DJ Goals

I’ve been thinking about what I most would like to do as a DJ over the next year or so.

I shall keep it realistic as I don’t think my reputation is yet sufficient enough to be getting booked for the terrace in Amnesia.  One day I will be as good a DJ as Paris Hilton.

I want musical challenges, I love playing house music but I will get booked for other house music nights at some point so here is my wish-list:

1. Do a full-on disco set, mostly 70’s but also 80’s and more modern disco too.  Mixing stuff like Fern Kinney with Prins Thomas.

2. Do a full-on techno set.  128+BPM – hammer it out.  Somewhere kind of in between Nina Kraviz, Chris Liebing and Ben Klock.

3. Do an electro set, a mix of 80’s and mid-2000’s – think Ladytron, Depeche Mode, Fischerspooner.

4. Do a slow house set – no higher than 115bpm – would probably need to be outside, sunny and daytime – or at 4am.

5. Have my own weekly residency where I can play whatever music I like.  Though that would be a massive commitment.

I appreciate this is a slight tangent, but you can find a picture of almost any land-based animal DJing on Google.  Anyway, back to something relevant and less interesting. 

I am not exactly being bowled over with offers for DJ sets right now, though due to unfortunate timing I have had to turn down two DJ sets recently, one that I would absolutely love to have done, the other was very appealing too.

I have never asked promoters to give me a set, I am still deluded enough to think that I will be “discovered”.

However for most of the above goals, I do need to make these happen myself and not wait for them to happen.

Whether that be contacting promoters or even maybe promoting a night myself to be able to play such a set – if anyone fancied being a joint-promoter to do a (probably one-off) disco, techno, slow-house or electro night, I could be up for it.

I am going to set a plan into action and make sure at least two of the above happen this year.

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Who Needs A Working Cue Button Anyway?!

So for the Saturday just gone I was offered a 2am set time which I was delighted about – instead of warming up an empty garden like I often do, I would have the garden with peak volume of guests to play for…or is that play with?

A 2am set brings new opportunities in the style of music that I want to play but also new challenges – a 3 course meal beforehand probably wasn’t the ideal preparation - I was totally stuffed and I was only vaguely staying awake – were I not DJing then I would have hammered the jagerbombs or something to keep me awake but DJing requires a semblance of sobriety, at least when one is still relatively a beginner and potentially about to have the most important set of my superstar DJ career to date.

Speaking of challenges, nothing is ever straight-forward at Zeusmango so not only were the extra monitor speakers not working by time I was up, one of the CDJs had a non-functioning cue button and the staff kept telling me to turn the volume down, whilst various members of the crowd kept telling me to turn it up.  There were perhaps 30 people outside when I started but mostly sat down – inside was deservedly much busier as my good friend Samantha Bond was tearing the dancefloor apart.

I started with a minimal classic (badly mixed in as I couldn’t work out how to cue it in time without a working cue button, my only dodgy mix) – the M.A.N.D.Y remix of I Feel Space by Lindstrom, and followed it up with the below disturbed beauty by Abe Duque – which someone told me they specifically didn’t like.  I shall definitely play that again – better than playing bland music that nobody notices.

I then gradually took it into more jacking house territory, there were a handful of people dancing and I had various compliments for the music I was playing and I was much more awake – finally I was alive enough to have a little dance myself.  Not a jot of tiredness whilst DJing.

I finished off with a slightly more disco style and this rather understated remix of Donna Summer – I would love to play the original but that won’t happen until I have a full dancefloor.

I did finish with a much busier garden than I started with, hopefully because of the music I played.  I love the music I play anyway – and as someone said to me, “What I love about when you play is that you play what you want, you don’t give a fuck”.

One wonders if I will ever gain enough of a reputation to expand my fledgling DJ career from half-empty gardens and warm-up sets (I do love doing warm-ups – I just wish more people would be there!) – there are clearly two options to get more varied and more numerous DJ bookings – produce or promote.  I don’t have the time to learn how to produce and promoting is a ballache, not to mention a financial risk.  Never say never though.

It is heart-warming to see that there are opportunities for others that have or are doing the Reading circuit – I noticed a ‘disappeared friend’ was DJing out in Miami the week just gone and is clearly doing very well, and the promoter I played for on Saturday has a major UK festival booking.

Granted both are much more accomplished than myself.

Mixmag are following me on Twitter now so they have clearly heard of my brilliance.

