Firstly I had put pressure on myself to improve from the last diabolical set. Secondly I realised that it was that special Friday of doom – the one where it is full of absolute tossers behaving like absolute tossers.
I have practiced more in recent months prior to DJing – living in Bracknell means I do occasionally still have the energy in the evening after work to get behind the decks for an hour or two. Normally with a glass of wine. This month I practiced more than prior to any other DJ set – probably a good 10 hours. It might not sound a lot but it has helped.
I had just 2 CDs worth of new tracks that I really wanted to play – a lot of bass-heavy but fairly minimal stuff. And I also knew my previously-burnt CDs somewhat more.
We got down to the Turtle quite early and I ended up sticking the music on around 930pm, I was just going to have a beer first but they had some absolute gash over the speakers that I simply had to disembowel.
I’m loving the hypnotic grooves from Romania at the moment, so I started on those lines. When there are few people there, I can do what I like – I don’t need to worry about having a beat for people to dance to, or a bassline for them to feel. I can simply play 15 minute long minimal tracks whilst I find my groove.
There was one quick panic about one of the decks not working – until we realised the cross-fader was on. Ooops. And I did royally fuck up one mix – but one in 2.5 hours is pretty good going in my view. I don’t always get enough time to cue up tracks perfectly as I’m there to have a good time and talk to my friends too.
I slowly progressed matters such as with this beauty from Roustam:
As the crowd built, slower than usual, I turned up the bass levels and turned up the darkness, including this new monster from Loco Dice:
I realised that I was sending things a bit too dark – I like to test people but it needed some light too. I tended towards house music to finish – and I finished far too soon for my liking which is a sign that I am enjoying myself. I could have quite happily carried on.
I did later on start hanging around the decks on the off-chance that Martin was bored of DJing…yeah like a DJ would just voluntarily give up some of their set. Doh. I just wanted to play some house music!
Bizarrely it was probably the quietest night we’ve had since the summer. Which thinking about it makes sense – a lot of our audience are students and foreigners – many of which would have left for Christmas holidays or been about to. On the plus side, there was a good splattering of amigos, plus some of the regulars who turn up every month.
Next up is my birthday set which I hope that you can all attend. And my good friend Samantha’s birthday set too.
A bit of an odd one this as I’m playing the first hour, and the last hour.
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