A Lesson In DJing With One Deck

I was ridiculously busy on Saturday.  Housework, studying, watching football, 2 hours of ironing, 2 hours helping my best friend move her stuff – lots of heavy lifting.  It got to 7pm and I was shattered, and still hadn’t had a practice mix.  I had no idea what I was going to play.  And then I fell asleep.

When I awoke, post disco-nap, I did my usual slightly nervous thing, finding any excuse not to go anywhere near my decks until I eventually forced myself, poured myself a glass of wine and pressed play.  I was absolutely on fire.  That practice hour was probably the best I have ever mixed – I was playing quite tough, kind of tech-house but tracks with personality.  My mixing was really good and my timing was spot on every time – plenty of invention too.

Then I arrived at the club and it was dead.  It soon became apparent that one of the decks outside was not working.  I resigned myself to not playing, got a drink and chatted to a few friends.

The DJ before me had given up but I decided to give it a crack anyway.  The right-side deck in the garden has long had problems of a sticky play button – but now it was totally unplayable.

So all I could do was play a few tracks and fade them in and out.  I tried a few different things before settling on disco – it made more sense as disco music is not quite so designed for mixing, and it has good musicality.

It didn’t really get much busier and the night ended early.  I waived my 4-figure DJ fee.  I doubt the headliner did.

Why was the night so quiet?

I don’t think it was the music.  Eli & Fur were a good booking, they should have appealed to those in Reading that go out clubbing.  There was no lack of effort in promoting the event.  External factors may not have helped – the Annie Mac night is possibly overshadowing other events in the town at the moment, the weather was cold and it was Mother’s Day the next day.  Town did seem quieter than other Saturdays.

However I think the problem itself is, I’m afraid to say, Zeus.

Personally I quite like the club.  It is one of the few places in Reading where promoters can run events that are not common-denominator banality music-wise.  Indoor has one of the better sound systems in Reading.  The garden is a good place to be during the summer.  I always have fun there.

But most of my friends don’t like it.  When I tell people that I’m playing at the Purple Turtle, they are interested and persuadable.  Tell people that I’m playing Zeus and they turn their noses up.  There isn’t much I can do to persuade people to come and see me DJ at Zeus.

Zeus does now have a lot of competition in the area from venues that people might go to instead – RYND, Purple Turtle, Sub89 (at least for Cubed nights), Coconut, Oakford, Milk, you could probably add Matchbox, Revolution and the new place, Treehouse, to that list too.  Several of those are new places, or newly refurbished places, and people always like the feeling of going somewhere new.  And clean.  Even the Oakford is rumoured to be getting a refurbishment this year.

Those places also look a lot better than Zeus.  To me, how a club looks is the least important factor.  But I’ve lived in Reading long enough, to know that people in this area like things that look nice.  Zeus looks tacky inside and a cross between a sauna and a bin shed outside.

Without a refurbishment and a relaunch, I don’t see how the house music type of crowd will start flowing back.  Zeus could concentrate on the drum’n’bass kind of side which is popular in the town and not very well catered for.

Or it could have a proper re-design, take out all the tacky elements in the main room, lower the DJ booth to the ground so the crowd can interact with the DJs without straining their necks, paint the outside, remove the weeds from the roof, perhaps expose the brickwork inside like RYND have done – you could even have some eye-catching edgy art on the outside – make it talked about.  The garden should be turned back into a welcoming garden – with the heaters switched on during winter, a clear and crisp soundsystem and decks that work.  And the name needs to change – who the hell dreamt up the name “Zeus”?

The space itself has plenty of potential – those of us that have been around for a while know that it was “the place” during the Mango days.  It might seem that I am being overly critical but it is only because I care and I want to see that venue do well.

Next up for me is the Purple Turtle on Friday night.

I’m playing midnight until 130am and will be playing good quality house music.  Perhaps getting a little techier towards the end.  And all the equipment works there.  It feels good, there will be a good little crowd of us and if you hate the music I play then you can always go in the garden or upstairs.

Come down and join us.