I like the randomness of DJing - you don't know what is going to happen.  Dreams can come true...and already have.  I might have new dreams though.

Less CDs

I have been pondering recently as to whether I really needed to take my large quadruple CD wallet when DJing.  It has 2 years of music in over 200 CDs, so around 2,000 tracks to choose from when I get chance to play 20 at most, usually less.

It is especially unpractical when DJing in the tiny box cupboard that is the garden DJ booth at Zeusmango as there is no space at all to rest it and I either have to lay it on the floor and squint in the darkness to see what tracks I have or rest it on my knee.

So I took a more flexible double CD-wallet and only quarter-filled it so it had about 20 CDs at most in.

It was mostly an experiment to see if it made decision-making any easier in terms of choosing which track to play next   It did but I found that I craved more choice, and that I didn’t have enough flexibility in what to play and more importantly enough warm-up tracks to choose from (why did I take so many tech-house/techno tracks for a warm-uo???!).

There is a balance to be found so I need to continue experimenting further.

My set itself went well in terms of mixing and track selection, once I had found the plugs for the CDJs!

I played mostly underground house from the likes of Seb Zito and more underground producers, finishing off on my very favourite track of this year so far – a wonderful 14 minutes long to give me chance to have a dance.

Typically for a warm-up there were very few dancers but I had plenty of compliments and managed to make everyone stop and look when the Tale Of Us remix of Primative People kicked in.  All 15 people.  I do crave a later and busier set.

I have no further sets penned in, I have been asked to do a couple but I until I see my name on a flyer or Facebook event I always class them as potential sets until my name is in writing!

Next priority is to get a new mix out there.  Or two?

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December DJing - For Want Of A More Imaginative Title

I had two DJ sets over the Christmas period, two “extended” sets too (extended on the basis that 1 hour seems to be the norm nowadays, sadly), both at Zeusmango, both in the garden.

First up was for Luna, second for Digital Detox Presents Lifted.

A small handful of friendly supporters turned up for each – not as many as I had hoped for but not the easiest time of year to persuade people to come out as there are so many competing options.

I was in playful mood for the first.  My first chance to play a two-hour set, I started with my more recently preferred stripped back underground house before digging out the surprises – a tech-house edit of the Pink Panther Theme, the uber-cool and little-known Catz’n’Dogz edit of Da Funk by Daft Punk and my threatened Christmas tune – Silent Night by Nathan Fake.  That track wasn’t particularly well-received and cleared half the crowd.  Bah Humbug.  Though maybe they just simultaneously finished their cigarettes.

The second night was around -2’C and Zeusmango didn’t bother putting the heaters on.  Apparently they didn’t work, or they would blow the fuse so there would be no music, or they didn’t know how to use them, or they would cause another Icelandic volcano, yadda yadda I was not born yesterday.  This of course meant people came out for 5 minutes and went back inside as it was way too cold.  Impossible to create and hold a crowd.  I was as amused as I was warm.  And miraculously they worked later on when the club was busier.

So it didn’t especially matter what I played and I banged out some much tougher house music for a while because I felt like it, at least until I needed a piss when I changed to minimal.  Interestingly the occasional garden crowd seemed to stick around and wiggle their backsides more when I played some 15-minute weird minimal tracks/remixes by the likes of Rhadoo and Ricardo Villalobos.  A pleasant surprise.

I was playing for myself really.  Then again, I always do to one extent or another.

I had fun and did well given the circumstances – early sets, empty gardens and cold weather but it is time that I had more of a test with more of a crowd and a later set.  Even a midnight or 1am set would be nice.

I have no intention of DJing again until March unless anything exceptionally exciting is offered.  I am having two months off all night-time activities (bar my birthday celebrations) to recharge the batteries, practice more (if any of my fellow DJ readers fancy a mix let me know), repay my overdraft and semi-detox.  Along with working on a DJ website (with the obligatory black and white moody fucker I will stab you if you ask me to play something DJ picture) and getting some very James-like business cards done so I can try to build some kind of following with the very nice people I meet when I am out.

Zeusmango is gradually improving and I see myself spending quite a bit more time there in 2014, hopefully with a fair few DJ sets.  I met some very nice people the last two Saturdays – everyone I spoke to seemed to appreciate what I was playing and it is no surprise to me that the Reading crowd at Zeusmango is musically-educated and appreciative of more underground sounds – dumb down to them at your peril.

