all the hotel bars I have been to, I have never seen one with so much character. Staff at Clemenceau's Bar pay such close attention to detail and put in a lot of hard work to give their customers a very lively experience. For example, the performers are selected after an audition process, they are advertised at the lobby and lifts, the music is changed to suit the crowd, each customer is individually welcomed into the bar, and the performers and bar manager gets the crowd involved very affectively by showing the crowd their passion for music.

And from what I've seen, their Latte is not bad either.

Singapore Record Hunting

I was in Singapore last week so I strolled into HMV with my uncle to check out some Vinyl prices. I was surprised to find that on average a Vinyl costed only around AU$14, which is around AU$5 cheaper than Melbourne! Unfortunately HMV only had mostly hard house so I ended up buying only three commercial tunes.

A few days later I found another record store called Roxy Music, opposite the popular Funan shopping centre. Roxy Music had much more of the type of music I was after, but unfortunately I didn't have enough time to go through their collection. So I ended up returning to Melbourne with just the three records I had purchased from HMV.

Looks like I'll have to add Singapore to my list of record hunting countries! New York was also good (Virgin Megastore on Times Square was the only place I had visited), but I had way too many records in my suitcase on that visit that I didn't have any space left for more records. I'll also have to see if Dubai has cheap records since I tend to go their often. I think record prices in Dubai will be similar to Singapore, but I'll have to wait for a few months to find out!

Happy Valentines Day!

I think I'm in love...with Vinyl.

1) I like the security of being able to touch the music, control it, and to be able to "see" it playing.

2) I like the convenience of being able to play on any turntable make, by simply knowing how to play on one.

3) I like the simplicity of (most) turntables; no electronics, no fuss.

4) I like the security of knowing that most bars/clubs have turntables as standard.

5) I like going and searching for my music, and being able to slap it on and listen to the entire track before buying.

6) I like carrying Vinyl around to local gigs and to feel like I'm actually carrying music. I like storing Vinyl and collecting Vinyl.

7) I like being able to do something about a skipping track!

(What I don't like is carrying Vinyl overseas, having to wipe them, the fact that they warp, paying so much per track (!!), and not being able to download music (legally) and make copies on Vinyl. But hey, nothing's perfect.)

Dinner Plain Hotel

Had a nice weekend at the Dinner Plain Hotel in Dinner Plain (about 10KM from Mount Hotham). I was invited to play at the Dinner Plain Hotel for the "Feb Fest", but unfortunately the Feb. Fest. was cancelled in the last minute. I still played to the regular Saturday night crowd at the Dinner Plain Hotel.

Dinner Plain and Hotham looked different in Summer, but the scenery was still beautiful. Lots of layers of mountain after mountain, and lots of white trees with shedded leaves along winding roads. Apparently, the Great Alpine Road that takes you to Hotham is one of the most winding roads in the world!




Dinner Plain looked a bit plain without the snow, but the architecture still gave it the look of a fairytale town. Surprisingly a very modern building was being constructed right alongside the Dinner Plain Hotel, which contrasted with the old wooden houses and motels. It will be interesting to see how well this new building blends with the old wooden ones!

On Saturday night I started the gig with some layed back tribal US/UK House and moved onto some funky quirky US stuff later on. I played US House for about two and half hours and then slowly moved onto some underground electro-ish stuff (Trentmoller, JT Donaldson) and then smoothly into some old and new Commercial tunes. They (of course) enjoyed the Commercial tunes the most! I had lots of people come up and compliment the music (including the manager -- can't harm my chances of future gigs there!), and someone even came up and got into a long conversation with me about Vinyl versus CDs! This person used to play Vinyl back in his days, but asked me why on earth am I playing Vinyl these days, when there are such sophisticated CD players out there! In the end I think I managed to convince him -- thanks to the many ITM forum threads on the Vinyl versus CDs debate!

I finished playing at around 1.15AM after which I had a chat with some of the locals at the bar who were a very friendly bunch. Some of them had been living in Dinner Plain for many years and they loved the town and everything else that came along with it -- Skiing, Mountain Biking and of course their liquor! I headed back home at around 1.30AM (4.5 hr set).

The next day (Sunday) we all woke up late and had to check out after a quick breakfast. We then headed back to Melbourne and were back home 6.5 hours later (as opposed to 5) -- thanks to a long lunch, a visit to a berry farm, and a flat tyre!

Overall it was a top weekend. Great group, great place, great bunch of locals and some great quirky bumpy chunky and funky US House!! I'd be happy to go back there for their next major event, and I'm definitely going back for some Skiing in winter.

Difference between a Club DJ and a Bar DJ?

In general, more clubs have a cover charge than do bars, so the DJs at clubs get paid higher. But there is also a commitment that comes along with the higher salary, to get people onto the dance floor, which is not always the case with bars. And from my experience, the length of gigs at bars are generally longer than those at clubs, possibly because the music at clubs need to be more fresh and dynamic to keep people on the dance floor, which can be done by regularly rotating the DJs.

I personally prefer DJing in Bars, because generally the environment is more relaxed, and I can play more of the music I like -- US House. When I play at Clubs, since I don't have a big Commercial House collection, I need to be more careful in my track selection. At bars on the other hand, I can be more versatile with my larger US House collection. I've tried playing some upbeat US House at clubs, but quickly realised that it only works if played very early when people are still warming up, or later but with a good dose of Commercial tunes. People often prefer to listen to something they can sing along to, rather than just quirks, beats and an occassional mumble!

As far as skill goes, I wouldn't say either type of venue brings in more skill. In clubs you need some fresh upbeat tunes mixed in reasonably well but quickly, to keep the dance floor active. You also need to have the skill to be able to mix with louder music than you find in bars. In bars on the other hand you need to play more layed back tunes, and long smooth mixes will be appreciated (perhaps with some skillful use of the EQs). But there are also exceptions -- in some bars you can even get away with being a Juke Box! Although long smooth mixes are not necessary in clubs, the day you play like a Juke Box is the day you'll have to start looking for more gigs.

This is just from my experience anyway. Would be great to hear what others think.

DJ Clint Hargreaves

Local DJ Clint Hargreaves seems to be causing quite a bit of commotion around Melbourne, confirming the first sentence in his bio as a DJ "rapidly making his mark on the Australian dance music scene".

I have seen Clint Hargreaves play at least fifteen times, and he never ceased to amaze. He's got some of the tightest mixing skills ever, and he's able to pitch ride those turntables with any hand, and with so much ease, that it makes other good DJs seem like amateurs. Many times I've seen him slapping on a record and riding it straight into a (smooth) mix with one hand, while his other hand plays around with the mixer EQs. And he does this with all sorts of tunes -- talk about knowing your music!

At StellarBar on Bourke Street, I've seen Clint play 6 hour sets, starting off with some funk, breaks, or whatever the hell he's in the mood for, and moving on smoothly to some harder stuff. His night didn't always end at Stellar -- he had to pack up to go play at Republika. Some of the other places he's played at include The Saint at St. Kilda, Viper Room on Chapel Street, OneSixOne in Prahran, The Great Britain Hotel in Richmond, Playpen in Prahran, Love Machine ....

At clubs Clint plays some of the freshest Electro tracks and gets the crowd going each time. If the crowd was enjoying the Electro tunes, he'd play more of them. If they like the more vocal tunes, he'd give them vocal. He has such a huge music collection and an understanding of crowds that he is able to get anyone onto the dance floor. If he didn't have to cue up the next record I'm sure he'd be on the dance floor himself!

I've got no doubt Clint is going to make it big. And when does, you heard it here first!