So it had to be a good one.
And it was set up as so, lots of friends up for the night out - mainly thanks to the inclusion of Tim Weymouth on the bill. As much as I'd love to take the credit myself.
No hip-hop thing before us so we could get straight into the music. I was on warm-up duty though Martin started before I got there. I successfully confused the cd function for the memory stick function and managed to mix the same track in that was already playing. Seamlessly, though. Well, Ron Hardy would do it so why not me? Yeah, I just compared myself to Ron Hardy, yeah it was ironic. Yeah you probably haven't heard of him, have you?
So I took it back down into 10pm territory with some odd New York City sounds thanks to Ricardo Villalobos, before slowly edging it up.
It was a teaser of a first hour, there would be little groups of people, then they would disappear, and this repeated itself for a while. Nobody really was dancing.
I prefer not to edge it away from minimal territory until I have dancers - people should have to work for the bangers (relative bangers in my case!) but in this case I decided that I would up my game and that I would start the dancefloor too.
So I put a long house track on and went for a dance. Sure enough, people started dancing.
Solutions to problems. I wasn't without other issues. My £10 headphones really are shit. Although the mixer wasn't outputting the sound to anyone's headphones without distortion. I had to borrow Martin's to get any semblance of decency as the only way I could mix was through the monitor speaker - not ideal - the monitor sounds like it has been rinsed on super-high red-lining monsters too.
One of the cue buttons was sticky and one of the jog wheels wasn't flowing properly - needing two gentle hands to move it. At least the Purple Turtle do get these things fixed unlike other places I have played at in the past. Anyone remember Zeus? *shudders*
Once I'd got people dancing, the rest of my set was an utter delight. It kept getting busier, I was getting a good response, and I was really hoping that Tim would lose track of time and be late for his set.
Alas, handover was on time.
I finished on a classic Loco Dice track that I have recently rediscovered.
Tim played a good set - a few too many big tunes for my personal taste though interestingly he played Orbital's 'Chime', which I considered playing but never got around to it.
It was good to hear some garage to begin, and he kept up the differing styles throughout - and the crowd reacted, dancing throughout.
I didn't see enough of Martin's set to comment as I went outside to have a catch up with one or two of my more delightful friends, and then had to go get the last bus back to my spare Reading bedroom - money saving and all that business.
One of the main reasons why I had to save money was because we were donating our DJ fees to Spinal Research - a cause that my dear friend, Swen, has been raising money for. It did really touch me to see him down there - and having a little more movement than previously. I couldn't have asked for anything more on the night.
The whole night was a fuckload of fun - running a night and DJing are so much more fun when you have a great collection of friends there. I thought about listing everyone who came - probably more than any other night that I've DJ'ed there but I'd miss people out. I do offer a big warm thank-you hug to everyone who came.
And a thank you to the Purple Turtle too, who have upped their game and installed some new bass bins (or similar) - and boy do you feel it. Not too much - but they are crisp, clean and powerful enough for the little room.
The night was recorded so if my set is good enough to release, it will be! My standards aren't too high.
I'll see you next year.
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