Thank you to all those that have supported me during 2013 – DJing is so much more enjoyable when I have friends around and if you can find time to support me now and again in 2014 I would much appreciate it.

Dare You Trance It Again?

Trance has been a dirty word in the underground world for some time.  Not any more.

In a way that reminds me of the resurgence of techno and more recently garage, trance is back.  But thankfully, not as you remember it.

A deeper, more intelligently structured form, taking on the learning’s of minimal – just as house music has done in recent years.  But keeping the dreamy emotions and melodies that trance suits times of new hope – befitting the economic recovery in the UK (just as in 1992, 1998 and 2003/04 – other economic boom times – always matching peaks in trance output).

This mix took me out of my house-orientated comfort zone.  It is clearly more difficult to choose, order and mix 12 tracks each with differing melodies – one can more easily get away with an imperfectly timed mix of minimal/house – this doesn’t apply so easily with this sound I call deep trance.

I needed a few attempts to get it to a point where it was acceptable to me – there are still one or two minor imperfections and one track in particular I did not EQ very well – it was 12 minutes long so I went to sort out my washing and came back realising it didn’t sound too good.

But I had to move on to more important DJ projects (you know who you are!).  In the grand scheme of DJing I am still a beginner and imperfections are part of my human nature of continually improving and progressing.

Don’t worry, it is unlikely I will be warming up for Armin Van Buuren any time soon.  I am an underground house kid at heart, that is what I want to play, but always have looked for ways to push the boundaries of acceptability and it is likely that you will hear more of these sounds in my sets going forwards.

Would I play for a trance night?  Never say never.

I hope your enjoyed it and maybe found it enlightening enough to share.  And see some of you at Zeus on Saturday 21stDecember.  Or 28th December.

Much love x

Dare You Trance It Again? by James Winfield on Mixcloud

Digital Detox & My Ever-Inflated Ego

No don’t worry, I haven’t gone on a detox.  It was (part of) the name of a night I played for on Friday, at the invite of my favourite fellow-Bracknell credit-controller, myself not included.

I played the warm-up set.  I love warm-ups because I can play some of the deeper and more underground music I love without telling the respective promoter to fuck off as I am playing what I want to play.

Thankfully promoters seem to trust me – 25 years of listening to music, 15 years of clubbing, 11 Ibiza trips, 1000’s of hours on the dancefloor, 15 hours listening to new tracks every week and a massive 100 hours practice DJing means that I have some background experience to put to use.

My set went well, despite the lack of recent practice.  I did play quite a few tracks that I played in my last set, they are all really nice underground house tracks by the likes of Ittetsu, for example, and I don’t have that many of that particular style, then I progressed onto different territory – mixing up house, deep house, minimal and a track with an 80’s sound to it but always keeping it underground and groovy.

Just one mixing error by experimenting with a slightly odd Villalobos track as I needed a pee, at a much lower tempo which didn’t really work when mixing it out (possibly the first time ever that a Villalobos track was played in Reading, and will definitely not be the last!) – oh and I came ever so close to one track running out when I realised that my desired track wouldn’t work, just 40 seconds to go and I had to very quickly change the incoming CD and blindly play the first track.  Somehow I got away with it! I do feel ready to step up to playing something closer to a peak-time set.

I kept the mixing fairly straight-forward – I have started practicing mixing tracks backwards by flipping reverse on the incumbent track but a touch on the experimental side at the moment to say the least.

Plenty of compliments from friends, randoms, the promoters and a rather attractive barmaid.  So much so that I have been promised a bongo player over my next set.  If anyone knows where I can get some horse tranquilizer from that would be appreciated.  I wouldn’t normally advocate spiking someone’s drink but bongo players (and especially saxophonists) are deserved exceptions and according to Newsnight I believe that it doesn’t last long – it is for a very good cause.

The outcome of such love is not only my ever-inflated ego but it also looks like two further bookings, to be confirmed of course my horse.  Still no blow job offers – that is about 15 sets now FFS.  DJing is not everything they promise in the movies.

My next set is Saturday 22^nd December, again at Zeus, time unknown but will be in the garden.  A perfect excuse for a pre-Christmas piss-up and I will endeavour to squeeze in at least one Christmas song.  It will be a big night.  I might even play the odd request as long as I like it enough.  Ho ho ho.